The Fun­ni­est Thing I’ll Ever Say

The cast

M – an unre­quited nov­el­ist
A – a com­pan­ion of M
B – a wit­ness
C – another witness

Act 1, Scene 1

[An air­port wait­ing lounge, shortly before the board­ing of a trans-Pacific flight. M, B and C are sit­ting on couches around a low cof­fee table. A returns from a short walk with a paper bag in hand. She sits and pro­duces from the bag a small pastry.]

C: Break­fast?
A: Yep.
B: Looks good. It’s unusual – a kind of dia­mond shape with a big slice of peach in the middle.
A: [bit­ing a semi-circle out of one point of the dia­mond] Mmm.
M: Now it looks like the Mil­len­nium Fal­con from Star Wars.
C & B: [inspect­ing the pastry] You’re right, it does.
M: [feel­ing some­thing spe­cial com­ing] Be care­ful, then…
A: Why?
M: …it could be a bit Chewy.

[expans­ive hil­ar­ity ensues, fad­ing after sev­eral minutes to a long, con­tem­plat­ive silence lead by M]

M: That was the fun­ni­est thing I’ll ever say, wasn’t it?
A: Prob­ably, yes.
C: I can’t see you top­ping it.
B: You’ll never be that funny ever again. It’s all down­hill from here.

[pause]

M: It’s funny, isn’t it, how major high­lights in one’s life arrive so unex­pec­tedly and almost imme­di­ately trans­mute into some­thing bit­ter­sweet and nos­tal­gic. It’s almost as if there’s a mean­ing behind it, a les­son about loss and exper­i­ence so eleg­ant as to sug­gest the subtly edu­cat­ive influ­ence of a higher force. Don’t you think?
C: Sorry, I thought they were announ­cing our flight. What were you say­ing?
M: Er… Chewy. Pretty good, then?
B: Well, quite good.
A: It sort of loses it in repe­ti­tion, actu­ally.
C: That was our flight. I can see it boarding.

[end]