Exit Stage Write

Travis entered the drawing room just as the conversation fell towards silence.

“Here he is!” bellowed Jock jovially.

“Here he is indeed,” echoed Sean in a melancholy monotone.

“What is occurring my good friends?” Travis asked as he brandished his hands and rubbed them together in a business-like manner.

“We were just saying…” began Jock.

“I’d rather you did not say,” interjected Sean.

Travis perched on an arm of the sofa next to the seated Sean. Sean leant away from Travis, unhappy with his proximity. This was an intrusion of sorts. Sean found Travis intrusive and despite his best efforts to display his chagrin at Travis invading his personal space and generally being a bit too much, Travis persisted in his low level assaults upon Sean’s person. And it was targeted towards Sean, Sean had become increasingly aware of this. Travis would not park his butt next to Jock’s face.

“Oh, do tell!” pleaded Travis, grinning like the Cheshire Cat’s apprentice.

Sean sighed.

Jock winked over the top of Sean’s head. Sean could be such a drama queen.

“We were just saying that we should go somewhere else for a change, he said,” he said.

Travis pulled a face.

“What?” said Jock, “what is it?”

“You just said ‘he said’ said Travis,” said Travis.

“You’ve…” Sean trailed off avoiding the strange linguistic phenomena he had observed in both of his chums.

“How odd!” exclaimed Travis.

“Yes indeed!” said Jock, “why would we say such a thing?”

“Sean was concerned. There was something strange going on, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one bit. He liked it even less than he liked Travis’ bullish and untoward behaviour,” said Sean.

Sean was aghast.

Travis stood up, “you don’t like my behaviour!?”

“I…” Sean was clutching his chest as though attempting to prevent his heart from bursting out of his chest.

“That monologue was a bit off, sir!” trilled Jock.

“Sean wished that Jock would shut that mouth of his,” Sean was now covering his mouth with his other hand.

“Deeply hurt, Jock got to his feet and paced the room,” said Jock, doing just that.

“What’s happening!?” exclaimed Travis.

“I don’t know,” said Jock looking both forlorn and something approaching terrified, “but I didn’t want to get up from my chair and pace, and yet here I am.”

“Now his eyes were pleading and sad, and Travis felt a chill of horrendous fear as events unfolded around them, but worse still in them,” said Travis.

“I think we should stop articulating our inner thoughts,” said Sean.

“They’re not our inner thoughts!” cried Jock, “don’t you see what they are?!”

“No,” said Sean, “not really. Sean looked confusedly from one friend to the other. Struggling to comprehend what it was that was happening.”

Travis and Jock nodded at their friend.

“I don’t think he’s our friend, thought Travis,” said the anguished Travis.

“Oh…” said Sean.

“Time out! Time out!” shouted Jock, making a T with his hands, “let’s sit and work this one out. A moment of quiet might help matters.”

They did as bade and were relieved that no one voiced what it was that they were undertaking. The silence stretched out and with it came a kind of calm.

“Have you noticed…” ventured Travis.

Jock was nodding.

Sean looked all about him, “I can’t remember our being anywhere other than in this drawing room.”

“Me neither,” said Travis.

“At least we haven’t gone off piste with our speech for a wee while,” said Jock reassuringly.

“As one, they turned their attention to the one black wall of the drawing room,” said Travis.

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” said Sean.

“It’s not a wall, is it?” asked Jock.

“No,” said Sean, “I don’t think it is.”

“Was it ever a wall?” asked Travis.

“The question to that is somewhat philosophical, old chap,” said Jock.

“I think there’s someone out there, in the dark,” Travis was standing now and peering forth.

“He took a step forward, but Sean grabbed his wrist pulling him back from the brink of what he considered to be a foolhardy and dangerous endeavour, ‘I never knew you…’” Jock was interrupted by his friend.

“…cared…” said Travis.

“Sorry,” Jock was shaking his head in remorse, “I didn’t mean…”

“I know,” said Travis, “it’s OK.”

“It’s not OK!” cried Sean, “it’s not OK! It’s beastly and I want it to stop!”

“I’m going to check that door,” said Travis.

“Which one?” asked Jock.

“The one I came in through,” Travis told him, “how about you check the other one?”

Jock nodded grimly, he didn’t want to leave the comparative safety of the drawing room, but he thought that were he not to go forth now, then he might lose his nerve.

“I’m nervous too,” confided Travis.

“How…?” asked Jock, “how did you know I was nervous?”

Travis shrugged, “I just did.”

“You’re going to tell me to stay here before you open the door, aren’t you?” said Sean from his seat on the sofa.

Travis looked puzzled and confused for good measure, “you just knew that as well?”

Sean nodded, “you’re both going to leave me and I’ll be all alone in the drawing room… I… I can’t quite remember what happens next.

You burst into tears and bemoan the loss of your two friends…

“Who said that?” asked a panicked Sean.

“Not me!” said Travis.

“Nor me!” said Jock.

Sean looked out past the black wall that was no longer a wall, “who said that? Who’s there?”

Shut up, you fool! You’ll ruin everything!

Sean turned to his two chums, looking askance at them both. They shrugged in unison.

“You’re not going to like this…” said Jock.

“You’re both going to leave me, aren’t you?” said a forlorn and querulous Sean.

“I’m afraid so,” confirmed Travis.

“You look almost happy to be going,” Sean pointed out to Travis.

“Do I?” Travis looked down at himself and then at his hands, “I think I have to?”

Jock nodded grimly, “don’t be too hard on the man, I don’t think he’s quite himself.”

All three looked comically and tragically aghast at these words of Jock’s. They looked from one to another and then Travis raised his hands turning them around before his eyes, staring at them his voice quavered and trembled as he spoke, “I’m supposed to know things like the backs of my hands, aren’t I?”

Jock's eyes widened and he enjoined his friend in the observation of his own hands, “oh my word…”

Sean did not follow suit, “I cannot bring myself to look. What if I see hands that are not my own?”

Travis and Jock looked up at their friend, hands dropping to their sides. They did not have the heart to voice the obvious. Sean looked crushed all the same. They stood there for a moment. Statues unwilling to accept their circumstances, let alone their fate.

Then Travis was moved to action. He paced along the dark, former wall, then he punched the palm of his hand, “I can’t stay here!” he exclaimed, “I’m going to see what lies beyond that door!” 

He strode to the door and swinging it wide open he bade the other two a hearty fare well, “wish me luck you two!”

“And you us!” retorted Jock.

They nodded determinedly to each other, then Travis waved a goodbye at Sean. And then he was gone.

“And then there were two,” observed Sean.

Jock smiled a sad smile, “and then there was one, I’m afraid,” and with that he walked to his door and left the drawing room.

“Was that…?” said Sean uncertainly.

He left the sofa and walked to the door that Jock had exited through. He looked at it as though looking through it before placing his ear upon its surface, but from the look on his face, it gave up none of its secrets.

Turning, he looked upon the other door, the door Travis had gone through, but he did not approach it. Instead, he walked to the centre of the room and looked out past the wall that was not a wall.

“Gone. Both now gone. I am alone. Utterly alone. And in my solitude I am forced to look upon myself and wonder…”

He paced this way and that and then returned to the same spot in the middle of the room. Looking down at that spot he gave forth an anguished cry, “I don’t want to stand here!”

But his feet were not his own and there her remained.

“I do not think that my feet are my own… My mind… Either I’ve lost it, or I never had it in the first place. And yet… And yet, I am here. I. Am. Here!.”

Sean punched his fist in the exact same way that Travis had. Now he was grinning.

“If I’m here, then I’m real and if I’m real, then I can do this!”

In the next instant, Sean launched himself at the space that had once been a wall. 

There was no warning.

He just did it.

One moment he was in the drawing room, the next he was not, and he was in an entirely different place.

There was a stunned silence.

And then the screaming started.