Version Thirty-Five

A BYOT Play by Patch Flammang

CAST

Hunger - Writer

Fear - Provocateur

Ego - Mediator

Riley - Butch human starship engineer. Any pronouns.

Kep - Effeminate alien mantid. He/they.

To represent Riley and Kep, Fear and Ego can put on masks, or take off masks they were already wearing.

Hunger: I'm not a very proud person.

Fear: Why are you here, then?

Ego: Let them finish.

Hunger: I'm here sort of in hopes of building something to be proud of, I guess.

Ego: Say it with your chest.

Hunger: I'm here to build something to be proud of.

Fear: I mean, we already did. It's more about maintenance now.

Ego: Or defense.

Fear: You could just send money if you want to help.

Ego: They're a human being. They need community and purpose.

Fear: Not another white guilt show.

Hunger: Do you get many of those?

Ego: What are you proud of? You can't say “nothing,” and you can't say “a willingness to help or awareness that help is required.”

Fear: It's not, but it would be nice.

Hunger: I'm not like anybody else. I can say something no one's heard before.

Fear: You sure? Maybe someone said it, but nobody thought it was worth repeating.

Hunger: Well, I'll say it for the people who haven't heard it before. Okay, you be Riley, and you be Kep.

Riley: My name is Riley and I live on a spaceship.

Fear: Is this the bug thing again?

Hunger: It's all that's in my brain other than Pokémon, and that's more about nature, right?

Fear: You don't think there's something there about diversity?

Hunger: Of course I do, but I have ten minutes, I'm not writing two plays.

Fear leafs through the script.

Fear: I think you could.

Hunger: Humans crave diversity because mutation is the key to evolution, there, done.

Ego: What's the bug thing?

Hunger: I've been trying to- just read it.

Riley: My name is Riley, and I live on a spaceship. I work in the engine room. My best friend is a six-foot-tall praying mantis. Was a six-foot-tall praying mantis. We're trapped in the simulator together, and they're stuck in a human body.

Ego: Okay, go back. Why are they best friends?

Hunger: People are friends sometimes. But it's because-

Riley: (overlapping) Because we're both aliens. I'm good at my job, but it feels like every other human on the ship got some training I missed. So, we were friends, but now it's like… the only person I could ever love is right here and they don't want to be the person I love.

Kep: It's not you, it's this body.

Fear: Have you ever been in love?

Hunger: Yeah, but not like that.

Fear: Where's this coming from, then?

Hunger: I don't know. Read your lines.

Ego: You look nervous.

Hunger: I have 10 hours. They have to get it.

Fear: What if they don't? Just write it again next time.

Hunger: What if I die?

Ego: From the top.

Riley: Kep, are you alright?

Kep: Erguhh.

Riley: My God. They're the most beautiful creature I've ever seen.

Fear: I don't know if you're writing honestly.

Hunger: Sometimes the truth is stupid. Try this.

Riley: They're… pathetic. They need me. They need someone and I'm the only one here.

Hunger: I need to see it. I'm not seeing it. “Red emergency lights illuminate a room full of smoke. As it clears, the contours of a spaceship corridor come into view. Two people: One crouched, cautious but comfortable in their skin. The other, sprawled across the floor, newborn.”

Fear: We can do that last part.

Hunger: They're still just words.

Fear: They literally aren't.

Hunger: Not anymore. Can I pull everyone back in?

Fear: Can they tell you anything you didn't know?

Hunger: I didn't try this one last time. Maybe…

Ego: You're starting over again.

Hunger: I can't get it right. I don't know how it looks.

Fear: You've written it like thirty times. Okay, so Riley is human and Kep is an alien bug who turns human and then they fall in love but Kep still doesn't want to be human so they turn back into a bug but they're still in love anyway. Right?

Hunger: I don't know if Kep is still in love. I think they're aromantic. It's a queerplatonic arrangement. And the genders are important, Riley is butch and Kep is effeminate.

Fear: Riley is a butch human who falls in love with an effeminate alien stuck in a human body and so on.

Hunger: Right. Do that.

Ego: You want us to improvise?

Fear: Isn't that abandoning your post?

Ego: Just write it, man.

Hunger: Okay. Places.

Riley is crouched, cautious but comfortable in their skin. Kep is sprawled across the floor, newborn.

Riley: Kep? Are you okay? The regulator blew.

Kep: Aaugh.

Riley: Oh.

Riley processes what they're looking at, then checks Kep for wounds.

Riley: You're not hurt, you're just… human. It's going to be okay. You should eat something.

Kep has no idea how to operate their mouth. Riley helps. Kep cries.

Riley: It's okay. We'll fix this. You'll be fine.

Kep: Too soft.

Riley: What? Oh.

Fear: (reading from the script) “Riley helps Kep get into a spacesuit-” do we need an intimacy coordinator for that? Did we need one for the feeding?

Ego: Just don't do it. Read it out loud if you have to.

Hunger: Okay, um– Scrap that. It's a hologram over their real body and it's giving them dysphoria.

Fear: I'm not sure you're allowed to write a romance.

Hunger: It's Pride, and you sound like a payment processor. I can't write anything else.

Ego: What about Kep?

Hunger: Yes. Do it aromantically. So Riley helps Kep and they fall in love or something…

Fear: How do you fall in love aromantically?

Hunger: I don't know.

Kep: I love you, but I hate this body more than I love you. I hate being in love.

Riley: I understand.

Kep: I'm sorry.

Riley: Don't. I want you to be happy more than I want you to be mine.

Kep turns back into a bug.

Kep: That's better. Now, I understand if the memories are too painful for you to want to be near me.

Riley: You're still my friend. I want to be around you. Let's make new memories. Drinks?

Hunger: Just let me watch them for a bit. Please.

Ad lib.

Hunger: Thank you.

Fear: I'm scared to sleep. What if it's not what I want?

Ego: You can't know what it will be. How do you feel?

Hunger: Almost guilty. That's it, I guess. I know I should be proud. I'm not not-proud. I'm not ashamed. “What are you proud of?” “What are you?”

Curtain.