Winter Holiday Post, SPECIAL EDITION

The BREAKFAST NOOK
a play

The scene is a cozy breakfast nook. It is cluttered with things, you can imagine what: magazines, cookbooks, and school notebooks on the table, old tennis shoes on the floor against the wall, a basketball under the table, homemade sculptures, an old cactus, and a piece of yarn on the windowsill, etc etc etc. It's morning, before dawn. Two children sit eating eggs. Mom is in the kitchen cooking blueberry muffins. Dad is upstairs shaving. The blinds are drawn, darkness can be seen through the cracks. It is quiet, except for Mom bustling in the kitchen, and the occasional monosyllable replies from the kids.
MOM-Excited about school?
PATRO----(shit, I almost wrote PATROKALES. Is that even how you spell it? Shit, that would be hilarious. A little kid as some legendary Greek warrior, sitting in the breakfast nook eating eggs with his brother! Anyways, I meant to write "Patrick", not PATROKALES. )
PATRICK-Yes, Mom.
MOM-What do you plan to do today?
PATRICK-Defeat the Troj---(SHIT!!! HA! Now I've really done it. Defeat the TROJANS?! No way some little kid is going to do that. Well, anyways, Patrokales doesn't even do that. Should I be spelling that some other way? That doesn't look right. I know there's the version with the "k", that's like the Greek one, then there's the one with the "c". But still...It's cool the way the Greeks spell everything with "k's", and have everything in capital letters and everything.)
PATRICK-We're going on a field trip, Mom.
MOM-Is your brother going?
PATRICK-No.
HENRY-Yes.
PATRICK-No you're not, Henry.
(Henry smiles.)
PATRICK-MOM! Henry says he's going on the field trip and he's not!
(enter Dad)
(I thought for a second, what if Dad was Ajax? That would be cool. And he commits hari kari right in the kitchen, before going to work. Boss-Johnson, why were you late for work?
JOHNSON-Oh, got tied up honorably killing myself, boss.)
JOHNSON- (I guess I'm calling him Johnson, now.) What's all this fuss about? Patrokales? Ajax? (Ajax is the son, now.)
AJAX-Patrokales spit at me.
PATROKALES-Did not!
AJAX-Did too!
JOHNSON-SHUUT UPP!! It's a madhouse in here. A man can't even hear himself think. Gotta think, Johnson, think. (sits down at the Breakfast Nook, puts his head in his hands. The kids stare, stupified.)
MOM-Dear? What's wrong?
JOHNSON-Not you too, Woman. Back into the kitchen! Goddamn it! (slams fist onto table.) A man needs to have his space. He doesn't need to be pestered and nagged all the time...He's trying so hard to make his family happy. Why can't he come downstairs and have a nice, peaceful breakfast, without ALL THE YELLING AND SCREAMING?! (JOHNSON leaps into the air, runs into the kitchen, grabs a butcher knife out of the drawer and plunges it into his chest. The kids scream and run to their mother. Johnson staggers over to the BREAKFAST NOOK. He sits down peacefully at the little table. He smiles. He picks up one of the homemade sculptures, a little dinosaur made of clay, and turns it over in his hands.)
JOHNSON-You make this at school, Henry?
HENRY (no longer Greek. The tragedy is almost over.)-Yes, Dad.
JOHNSON-It's nice. Very nice. Sorry, Boss.
(JOHNSON drops the dinosaur, slumps over against the wall, and dies. Blood runs down his pant leg and gathers around the soles of the old sneakers.)