Scene 6: I Could Disappear

Setting: A classroom.
Scene 6
The whiteboard/chalkboard/white sheet/ is still there, and it gets flipped to a fresh page. Shawn thinks about writing on the new page, pauses, and then takes the whole thing offstage.

Shawn:
I'm the distracter.

I think that word was invented just for me. I'm sure Oxford will add it some day.

The best thing I can do is take myself out of the equation. I think she would be able to think clear if I wasn't around. I mean, how is she supposed to really deal with things if there's someone around always trying to make her laugh, tell her stories, and trying to manipulate her into thinking about just about anything else?

However...

Without me, what if she gets lost in her thoughts? I mean, being depressed can be a slippery slope, right? And if nobody's trying to throw you a rope, you just slide further and further down. And who could blame her for that? I mean, this isn't the greatest time in her life... Her kids are growing up and leaving. That's a big change, and maybe she isn't ready for it yet.

She definitely isn't ready for it yet. So here we are.

The lights snap to a disconcerting bright green shade.

You'd think it would be the most important detail in a hospital where people are supposed to be getting well that it would be in a comforting environment. You know, something that almost looks like home... But this place doesn't look like home. It looks like a place where Billy, Charlie, Martini, Dale, Max, Jim, the Chief and Mac might listen to "Charmaine" all day.

Do they really have to surround her with sick people constantly?

I know she really needs me right now. It's just a really hard place to visit. I'm probably wrong about what it's like here anyway... It's the green though. The green walls, "hospital green" I think they call it. And it's also the conversations with strangers. You'd think that since I can talk to a bunch of strangers at once I'd have no trouble speaking with just one. But, you know, these folks can be a little unpredictable.

You never really know what they'll say to you or try to do.

The truth is, I don't think I'll be able to visit that often. But she won't be here forever.

"I'll see you real soon" was the last thing I ever said to her.