Scene 1The setting of the play is inside a hospital room. Two doctors stand at the foot of a bed, in the bed is a rather skinny sixteen year old boy who was attached to many pipes.
Doctor 1: What a pity, it seems he was just giving up on life.
Doctor 2: His parents, after he the ambulance brought him here, said he had stopped eating, bathing, and even getting out of bed. You’re right; it does seem he is giving up on life. [The doctor picks up a clip board and flips through the pages] He was rushed here when his parents found him in bed, just lying there unmoving, unresponsive. That’s when they called 911. It’s a wonder the doctors could keep him alive.
Doctor 1: We had cases like this before. If the patient doesn’t have the will to live, they usually die. [A fat old lady rushes into the room and looks onto the bed.]
Grandma: Takes these pipes out of him, they’re going to kill him!
Doctor 2: Mam, calm down. These machines are keeping the boy alive.
Doctor 1: Also, how did you get past the front desk? Visiting hours are over. [A young nurse walks into the doorway to the room.]
Nurse 1: Mrs. Busch, you’re not supposed to be in here. Your grandson needs to be left alone.
Grandma: These machines are going to kill him!
Nurse 1: [With arms up in the air, trying to make the large woman settle down] Mrs. Busch, please understand. Those machines are the only thing keeping your grandson from death!
Grandma: Back in my day, we didn’t need machines to stay alive! [The doctors and the nurse roll their eyes.] And my grandson won’t need them either! Now get them off of him!
Doctor 2: Nurse, we don’t need a crazy lady in here causing disruptions. Please get some assistance. [The nurse leaves the room]
Grandma: I’m not crazy you all are the crazy ones! Selling your souls to the devil by using such evil devices. [Two burly men enter the room and take the woman by the arms and pull her out. Tears form in the woman’s eyes] Let go of me! Let go of me! You can’t keep me from my grandson! Let go of me!
Nurse 1: Zack’s her only grandchild. All of her daughters were barren, but Zack is seen as a miracle child since he was somehow conceived.
Doctor 1: Well, she’s crazy. Try to keep her out of here, she won’t held his condition if she keeps on trying to pull out his only lifeline. [He puts the clip board back where he found it, another nurse walks into the room.]
Nurse 2: Doctor Engel and Hoch, another patient needs you.
Doctor 2 (Dr. Hoch): Thank you, Ms. Kirsch, would you please make sure Zack’s bags are filled?
Nurse 1 (Ms. Kirsch): I will. [The doctors and the other nurse exit the room, leaving Ms. Kirsch alone.] Poor boy, how did you ever get this way. I will pray for your recovery; however you must make the recovery yourself. You don’t realize the love and people you have to live for, you are a special child as is everyone is. [She leaves the room, forgetting to refill the bags.]
Scene 2
It is one day later and Zack finally wakes up. As he lifts up his chest he looks at the pipes going into his arm the feels the pipe attached to his nose. He grunts as he collapses back onto the bed, exhausted even from small movement. Ms. Kirsch peaks in from the doorway and finds Zack with his eyes opened.
Ms. Kirsch: You’re finally awake! [Zack turns his head over on its side to look out the window next to his bed.] You know, you’re family and friends were extremely worried for you, Zack. You shouldn’t do this to yourself, it’s wrong to make them worry like this.
Zack [In a rasp voice]: Let them worry, it has no meaning to me anyway. Nothing has meaning to me, life is meaningless…
Ms. Kirsch: Life is not pointless, Zack. It is well worth living-
Zack: No, it is pointless. Can you explain why life is here?
Ms. Kirsch: There is life because God-
Zack: GOD! Don’t talk to me about fairy tales, lady, there is no such thing as God. What’s there to prove it? Nothing-
Ms. Kirsch: How else do you explain all this? God is the point to all this.
Zack: How can there be a God though? Only stupid people believe in such meaningless stuff. It is said in the bible that God created man, but it is actually man who created God. God doesn’t exist because God is just made up, he’s fiction.
Ms. Kirsch: Well you should believe in God, it’ll help you survive if you do…
Zack: Just leave, if you’d please. I don’t need a crazy fanatic Christian talking to me. I don’t see how taking part in a silly fake belief of one great eternal being.
Ms. Kirsch: [With a hint of tears beneath the surface of her eyes appearing.] Well I guess I should just leave you alone then. Looks like I can’t help you other than just replacing your fluids.
Zack: Just let me die in peace.
Ms. Kirsch: Don’t give- [She stops in the middle of what she’s saying after seeing that Zack is not even paying attention to her. She walks swiftly out of the room. Zack remains lying in his bed, motionless. A boy peeks into the room after the nurse leaves. He walks into the room and stand at the foot of Zack’s bed.
Ben: Hey man, we all miss you at school… [Zack turns his head away from the window to look at Ben, a slight smile appears on his face.]
Zack: I bet you all do.
Ben: Why are you doing this to yourself, Zack? You have everything to live for!
Zack: But what are the things I have to live for worth when I’m dead? Nothing. All I can ever work is wasted when I die.
Ben: But you can still have fun while you’re at it, right?
Zack: I guess you’re right… But what is fun rather than just a consciousness created by the mind? My brain will only be useless mud when I die, all my experiences will be gone. There is no point to work for anything; life is just a big illusion of meaning.
Ben: Well, at least my mud will be mud that had a hell of time! [Zack smiles] See, look you can still find happiness, isn’t just being happy and living a happy life all worth it?
Zack: But what about all the other peoples’ lives where they are unhappy? What about them?
Ben: Those people, even though aren’t happy, are still living.
Zack: They are still living because they think there is a meaning to their life. But there isn’t and they just waste their time.
Ben: But what about hell? You’re technically committing suicide.
Zack: I don’t believe in hell.
Ben: Just because you’re don’t believe there is, doesn’t mean there can be.
Zack: Ben, do you believe that your God is all powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving?
Ben: Yes
Zack: And if God is all knowing, then he will know who is going to hell and who is going to heaven?
Ben: Yeah, I guess…
Zack: Then if God is all-loving, then he wouldn’t want anyone to go to such a horrible place as hell?
Ben: Yeah, yeah I guess.
Zack: Then why would God send those who he loves so much to hell?
Ben: I don’t know…
Zack: He wouldn’t, there is no hell. But that is meaningless as there is no God.
Ben: Well, how to explain how we’re all here! How do you explain how everything exists?
Zack: Things only exist is people think about them. If life never happened, then nothing would exist. Same thing for God, if no one thought about God, he wouldn’t exist. All you Christians all the same. [He turns his head back to the window and closes his eyes.] Let me just die with my head clear.
Ben: But I don’t want you to die, I want you to live!
Zack: Just as everyone does, but I don’t and it’s only a matter of time before these machines no longer keep me up.
Ben: I can’t let you do this…
Zack: Try and stop me, there is nothing you can do to keep me alive.
Ben: Well it looks like my friends already dead then. [He leaves the room and the lights fade out as Zack falls back asleep.]
Scene 3
Zack had been sleeping for a few hours before he is woken up by the door closing shut. He opens his eyes and moves his gaze from the now dark windows to see both his parents looking at him. His mother was rather short and middle ages. His dad was skinny, had brown hair, and wore rimless glasses. Tears were in his mothers eyes.
Mr. Keller: Son, why do you do this to us… to your family… [He pauses as his eyes start the tear; Mrs. Keller had turned around to conceal her crying face.] You are our only and most likely will only be our only son we will ever have… Please… [Tears start to form in his eyes.] Please just don’t do this to us… We’ve loved you so much. How did you ever end up like this… [Zack doesn’t respond] What else can we do for you? By what the nurse and your friends told us, you will just keep on trying to kill yourself. What the doctors say is that you won’t last long unless you actually gain faith back. But by what they said… [He seems to choke on his own tears.] You won’t. We just want to know, do you love us? [Zack doesn’t respond.]
Mrs. Keller: Our son’s dead! [She breaks out into tears as she tries to find comfort in Mr. Keller’s chest.]
Mr. Keller: Well, we don’t want you to wait here any longer then… [He tries to regain his composer] If you want to die, you’re going to die. [They both walk out of the room, mumblings can he heard out side the door after it has been closed.] You can pull the plug doctor, he won’t change his mind, we’re sure of it. [Zack then closes his eyes and falls asleep again]
Scene 4
This scene takes place in a hallway outside Zack’s room the next day, which isn’t as crowded as it should be. A single man walks through the hallway with some flowers in hands. His attire is corporate casual. He then asks a nurse walking by:
Man: Excuse me nurse, do you know where Mr. Fisher is?
Nurse 3: Oh, honey, Mr. Fisher passed away two days ago. His body is already at the funeral house.
Man: Well that just put a hole in my boat then, he was my father you see. I just learned of his condition yesterday from my sister. Me and my father didn’t have a good relationship so I wanted to make it up to him before he died.
Nurse 3: Your sister told you yesterday he was in the hospital when she probably knew he was already dead?
Man [Smiling]: Well, me and my sister also didn’t have that great of a relationship either. Well, you know what I could do with these flowers? They’re pretty much useless.
Nurse 3: Well you could just give them to a pretty girl and get a date or give them to another patient; people always want someone more to care about them. Now, as you see I am actually at work, which means I have to do work.
Man: I understand. [The nurse leaves] Now who to give these flowers to… [He looks around and finds Zack’s door. He enters the room. He walks over the Zack’s bed and places the flowers on a side table next to the hospital bed]
Zack [His strength dwindling as the last of the machine’s life giving power is being used up]: Who… Who are you…?
Man [Smiling]: Just a random stranger putting flowers next to your bed. Now, I hope you get better soon! [He turns around to head for the door]
Zack: I don’t want to get better; I don’t want to live…
Man: Now, why don’t you want to live?
Zack: Because there is no point to life…
Man: Why is there no point to life?
Zack: Because there just is no meaning.
Man: But why is there just no meaning to life? Is there a reason for life not to have a reason?
Zack: Wait… What?
Man: Should there be a reason why life has no reason?
Zack: I guess…
Man: But then if there is a reason to there being no reason to life then that reason must have a reason too.
Zack: Yeah…
Man: But then that reason needs a reason, do you know that reason?
Zack: No…
Man: But there must be a reason, and a reason to this reason and a reason to that reason. There would be an infinite list of reasons. Now, you say that life has no reason, but if there is a reason to life not having a reason then life must have a reason is something as just saying life has no reason. You get what I mean?
Zack: Wait… What?
Man: Because there is a reason to life not having a reason, who is to say that life doesn’t not have a reason? We just don’t know what that reason is.
Zack: But how can there be reason to something pointless?
Man: There is always a reason to something that is reasonable, if you catch my drift. Then if something is unreasonable then there should be an unreasonable reason as to why that one thing is unreasonable.
Zack: I think… I get it now…
Man: You can’t understand the unreasonable, uh… what’s your name?
Zack: Zack
Man: Yeah, so you can’t understand why something is unreasonable, because it is just that, unreasonable. You just have to live with it until the reason is revealed to you by some other way. That is why we live, to learn, to live, to experience. We don’t live to be happy, we don’t live to suffer, we live to become more experienced.
Zack: But all that experience goes to waste when we die…
Man: Who says that? Who says they know what is after death? What if death is just something we need to live, we need to experience?
Zack: But what if it isn’t?
Man: It wouldn’t matter then, because you’re already dead. What you are doing to yourself is just a stupid gamble. You have a whole life ahead of you and you’re going to just through it all away. Just live, don’t think. Just be, just store your “if” questions until they can be answered, don’t answer them yourself because your answer may be wrong. [Zack tries to sit up] need some help? [Zack nods. The man then helps Zack sit up in the bed and Zack lets out a breath.]
Zack: Could you get me something to drink, I’m extremely thirsty.
Man: Surely! [The man gets up and walks out the door. It could be heard that he is asking a nurse for a glass of water.] Excuse me mam, but may I get a glass of water for a patient. He says he’s rather thirsty.
Nurse 4: Which patient, I’ll bring them the water.
Man: I don’t know his last name, but he told me his first name is Zack.
Nurse 4 [Surprised]: Zack? Zack Keller?
Man: I guess that’s him.
Nurse 4 [Still Surprised]: Zack, the boy who lost complete hope in life, you aren’t lying right?
Man: Yeah, I talked to him about that. Where can I find a glass of water?
Nurse 4 [Running towards Dr. Engel and Hoch]: Zack regained hope!
Man [Calling to the nurse]: I still need a glass of water!
Lights Black Out, Curtain
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