scotto.org
Stories Scripts Videos Music Non-Fiction Books Blog



The Short Play Brigade

Story Problem

GIRL: Hey, I got a story problem for you.
BOY: Okay.
GIRL: A train leaves a station in Seattle, carrying 32 passengers.
BOY: How fast?
GIRL: It's traveling 76 miles an hour.
BOY: Okay.
GIRL: At the same time, another train leaves Chicago.
BOY: How many passengers?
GIRL: No passengers.  Instead this train is carrying 3.8 tons of whale blubber.
BOY: Okay.
GIRL: As these trains leave their stations, a dirigible takes off from an air strip in southern Utah.  It's traveling 28 miles an hour in a northwesterly direction, and the pilot is trashed on Yukon Jack.
BOY: Ouch.
GIRL: Right.  Meanwhile, a bus full of innocent young school children is leaving a kindergarten in Butte, Montana.  The pilot of the dirigible is going to need to vomit very soon.  The whale blubber on the Chicago train is starting to rot.
BOY: This is a real situation here.
GIRL: No shit.  To make matters worse, at that exact moment, a stealth bomber is taking off from an Air Force base in southern California, carrying a payload of ten missiles, five boms, and eight tons of pure horse shit.
BOY: Oh no.
GIRL: Oh yes!  Meanwhile, the Hampton family in Portland, Oregon, is piling into their minivan and headed off for a long-awaited vacation to the Museum of Disgusting Human Diseases in Salt Lake City.  They're carrying pound after pound of quivering pink Spam in their coolers, which they occasionally nibble RAW along the way.
BOY: Egad!
GIRL: Shut up.  Now AT THAT EXACT MOMENT, the world's most pustule-ridden woman climbs on her bicycle in Derriere, South Dakota, and begins pedalling at 2.4 miles an hour, oozing bile, blood, and a trail of scabs behind her.
BOY: But what about--
GIRL: I haven't forgotten the whale blubber!  It's rotting, it's filled with maggots, the conductor of the train is gagging, and MEANWHILE the pilot of the dirigible has puked all over southern Utah.  It's a milky, creamy puke, mind you.  AT THAT EXACT MOMENT, a UFO lands in Coralville, Iowa, on a mission to harvest as many human penises as possible.  Now, JUST AS THEY SLICE OFF THE FIRST FARMER'S PENIS--
BOY: Wait a minute, wait a minute--
GIRL: JUST AS THEY SLICE OFF THE FIRST FARMER'S PENIS, some rengade Muslim terrorist sets off a homemade nuclear weapon that decimates all of London!  But before the Allies can launch a response, the entire fucking planet slides into a black hole, and every human being's life is instantly extinguished, without any memorial, without leaving any trace on the universe.  The universe goes on as though we had never existed.  Nobody notices our demise.  Nobody cares.  It's all over.  That's it.  The end.
(Long pause.)
BOY: So... what's the problem here?
GIRL: Ummm... I forget.
BOY: Ah.  I think the answer is 12.
GIRL: Yeah, I think you're right.



Copyright Scotto.org until 2087