​Playwright Rachael Carnes received a 2020 Oregon Literary Fellowship, a 2020 Oregon Arts Commission Career Opportunity Grant, a 2021 Lighthouse Writers Workshop Advanced Dramatic Writing Fellowship, and has had productions of her work across the U.S., U.K., the Middle East, Canada and Asia, with invitations to develop work at the Inge Theatre Festival, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Playwriting Intensive, the Midwestern Dramatists Center Conference, the Mid-America Theater Conference, the American Association for Theatre in Higher Education New Play Development Series, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop, the Great Plains Theatre Conference and the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival. Rachael is the founder of #CodeRedPlaywrights, an artistic collective dedicated to writing plays in response to gun violence. Her work is seen in many literary journals, and has been nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize. Rachael and her family live in Oregon. www.rachaelcarnes.com

Dark, Leafy Greens: A Play for Videoconference

CHARACTERS

ALEX and BAILEY
Two Middle Schoolers, eighth graders, 13 or 14 years old.

BAILEY’S MOM, woman, mom age.

SETTING

ALEX and BAILEY’s bedrooms – Where all of life exists, sleep, school, meals. It’s weird.

TIME

Now.

ALEX and BAILEY in a Zoom meeting, like everybody:

BAILEY
Do you computer fatigue?

ALEX
Me? No.

BAILEY
Well, I do. I get sad in my heart every time I join a new Zoom —

ALEX
It can’t be every single time.

BAILEY
I’m tired and mentally exhausted.

ALEX
Maybe you need some fresh air —

BAILEY
We’re all just insignificant rectangles.

ALEX
I love it. I can eat in class now and wear pajamas.

BAILEY
Well, I miss the lunchroom. At school I’d eat 99-cent cup noodle, but here —

BAILEY’S MOM bombs the meeting, holding a healthy salad.

BAILEY’S MOM
I made you a kale salad.

BAILEY
Mom! I don’t want a kale salad. How’d you get into this Zoom?

BAILEY’S MOM
Dark, leafy greens are important. Hi, Alex!

ALEX
Hey, Mrs. C.

BAILEY’S MOM
I appreciate that you still use prefixes.

ALEX
I’m all about the O.G. honorifics, ma’am.

BAILEY’S MOM
Not sure I’m a “ma’am” but —

BAILEY
Okay, mute. Stop video —

BAILEY’S MOM leaves the meeting, or rather, is expunged.

ALEX
Your mom is dope.

BAILEY
My mom needs to chill.

ALEX
Is your third eye open?.

BAILEY
What?

ALEX
Do you have a growing pressure between your eyebrows?

BAILEY
No. Just a headache from all this —

ALEX
Since quarantine started, I’ve been working on developing perception beyond ordinary sight.

BAILEY
I don’t think I —

ALEX
You just have to look for your pineal gland.

BAILEY
Ew!

ALEX
It’s shaped like a pine cone — It’s in your vertebrate brain. Right here.

BAILEY
All I have there is a raging zit.

ALEX
Your third eye comes online when exposed to light.

BAILEY
Where did you? —

ALEX
I’ve been doing a lot of research on the internet. Went way down a Reddit board.

BAILEY
That’s not necessarily —

ALEX
Shine your flashlight on your third eye, like me!

BAILEY
I’m not doing that.

ALEX
Come on! It’ll be fun!

BAILEY
That’s stupid.

ALEX
But it’ll kill three more minutes. You need novelty! A change of pace.

BAILEY
What I need is fewer dark, leafy greens.

ALEX
Don’t you want to activate your powers of mind control?

BAILEY
I’m finding it hard to brush my teeth these days —

ALEX
Your third eye can help you regulate! It can allow you to adapt to this changing world!

BAILEY
I’m fine.

ALEX
Friend, I see you.

BAILEY
What? I showered today.

ALEX
You lack resilience.

BAILEY
I got up for class?

ALEX
And then —

BAILEY
And then I logged into the Zoom School and put myself on mute and watched KPop videos.

ALEX
Well, I’ve been developing telepathy.

BAILEY
Maybe you should see a doctor for that.

ALEX
Telepathy is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person to another without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction.

BAILEY
You can’t do that.

ALEX
I knew you say that!

BAILEY
That’s not telepathy — That’s like, seeing the future.

ALEX
I’m working on that too!

BAILEY
And what do you see?

ALEX
Empty space! A calendar, void of activities and extracurriculars!

BAILEY
No vacation, no parties?

ALEX
Isn’t it glorious? As an introvert, I’ve never felt more alive!

BAILEY
Before, I took my daily schedule for granted, thinking school is monotonous.

ALEX
Get a spoon!

BAILEY
Why do I need a spoon?

ALEX
You must have one in your cup and bowl collection.

BAILEY
My mom’s been complaining about that — Okay. Here’s a spoon.

ALEX
Great! Hold it up where I can see it.

BAILEY
What are you doing?

ALEX
Can’t. Talk.

BAILEY
Are you okay?

ALEX
Brain. Bending. Spoon.

BAILEY
You’re turning purple?

ALEX
Did I do it?

BAILEY
Spoon’s still the same.

ALEX
Darn it. Oh well. I’ll just work on levitation.

BAILEY
I’m happy for you that you have all this, but without school, I can’t keep my mind active.

ALEX
If I’d had the power of precognition, I would’ve seen this whole thing coming —

BAILEY
At home, it's always the same sequence of events — I can’t take it anymore!

ALEX
You know what really brightens up my day?

BAILEY
What?

ALEX
Ghosts.

BAILEY
Ghosts.

ALEX
I channel them now: I can’t help it! Hey, Gary. Hi, Blanche.

BAILEY
We’ve been here for months now —

ALEX
I’m actually not sure how my knowing all this was coming could’ve helped us. I’m just a kid?

BAILEY
The thought of having this for the rest of the school year really gets to my head.

ALEX
I’m gonna try remote viewing — Seeing the future. Wait: Gotta rub my pinecone.

BAILEY
Don’t do that in the Zoom!

ALEX
No — Just wait: I see Science! I see significant advancements in disease prevention.

BAILEY
I can't enjoy life and the outside. I haven’t been out in months.

ALEX
I see people in masks, cooperating, working together, harmoniously.

BAILEY
What — In New Zealand? Have you seen the news? We’ll be here forever!

ALEX
I see a vaccine!

BAILEY
This is our last year of middle school and —

ALEX
Let me try some Energy Healing on you. Hold still —

BAILEY
No! Stop it.

ALEX
Sorry?

BAILEY
It’s not fair: This time is meant to be an important milestone of my education, where I’ m turning into an adult, entering high school. Who would've thought that the way we enter the life of a young adult is by staying home all day doing basically nothing.

ALEX
I’m not doing nothing. I meditate. I have an app and I’m learning Spanish and —

BAILEY
This is so easy for you. I guess I just suck.

ALEX
It’s not easy for me. It’s just different.

BAILEY
I hate it.

ALEX
Well, I hate school

BAILEY
You do?

ALEX
It starts when I’m small — The punching, the shoving.

BAILEY
Maybe once or twice —

ALEX
Then the rumors, third grade. The teasing?

BAILEY
I didn’t know —

ALEX
All the kids heading for pizza after soccer practice and I’m still on the field?

BAILEY
But you’re such a cool person.

ALEX
Sixth grade: I start getting mean texts?

BAILEY
Did you tell anyone? You just have to feel confident in yourself.

ALEX
That’s what I was trying to do when —

BAILEY
Don’t give ‘em the satisfaction. Bullies get relief from feeling helpless by overpowering others.

ALEX
I’m not —

BAILEY
They have poor self-esteem and will try to manipulate through gossip and being mean.

ALEX
I got out of those group chats —

BAILEY
Detached bullies plan their attacks — and are likeable to everyone but their victims.

ALEX
Yeah, I thought that I could —

BAILEY
Kale salad.

ALEX
What?

BAILEY
Every night, my mom says it: Dark Leafy Greens.

ALEX
Okay.

BAILEY
Every night she makes dinner with some kind of vegetable.

ALEX
Where is this going?

BAILEY
Moms and their vegetables. Is that like a thing that they sign when they graduate Mom School?

ALEX
This is supposed to be great! School in our PJ’s! Sleep ‘til noon!

BAILEY
When they said we’d do virtual school, my mom cried. I mean, I’ve got brothers and —

ALEX
It was better, at first? ‘Cuz no more —

BAILEY
But it’s our last year! We should be taking a victory lap!

ALEX
You don’t have it like me. I can’t walk down those halls without —

BAILEY
Now we’re here.

ALEX
And I’m loving it. What a relief! I watch the teacher’s videos, I get the assignments — I study.

BAILEY
It’s so boring!

ALEX
Not for me. For me, it’s a relief. Until —

BAILEY
What?

ALEX
Until a griefer cracks into my online game and —

BAILEY
That’s a major offense. Did you tell the principal?

ALEX
Oh, sure, I’m gonna schedule a Zoom meeting with the principal and tell her, ‘Oh, hey, online thugs are kill-stealing my targets, and camping at corpses so they can shoot ‘em when they respawn and vandalizing my virtual creations.’

BAILEY
They’re playing in bad faith!

ALEX
I’ll tell the principal about them blocking me in rooms with a monster I can’t kill, so they can see me die, all the while spamming me with chat so vile —

BAILEY
They’re deliberately irritating and harassing you.

ALEX
I know that. And now my perfect lockdown existence is just as bad as school.

BAILEY
I miss people.

ALEX
People suck. Just — See what happens?

BAILEY
Kale salad! Dark, leafy greens. Good cheer! Routine.

ALEX
I don’t have any of that.

BAILEY
Well, you’ve got me.

ALEX
Lemme try that spoon again.

ALEX summons the powers of spoon-bending.

BAILEY holds up a bent spoon.

BAILEY
You did it.

ALEX
See you tomorrow?

BAILEY
I’ll be here.

They both leave the meeting.

End of Play.