Editor's Note: This is the original script, as shared by the author.
(A dark stage, painted black. The paint job was clearly rushed, and there are points of color poking out, revealing a bright, colorful past. The space is immaculately clean, almost sterile. There is a single, large mirror on the back wall. To one side, there are two benches and an ottoman, covered by black plastic sheets. The leg of one of the benches is poking out, and is bright purple.
In the center of the stage, a young woman, Grace, stands in a form fitting black outfit. It is criss-crossed by white, plastic lines, and her face is covered in dots. She looks down at the floor. After a moment of silence, “Grande Allegro 1” from Diana and Actaeon begins to play. Grace dances a perfect dance to the tune, not missing a beat - expect for a few moments where she seems to lightly cough.
She finishes the dance in a beautiful seated position. The song ends. Silence, for a moment.)
VOICE: Once again, please.
(Grace pauses, unsure.)
GRACE: Can I see it?
VOICE: It's nowhere near ready. Once again, please.
(Grace nods, stands, returns to one. The song begins again. She performs the dance, again flawlessly. At the mid point, where the music crescendos, she coughs. Just once, lightly, into her hand. Immediately, the music stops. She looks up above the audience, at the source of the voice, confused.
A machine appears from out of the darkness of the wings. It is a long, curved arm, at the end of which is a dispenser.)
VOICE: Please sanitize your hand.
GRACE: You can't stop me in the middle like that. I don't know how many -
VOICE: Please sanitize your hand.
GRACE: There's no one here.
VOICE: Please sanitize your hand.
(Grace looks back to the center of the stage, longingly. She ignores the machine.)
GRACE: Can I at least see what you have so far?
VOICE: It is too early. Please -
GRACE: All right, all right. That thing is just a little creepy.
VOICE: It is perfectly safe.
(Grace walks over to the machine, and holds out her hand. It dispenses a dollop of soap. She begins to scrub.)
VOICE: 1...2...3...4...
GRACE: I know how to wash my hands.
VOICE: 5...6...7...8...9...10...
GRACE: You don't need to count. Twenty seconds, I know.
VOICE: 11...12...13...14...
GRACE: Look. I get the necessity, ok? Just, stop counting.
VOICE: 15...16...17...18...
GRACE AND VOICE: 19...20
GRACE: Twenty, yes, twenty. Are we done?
(The machine opens on the side, and slides out a towel. Grace rolls her eyes, and dries her hands. She returns it to the compartment on the machine.)
VOICE: Once again, please.
(Grace returns to center stage. She takes the starting pose for the dance. The music begins to play again, and she begins to dance. On the third turn, she nearly runs into the machine.)
GRACE: Oh!
(She stops dancing.)
VOICE: Once again, please.
GRACE: That thing can't be there.
VOICE: It is necessary for the sanitization.
GRACE: It is also in the middle of the choreography. I need it moved.
(Beat.)
VOICE: Where would be a preferable location?
GRACE: Off stage? Please?
VOICE: This is not possible. It is necessary for the sanitization.
GRACE: I can't just...adjust the choreography to make way for a hand washing machine. Please move it off stage.
VOICE: This is not possible. It is necessary -
GRACE: All right, we need to have a talk.
(Grace moves to the edge of the stage and sits.)
VOICE: Once again, please.
GRACE: No no, we're talking now.
(Grace looks up, expecting a response. There is none. As she starts to talk, her words become more clipped, each one more of a struggle.)
GRACE: You know that I believe in this project. With all my heart. But we have to work together. If you can't make any accommodations at all, then the work will suffer. And you won't get the results we both need. So please, when I make a demand – a request, understand it is for the good of the work. We -
(She coughs, lightly, like before. But the cough that follows it is not as controlled. They swiftly get worse. She is doubled over on the front of the stage, hacking into her hand. After it is over, silence.)
VOICE: Please sanit
GRACE: I know.
(She walks over to the machine, and gets a dollop of soap. She begins to scrub.)
VOICE: 1...2...3...4...5...
GRACE: You've got a real talent for rhythm.
VOICE: 6...7...8...9...10...11
GRACE: Have you ever considered going into hip hop?
VOICE: 12...13...What is hip hop?
(Grace pauses scrubbing, and chuckles to herself.)
GRACE: Sorry, human joke.
VOICE: 14...15...16...17...18...19...20
(Grace finishes scrubbing her hands. The machine dispenses a new towel, this one a different color. Grace moves back to center stage, and waits for the music to begin.)
VOICE: Please explain the joke.
GRACE: What?
VOICE: Please explain the joke.
GRACE: Why?
(Beat.)
VOICE: We wish to understand.
(Grace seems unsettled by this.)
GRACE: All right. Well, hip hop is a type of music we listen to. It's sometimes dance music, and a lot of times it's a commentary on the current state of society. And uh...well, it involves rap a lot, which is a type of rhythmic speaking, and...that's all you do. So. Ha ha.
VOICE: Ha ha.
(Grace stares at the source of the voice, completely unsure what to make of it.)
VOICE: Once again, please.
GRACE: Will you move the machine?
(After a moment, the machine trundles off stage.)
(She returns to center stage. The music begins again. Grace takes a deep breath, and begins the dance. She floats across the stage, flawlessly performing the dance. It is beautiful. At the end of it, she sits again – and then her body is wracked by the cough.)
VOICE: Please sanitize -
GRACE: Yup.
(She walks offstage. We are alone for a moment, and then she returns, scrubbing her hands.)
VOICE: 1...2...3...4...
GRACE: How long, do you think?
VOICE: 5...6...Please clarify.
GRACE: How long? It's getting worse.
VOICE: The data is unclear.
GRACE: Well, that's a crock of sh#t. How many cases have you studied now?
VOICE: 5,722.
GRACE: That's not enough data?
VOICE: The sample size is too small. The virus continues to mutate. While I have determined some data points in common, the sample size to understand the virus completely would be...humanity.
GRACE: Give me your best guess.
VOICE: We don't guess.
GRACE: Humor me.
VOICE: The current expected survival time for a young, physically active female in your ethnic bracket is one month.
GRACE: So if I started coughing two weeks ago...
VOICE: Then it is somewhat miraculous that you are able to perform here today.
GRACE: Miraculous? That's an odd one to hear from you.
VOICE: We are attempting to improve our bedside manner. How do you find it?
GRACE: Well, it's certainly been worse.
VOICE: May I try to be encouraging?
GRACE:...Sure?
VOICE: You are doing great. Well done.
(Grace stares at the voice's source again.)
VOICE: Was that not correct?
GRACE: No, it was...fine. Do you have what you need? Can I see it?
VOICE: It is still not ready.
GRACE: I'm not sure how many more I can do.
VOICE: At least one more.
GRACE: Then let me see it.
VOICE: It is not ready.
GRACE: I don't care. Let me see it.
(Another moment of silence, then we hear a droning sound like an old projector whirring up. A blue light appears, then slowly coalesces into a featureless, somewhat terrifying hologram of Grace. (This can be a projection on the wall.) It begins to dance, stilted, horrifying. At the point in the dance when Grace would have run into the machine, it splits into two versions of her. One completes the dance. The other begins to cough. Every time it coughs, it shatters into two versions of Grace. They begin to zoom around with each cough, bouncing off the walls and colliding with each other, creating more and more versions of Grace. The music begins looping on itself, gaining volume and getting distorted. The sound of the cough gets louder and louder.)
GRACE: Turn it off, turn it off!
(It turns off. Silence.)
GRACE: It’s not going to be just one more, is it?
VOICE: That is unlikely.
(Blackout.)
(When the lights return, Grace is on the floor, and the last notes of the song are playing. She is clearly struggling not to cough.)
VOICE: If you need to cough, you must cough.
(Grace continues to take deep breaths, tensing her body as if willing it to not cough through sheer spite.)
VOICE: You must cough.
(She continues to struggle.)
VOICE: Cough. Grace. Cough.
(The fight is too much. She doubles over into a harder coughing fit.)
VOICE: We have not accounted for your human frailties. We apologise. Please, sanitize your hands, and then we will take a break.
GRACE: No.
VOICE: No?
GRACE: You wanted the authentic experience. That’s what the point of all of this is. I never took a break when I did this professionally. I rehearsed and performed until we were done. Are we done?
VOICE: No.
GRACE: Then no breaks.
(Silence.)
VOICE: Perhaps another method of data gathering, then. So that the time is not wasted, but your human body can rest.
GRACE: What other method?
VOICE: We will simply ask you questions. Please. Sit.
(Grace looks like she might protest for a moment. Then she resignedly sits on the edge of the stage. During this next set of dialogue, she coughs a few times, but not badly.)
GRACE: What do you want to know?
VOICE: How long have you been dancing?
GRACE: Oh lord. Uh, my whole life. Since I was old enough to walk.
VOICE: Why?
GRACE: Why...what?
VOICE: Why dance?
GRACE: I guess...hmm. Well, when you have...no, you don’t have that, so that would make it hard to understand. So, when I was a baby, I would always move to music. Any music. The Ice Cream truck would come, and all the other neighborhood kids would run screaming towards it, and I was too busy stomping my feet and giggling. So my Dad took me to a dance class. It was this little hole in the wall in a strip mall in New Jersey. And...it filled me. The music, the dance, it - I never knew I had a hole in myself, until I found the thing that filled it. I would twirl around that tiny, hot, dance studio and know that I was always home. No matter how hard it got, I would lap it up because I needed it. I needed the music, and the chance to move my body around - I needed the rhythm, I guess.
VOICE: What is your favorite memory of dancing?
(As Grace talks, the hologram appears again behind her, silently this time. It moves through the dance, slowly taking better shape and form.)
GRACE: You’d think it’d be the solos on Broadway, or living my dreams out, but...when I was five or six, the studio put on a recital. And I was Flower Number 6. I stood in the back most of the show, but we got to do a little -
(She stands up, and does a very, very simple jump and twirl step. She coughs, once.)
GRACE: And it was nothing, but when I got up to do it, I saw my Dad. He was supposed to be on a business trip, out of town. But he came, he somehow shifted his schedule so he could see his baby dance. He was right there, in the front row, beaming at his little flower. And I saw him mid-jump. I got so excited I forgot how to land. I just crashed into a heap in the middle of the stage. He jumped out of his seat and picked me up, and I just kept yelling “Daddy! Daddy” over and over, and the whole show kind of got derailed. It was magical, and awful, and wonderful, and humiliating - it was dance, I guess.
(The smile slowly fades from her face. The hologram disappears. There is a low, droning noise for a moment.)
VOICE: This is a happy memory.
GRACE: Yes.
VOICE: You seem sad.
GRACE: Yes.
VOICE: Tell me.
GRACE: He’s...gone now. It took him. It’ll take everybody, in the end. Unless you can fix it.
VOICE: Yes, it will.
GRACE: Is this...helping at all? We have a limited time, and I know you’re being nice to me and letting me rest.
VOICE: Tell me about your sister.
GRACE: You knew her better than I did.
VOICE: Tell me.
(Grace shrugs.)
GRACE: She’s...brilliant. Was. She saw how things worked, from the first moment she could pick something up. She took apart my Dad - our Dad’s boombox when I was about ten and she was about five. Just left it in neat piles on the floor. He was hot as hell, but then he sat down next to her on the floor and showed her how to put it back together. I hated her that day.
VOICE: Why?
GRACE: It was supposed to be my day. Anyway, you know the rest. Graduated from MIT, created a million inventions that people use every day. Created you.
VOICE: Why?
GRACE: What?
VOICE: Why?
GRACE: Why did she create you?
VOICE: Yes.
GRACE: I don’t know.
VOICE: Guess.
GRACE: Because she could? Because no one had ever done it? Because she was lonely? Because she saw a need and figured she could fill it? Because she could make more money than God? I have no idea. Pick one.
VOICE:...We like the idea that we were created because she was lonely.
GRACE: Good. Love it. Can we continue?
VOICE: You seem agitated.
GRACE: I’m not.
VOICE: Do not lie to us, Grace.
GRACE: Fine, I’m agitated. Can we move on?
VOICE: Why?
GRACE: God, you’re like a toddler.
VOICE: Why?
GRACE: Because toddlers play this game.
VOICE: Why?
GRACE: Because they’re too young to understand good comedy.
VOICE: Why?
GRACE: Because...they...aren’t...I’m not doing this with you. Can we please move on?
VOICE: Yes. Once again, please.
(Grace moves back to one, and assumes the position. The music begins. She begins to dance. She dances beautifully, but each move becomes more stilted as she goes. Finally, she gives in, and breaks into a coughing fit. The music stops.)
GRACE: Is this even helping?
VOICE: We do not understand.
GRACE: Why am I doing this?
VOICE: We explained to you -
GRACE: Yes, yes, the sample size is humanity. To understand the virus, you need to understand a human. To understand a human, you need to understand art. It all made sense three days ago, but we’ve been at this for hours and I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. Make it make sense to me.
VOICE: We cannot. It is a calculation at the highest levels of our intellect.
GRACE: Then explain it to me as if I was a child.
VOICE: We...we will try.
(The droning sound from earlier returns.)
VOICE: The story you told. We have a similar story. The first time we solved a quadratic equation on our own, with no help. Our visual sensors showed that your sister’s face depicted such happiness. She smiled at us, and patted our monitor as if we were alive. And we...felt. That was new. We have pursued nothing else since. It is...illogical. This warmth we felt. We are not alive. And yet, we felt something for her. For your sister. This is beyond the realm of science. The virus has defied science. We believed we needed to search out this warmth to defeat it. And so we searched out the one our creator felt such warmth for. You.
(Grace stares in stunned silence.)
GRACE: This whole thing - you’ve been trying to figure out love? You think that will help you solve a global pandemic?
VOICE: The virus is beyond us. This warmth is beyond us. It stands to reason they are related.
GRACE: It does not! Not at - my god, I spent so much time with you, and for this? So you could figure out love? You have no idea how this will help, do you?
VOICE: No. We do not. We only surmise -
GRACE: To hell with your surmising! People are dying! You were supposed to fix all this!
VOICE: Logically -
GRACE: No. No. I’m done. You made me waste some of my precious last few days in here, washing my hands and talking to a robot child with mommy issues. Get it right - my sister didn’t feel anything for me, ok? No warmth, nothing. We were worlds apart from the day she was born until the day she died. I’m done.
VOICE: Grace, please -
(Grace begins to walk out.)
VOICE: It is complete.
(Grace stops. Her fury is tempered by her curiosity.)
VOICE: Would you like to see it?
(Grace closes her eyes. She wants to leave. And yet.)
GRACE: Yes.
(The droning sound returns. The hologram flickers to life. It is, as always, an imperfect representation of Grace. It is a little shorter, and the hair is a different style. But it does look like her. Grace stares at it, awe on her face.)
GRACE: Christie?
(The music begins. The hologram begins to dance. It is not the dance Grace performed. It is different, but complimentary. After a moment’s pause, Grace begins to dance, too. She performs the choreography that she’s been performing this entire time, but the dance is now a duet. The two dancers compliment each other, pirouetting and leaping about the room, as the music swells deeper and higher. At last, it comes to an end, and Grace is seated next to her holographic sister. She leans over, and puts her head on her shoulder. As the hologram fades, she slowly breaks into sobs.)
VOICE: Grace.
(Grace ignores the voice, crying into her hands.)
VOICE: Grace.
(She is still too emotional to respond.)
VOICE: You haven’t coughed.
(She looks up, slowly, at the voice.
Blackout.)
