Guy: “You know Sam, I’m kinda relieved I have just 5 minutes left! Otherwise, I think I’d create a bucket list or the opposite, think of ruthless things to do to certain people.”
Sam: “So what’s wrong with spending your final minutes planning your demise? Something truly romantic about that.”
Guy: “Well, I’ve always lived for today, only fools worry for the future, all that planning, putting off stuff that’s fun just so some distant indefinite abstract day becomes fulfilled(?), when all along you’re miserable, denying yourself the moment’s joy?”
Sam: (nervously glancing at his wristwatch, picks up the phone) “Should I have them bring you something? Something to kill the pain, sweeten the moment?
Guy: (ignoring Sam) “I’ve always been so anti-hindsight…leave second-guessing to the crippled. Can’t really fix nothing anyways…good thing bout the past is it’s past.”
(Knock on the door, Sam opens it)
(an extremely attractive woman is standing there with a snare drum strapped around her waist holding a sunflower)
Woman: “Sir, you have exactly a minute left”, and begins to beat each second out.
Guy: (smiling at the drummer and tapping with the beat) “Sam, it’s conceivable I visit you from the other side, once I get things sorted out that is. Yes I know Houdini promised Bess the same thing, but he obviously got distracted and never materialized.”
Sam: (Sam slowly sits down) “So what makes you think you could do what Harry Houdini, the greatest escape artist of all time, couldn’t pull off?”
Guy: “Because I actually don’t care either way, never did. Had I been Beckett’s Vladimir or Estragon I wouldn’t have given a shit whether Godot ever showed up or not. You see, blowing up cyberspace purifies humanity, and though others deem it a crime, to me this act represents my impeccable and everlasting contribution, my greatest poem, the ultimate swan song, my cup runneth over, last dance, final gasp-stream-of-consciousness gift!”
(The woman quickens the beat and Sam slowly stands, discarding his watch)
Guy: (Taking in the scene, as if noticing the others for the first time)
“So, my time here is up, no big deal. Actually, that’s great! More than anything else, and this is really what I wanted to say to you all along, Sam, why I requested you over anyone else…my end is my beginning , endings are nothing but beginnings, deaths or births no matter, it all merges, melts into one, and now it’s my turn to prove it and yours to record.”
(The room has now become crepuscular. Sam stumbles back to his chair, sits back down, blinking toward the door. He notices the drummer has since departed, vanished. Then he scrutinizes the place where his silhouette had once stood.)
(Nothing remained except a singular, now-cobwebbed, shattered mirror).
Delray Beach FL
June, 2015