The Lindsey Hodges Hospital Dream-Time Spectacular

AT RISE: A dream state, the lights are blue. A hospital room. A curtain masks one bed. A T.V. can be seen behind the curtain. The slow beeping of a heart monitor can be heard. NURSE 1 enters, checks on an I.V., checks the patients, moves a pot of flowers very slightly, and exits. Note: The NURSES should move gracefully, to the beat of the heart monitor, like the checking in on patients is some type of fluid dance.


MIKE
The main problem with being in the hospital is the passage of time. I mean, when you wake up in the morning, you can tell what time it is from the sun. And at night it gets dark, so you can feel the time moving by. I’ve been in this room for a while now, and I have no idea what time it is. Those windows? They don’t face east, or west.

NURSE 2 enters, and checks the same things the first nurse did, in the same way.

MIKE
Right before I got here, I had a dream I went to hell. It wasn’t like that cartoon hell either. It was this huge room, but it looked like I was floating in space. The walls looked like the pinpricks of stars, but I could see the edges of the room, like space was all of a sudden finite. So I’m floating, or standing, or whatever in this “universe room” and I see a smaller box in the center of the room. It’s hard to see cause it looks just like the rest of the room, with stars and crap all over it, but it’s right there in the middle of the floor. I walk over to it. And find the lid.

NURSE 3 enters, and performs the same dance the other NURSES did.

MIKE
(cont.)
I get in the box and close the top, and all the stars are gone. And its peaceful, and I sat there and thought. But I wanted to see the stars again, so I tried to find the lid. But its not there anymore, like it vanished! And I couldn’t find the hinges, or even the sides of the box. It’s all just blackness, nothingness, emptiness. And I scratch and claw and scream, but there’s nothing there. And all I want is out of this damn box.


All three NURSES enter. Together the perform “The Night Nurse Ballet” Which consists of the basic, graceful patient check, then becomes more elaborate.

NURSE 1
Next, on the O’Reilly Factor...!

NURSE 3
Is this man sane enough to lead the country?


NURSE 2
What’s the war really costing you?

NURSE 3
A special report from our correspondents in Kuwait!

NURSE 2
This is…

All NURSES
The O’Reilly Factor!

SCENE 2

Regular lights up. MIKE sits in the bed, the curtain is still drawn, MATT sits in a chair next to the bed.

MATT
So they treatin you okay?

MIKE
Yeah. I guess… Is that old guy still in the room?

MATT checks behind the curtain.

MATT
Nope.


MIKE
That piece of shit left FOX News on all freaking night, man!

MATT
For real?

MIKE
Yeah! They gave me my pills at like 9:45, and I was asleep in half an hour, and the only thing I dreamt about was Bill O’Reilly mauling a bear.

MATT
Wait, HE mauled the BEAR?

MIKE
Yeah. It was freaking crazy, he went after it like that tiger went after that little boy down the hall.

MATT
Tiger?

MIKE
Yeah, one of the nurses was talking about it. Some guy had a tiger chained up in a pen in his back yard. So his nephew comes over. Sees the tiger, and wants to pet it.

MATT
Right.

MIKE
So he reaches his arm through the chain link fence…

MATT
Right...

MIKE
And that tiger bites the kid’s arm right off!

MATT
Holy shit.

MIKE
Yeah rough huh? I heard they were able to reattach it. Survival of the fittest huh?

MATT
I guess.

MIKE
So where’s Dad?


MATT
He was gonna come, but he got tied up with the estate again.

MIKE
(Pissed)
Right.

MATT
Come on don’t be like that.

MIKE
Like what? Expectant that my Dad might come say “Hi” when I’m in the hospital? You’re right, how rude of me.

MATT
You know how he is, he hates hospitals.

MIKE
Matt. It’s not like I love em.

BEAT

MATT
I’ll get him to come down tomorrow.

BEAT

MATT
I got you something!

MATT looks under the bed, and pulls out a large sack, he hands it to MIKE

MATT
Open it.

MIKE pulls a large stuffed rabbit out of the sack.

MIKE
Is this, I mean is it really?

MATT
Mom found it. It’s Scamper. Remember?

The heart monitor beeps. MIKE clicks a button. The dream lights come up. MATT sits, without movement, in the chair.

MIKE
I burned his face off. Not on purpose, it was an accident. We were moving, and I found him in my closet. I wanted to keep him out, so I wouldn’t loose him again. Stupid right? I was 17, I really didn’t need my stuffed animal anymore, but I wanted him for some reason. I put him on the chandelier. I wanted Mom to see what I found when she got home. I kept packing, but I started to smell this weird stench. I looked for… like half an hour till I looked up. And there was Scamper, my best friend as a baby, having his face melted on a light bulb. It was weird, watching part of me melt away like that. When Matt brought him to my room, it meant nothing. Mom had fixed him I guess, but he wasn’t the same, or else, I wasn’t the same.