Radio Play
Characters:
BOY – Callow, pretentious, troubled, reclusive
MOTHER – Sweet, motherly, beautiful
RADIO TV/NARRATOR – Radio Voice Operator
Once upon a time
Nightmares came our daytime television
For currency was motherly, her lips him only sent to sleep...
MOTHER
Hast thou not ‘ere friends to play with?
BOY
Far be it from me to enter discourse, mother. In absentia, fantasiam est. Fantasy is the sword I’ll live and die by!
MOTHER
[concerned]
Perhaps let me in on what thou read’st.
BOY
Someday. If Jove behove, I’ll read to you, but not yet ! Promise me thou intrud’nst wouldn’t ‘pon my lectures.
[aside]
The very windows of mine interiority! [whispers] An interior of incestuous devotion to Venus herself. This garden secret must I keep.
MOTHER
Why son, dost thou make pretense, and insist on our mock-Elizabethan modes of address to one another, so retrograde to mine ears! Come, speak to me in thou Mother’s tongue, or wouldn’st thee wish for thy’n Mother’s thirst to be quenched thusly?
BOY
Oh gaul ! Language is a prison – syncopated shackles of a pending manhood beast – I am sentenced to. Once unbound I’ll speak bluntly, brutely, and most unshapely. This surely ‘tis most ironic. After all, the incremental decline of my vocal register, who operates these fun-buttons? ‘T is a sick, lumpen person, that is who ‘t is!
Why could up not down be, mother? Is under never over, high not lowly if positioned to the sun furthersome?
[aside]
Argh ! To speak freely… would I dream, but in freedom lingers indifference. Not all tongues for nursery rhymes are tied! Let me out of this syllabic dragon!
MOTHER
[mother keeps speaking while BOY speaks aside, then resumes]
Let me sing for thee, child. This would be most futurious for the monstrous happi’ness living ‘neath the lake of my heart’s surface.
BOY
My judgment of your performance shall be the soundness of mine own sleep. [while I’m conscious yet, let her then kiss me still]
MOTHER
If you are the child of Aphrodite,
What does that make me, child?
The sight of you fell Papi off the pine tree...
[Turns away, looks up]
Poor old Papi,
Even for a burnt-out, semi-professional cyclist with a penchant for uppers,
This was steep…
[Returns to Son]
So I can only thank you for that, child…
It is cyclical, and mythical, I’ll have you know that I am beautiful,
like Brigitte Bardot...
[pause to think]
Without the racist trope, a tale of Marxist Fairies,
Solidarity to all the Godmothers and Aunty Mary’s,
BOY
[Sings]
One day I’ll sing like you.
If not higher than you do,
[As if to himself]
More chocolaty and voluptuous too,
My hair will fall down ‘neath my crotchet.
BOY
They will say such mean things about us.
MOTHER
[Both ditzy and aloof]
No they won’t.
BOY
until the father ship heeds call and I must say “adieu”,
MOTHER
[Rolls eyes]
Fat chance
[in tandem together]
BOY/ MOTHER
Another princess in an institute
BOY
Oh Mother, if I can’t be you, I must love you... and be loved too.
[Long Pause]
Radio/TV NARRATOR
If you beat them cannot, join them – why not?
And the daytime television will come true…
Epilogue
[The Boy lies dead and his Mother beside him]
Mother’s Monolgue
What could I have said,
What could I have done,
To have prevented my own piece of work in flesh and blood to die before I even aged remotely.
Have you got a clue,
As to what I could do,
To make it otherwise,
Just a touch of blush,
Round the cheeks to make him flustered,
Mascara round the eyes how water falls,
Lip liner, purple hues and hazel coloured dimples.
The transformation of a son,
‘Tis not a death, but ‘tis a gun that forfeits happiness,
So if you’re son is looking North-north West,
For handsaws and a Smith & Wesson,
Let him dress him up in dress, hide him,
Teach him etiquette, and let him not be fetched,
As now the flower is the symbol of his... wound.