Author: Druuna Solis
Scene: A foggy doorstep in London.
Characters: CONSTABLE BENTLEY (clutching a clipboard) and MRS. HIGGINS (in a floral dressing gown).
BENTLEY: Good evening to you, madam. I do apologise for this nocturnal intrusion into your domestic contemplation, but I am acting in my official capacity as an executive agent of the local constabulary’s Department for… shall we say… Unforeseen Kinetic Discrepancies in the Public Sphere.
MRS. HIGGINS: Oh, hello Officer. Is this about the wheelie bins again?
BENTLEY: (shaking his head gravely) Far from it, madam. It concerns a rather fundamental re-classification of a specific entity that is—or rather, was, in the strictly preterite sense—legally and biologically affiliated with your good self.
MRS. HIGGINS: I don’t follow. Is it about my George? Has he had a bit of a scrape with the Morris Minor?
BENTLEY: A “scrape,” madam? That is a remarkably optimistic, almost buoyant terminology! Let us suggest instead that the kinetic energy of a forty-ton Leyland freighter has entered into a most intimate, indeed almost molecular, correlation with the physiological integrity of your spouse. George has, quite unexpectedly, decided to exchange the tarmac of existence for the crash barrier of infinity.
MRS. HIGGINS: (breathless) Is he hurt? Is he in the infirmary?
BENTLEY: “Hurt” implies a certain potential for future cellular regeneration, does it not? George, however, has achieved a state wherein his biological circuitry has signed a collective and irrevocable strike notice. He has, in effect, cancelled his subscription to the atmospheric oxygen supply with immediate effect and without the customary notice period.
MRS. HIGGINS: What on earth are you talking about? Where is he?
BENTLEY: He is… spatially speaking… everywhere and nowhere. He has tossed the biological lease for his mortal coil back at the Landlord of the Universe. He is now a distinguished graduate of the School of Absolute Silence; a life member of the Club of Permanent Horizontal Parkers! He is currently observing the local flora primarily from the vantage point of its subterranean root structure—the “radish perspective,” if you will.
MRS. HIGGINS: (starting to tremble) Are you saying… he won’t be home for tea?
BENTLEY: “Coming home” would necessitate a level of motor-neuronal initiative of which his central nervous system is—following its rather merging encounter with several tons of British steel—no longer capable. His pulse, that rhythmic drummer of life, has thrown away his sticks and opted for premature retirement. He is now as vital as a slab of Norwegian granite on a rainy Tuesday afternoon! In short, madam: he has exited the terrestrial pitch and sought out the changing rooms of eternity for a permanent… shall we say… wardrobe change.
MRS. HIGGINS: (sobbing) George is… dead?
BENTLEY: Ah! There it is again, that monosyllabic radicalism! I much prefer: He has crossed the frontier into the Great Beyond without a valid return ticket and is now an Ex-Person; a biological zero in the great ledger of Creation!
(Mrs. Higgins faints with a thud.)
BENTLEY: (scribbling on his clipboard) Subject exhibits a spontaneous decompression reaction… commencing Protocol for Uncontrolled Deceleration into the Horizontal…
Who are these characters?