demoivre

I'm feeling dramatic....


Bukenvald is standing before a window, staring out.

Enter Carlos.

Carlos: The cat's dead. Did you hear me? That cat is dead!

Bukenvald: I'm sorry, what?

Carlos (aggravated): I said the cat is dead.

Bukenvald: What? Are you sure? How do you know? Did you look?

Carlos: Of course I looked. How else would I know?

Bukenvald: Well, that's what this whole thing's about, now isn't it?

Carlos: Oh, don't be coy with me.

Bukenvald (crosses to a dry-erase board with mathematical equations wrtitten on it): Fine. Now what?

Carlos: What do you mean? There's nothing left for us to do? It's been proved.

Bukenvald: What has? That cat's die when you leave them in a box with the lid closed for too long? There's a Nobel Prize right there!

Carlos: You don't get it do you? We have a dead cat. A dead cat! It's not alive, running around, scratching the sofa! It's dead!

Bukenvald (begins erasing the board): We seem to have covered that. But what does it prove?

Carlos(crosses to take the eraser from Bukenvald, tosses it aside): How can you ask that? After all this time! Countless hours and money! I haven't spoken to my wife in two months. My kids think I've run off with my secretary who, in point of fact, left for a better paying job! The cat is dead. That's it. The end. And the answer we've been looking for is right there! Why can't you see it? (Exits)

Bukenvald (crosses back to stare out the window): I can see it, Carlos. It's right out there and we're in here. Sitting. Waiting. Going mad. Waiting for a stupid cat to live or die and tell us what we already know. There's now answer here, Carlos. Nothing. God doesn't exist to be proved by a cat in a box. Not even a dead cat. (Returns to the dry-erase board, begins writing new equations.) No, we're in the box with that cat, and the cat just died. Now we just wait to see if God opens the lid or not. That's the experiment. (Exeunt.)