Pick a Door, Any Door

(May 20, 2010)

Characters:

DESK ATTENDANT: Dead common British accent - sardonic, lackadaisical, existentially bored, and generally contemptuous of and disgusted by pretty much everything and everyone.

ANDY: A recently deceased man.

EARL LINTMAN: A Christian televangelist, also recently deceased.

Setting:

A minimalistic modern lobby – a desk placed between two doors, ornately labeled as “HEAVEN” and “HELL”, a couple chairs, a couch, a bare coffee table.

At rise: The DESK ATTENDANT sits at the desk, obviously very bored, leafing through a tattered old magazine. ANDY enters, a bit confused, and stands in front of the attendant. He waits to be noticed, and is ostentatiously ignored. After a long pause, he clears his throat.

DESK ATTENDANT: (with a great sigh and the manner of someone being greatly inconvenienced) Can I help you?

ANDY: Well, yes – that is to say, I certainly hope so. I'm afraid I'm a bit confused.

DESK ATTENDANT: Yeah, it said that in the stage directions. What you confused about?

ANDY: Well, I mean – the last thing I remember, I was driving home from work, and my wife texted to ask me to pick up some ingredients for dinner. I was trying to type 'rutabagas & head cheese?' with one thumb, and looking for the question mark sign – I think you get it by pressing the number 1 a few times - when all of a sudden I noticed a tree which had somehow moved into my path... I tried to swerve out of the way, but I think I must have clipped it – and the next thing I knew I was coming in here. So... ?

DESK ATTENDANT: Oh, that's an easy one – you're dead, mate.

ANDY: Dead?

DESK ATTENDANT: 'Fraid so... Texting and driving, very dangerous. Oh well, now you know.

ANDY: Dead?

DESK ATTENDANT: As a doornail. Probably strewn along a three-quarter mile section of motorway in a couple of hundred pieces, which are currently being scraped up by a medical examiner, to be tested for alcohol and other illicit substances. Like a breathalyzer, but without the breathing.

ANDY: Dead?

DESK ATTENDANT: You hard of hearing, or something?

ANDY: Deaf?

DESK ATTENDANT: Yeah.

ANDY: No, but – dead?

DESK ATTENDANT: That's what I said, mate.

ANDY: You're joking!

DESK ATTENDANT: Do I look like I'm joking?

ANDY: But my life was going so well! My career was progressing – I'd just been promoted! - my wife and I were talking about starting a family, and I'd finally paid off the car!

DESK ATTENDANT: That's a bitch right there, that is, but you know what they say – you can't take it with you.

ANDY: (increasingly upset) So... that's it, huh? All my plans, my ambitions, my dreams – cut off because I got distracted trying to find a fucking question mark?

DESK ATTENDANT: Well, you could always blame the tree.

ANDY: Isn't there something – anything - I can do?

DESK ATTENDANT: I dunno – you a zombie?

ANDY: What?

DESK ATTENDANT: Are you a zombie?

ANDY: No, I'm not a zombie.

DESK ATTENDANT: Shame. If you was a zombie, you could at least shuffle about a bit and eat some brains. As an ordinary dead person, you're a bit more limited.

ANDY: No – I mean, isn't there something I can do to fix this?

DESK ATTENDANT: Fix it? You mean, not be dead?

ANDY: Yes!

DESK ATTENDANT: Nah.

ANDY: So I'm dead. It's all over. What am I going to do now?

DESK ATTENDANT: Well, enjoy the afterlife, of course!

ANDY: But - my wife! Will I ever see her again? Will she come here, too?

DESK ATTENDANT: Oh, yeah, eventually.

ANDY: When?

DESK ATTENDANT: (irritated) Sooner or later, I don't know... Was she very fond of you?

ANDY: Yes, we love each other a great deal!

DESK ATTENDANT: Well, then, when she learns you're dead, she might kill herself. In which case it'd be sooner.

ANDY: That's horrible!

DESK ATTENDANT: (nastily, dripping sarcasm) Sorry. (a brief pause)

ANDY: So, what's through those doors?

DESK ATTENDANT: Heaven and hell. The afterlife. Really, it's the same place. The two doors just open on the back room.

ANDY: Honestly? It's the afterlife?

DESK ATTENDANT: No, it's a museum dedicated to the history of the vending machine industry! Go on in and have a look!

(the DESK ATTENDANT goes back to his magazine, ANDY starts toward the HEAVEN door, then pauses)
ANDY: But what about my wife? How will I find her?

DESK ATTENDANT: (putting down magazine in frustration) I don't know... It's a big place, the afterlife. Did you arrange a meeting spot?

ANDY: Well, no.

DESK ATTENDANT: Ah, well - that's just poor planning, innit?

ANDY: I suppose I could just... wait here? I mean, she will be through eventually, right?

DESK ATTENDANT: Oh, yeah. Everyone comes through here eventually. (a pause, he returns to his magazine again)

ANDY: Well, I'll just... wait then, shall I?

DESK ATTENDANT: Yeah, yeah, whatever.

ANDY: Okay – are there some other magazines, or-?

DESK ATTENDANT: (cutting ANDY off, very 'dog-in-the-manger', and holding the magazine more tightly) It's the only one.

(EARL LINTMAN enters, his stride purposeful, confident, energized)
ANDY: Well, then, can I-?

DESK ATTENDANT: -Hang on! (turns his venomous attention to EARL) Hello.

EARL: Hello - Saint Peter?

DESK ATTENDANT: No, I'm afraid you've got the wrong man.

EARL: (looking more closely, making a guess) … Jesus?

DESK ATTENDANT: Who?

EARL: Are you the savior? The Son of God?

DESK ATTENDANT: No, mate, sorry, you've got the wrong man – son of Lewis.

EARL: What?

DESK ATTENDANT: Never mind, it's a confusing time.

EARL: A glorious time! At long last I have been called home to meet my maker! Having lived a clean life, I am ready to submit myself to His divine scrutiny!

DESK ATTENDANT: So, you know you're dead, then?

EARL: Of course! I heard the cherubim and seraphim, the angelic choir singing my name, beckoning me to His infinite pastures, telling me it was time to say farewell to the trials and tribulations of this earthly veil of tears and woe! To put my ultimate trust in Jesus and accept his noble sacrifice on the cross as my redemption from original sin!

DESK ATTENDANT: How'd you die, then?

EARL: (suddenly embarrassed) I, uh...

ANDY: You OD'd on crystal meth at the flophouse of the gay masseuse you were employing to help you 'lift your luggage'?

EARL: How'd you know?

ANDY: You seem like the type.

DESK ATTENDANT: Clean life, ha.

EARL: The devil tempted me! I was weak!

ANDY: You were repressed and horny.

EARL: You stay out of this!

ANDY: Why can't you bible-thumpers just accept that some people are gay?

EARL: I am NOT a 'homosexual'! I'm a heterosexual with a homosexual problem!

(ANDY snickers)

DESK ATTENDANT: Right, well, you're dead now, anyway, Anal Roberts, so you won't be having to worry about whether the place you want to stick your willie into is sinful or not.

EARL: I won't? (disappointed, but trying to hide it)

DESK ATTENDANT: Takes a bit of fun out of things, don't it?

EARL: Yes – I mean, no! - I mean... What am I supposed to do?

DESK ATTENDANT: Well, it's eternity, isn't it? I mean, that's pretty long - I'd suggest you take up an hobby... erm, knitting, geneology, large jigsaw puzzles... Something to keep you occupied, you know?

EARL: I'm supposed to knit and do jigsaw puzzles? For eternity?

DESK ATTENDANT: Yeah, or you could go through one of those doors.

EARL: (noticing them) The doors... Heaven and hell?

DESK ATTENDANT: Yeah. (pointing to the door marked “HELL”) Through that door are a few billion souls having a rollicking good time – eating delicious food, drinking the best wine, engaging in sexual escapades so sordid and perverse you literally cannot imagine them... and through the other door (pointing to the door marked “HEAVEN”) are a couple of arseholes fluttering about in white robes, playing the harp and quoting from the book of Ezekiel. Take your pick - but frankly, I think they might be mislabeled.

EARL: You mean, I can choose?

DESK ATTENDANT: I just said that.

EARL: (dismayed) But what of the judgment?

DESK ATTENDANT: The what?

EARL: The great judgment! When God shall separate the wheat from the chaff! He shall look in the book of life and read my name there, and see my darkest secrets and the inmost contents of my soul.

DESK ATTENDANT: Oh, God's gonna do all that, eh? That's nice. What you gonna do with the wheat, bake bread?

EARL: (ignoring him, beginning to sermonize) Do you know of the judgment, friend? When the angels pour out their seven vials, and the four horsemen of the apocalypse, Death, Famine, War, and Pestilence, sweep across the land? The star Wormwood will descend from the heavens, ushering in the thousand-year reign of the Antichrist!

DESK ATTENDANT: Must not have got the memo.

EARL: He is risen! He shall slay the great seven-tongued, seven-headed, seven-nippled beast and cast the sinners into the lake of fire and brimstone! They shall burn in eternal agony!

DESK ATTENDANT: Wouldn't think the sinners would care for that. Agony – sounds painful.

EARL: (gleefully) It will be! Yea, for even like unto the Hittites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, whose arrogance angered-

ANDY: (interjecting) Hey, look – it's Jesus! There he is!

EARL: Where?

DESK ATTENDANT: I think I just saw the tail of his robe flapping around the corner as He went through that door. (pointing to the door marked “HELL”)
EARL: Jesus! Jesus! I'm coming, my Lord! Where did You go? I was only trying to bring him into the light of Your love and save him from his destructive and sinful homosexual lifestyle! Doing Your work just makes me so tense, I have to unwind with a little crank and a nude massage! Did You see him touch my butthole? It wasn't what it looked like! (runs off through the “HELL” door)

DESK ATTENDANT: Finally. (a pause) Thanks.

ANDY: No problem – I can't stand those lunatics. (another pause) You let him go through the hell door?

DESK ATTENDANT: Yeah, well, like I said, they both go to the same place.

ANDY: Won't he realize that?

DESK ATTENDANT: (looking after EARL) Do YOU think he will?

ANDY: Probably not... Anyway, people like that make their own hell, wherever they go. And he'd be unhappy without anyone to condemn.

DESK ATTENDANT: Too right.

ANDY: So what's the point in having the desk, and the two doors?

DESK ATTENDANT: I dunno, beats me. Important to make it seem like there's a choice, I suppose. Helps people get their heads straight about what they really want. Not that it makes any difference in the end. We are what we are, things are what they are. You're dead, and I'm stuck at this desk with miserable benefits and no vacations, and nothing's ever gonna change that. Still, it's not so bad.

ANDY: I guess not – and I'll be with my wife again sometime.

DESK ATTENDANT: Yeah. (a grudging pause) Here, take my magazine.

ANDY: But -

DESK ATTENDANT: (forcefully) I've read it. (he hands ANDY the magazine.)

ANDY: Thanks. (pause) So, what will we do over there – my wife and I?

DESK ATTENDANT: What, in the afterlife? Whatever you feel like, I should think.

ANDY: Well, you... But - haven't you been there?

DESK ATTENDANT: Oh, yeah, yeah – it's lovely. I mean, I wouldn't want to live there, but it's a nice place to visit.

(ANDY begins flipping through the magazine as the DESK ATTENDANT looks blankly off into space. Lights down, end of play.)