A dinner table: CARLA, DAD and SARAH seated around it.

CARLA to audience: One year, I came home from college on Christmas break, with my girlfriend Sarah. Dad made us a big dinner and it was real homey at first. But he broke out some pretty good wine, and it seemed like Sarah got a little tipsy, because she started asking some very annoying questions.

SARAH: How come you don’t have any Christmas decorations up?

DAD: We don’t actually celebrate Christmas. We’re atheists.

SARAH: Is that true, Carla, are you an atheist?

CARLA: I guess so.

SARAH: You guess so? That sounds more agnostic to me.

DAD: Well, she was raised atheist. She’s always free to change her mind.

SARAH: I mean, you could put up secular Christmas decorations, that wouldn’t break any atheist commandments, would it?

DAD: There aren’t any atheist commandments.

SARAH: I’m just teasing.

CARLA: Don’t tease my dad.

DAD: I can take a little teasing.

SARAH: Carla never talks about her mother. What happened to her?

CARLA: Sarah!

SARAH: What? I’m not teasing, I’m asking a legitimate question. You never talk about her.

CARLA: Because I don’t want to.

SARAH: Well I wasn’t asking you.

CARLA: Don’t be weird, Sarah.

DAD: Carla, it’s indeed a legitimate question. But if you don’t want Sarah to know, I’ll respect your wishes.

A look passes between Sarah and Carla - a silent argument that Sarah wins. Carla nods to her dad.

DAD: Carla’s mother became very religious when Carla was young.

CARLA: She joined a cult.

DAD: She became religious, Carla.

SARAH: Who do they worship?

CARLA: They worship a guy named Roger, because it’s a cult. Roger has a compound in Oregon somewhere. I get birthday cards from Mom and Roger every year. “You’re in our thoughts and our soul chambers,” which - what the fuck is a soul chamber, even?

SARAH: What’s so special about Roger?

DAD: I never met the man myself. As far as I can reconstruct events, they must have crossed paths for the first time in a mini mart while we were on a road trip to Wall Drug. I guess I was in the rest room at the time. Something he said to her must have just - captured her imagination. She rode off on the back of his Harley and I didn’t hear from her for a year after.

SARAH: You’re making that up.

DAD: The point is -

CARLA: The point is, Dad wouldn’t let Mom drag me off to Oregon to live on a compound with Roger, and Mom isn’t allowed off the compound to see us, so here we are, celebrating atheist Christmas without her. Satisfied?

SARAH: Sorry. I’m sorry for bringing it up. Pause. But no - I’m not satisfied. What does Roger’s cult actually believe in?

DAD: Well, it almost doesn’t matter what they believe in, because Roger’s such a charismatic leader. But he preaches a blend of modern Manichaeism and lunatic fringe UFO philosophy.

SARAH: “Lunatic fringe”?

DAD: That’s how I’d describe it, yes.

SARAH: So your ex-wife’s a lunatic?

DAD: We’re still married.

CARLA: Dad won’t sign the divorce paperwork. Doesn’t want Roger to wind up with half our stuff.

SARAH: Oh, yeah, half of all this, I mean…

DAD: Sarah, I get the feeling your pointed line of questioning isn’t coming out of thin air, would that be accurate to say?

SARAH: Yeah. Roger’s my dad, actually.

CARLA: Knock it off, Sarah.

SARAH: I’m not joking. Roger’s my dad. I grew up on that compound. Poor as dirt really, even though he keeps bringing home women that can work for him.

CARLA: What are you even talking about?

SARAH: Look, I’ll make this very simple. Sign the divorce paperwork and let him have half your stuff. Your wife isn’t living pretty right now and you could make things a lot easier for her, for all of us, if she had some real money to contribute.

Silence.

DAD: Sarah, if what you’re saying is true-

SARAH: It is.

DAD: -then answer me this. Did you get close to my daughter just so you could deliver that message to me in person?

SARAH: Maybe.

CARLA: Sarah!

SARAH: Everyone’s gotta earn their place on the mothership somehow. You don’t ascend to the next waveform without sacrifice.

DAD: We’re atheists. We won’t be ascending to the next “waveform” because it doesn’t exist. I’m going to tidy up in the kitchen for a few minutes and let you two chat. When I return, I’ll have dessert, and I’ll have no further discussion of this topic, am I clear?

He exits.

CARLA: Are you absolutely fucking shitting me? Let me guess, you’re the reason I keep losing credit cards.

SARAH: Maybe.

CARLA: You’re not staying for dessert. Get the fuck out of here.

Sarah gets up to leave. Carla grabs her by the arm.

CARLA: I want my key back.

Sarah hands Carla an apartment key, then she exits. A beat later, Dad returns with a bottle of dessert wine and two glasses - expecting Sarah to be gone by now. He pours as he speaks.

DAD: I know exactly where Roger’s compound is, if you ever want to go see your mother.

CARLA: Actually fuck her.

DAD: Carla - it’s easy - trivially easy - to hate someone whose beliefs you don’t understand. That’s the underlying engine of modern civilization really. Try compassion instead. I don’t know what “isn’t living pretty” means, but she’s living that way by choice.

CARLA: Maybe she is.

DAD: I have to believe that she is.

CARLA: You’re an atheist, you don’t have to believe anything. To audience: I never saw Sarah again - she dropped out of school and vanished. I did eventually go visit Mom, just to scratch an itch, but it was sad and anticlimactic. Dad never remarried and we kept having atheist Christmas every year until he got cancer and died. Sometimes I wish I did believe in something more, but usually that just sounds like a giant pain in the ass.

end