by Fin Kennedy
That you are missing
Looooook.
They see this on a screen somewhere, like CCTV.
The hourglass continues to pour.
RAPHAEL. Oh my God.
MACK. That’s my sister.
AMELIA. That’s my brother.
MADGE. That’s my mum.
NEVERBORN. When the sand runs out
You will have disappeared completely
Photos – gone
Memories – erased
Facebook – deleted
School, friends, family – all forgotten.
The NEVERBORN snap their fingers, and all around them, objects from the set start to disappear [just a suggestion – not an essential effect].
You will have become Neverborn.
And we can finally rest.
ALL. WHAT?
NEVERBORN. Now please
Put these on
You have a lot to learn
And very little time
Before darkness falls once more
And your work must begin.
The NEVERBORN hand each of the REAL-WORLD CAST a set of black-and-white clothes, indicating they should get changed.
AMELIA throws the black-and-white clothes to the floor.
AMELIA. No way, forget it.
NEVERBORN (in unison). Pick up your uniform!
AMELIA. No! I wanna speak to Charles Somna.
MADGE. Amelia, careful!
AMELIA. I wanna speak to the Dream Collector himself!
NEVERBORN (in unison). But you already are.
AMELIA. What?
NEVERBORN (in unison). In here, everything becomes one.
The NEVERBORN rise up and become CHARLES SOMNA.
He towers over them. The REAL-WORLD CAST are terrified and cower in a corner.
Only AMELIA stands her ground.
SOMNA. WELL WELL WELL
THE NEXT NEVERBORN.
AMELIA. No chance! We’ve got a bone to pick with you.
MADGE. Amelia – don’t!
AMELIA. Relax, this is what I do. (To SOMNA.) You’ve trapped us here – that’s kidnapping. And if you keep us here – that’s murder.
SOMNA. IT IS ONLY MURDER IF YOU HAD LIVED.
AMELIA. We have lives to lead.
SOMNA. NOT ANY MORE.
MACK. Don’t listen to him, I think he’s one of those lizards!
SOMNA. I NEED THE YOUNG
YOUR DREAMS POWER MY SEARCH
COME
BE NEVERBORN
AND YOU SHALL NEVER DIE.
AMELIA. Hang on – your search for what?
SOMNA. FOR MY WIFE OF COURSE.
MADGE. Oh my God.
SOMNA. FOR MY BEAUTIFUL WIFE.
MADGE. His wife was the actress who died!
SOMNA. THEY SAY I KILLED HER – LIES!
MADGE. I never said that!
SOMNA. IT WAS A TRAGEDY!
AMELIA. Alright, calm down.
SOMNA. THE LIGHT FELL ON HER HEAD!
SOMNA swoops around the stage. Lights flash on and off.
AMELIA. Alright, it was an accident! We know that.
SOMNA. SHE IS HERE SOMEWHERE
I WOULD SEE HER IN MY DREAMS.
MACK. So you built the Somnagraph. It all makes sense.
SOMNA. MY LIFE’S WORK
TO FIND HER AGAIN.
ALI. But you haven’t
SOMNA. IT IS LIKE CHASING AN ECHO
I CATCH A GLIMPSE
BUT THEN SHE IS GONE.
SURAYA. Maybe it’s time to stop looking.
SOMNA. NEVER!
RAPHAEL. Maybe memories are meant to fade. Maybe they’re designed that way for a reason.
AMELIA. Look, it’s a sad story, Mr Somna. We’re all really sorry for you. But it’s even sadder for those who got sucked in after you. They had nothing to do with this.
SOMNA. MY DARLING WIFE.
SOMNA begins to cry.
AMELIA. The Somnagraph’s dangerous. It’s like a door that’s still open. You need to shut it down.
SOMNA. IN HER GREEN DRESS.
NASIMA. This is pointless. He’s completely round the bend.
SOMNA. HER BEAUTIFUL… GREEN… DRESS.
SOMNA notices AMELIA is wearing a green dress. So does everyone else.
ALI. Uh-oh.
MACK. Oh, man.
MADGE. Oh no.
SURAYA. That’s a –
JAYDEN. Yeah.
ALL. GREEN DRESS.
SOMNA. CECILIA?
AMELIA. No – Amelia. My name’s Amelia.
SOMNA. CECILIA!
AMELIA. There was another girl in a green dress.
SOMNA. MY DARLING.
AMELIA. She was right here! Where’s she gone?
SOMNA. I HAVE FOUND YOU.
AMELIA. No! This whole thing was a set-up!
SOMNA advances on AMELIA.
JAYDEN. Get away from her.
JAYDEN steps between SOMNA and AMELIA. He holds a large wooden samurai sword.
SOMNA. STEP ASIDE, BOY.
JAYDEN. No.
SOMNA. SHE IS STAYING.
JAYDEN. She’s coming with us.
ALI. Where did he get that sword from?
MACK. I don’t know.
ALI. I want one.
SOMNA. LET HER STAY
AND THE REST OF YOU CAN GO.
JAYDEN. Take me.
SURAYA. What?
JAYDEN. Take me instead.
MADGE. Jayden!
SOMNA. YOU ARE NOT MY WIFE.
JAYDEN. Neither is she. The Neverborn tricked you. Tricked us all. Amelia’s not the one you’re looking for. Your search isn’t over.
SOMNA. THEN I NEED YOU ALL.
JAYDEN. No, just me.
ALI. Jay, no.
MACK. Think about this, man.
JAYDEN. I’ll be as good as ten of them.
SOMNA. WHY?
JAYDEN. I’ll be the best Neverborn you ever had.
SOMNA. WHY?
JAYDEN. Because I know what it’s like to lose someone! To spend every waking hour wanting them back.
SOMNA. WHO IS IT YOU SEEK?
JAYDEN. My parents. Maybe down here, I might actually find them.
A whisper echoes around the stage: ‘Jaydeeeen’.
Mum? Dad? I can hear them. They’re here somewhere, I know it. I want to stay.
ALI. Bruv… don’t do this.
NASIMA. Yeah, we won’t let you.
JAYDEN. But why should I go back? What have I got to go back for? I’d rather stay here, and be a dream.
MACK. The sand timer! Look!
MADGE. We have to get out of here.
ALI. How?
MACK. I don’t know!
MACK frantically fiddles with his PSP.
SOMNA advances on AMELIA. JAYDEN raises his sword.
JAYDEN (to SOMNA). Any closer, and I’ll give you a nightmare of your own. Understand?
AMELIA. He has to tell us how to get out.
SOMNA. THE LIGHT FELL ON HER HEAD… ON HER HEAD.
AMELIA. Yeah, we know. Look, Mr Somna, the sand’s running out.
SOMNA. THE LIGHT… MY POOR, POOR WIFE.
AMELIA. Please!
MACK. Wait. He’s telling us the answer.
ALI. What?
MADGE. How?
ALI. No he’s not.
NASIMA. He’s just blethering on.
SOMNA. MY FAULT, ALL MY FAULT.
NASIMA. See?
MACK. But think about it. This whole thing is a dream, right? And how do you wake up from a dream?
SOMNA. THE LIGHT.
MACK. With light.
SOMNA. ON HER HEAD.
MACK. By making light fall on your head… He’s telling us the way out!
MADGE. Curtains – open the curtains!
MACK. Exactly!
They find some large curtains and prepare to pull them back.
AMELIA. Wait!
MACK. There’s no time!
AMELIA goes over to JAYD
EN, who is still holding SOMNA at bay with the sword.
AMELIA. You sure about this?
JAYDEN. Yeah.
SOMNA. THEN COVER YOUR EYES, BOY. STAY AND DREAM.
MACK. Amelia, quick!
AMELIA (to JAYDEN). But I thought you hated me.
JAYDEN. No.
AMELIA. But why this? Why you?
JAYDEN. You’ll work it out. One day. Now go.
AMELIA hugs JAYDEN.
The hourglass is almost empty.
MACK. Hurry!
SOMNA. COVER YOUR EYES.
JAYDEN (to AMELIA). Go!
JAYDEN covers his eyes.
AMELIA joins the others.
They pull back the curtains – light streams in.
SOMNA dissolves back into the NEVERBORN. They scream as the light hits them.
NEVERBORN. NOOO!
DON’T LEAVE US HERE!
DON’T LEAVE UUUUUUSSSSS!!
The NEVERBORN dissolve in the light and disappear, along with the dream world studio – and JAYDEN.
The others all wake up in bed, shielding the daylight from their eyes.
JAYDEN is not with them.
The scene is exactly the same as at the start of the play, except without the NEVERBORN. They each take out a phone or laptop.
MADGE. Facebook: I’m awake. Who else is up? Share.
AMELIA. Me.
MACK. Me.
ALI. Me.
SURAYA. Too early, man. Share.
MADGE. I had mad dreams. Share.
RAPHAEL. Yeah and me! Share.
ALI. I saw the end of the world.
NASIMA. Me too.
MADGE. Yeah.
AMELIA. Yeah and me.
ALL. Yeah.
ALI. At least… that’s what it felt like.
They meet up on the way to school.
BOYS. Alright.
GIRLS. Alright.
MACK. Did we all have the same dream?
AMELIA. Sounds like it.
MADGE. Sort of.
ALI. That’s mad.
SURAYA. That totally freaks me out.
RAPHAEL. Yeah, and me.
NASIMA. I don’t wanna think about it.
AMELIA. Yeah, let’s just get to school.
MACK. You ready for this trip?
MADGE. Yeah, I guess.
MACK. What you bringing?
ALI. But when we get to school…
SURAYA. Where’s the coach?
RAPHAEL. Where’s our teachers?
NASIMA. Where’s the trip?
MACK. That’s weird.
AMELIA. We’ve definitely got the right day, right?
MADGE. Yeah.
ALI. Yeah.
SURAYA. Yeah.
MADGE. Well, we can’t all be wrong.
ALI. Let’s go and see miss.
TEACHER. Is this some sort of joke?
ALL. NO.
SURAYA. There was a school trip.
RAPHAEL. To Somna House.
NASIMA. Home of Charles Somna.
MACK. Inventor and movie pioneer.
AMELIA. Old guy.
MADGE. You must know him.
ALI. Invented the Somnagraph.
TEACHER. I have no idea what any of you are talking about.
ALL. BUT, MISS –
TEACHER. Now stop messing around and get to registration.
The bells go.
SURAYA. This is too weird.
RAPHAEL. I know.
NASIMA. I don’t get it.
MACK. Did we dream all that? I mean, together?
AMELIA. That gives me the shivers.
MACK. Maybe when we were all online last night, we all fell asleep, and Facebook continued to connect us – even our dreams. Cos that’s gotta at least be possible, right?
MADGE. I don’t know, Mack.
ALI. You tell us.
SURAYA. We talked and talked.
RAPHAEL. And googled and googled.
NASIMA. But there never was a school trip.
MACK. There never was anyone called Charles Somna.
AMELIA. And Somna House, and the Somnagraph, never existed.
MADGE. At least, not outside of our dreams.
ALI. We still talk about it.
SURAYA. That strange night.
NASIMA. But as time streamed on.
MACK. Like grains of sand.
AMELIA. We talked about it less and less.
MADGE. And little by little.
RAPHAEL. We realise we’re starting to grow up.
AMELIA takes out a few cans of Dr Pepper and hands them round to her friends.
AMELIA. I start to be a bit nicer, to value friendship, true friendship. Because that’s where real riches are found.
MACK closes a textbook and puts his PSP away.
MACK. I start to accept that the more I study, the less I know. The universe is a big place. But on balance, there probably aren’t giant lizards controlling everything. If anything, the real monsters are inside our heads. But the good news is, you can do something about those ones.
Someone chucks ALI a football. He bounces it on the floor a couple of times.
ALI. I start to obsess a bit less over business, though I’m still gonna study it at college. But now, I also look out for my mum, and take my little brother down the park to play football, every single day.
MADGE opens an envelope containing her exam results.
MADGE. I get an A-star in biology, and start to look into zoology courses at uni. Part of that is having to accept that death is part of nature, and we can’t do anything about it. But I still campaign against slaughterhouses and battery farms, cos death might be natural, but it was never meant to be on a conveyor belt.
RAPHAEL takes out an X-ray and looks at it.
RAPHAEL. One day, at the hospital, I get some good news – the hole in my heart is naturally healing up as I grow. And overnight, for the first time, the clouds part, and I can start to see a future.
NASIMA takes out a box of Fisherman’s Friends.
NASIMA. On my Auntie Zora’s birthday, I get her a whole box of Fisherman’s Friends. When she asks me why, I say, ‘Because I love you.’ And she takes me in her arms. ‘You’re young’, she whispers, ‘Don’t abandon us just yet.’ So I don’t. Marriage, the army, both will always be there. But college comes first. Time to think. To learn. To live.
SURAYA puts the stethoscope round her neck and takes out a medical textbook.
SURAYA. As for me, I still haven’t worked out a cure for insomnia. But I have started to use the time to study. And doctors hardly get any sleep, do they, so it’s like the perfect career – I can do night shifts. Oh, and I worked out what the prawns mean. And no, I’m not gonna tell you. Work it out for yourself.
MACK. But there’s one of us who’ll never grow up.
AMELIA. He’s also the one way we know we’re not crazy.
MADGE. And that something did happen.
ALI. On that one, strange night last November.
SURAYA. We all remember Jayden.
RAPHAEL. But we’re the only ones that do.
NASIMA. We hardly ever mention his name.
MACK. Not that it matters.
AMELIA. No one would know who we’re talking about.
MADGE. Because it’s like he never existed.
ALI. But every now and then, one of us dreams about him, and we’ll tell the others.
AMELIA. I saw him last night.
RAPHAEL. Yeah?
AMELIA. Yeah. He was flying through space, chopping whole planets in half with a huge samurai sword.
NASIMA. That sounds like Jayden.
MACK. Yeah, man.
ALI. So he’s doing alright then?
AMELIA. Seemed like it.
ALL. GOOD.
AMELIA. Yeah. He looked… happy.
RAPHAEL. Now, night-times are a bit less scary.
NASIMA. And dreams a safer place.
MACK. Because not only have we seen where they come from.
> AMELIA. How they’re made.
MADGE. And what they mean.
ALI. But each of us has our own personal guardian.
SURAYA. Watching over us.
RAPHAEL. To chase the nightmares away.
JAYDEN appears in full ninja outfit.
He busts a few moves with a wooden samurai sword.
He takes a long, slow bow.
The End.
FAST
Author’s Note
Fast is set among a group of Year-Eleven classmates (fifteen to sixteen years old) of mixed social backgrounds, in a state secondary school, in a medium-sized British town, near to some countryside.
The play is written mostly naturalistically, except when Cara uses direct address to the audience. This is intended to set the scene quickly and allow the story to move quite easily through space and time – reducing the need for elaborate or detailed sets or scene changes. The scenes should flow into one another quite fluidly, without blackouts or lengthy set changes.
The play is intended to be performed with minimal decor and props. There is potential for the cast to act as an ensemble, physically and stylistically bringing some of the scenes to life. Exits/entrances can be interpreted loosely – they don’t have to literally leave the stage but could just stand at the edge, or in neutral.
Fast was first performed as part of a young people’s summer school run by Y Touring Theatre on 22 August 2014, with the following ensemble:
Shahel Ahmed
Johnny Collins
Malcom Couto
Imelda D’Souza
Kieran Ford
Ksanet Gebrehiwet
Chloe Johnson
Stephanie Lewis
Jeanelie Louamba
Aziz Malik
Makeda Maduka
Yasmin Nabavi
Directors
Dominique Poulter and Nathan Bryon
Designed by The Company
Characters
CARA, sixteen, lives on a farm outside town, rocks a sort of rural hippy look
JAMES, sixteen, young entrepreneur, works in Burger King but aspires to The Apprentice
CHRIS, sixteen, vegan eco-activist, his family home generates its own electricity
SAFF, fifteen, fast-food fan, overweight, lives with her dad who hates cooking
SAJ, fifteen, small, hyperactive, works in his dad’s fried-chicken shop, addicted to energy drinks
KASIA, sixteen, athletic, serious, wants to be a chef, from a Polish family who own a grocer’s
ROB, sixteen, sporty, outdoorsy, family all work in factories, deals contraband fizzy drinks in school
HARRIET, fifteen, articulate, academic, sits on the school council, Mum is an NHS nurse in the local hospital
Older Characters
Note: These are all smaller parts. They can be played by individual actors, or one actor doubling all four, if necessary.
