May 12 Play: MAMOOT

PLAY #?: MAMOOT - by Ed Valentine
© May 12, 2010 * ed@edvalentine.com

LIGHTS UP: It’s SeaWorld – or a SeaWorld type of place. A trainer (F) stands at the edge of a pool. She has a bucket. The water in the pool is dark and black. A maintenance man stands at the back.

TRAINER:
Here, Mamoot.
Here you go!
Feeding time.
Come and get it.
Mamoot?
Mamoot?
Momoot.

She leans over the water.

MAINTENANCE MAN
He dead?

TRAINER
You SCARED me!

MAINTENANCE MAN
Sorry lady.

TRAINER
I didn’t know you were there!

MAINTENANCE MAN
Sorry.

TRAINER
I thought I was all alone.
-
Except for him, I mean.

MAINTENANCE MAN
Him?

TRAINER
Mamoot.

MAINTENANCE MAN
Maybe you are all alone.

TRAINER
I don’t know.
Sometimes, some mornings I come out here
and there’s nothing there in the water.
You’d swear there was nothing there.

MAINTENANCE MAN
He sleeping?

TRAINER
Waiting.

MAINTENANCE MAN
Creepy.

TRAINER
Waiting for me.

MAINTENANCE MAN
Someday he
Will
be dead.

TRAINER
Or I will.

MAINTENANCE MAN
How long do they live?

TRAINER
No one knows.

MAINTENANCE MAN
A long time?

TRAINER
A Long long.
Long.
Time.
Longer than we know.

MAINTENANCE MAN
He has time then.


TRAINER
Time?

MAINTENANCE MAN
Time to wait.

TRAINER
I guess he does.
Well -


Something swims back and forth in the pool.
It is not a whale.
They both start.


MAINTENANCE MAN
Jesus.

TRAINER
There.

MAINTENANCE MAN
That how it happens every morning?

TRAINER
Pretty much.
He likes to surprise me.

MAINTENANCE MAN
I wouldn’t get in the water with that.

TRAINER
Sometimes I have to.

MAINTENANCE MAN
How is that?

TRAINER
(shrugs.)

MAINTENANCE MAN
Good luck, then. I better get on with my day.

TRAINER
Me too.

(She holds out a fish over the water, reaching out a little too far. Sing-song and nervous:)

Here you go, Mamoot.
Mamoot.
Mamoot.


The thing swims. She holds the fish. The Man does not go.

Lights fade.

END OF PLAY.