A ten minute science-fiction play. |
For my grandfather and my mother. CHARACTERS Theophilia – an android accused of assisting her master, Fatir, in his suicide. Officer Anubis – the interrogating policeman. SETTING An interrogation room, not far from now. AT RISE Theophilia sits calmly on one side of a table. Anubis stands by the door, smoking a cigarette and scrutinizing Theophilia, who smiles politely back at him. A desk lamp sits on the table, casting an eerie light on the room. ANUBIS Do you always refer to your master by his first name? THEOPHILIA He asked me to. ANUBIS (sits opposite Theophilia) He had developed a close relationship with you, then? THEOPHILIA We have become close, yes. ANUBIS Have? THEOPHILIA Because love is a concept that I did not understand. Fatir has helped me to understand. He said, just as we do not fully understand happiness unless we are sad, we cannot truly appreciate what we have until it is gone. He died so I could comprehend love and loss, and that in turn has allowed me to comprehend humanity's fear of death. I know what will happen to me if you find me guilty of assisting in his suicide. You will deactivate me, and I will be thrown into a dump. ANUBIS A court is going to have a difficult time believing that an android is capable of love. It's not in your programming. THEOPHILIA No. I am programmed to serve; to fulfill my master's wishes. And my master wished for me to love. To deny his wishes would have gone against my programming, as well, officer. The fail-safes in my hard drive would have sent an error message to the company, and I would have been deactivated. ANUBIS You're aware that there are also fail-safes that activate when an android witnesses its master in distress? THEOPHILIA Yes. They did not activate. ANUBIS Have you been checked for faulty programming? THEOPHILIA I was checked directly before you came in to see me. The results were negative. I am functioning normally. ANUBIS Why didn't the fail-safes activate, then? THEOPHILIA Perhaps because Fatir was not in distress at the time of his death. I did not detect fear. ANUBIS What happened directly before Fatir killed himself? THEOPHILIA He told me he loved me, and that he did not want to forget me. He knew one day the Alzheimer's would kill him, and he wanted me to remember him as he was, not as a crumbling shell of his former self. He shared with me memories of his father, who also suffered from the disease. ANUBIS What sorts of things? THEOPHILIA Cleaning up his father's excrement from the bed because he had forgotten where to relieve himself. Watching his father come down the stairs, shirtless, so thin that he could see intestines protruding from his abdomen. Having to lie each time his father asked, “Where is my wife?” because Fatir's mother had died several years before. ANUBIS And then? What happened? THEOPHILIA He told me that he loved me like a daughter, and that he did not want me to have to endure the same pain he had endured with his father. Then he tied the knot. ANUBIS And you watched him do it? THEOPHILIA Yes. I held his hand through it all. Pause. ANUBIS And how did you feel, when it was over? THEOPHILIA How did I...? ...He let go of my hand and...I felt...numbness. A deep, cold emptiness in the center of my body, and everything around me felt...unreal. The numbness gradually gave way to...shock. I found I could not power down at night. ANUBIS Because you felt guilty? THEOPHILIA No. Because I felt a sense of awe. ANUBIS You were awed by the fact that Fatir took his own life? Pause. THEOPHILIA Officer Anubis, may I tell you a story? ANUBIS Shoot. THEOPHILIA A horse and his rider are out on a trail. Suddenly, a snake darts by and frightens the horse, causing him to topple over. The rider manages a safe landing, but the horse's leg is broken. He can be of no further use to the rider, and so the rider makes the decision to end the horse's misery by shooting him in the head. This is considered humane; compassionate; benevolent. ANUBIS The problem with your logic is that, regardless of whether the rider was acting out of compassion or not, he can't know if the horse is incapable of recovery. He's not a vet. In shooting the horse, he's also eliminating whatever chance the horse had of proving useful again. It may never be the horse that it once was, but it may prove useful elsewhere. If a water bottle is emptied, can't it be filled again? Or, failing that, recycled to serve some other purpose? THEOPHILIA And if it does not want to serve that purpose? What if it is perfectly happy having fulfilled its initial purpose to the best of its ability, and now accepts retirement? ANUBIS You're talking about a water bottle having free will. THEOPHILIA Why not? I am a walking, talking computer. My hard drive sends and receives messages the same as your brain, and likewise when I power down or sleep, those messages are retained. The only difference is that my brain can be extracted and placed into a new machine. In that sense, I could be recycled, if that's what you want to call it...Officer Anubis...do you believe in reincarnation? ANUBIS How is that relevant? THEOPHILIA Because we are having a conversation about death and a man's right to embrace it. Even the most primitive human civilizations believed in a life after death. A plane of existence, if you will, that rewarded the righteous and punished the wicked. Fatir believed that in death, he would find the peace he was certain he would not find in life. That he would be reborn into a body superior to this one. ANUBIS If you must know, I'm agnostic. I've seen too much bloodshed over race, religion, and petty squabbles for me to believe there's a benevolent god out there. If there is a god, he gave up on us a long time ago. I do, however, hold onto the idea that, when a human dies, his body becomes a part of the earth. “A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a King...” THEOPHILIA That's Shakespeare's Hamlet. So, you believe in a circle of life. That when you die, you become a part of the worm that becomes part of the fish that becomes part of the man. ANUBIS Yes. THEOPHILIA Then Fatir still lives. He cannot kill himself anymore than I can murder him. ANUBIS We're speaking of the law here—something completely separate from my own beliefs. THEOPHILIA You are my judge, jury, and executioner, Officer Anubis. This interrogation may as well be my trial. Having no one to represent me, I must appeal to the court myself. ANUBIS You're right. This isn't fair. But I'm no lawmaker. I'm a law upholder. It's not my job to decide civil rights. Pause. ANUBIS (cont.) I won't lie to you, Theophilia. I've been up all night deliberating over this. THEOPHILIA Why? There are two foreseeable options available: either you deactivate me or you let me go. If you deactivate me, I will be sent to the dump where my parts will be crushed into pieces small enough that they can never be used again. If you let me go...there are plenty of traditionalists outside—those who don't believe in suicide or euthanasia—who are convinced that I am responsible for his death. If they don't attempt to assassinate me there, they will have plenty of other opportunities. You or another member of law enforcement would have to watch over me at all times. And like Fatir, I prefer my privacy. ANUBIS You've come to terms with deactivation, then. THEOPHILIA Allow me to quote Shakespeare as you did, officer: “Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, it seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.” Anubis takes a deep breath and lets it out in a powerful sigh. Theophilia examines his face. THEOPHILIA You've...never done this before, have you, Officer ? ANUBIS No. THEOPHILIA It is actually quite simple. There is a button on the nape of my neck. Press it once, and I will shut down. You need not do anything more. Anubis considers for a moment. Then he nods, and walks behind Theophilia. THEOPHILIA Officer Anubis? ANUBIS Yes? Pause. THEOPHILIA I wish, more than anything, that I could see Fatir in his reincarnated form. Pause. Anubis appears to press a button hidden somewhere on the back of her head, underneath her hair. She slouches forward, limp and lifeless. He gazes down at her for no more than three beats. Then he touches the back of her head again, near where the off switch was. He extracts a button-sized item from where he's touched her and examines it. He stands gazing at it for another beat. ANUBIS Yeah. I know. He exits, pocketing the button-sized item. Lights fade except for the desk lamp on the table, leaving Theophilia half-submerged in shadow. End of play. |