Sergio De La Pava - Personae

NESTOR: Adam?

NOT-ADAM: It’s not… ( frustrated then resigned ) fine. Thank you.

LUDWIG: Just him or all of us?

ADAM: ( puzzled )

LUDWIG: Far as thanks go.

ADAM: Sorry, thank you all for the warm though luke welcome that has served only to add dis to someone who for all his significant difficulties was on entrance at least oriented and combobulated.

CLARISSA: Seriously we have far more crucial matters to attend to than the torturing of someone who’s obviously easily disoriented.

ADAM: Easily?

CHARLES: And discombobulated.

LUDWIG: Oh it speaks!

NESTOR: Goodness Chuck.

CHARLES: Charles for short, I insist.

NESTOR: We didn’t take you for possessor of a functioning tongue.

LUDWIG: There’s that we again, I’ll thank you not to speak for us.

CLARISSA: And I’ll thank you ( to Ludwig ) not to speak for us; perhaps we want him to speak for us.

NESTOR: Thank you.

CLARISSA: But we don’t, I don’t, don’t speak for me.

LUDWIG: For me either.

NESTOR: So you guys thought Chuck, uh Charles, could speak…

LUDWIG: No.

CLARISSA: Not in a million years.

NESTOR: yet somehow chose to not utter a solitary syllable in the many months…

CLARISSA: Years.

LUDWIG: Decades.

NESTOR: … he’s been here?

LUDWIG: He’s an enigma.

CLARISSA: Enigmatic. A mystery.

LUDWIG: Mysterious. A riddle.

CLARISSA: Ridiculous, subject to ridicule.

CHARLES: I’m right here, I can hear you, and it hasn’t been that long.

NESTOR: Wait, what do you mean by that?

CHARLES: I haven’t been here that long, that meaning.

NESTOR: So how long?

CHARLES: Feels like I just got here really.

( Nestor looks at the others as if vindicated. They won’t meet his eyes except Adam who fails to see the relevance.)

CLARISSA: You say feels like but you also recognize that you’ve been here a while, longer than any of us, right?

NESTOR: No, I’ve been here the longest.

CLARISSA: What are you talking about? I was here when you arrived. I remember it like it was yesterday.

LUDWIG: It was yesterday!

CLARISSA: That’s right, it was. You just got here and already with the bossing everyone around.

NESTOR: I remember when Charlie arrived and it was a long time ago.

LUDWIG: Years.

CLARISSA: Eons.

NESTOR: Chuck has always been here and always will.

CHARLES: I’m leaving soon.

LUDWIG: No he’s never been here and never will.

CHARLES: I’m right here.

CLARISSA: Charles has never been where he’s going and only gone where he’s been.

( Everyone ponders that a while. )

ADAM: But where?

LUDWIG: Who said that?

CLARISSA: The new guy.

NESTOR: New guy my ass, he’s been here longer than any of us, even longer than Charles and Charles has never not been here.

CHARLES: He sure as Shinola was here when I arrived.

ADAM: Where when you arrived?

CHARLES: What?

LUDWIG: Who invited this guy?

ADAM: ( to Charles ) When you arrived where?

CHARLES: Here! What’ve we been talking about? ( looking to the others for support ) Believe this?

ADAM: But where is here?

LUDWIG: Right here. ( gesturing ) See? ( all laugh )

ADAM: But what is this? Where are we?

( Laughter stops abruptly and the ensuing silence is extended and palpably meaningful .)

NESTOR: ( to Ludwig ) You were saying?

LUDWIG: I wasn’t.

NESTOR: What?

LUDWIG: Saying.

NESTOR: What’d you say?

LUDWIG: I didn’t say anything. You were saying you were saying and I was saying I wasn’t saying. ( Pointing to Clarissa ) She was saying ( pause ) just saying.

NESTOR: Fine ( to Clarissa ) you were?

CLARISSA: Saying? I was saying that when we say, say, what was I saying?

NESTOR: Exactly.

LUDWIG: Well that’s settled then, off we go.

( No one moves. )

CHARLES: Besides it’s not where we are it’s what we are and the answer is brains in a vat.

NESTOR: We debunked that already, weren’t you listening?

CHARLES: Listening as we debunked brains in a vat? No, missed that.

CLARISSA: Debunked is too strong, as I recall much spoke in its favor.

LUDWIG: Much indeed, great intuitive appeal.

CHARLES: Which one was brains in a vat again?

CLARISSA: Which one? How about the one you just declared the truth.

CHARLES: I know, and I remember being persuaded, just not very strong on the particulars right now, refresh please.

NESTOR: Brains in a vat, the thesis that we, the inhabitants of this room, are merely…

CLARISSA: Certainly there was no definitive debunking.

LUDWIG: None.

ADAM: Of what? Where are we? Or, fine, who are we? Why? Are we.

CHARLES: We’re brains in a vat.

NESTOR: That has not been established!

ADAM: The hell’s a vat?

CHARLES: A vat is like a, you know, vat-like structure where, like, brains, mostly of a certain philosophical bent, are held and then… what do I know I’m just a brain in a vat!

LUDWIG: He’s got you there.

CLARISSA: You know those things called books Adam? It helps if you crack one open occasionally. Brains in a vat refers to the notion that while we believe ourselves to be corporeal beings moving through a physical world and experiencing heat, cold, pain…

CHARLES: Desolate loneliness.

CLARISSA:… in truth we are merely disembodied brains being stimulated in a manner that creates these illusions.

LUDWIG: By an evil genius.

CLARISSA: Not really a necessary component.

LUDWIG: Who else would engage in such a stimulation?

CHARLES: Is it me then or is the evil genius making it a bit cold in here?

ALL: It’s you.

CHARLES: It is me isn’t it? After all this, the ups the downs, the ins and outs, it’s just me I’m left with and what I’m left with is not the greatest notion of who exactly it is I am.

ADAM: Well it was nice meeting you all but I’m afraid I’m going to be leaving now.

LUDWIG: You should be afraid, that’s the first thing you’ve said since you got here made any sense.

ADAM: I’m leaving. Goodbye.

( He doesn’t move. )

CLARISSA: So long Adam.

CHARLES: Sooo long.

NESTOR: Long enough, certainly.

ADAM: I’ll stay… a bit longer I think.

(The rest all look at each other, not the slightest bit surprised.)

CHARLES: Don’t worry folks I remember who I am now.

LUDWIG: And the news is?

CHARLES: Good I think. When I was sixteen, at considerable risk to myself, I pulled a drowning child from a seriously turbulent river. I’m not even claiming it was selfless but I so enjoyed the feeling that following the Marines I did swift water rescue for a dozen years until my body stopped letting me.

CLARISSA: Bodies will do that. You zig one way, they zag the other.

LUDWIG: Tyrannical is what they are.

CHARLES: Wait until you’re dealing with one like this.

NESTOR: Never will. I plan to exhaust mine until it quits suddenly. There will be none of this… mechanical extension.

CLARISSA: That’s good news Charles. Who you were, are .

CHARLES: I used to say that Nestor. I never wanted to be hooked up to this stuff. I used to talk tough man. Problem is the moment comes and it’s hook up or check out. You know what? You hook up.

NESTOR: I find that when people tell me how I’m going to react to a given situation, they’re invariably wrong.

CLARISSA: Never mind him Charles, you did the right thing hooking up.