Mr. Burns and Other Plays. Anne Washburn

I think better with fresh air on my face.

      EMILY: I think it’s a risk.

      THE NON-PROPHET: My fingers are more nimble when accompanied by birdsong. We’re six floors up.

      EMILY: Neighbors.

      THE NON-PROPHET: Do you overhear your neighbors?

      HANANIAH: I’ve never heard anything from next door.

      EMILY: Which might only mean that they’re quiet.

      THE NON-PROPHET: Today is the most spectacular day of the year, thus far. I hate to be sectioned off from it by a thick pane of glass.

       Bit of a pause.

      EMILY: February.

      THE NON-PROPHET: What?

      EMILY: There was a day in February. It was the most beautiful day of the year. Thus far.

      THE NON-PROPHET: You’re joking. Nothing worthwhile happens in February. It’s a completely negligible month.

      EMILY: The day after that second snowstorm.

      THE NON-PROPHET (Dubious): Hmmm.

      PT: March. March is useless. End to end. I’m going to make us some joe.

       He heads toward the kitchen.

      EMILY (Clinically): A lot of white. A gray hush. And then around four the sky opened up and light poured out.

      THE NON-PROPHET: It sounds like more of an effect, than a day.

      EMILY: It was a perfect cold: it was dry, it was crisp, it was glittering. There were crows.

      THE NON-PROPHET: Crows are an effect.

      EMILY: It is pretty today.

      THE NON-PROPHET: It’s gorgeous.

       Ruthie emerges from the bedroom with a duffel bag.

      HANANIAH: That can’t be all you’re taking. We’ve been here for five years.

       He plunges into the bedroom.

       There is a silence, while The Non-Prophet continues to work.

      EMILY: How’s the weight?

      JEREMIAH: It’s fine; it’s sweaty. It won’t be for long.

       A longish beat.

      EMILY: No. Maybe . . .

       Bit of a pause while she works it out.

       Forty-five, fifty minutes.

       Another silence.

       Hananiah returns from the bedroom.

      HANANIAH: This is crazy. You’re leaving behind your blue T-shirt: you love that T-shirt. You’re leaving behind books that you have underlined.

       You’re leaving your red sweater. Where do you think you’re going? Do you think you won’t ever be cold again?

       Did you take any underwear?

      RUTHIE: I brought one pair.

      HANANIAH: One pair. That’s crazy.

      RUTHIE: I’m going to wash it every night, before I go to bed, wherever I go to bed, and in the morning, I’m going to put it on again.

      EMILY: Let’s say sixty-five. There’ll be traffic.

      JEREMIAH: I’m going to need words.

      EMILY: What, that you speak? As long as you prophesy victory it doesn’t matter what you say.

      JEREMIAH: I’m perfectly happy to lie but I’ve never done it before.

      EMILY: You appear in the city center—it’s a huge commotion; everyone thinks you’re in prison, you say that . . . it’s a new day, you know, all of that, you have extremely glad tidings—they bring you straight to the king.

      THE NON-PROPHET: The key to all of this is the declaiming. If you’re declaiming when you hit the security checkpoint, if you’re gesticulating, they won’t think to stop you.

      EMILY: They’re not going to pat you down. You kneel right at his feet. No one else can get that close.

      JEREMIAH: I won’t be able to think of words. I know this is ridiculous: I don’t know anything about public speaking.

      EMILY (Fumbling): “I bring you, Citizens, I bring you words of prophecy, and peace.” I bring you . . .

       Behold and Lo . . . the Lord hath spake unto me . . . concerning the triumph that I fortell . . .

       Yea verily, Glory, and Lo . . .

       Hananiah unfurls in prophecy:

      THE PROPHECY OF HANANIAH: A strong man stirs in a hot room; the dark; the slow whir of the fan; ice cubes settle in a glass. He steps forward into blackness but his fingers are ablaze with light. On the rooftop a figure in shadows; at dawn, the wide horizon of the sky. An unsettled shuffling, and a stomping of feet. Over the rooftops a call, and a shout in the street; we awaken on fire, in the early morning, and dress ourselves quickly, and descend to the street still barefoot. The sun is rising, enormous and gold, our throats fill with singing and with longing and we move in unison and the prayers of the people will be answered: the arrowheads of the enemy will crumple when they hit our shields, the foreheads of our men, as though they were paper! Their spears will shiver, midair, into nothingness! Their bullets will arrive in our ranks as lumps of faltering dough. Their missiles will falter and land harmlessly miles from their intended target, or implode at launch. The fingers of God will brush through the air, like a turbulent wind from the mountain; those He favors will be exhilarated, and gain the strength of ten men, those He disdains will crumple, short shallow and rapid of breath, their pupils will dilate, their limbs tremble. They will be astonished! They will be an astonishment! These are metaphors! These are figures of speech! They have meaning! Accuracy! Weight!

       He drops, almost stumbles from the prophetic pose and is Hananiah again but with traces of magnificence and the prophetic cadence still in his voice.

       I’m telling you, I would laugh if this weren’t so horrible; you can’t succeed, you’re not going to succeed, your success is not something which is going to happen; I know that, how do I know it? Because I have said it; your lunatic will probably detonate by mistake in an alley and you’re going to live the rest of your life out of a van, with one pair of underwear, running from the police and waiting for an apocalypse which is never going to take place when instead you could be here, with me, you could be safe and warm and dry with my fingers in your hair and my lips on your forehead. It’s amazing, to me, that you don’t believe in me, it’s terrifying, it’s unreal. You don’t believe me?

       She moves toward him.

       Stop.

      RUTHIE: I can’t.

       He strides over to Jeremiah.

      HANANIAH: And the Lord says. About the false prophets.

      JEREMIAH (Gently): He deplores them. And they die.

      HANANIAH: Right.

       He grabs the vest, pulls at the detonator, and crosses the wires.

       There is a tableau: Jeremiah, Hananiah.

      PT: There was a very long period of time,

      ALL: We were overcome with wonder

       Ruthie is speaking as a citizen. As she speaks she gestures toward the tableau, and frames it in the manner of a gesticulator in a medieval painting.

      RUTHIE: This is Smith Street and it used to be really really ghetto, but now there’s lots of things everywhere.

      PT (Continuing): microsecond after microsecond,

      ALL: