Extremely Short Play #1: Thel

The characters in the play

1) Thel, a young, diaphanous shade of a girl—not even far enough along to be a virgin.
2) A highly articulate river.
3) A cheerful, philosophically shallow cloud.

As the play opens, we see Thel standing on the bank of a river. A mindless cloud floats overhead.

CLOUD:  Hi, Thel, still deciding whether or not to get real?

THEL:  I am not like thee, little Cloud, because I can smell the sweetest flowers but still feed not these selfsame flowers. 

CLOUD:  Well, I don’t feed them either.

THEL:  Yes you do, you rain upon them bright watery nourishment by which they flourish and multiply.

CLOUD (thinking about it):  Oh, yeh, right. But then I’m gone. Used up.

THEL (rather impatiently):  But then you reform and appear again as another shape! Don’t you remember?

CLOUD (happily):  Yes, of course! I’d forgotten that’s how it works. But you see, I only hold memory enough for one shape at a time. When I’ve become a new cloud, then I have to start over with a brand new memory!  The one I have now is only twenty-five minutes old!

THEL:  But if I become a mortal woman, I will probably start alright…

CLOUD:  Do it! You’ll be beautiful! You’ll be a beautiful baby! You’ll be a beautiful teenager!  You’ll be a beautiful woman!  You’ll be a beautiful…well…matron!

THEL (continuing):  …But then I will also come to an end. I will not ever acquire another shape and another and another, the way you do.

She moves closer to the river and dips her right foot in the icy water.

RIVER: That tickles.

THEL (jumping back):  It does?

RIVER (casually):  Oh yes. A little. It was sort of nice.

THEL  You never stand still.

RIVER:  No. Rivers flow.

THEL:  Through time?

RIVER:  You can’t step into the same me twice!

THEL:  But I want to remain exactly as I am—for always I want to be the same me for eternity!

RIVER:  Don’t you think that’s a little selfish?

THEL (adamant): No!

RIVER:  Come, Thel, have a little dip! See where it leads you.

THEL (terrified):  I know where it will lead me!

RIVER (calmly):  No, you don’t.

(Curtain)

GARY MICHAEL DAULT is a critic, writer, painter, teacher and blogger who has left the city to live in a small town on the Lake Ontario between Toronto and Montreal.

Collage by the author.