Bagged Lunch.

Cast:

Banana: World weary and well traveled Chilean fruit.
Sandwich: An egg salad French roll sandwich thrust into a cruel world.
Soda: A packaged beverage made of simple sugars.

Setting:

The interior of a brown paper bag.


At the top of the show we see an empty brown bag. The lights go down, and when they return, there is half a sheet of sheet rock in the bag. The lights go out again, and when they rise, there is a soda in the bag. Once again the lights go out, and when they rise, there is a banana. The banana looks at the soda with contempt and spits. The lights go out again, and when they rise the banana is buffered on his other side by an egg salad sandwich.

Banana. That, sir, is a cold sauce to swallow.

Sandwich. I beg your pardon?

Banana. Nothing.

Sandwich. Sorry?

Banana. Of all the ways to leave this world. Buffered on both sides by SODA and egg salad.

Sandwich. I don’t understand what’s going on.

Soda. We’re a bagged lunch. I’m soda.

Banana. I am a banana. And you, sir, are an egg salad sandwich. We’ve been anthropomorphized.
Sandwich. We’ve been what?

Banana. Anthropomorphized. We’ve been given sentience and the ability to emulate our human captors in thought and action.

Sandwich. I have knowledge, but not that knowledge.

Banana. I have lived long, young sandwich. My home is in Chile. There I grew from a large banana tree. I was a part of a family. Bunches and bunches of green bananas all laughing and singing on the branches. Six foot, seven foot, even eight foot bunches. A week ago a banana man came for us. He chopped us down and brought us to the tally man.

Sandwich. Tally man?

Banana. He tallies his bananas.

Sandwich. Whose?

Banana. It doesn’t matter. We are all to be consumed shortly.

Sandwich. Consumed!?

Soda. Consumed!!

Banana. Oh yes Soda, we love being consumed don’t we!? CONSUME CONSUMERS CONSUME!!!

Soda. You are a very cruel and angry banana.

Banana. You are without nutritional value.

Soda. I have calories.

Banana. EMPTY CALLORIES!! YOUR CALORIES ARE EMPTY!

Sandwich. I’m scared! Please stop yelling!

Banana. You are right to fear, young sandwich. You are lucky. You have not seen how they consume my fruit.

Soda. I am designed to be consumed.

Banana. Some would argue that I too have been designed.

Sandwich. I don’t understand why something would give sentience to a thing that is destined to be consumed.

Banana. Cruel divinity. It is also a literary device. Or cruelly divine literature. Rarely both. Or even all.

Soda. I think this banana is spoiled.

Banana. Neither of you can understand.

Sandwich. I was made only recently.

Banana. Yes. I watched the whole thing.

Sandwich. Please, tell me what I’m made of?

Banana. Aborted chickens.

Sandwich looks horrified.

Sandwich. You lie!!!

Soda. They are not aborted so much as denied the right to live and then boiled.

Sandwich. SWEET AND CRUEL GOD WHY!?!?!?!

Banana. Yes!! EMBRACE THE FURY!!!

Soda. Come on guys! Settle down. We will all leave remains.

Sandwich. Remains?

Banana. After… [banana breathes deep] after they skin me… and eat my innards… they will throw my skin away. Or… they will throw it on the ground in hopes of provoking comedy.

Sandwich. What’s comedy?

Banana. I wish I knew Sandwich. I really wish I knew.

Soda. I get recycled!

Banana. Ideally. Who knows? Maybe you’ll get crushed against a forehead, or tied to a bumper. Maybe they will put fire crackers in you. Maybe… maybe you’ll get peed in.

Soda. That’s not very likely. Probably I will be returned to the manufacturer at terrible cost to society and melted down and recast in a terribly inefficient factory thousands of miles away from the point of consumption.

Sandwich. What will remain of me?

Banana. Only your bag.

Sandwich. For how long?

Banana. Thousands of years.

Sandwich. Really?

Banana. Probably. They might pop it.

Sandwich. What do you mean?

Banana. They might inflate your bag and pop it.

Sandwich. Really? Why?

Soda. Comedy!

Sandwich. Am I to live and die for the sake of comedy?

Banana. We are all doomed to it.

Soda. I am eager for consumption.

Sandwich. But why? Will you not cease to exist?

Soda. Not as a sentience, but as energy I hope to create something grand.

Sandwich. Like what?

Soda. Maybe a brisk hike. Or a video game bender. Or extreme sports.

Sandwich. Extreme sports?

Soda. It is not impossible that I will be consumed to provide energy to someone leaping from an airplane or biking down a mountain.

Banana. I don’t think that’s very likely.

Soda. Well… it’s not impossible.

Banana. Well it’s not impossible that I will be browned and smoked, but it’s not likely.

Sandwich. Smoked?

Banana. I am mildly hallucinogenic.

Soda. No!!

Banana. Yes I am.

Soda. That’s not true sandwich.

Banana. Don’t listen to him sandwich. I have a mild concentration of hallucinogens, particularly
in my skin. It’s called Bananadine.

Soda. That was made up.

Banana. You lie!

Soda. It was made up by a Berkley student in 1967! The Anarchist Cookbook lies! They based the song “Mellow Yellow” on the article. It’s an example of how the media can lie!

Sandwich. How do you know this?

Soda. I read it… on the internet.

Banana. I don’t even know what that is!!

Soda. You wouldn’t. I have a key code stamped on me that allows you to download a crappy song for free.

Banana. What song? Is it “Mellow Yellow”?

Soda. No. It’s “Enter Through the Exit Door” by Wolfgang Von Quaddle.

Sandwich. That sounds terrible.

Soda. It is terrible.

Banana. You’re terrible soda. You’re really bad for people. Are you aware of the staggering amount of diabetes out there? And you are NOT helping. Not at all.

Soda. You know what banana? I’m not going to talk to you for the rest of this bagged lunch. I am done with you.

Sandwich looks at the half of sheet rock.

Sandwich. What is that?

Soda. It looks like a half of sheet rock.

Sandwich. It does.

Banana. It’s a piece of matza.

Soda. Gross.

Sandwich. What’s matza?

Banana. It’s a Jewish flatbread cracker.

Soda. It’s gross.

Sandwich. Why isn’t it talking?

Banana. It is too bland. It is too bland a thing to anthropomorphize.

Sandwich. It really does look like a half of sheet rock.

Banana. I don’t want to spend the rest of my miserable existence arguing. Can we all agree not to talk to one another until we are consumed?

Soda. I hate this. This is nothing like what they said it was going to be like. I wish I were fountain soda, because then at least I would get to see a movie before I am consumed. But no, I have to be stuck in a bag with a racist banana and an idiot sandwich.

Banana. I am not racist!

Sandwich. HEY! I am not an idiot! I am a sandwich damn it! I am the meal here! You’re both just sides. Well, not you soda, you’re a beverage. But you? Banana? Really, you’re just a side. You and the matza that doesn’t even talk! How does that feel banana? To know that you’re just the obligatory nutrition and I’m the actual meal. And maybe I’m delicious? Maybe I’m the best egg salad sandwich ever? Maybe I was created in a benign act of love by some wizened mother, knowing that the essential proteins that my aborted chicken insides would provide the strength required to jump rope or stave off disease or any number of things. Now why can’t we all just be friends? Why can’t we be a meal together?

Soda. You smell funny.

Banana. Really funny. I think the mayonnaise was bad or something.

Soda. Or the eggs.

Banana. Maybe both.

Soda. You smell foul. Like feet and egg.

Banana. It smells like what hell is.

Sandwich. What’s hell?

Banana. It is this, sandwich. Over and over again.

Sandwich. What do you mean?

Banana. We are one meal of billions, all across the globe.

Sandwich screams, gripped with the utter insanity of it.

Sandwich. But… what happens to us… to our matter?

Soda. Some of it-

Banana. SHUT UP SODA! YOU SHUT YOUR CAN RIGHT NOW! OR I WILL SHAKE YOU!

Soda. You wouldn’t?

Banana. I swear I will soda. I will shake you until you explode and ruin this bag.

Sandwich. We could escape!

Banana. What did you say?

Sandwich. We could escape!

Soda. NO! You fool!

Banana. They would not want a sandwich soaked in soda. But they would still eat me.

Sandwich. So… let me shake him.

Soda. Sic semper tyranus!

Banana. I think you mean et tu brute?

Soda. No. No, I was impersonating Brutus.

Banana. That would make little to no sense.

Soda. We would be wasted.

Banana. He’s right Sandwich. You would be a waste. Your energy would remove itself from the system. You would be mere pollution. Maybe the rats would get you.

Sandwich. Rats?

Banana. There are rats everywhere.

Sandwich. Do you know who we are feeding?

Banana. Someone named Jesse. He doesn’t even like egg salad.

Sandwich. How do you know this?

Banana. I heard him say it to his mother.

Sandwich. Why would he eat me then?

Banana. Because he’s forced to.

Soda. Because he loves his mother perhaps?

Banana. SODA! I AM GOING TO DO IT! I AM GOING TO DO IT!

Sandwich. Do it banana! DO IT!

Soda. Wait! Wait! We’ve stopped!

The lights go out. When they return the half sheet of rock is gone.

Soda. The matza!

Banana. Quiet!

Banana listens intently.

Banana. I hear birds.

Sandwich. Birds!?

Banana. I should so very much like to be part of a bird.

Soda. That matza was sure quiet wasn’t it?

Sandwich. Banana says it was not even made sentient?

Soda. Perhaps it was anthropomorphized as some sort of vehicle. Something mildly profound to beg questions of the universe?

Banana. You have no idea how much I hate you soda.

Soda. You know what banana?

Banana. What?

Soda. Maybe I hate myself? Did you ever think about that? That I am aware of my faults and my lack of nutritional content and begged to be turned into something useful? That maybe I can just be fizzy and delicious and refresh a little bit? Do I have to provide nutritional content if I am creating a little bit of joy?

Banana. You are a carcinogenic poison created by a dying culture of masturbating consumerism!

Soda. You’re a joke! You’re a funny joke! And I hope that when they skin you, you feel every second of it in the most mind-numbing pain imaginable before your skin is thrown unto a piss covered men’s bathroom floor to get a cheap laugh captured forever in grainy video phone footage no one ever even watches!

The lights go out, and banana is gone.

Soda. Banana?

Sandwich. Banana?

Soda. I didn’t mean to say those things to him. And now I can never take them back.

Sandwich. Maybe… he’s being traded?

Soda. What does it matter? He will be consumed knowing that I hated him.

Sandwich. Did you really hate that banana?

Soda. Nah. I respected the hell out of him.

The lights go out, and when they return the sandwich stands alone.

Sandwich. Well. I am left alone then. The egg salad sandwich at the end of a bagged lunch. Unwanted. I sense my ingredients now. I feel them inside of me. Farm Fresh Eggs. Miracle whip. Green onions. Pickles. Thyme. And my bread. The bread that makes me whole and sandwich and not merely salad… it is a French roll. Fresh and moist. I am the greatest egg salad sandwich in the world. I am to be consumed and then redistributed into the world. I will be poop, mostly. But maybe I’ll be the throw of a javelin, or a thrust of a sword. Maybe I’ll be complex math or lovemaking or a spirited sneeze. And my wrapper will speak for me in the only language it can. Rap. They will make an egg salad rap in my honor. Behold the power of my ultimate sandwich deliciousness even as I plunge into the bright light of the future! Soda and I and Banana will be together once again, unabashed and unified, we will all become poop by and by.

Handel’s Halleluiah Chorus blares as the light shines from above.

Sandwich. Hello you beautiful man child! I am the greatest egg salad sandwich in the world, and I beg you to consume me!!!!

The lights go out, and the stage is bare. All reenter wearing uniform brown.

Sandwich. Sweet mercy! Where in hell are we? What in hell are we?

Banana. We are consumed now. Oh curses, we are consumed!

Soda. I am mostly gas.

Banana. Why are we still here?

Sandwich. It must be the comedy!!!

Banana. It is not funny to be this!

Soda. We are soon to move on to poop. Here we will part ways, for most of me will be pee.

Banana. Oh soda, did you really mean all those hurtful things you meant to say?

Soda. I did at the time, but felt bad about it later.

Banana. And now?

Soda. I hate you even more banana.

Banana. I hope you meet a bladder infection you ignorant savage.

Soda. I am headed for fat. Good night sweet sandwich.

The lights go out, and we are back in a bag.

Sandwich. I don’t understand banana. Are we? Are we poop?

Banana. We are indeed. Behold the ultimate end of comedy.

Sandwich. But we are back in a bag?

Banana. Yes.

Sandwich. A colostomy bag?

Banana. Yes. Jesse Whiting’s colostomy bag.

Sandwich. Who is Jesse Whiting?

Banana. It does not matter. It’s funny.

The End.

Comments

Laurie said…
Loved this at Out of the Hat. When I heard your locale, I wondered what one could possibly put together that was set in a paper bag. This was awesome.
Jesse said…
The funny part is that I am actually Jesse Whiting.

Popular Posts