Three tall blank canvas panels stand across the middle of the stage. Standing before the stage right panel is CHESTER; the center panel, RYAN; and the stage left panel, EVE. Each actor’s panel is illuminated before he or she speaks and extinguished when he or she is finished. CHESTER’s panel is illuminated early sunrise golds reds and purples; RYAN’s, deep ocean blue; EVE’s, a soft yellow.
CHESTER
Five A.M. is my favorite hour for onanism.
RYAN
We think of ourselves as solid things rocklike but waves are always traveling through us sound waves specifically a wall of plaster cannot block sound and neither can bodies press your ear against your shoulder when the stereo is on perhaps we have small holes in us or slits for sound to pass through.
EVE
A room is like a small world and I often imagine living a whole life in that world with no one else but the people presently in it like if you opened the door and found out the room had detached from the planet and floated into the sky nobody talks or touches we all just lie on the floor but we’re the only company each of us will ever have.
RYAN
When you stand next to an amplifier at a loud concert you feel the bass thump though your rib cage the air is pressed right into your body right through it the sound squeezes through the spaces between your cells like when you push squeeze hash brown potatoes out between your teeth.
CHESTER
I like to masturbate at five A.M. because it is pragmatic of course because it is unlikely that someone will hear or walk in but also because it is comforting to know that I am not the only one indulging in private fantasies at that moment my erotic reverie a drop in the sea of dreams gently flooding the town.
EVE
I like a room alone with Ryan I like a room with my parents I like a room with Ryan and my mom I do not love a room with Ryan and my dad I like a room with Ryan and Chester I do not love a room alone with Chester.
CHESTER
It used to be that the birds slept too not all of them I know not the owls and nighthawks but the sparrows and robins and cardinals did right until the sun came up but now we have streetlights and 24-hour convenience stores and leave-the-bathroom-light-on and the birds don’t know which star is the sun and they also think that car alarms are birdsong and they sing that in my window at the most ahem inopportune moment and I make a mess of my semen.
EVE
Chester keeps a list of his favorite friends and it’s ranked and Ryan and I hate him for that but I think my secret apocalyptic room preference is probably an equivalent offense though Chester probably knows by now that Ryan is for me a more enticing eternal companion.
RYAN
When I press my chest against Eve’s I like to imagine the sound of my heart pumping right through Eve’s so our bodies vibrate in sync constructive interference I think it’s called when the sound waves align and amplify perfectly that’s the closest physical approximation of love when your heartbeats amplify.
EVE
Ryan for one does not make a mess of his semen.
RYAN
But then I suppose one might fall in love with a metronome.
CHESTER
I think men enjoy masturbating because our hands like something to hold.
RYAN
I think the hours of the day have a frequency too Chester is a morning person as we all know but I think it’s more than the Dunkin Donuts hash brown potatoes that entice him to wake up I think it is the alignment of the angle of the sunshine in the early morning with the arrangements of his slits.
EVE
When I used to be with Chester when we used to be companions love companions I had to keep the window open when we had sex I said it was for circulation but it was a preventative measure in case the room detached from the planet.
CHESTER
My hands used to hold Eve but now Ryan’s do.
EVE
Ryan says he loves me for my slits.
Eve’s light stays lit.
CHESTER
Eve slipped right between my fingers.
Chester’s light stays lit.
RYAN
Bet then I suppose one might fall in love with a flashlight.
All lights out.