Just a Minute
© 2010 Tim Fort
Act One
Setting: Interior of a chateau on the sun-splashed coastline of northern Bhutan, inside a parlor decorated in Early Beckett. In the middle of the room is a large cardboard box with various knobs and dials drawn on it with magic marker. Two plain wooden chairs on either side of the box with punk-rock oceanographer Robert Dobbins in one and sky-diving operatic tenor Norm D. Plume in the other. Robert Dobbins is contentedly smoking a meerschaum pipe as the curtain rises.
Robert (pulling pipe from mouth): All things considered, this is not what I had expected.
Norm (rubbing chin in expository way): Nobody expects the Inquisitor Machine to look like a cheap cardboard box yanked from a dumpster an hour earlier. But, as you know, Bob, it’s actually a sophisticated device for answering metaphysical questions. Go ahead and give it a try.
Robert (to box): O, Machine, what is the Meaning of Life?
Inquisitor Machine (in robotic voice): The Meaning of Life is to move your plastic car around the course, collecting money and blue and pink pegs along the way.
Robert (vexed): Um, I mean, what is the Answer to Everything?
Inquisitor Machine: The Answer is eighty-four. The great Doug Adams was only halfway right.
Robert: No, no, what is Ultimate Reality?
Inquisitor Machine: Ultimate Reality is that you and Norm are actors on a cheaply-decorated set in a very minute play by Tim Fort who’s as great as he is humble.
Robert (crestfallen): Whoa, that’s anti-climactic. By the way, what is the name of this play?
Norm (glancing at wristwatch): And how long do we have to endure it?
Inquisitor Machine: Just a Minute.
Robert returns to smoking his meerschaum as the house lights go on.
The End