Shayne Kennedy is a Chicago area playwright. Her play, Agreed Upon Fictions, premiered at 16th Street Theater in the fall of 2014 and enjoyed an extended, Jeff-recommended run. Her short play, Blood Harmony, premiered at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska in 2015 and was nominated for a TAG Award for Best New Work. Handled also premiered at Creighton in the fall of 2018, and went on to be produced at The Wildwood Theatre in Minneapolis in April of 2019. Her play Mrs. Whitman’s Words for Women won the Inkslinger Contest and was produced at Southeastern Louisiana University in April of 2022. It had its second production in February of 2024 at Creighton University. In November of 2022, her most recent play, The Patriarch, was part of AboutFACE Theatre Company’s NEWvember festival in Dublin, Ireland. Shayne works in accessibility services for blind and low-vision people and is the mother of three, the wife of one, a knitter and quilter. She also maintains a popular TikTok account, @shaynegoestohighschool, wherein she reads her high school diary entries, thirty-five years to the day they were written.

Violation Cygnus

ALTHEA
(in her office, on the phone) No, go ahead. I thought I had to go but she isn’t here yet. Leddie. We think dad and Ty are doing something like, shady. I don’t know. Like offshore something. Not like murder, just something that could fuck us down the road. Yeah, my dad did definitely announce his retirement. Key word: announced. He hasn’t actually let Leddie take control. She’s just in this sort of warped middle ground. I mean, he told her to replace herself as VP and she did. She found someone really good, but dad’s just not getting out of the goddam—[holy shit]—

LEDDIE has entered. Her dress is torn, her face and arms scratched and bloody. Her hair is a nest. She is dazed.

I gotta go. (she hangs up) Leddie?

LEDDIE shakes her head no. ALTHEA guides her to a seat.

Whoa, hold on.

ALTHEA grabs a towel from somewhere and sets it down. LEDDIE sits on it.

Sorry. It’s just. It’s a new chair. Sorry. Can you talk?

LEDDIE nods.

You’re really banged up. You can hear me okay?

LEDDIE nods.

Where were you?

LEDDIE
Walking through Armstrong Park. To come here. To meet with you. About dad.

ALTHEA
Right. You’re here. You made it. You’re . . . safe.

LETTIE nods.

Can you tell me what happened?

LEDDIE
I was. Attacked. Attacked.

ALTHEA
Holy shit, Led. Did they take anything? Your phone? Your--?

LEDDIE
No.

ALTHEA
What no?

LEDDIE
I wasn’t robbed. I was attacked, no.

ALTHEA
You weren’t attacked? Leddie? Help me out here. Should I call--?

LEDDIE
I was raped, Althea.

ALTHEA
Oh, no, Led.

LEDDIE
I got raped, in the park.

ALTHEA
Oh God, it’s the middle [of the day].

LEDDIE
By a swan.

ALTHEA
Sorry, what?

LEDDIE
I got raped by a swan in Armstrong Park..

ALTHEA
Figuratively. Like a swan came at you and pecked at you and like, super fucked you up?

LEDDIE
No, Al. A swan didn’t fuck me up. It just fucked me. Period.

ALTHEA
Do swans have dicks?

LEDDIE
This one did.

ALTHEA
Birds suck. .

LEDDIE
Yeah.

ALTHEA
Should I call the cops?

LEDDIE
Who would they arrest?

ALTHEA
Does someone own those swans? Like if someone’s dog attacked you—

LEDDIE
Raped me.

ALTHEA
If someone’s dog raped you (she gets the giggles)

LEDDIE
This is funny to you? .

ALTHEA
I’m just thinking. Sorry. I was just thinking it would, by definition, be doggie style.

LEDDIE
Right. (ALTHEA giggles again) What?

ALTHEA
Remember Dickens? The terrier next door to mom’s when we were kids? I was just thinking how it would be to be raped by Dickens.

LEDDIE
This was more like if a Great Dane raped you. Imagine that, except . . . with wings.

They both get the giggles.

ALTHEA
It isn’t funny. It isn’t.

LEDDIE
I know but I don’t know what to do.

ALTHEA
Is a swan a bird?

LEDDIE
Of course. Everything with feathers is a bird.

ALTHEA
Right. What’s the difference between a bird and a water fowl?

LEDDIE
I don’t think that’s important right now. Trying to categorize the thing that raped—OhGodIthinkitwasZeus.

ALTHEA
What now?

LEDDIE
I think the swan might have been Zeus, disguised as a swan.

ALTHEA
Seriously? Why?

LEDDIE
He has been known.

ALTHEA
He has indeed.

LEDDIE
That chickenshit motherfucker turned himself into a rock so he wouldn’t get washed away by the river god.

ALTHEA
You’re right. And poor Gina.

LEDDIE
Poor Gina. Who wants to be turned into an island?

ALTHEA
She’s just stuck there now, in the sea. People walking all over her, animals shitting on her, the dead, buried inside her.

LEDDIE
Could he not have turned her back? I mean, he didn’t stay a rock.

ALTHEA
He liked her as an island.

LEDDIE
And don’t forget Danni.

ALTHEA
At least she got to stay human.

LEDDIE
He fell down on her in the form of a golden shower.

ALTHEA
(laughing) He’s so gross! Why are powerful old men so gross?!?!

LEDDIE
And now it’s me. And a swan.

ALTHEA
That fucker.

LEDDIE
Yeah.

ALTHEA
(typing on her phone, looking) Swans can be super aggressive, especially to non-swans.

LEDDIE
This wasn’t aggression. It didn’t chase me away. It fucking mounted me and held me down and had sex with me against my goddam will.

ALTHEA
Right. Tough to picture.

LEDDIE
And yet.

ALTHEA
And yet. (a pause) Do you want to call Ty?

LEDDIE
For what?

ALTHEA
When was the last time you guys fucked?

LEDDIE
Rude.

ALTHEA
Any chance you’re fertile right now?

LEDDIE
Can inter-species pregnancy happen?

ALTHEA
Well, if it was Zeus disguised, was it technically inter-species?

LEDDIE
If I’m pregnant, am I gonna lay a goddam egg?

ALTHEA
Bwak-bwak-buckaw!

LEDDIE
This is super confusing.

ALTHEA
I know. But if you’re ovulating . . .

LEDDIE
(looks at her phone) I am.

ALTHEA
Fuuuuuuuuuck.

LEDDIE
Should I take a Plan B?

ALTHEA
Haven’t you been trying? You and Ty?

LEDDIE
I don’t want to be the mother to a bird.

ALTHEA
That won’t happen. Will it?

LEDDIE
No. Maybe?

ALTHEA
Why would Zeus--?

LEDDIE
Don’t. Don’t say he wouldn’t.

ALTHEA
I wasn’t—

LEDDIE
You saw at the Christmas party. He’s a lecherous, leering--. Why did he come to the fucking Christmas party? He doesn’t work here.

ALTHEA
He’s in cahoots—

LEDDIE
You may not use the word cahoots to describe the entity that just raped me.

ALTHEA
Bird-raped you.

LEDDIE
Is that better somehow? If I turned into a kangaroo and beat the shit out of you would you say I marsupial-assaulted you? Is that better than me as a human knocking you around?

ALTHEA
What I mean is—

LEDDIE
Being “bird-raped” was worse. Worse than being raped by a human man. There were bugs crawling in his wings and he smelled as was pushing me down into goose poop and feathers, which, as it turns out, are not all that soft, and he had a beak and beady eyes and—

ALTHEA
I’m sorry. Could you have rabies?

LEDDIE
Oh shit.

ALTHEA
(phone, googling) Yeah, you could. If Swan Zeus had rabies, you could have rabies.

LEDDIE
Motherfucker!

ALTHEA
I mean, he’s a god. He probably doesn’t have rabies. Unless he possessed a regular swan. If he BECAME a swan, I doubt he had any diseases. (googling)

LEDDIE
He had bugs, Thea. Bugs crawling in his feathers.

ALTHEA nonchalantly moves over to LEDDIE and begins inspecting her head with a pencil.

What are you doing?

ALTHEA
Comforting you.

LEDDIE
You are not.

ALTHEA
I’m checking you for lice. Most swans have fleas or lice.

LEDDIE
Jesus Christ.

ALTHEA
Yeah. You look good though. But if you start itching . . .

LEDDIE
Shouldn’t that be the least of my concerns?

ALTHEA
Yes. Yes. Back to the big one.

LEDDIE
What do I do?

ALTHEA
Literally nothing.

LEDDIE
How? How can I do nothing?

ALTHEA
You want a baby. And nobody’s going to arrest or prosecute Johnny Thunderbolt. So, go home. Take a shower and call your therapist. Fuck your husband today or tomorrow, so if there’s a baby, he thinks it’s his. Wait a few weeks and take a test.

LEDDIE
If I am pregnant, and it’s his, he’s going to want it.

ALTHEA
We’ll cross that bridge.

END PLAY