Title: Tea for Two
Author: Peter Wood
Draft date: 13-08-14
Contact: peterwood2@gmail.com
A tea shop. As refined and elegant as possible. At a table, a bit too small for their bulk, sit SASQUATCH and NESSIE. Yes, the famed, illusive monsters. They sip tea delicately, if a bit awkwardly. The sound of Vivaldi’s Concerto in A Major for Violin and Strings plays softly in the background.
SASQUATCH
It’s good to see you. How is the Oolong?
NESSIE
You too. It’s quite good. Haven’t yet found it’s match in the new place. Is your Earl Grey as good as you remember?
SASQUATCH
It . . . not quite. Nostalgia always builds things up a bit more then they are really, you know?
NESSIE
Indeed. I went for a swim and the water was murky and cold and dull. Not what I remembered at all. How’s the family?
SASQUATCH
Good, good. Though Debbie and I have been going through a rough patch as the kids leave the nest. Adjusting to being alone again after the past twenty-five years. I thought it would get easier after Justin left, but then when Mary went off . . .
NESSIE
Are you . . . splitting--
SASQUATCH
Oh gods no! It’s nothing that bad. Just . . . a rough patch. It’ll sort itself out, they usually do. And we’ve been together . . . what, going on two-hundred years and with what we’ve been through . . .
NESSIE
Well. Good. I’m sure the kids will be fine. And I always did adore Debbie, though her sense of humor was somewhat . . . odd, if I remember correctly.
SASQUATCH
Well, there is that.
Awkward silence. Sipping of tea. Vivaldi.
NESSIE
Did you hear? About the Manitou clan?
SASQUATCH
No.
NESSIE
They killed themselves rather than move dimensions.
SASQUATCH
Jesus!
NESSIE
All twenty-five of them. Simultaneously. Management was . . . not happy.
SASQUATCH
I can imagine. That must have been a heck of a clean up job. Who’d they send?
NESSIE
Michael himself.
SASQUATCH
Fuck!
NESSIE
Yeah, it was a nightmare. I mean, that’s what he turned it into for those who’d found the bodies. I never understood those Manitou. They were fine at the meetings and retreats. Civilized. Fun even. But when they went back home . . . savages. I could never really reconcile that in my head.
SASQUATCH
Yeah. Well, compartmentalization.
NESSIE
I guess.
SASQUATCH
We all do it. Just some to a, you know, great extent.
Pause.
SASQUATCH
But still. I know what you mean. I was never really fond of them myself.
Tea. A more comfortable pause. Vivaldi.
SASQUATCH
What about the Greys? Any news from them?
NESSIE
I haven’t heard for a while, but the last time I talked to Memphre, she said that--
SASQUATCH
Memphre?
NESSIE
You remember Memphre don’t you? A bit of a thing really, but still a lake monster, up in Lake Memphremagog? Vermont?
SASQUATCH
Ohhhhh, right. Yeah. I remember her now.
NESSIE
She was always a bit of a shy one.
SASQUATCH
Weren’t you all?
NESSIE
Well . . . you know what I mean. Anyway . . . she said that the Grays had given up their practical jokes and have, in the new place, become somewhat of a spiritual clan. All rough-hewn robes and chanting and prayers and meditation.
SASQUATCH
No. Come on, she must have been pulling your flipper. They were jokesters through and through. The probes . . . I mean, coming up the the goddamn probes! Even the humans thought that one was hilarious.
NESSIE
Well, not the ones probed.
They laugh. All awkwardness dissipates.
NESSIE
But that’s what she said.
SASQUATCH
I don’t believe it. Those guys were . . . wait, were they guys?
NESSIE
I don’t think so. But I don’t know. I remember that the Triangle said they were both/and, not neither/nor.
SASQUATCH
What does that mean?
NESSIE
I don’t really know. You know what the Triangle was like.
SASQUATCH
Yeah.
Pause.
SASQUATCH
Whatever happened to him?
NESSIE
Nobody knows, when the orders came down to move dimensions he just . . .
A beat as they look at each other.
SASQUATCH
. . . disappeared!
NESSIE ^
. . . disappeared!
They laugh and laugh and laugh.
SASQUATCH
I’ve missed you.
NESSIE
Me too you.
They sit in a comfortable silence. Sip tea. Vivaldi plays.
SASQUATCH
What do you miss most?
Pause.
NESSIE
I try not to think of this place too often. But . . . I think I miss the love. At least, I think it was love, those humans were awfully hard to read sometimes. It felt like love. Not from the creepy monster hunters who spent all that time at the loch searching for me. But from the writer in Rhode Island who wrote a poem for me or the eight year old girl in Peru who heard of me and pretended great adventures between the two of us for three years. It was the love from all those who never came and visited the loch but who just believed entirely. More than believed, loved the idea of a world with me in it and, thus, I’d like to think, loved me.
Long pause.
NESSIE
You?
SASQUATCH
Pretty much the same. There was this time, I was depicted on a crappy tv show: first as a villain and then as a friend. I forget the name of it. It’s not important, really. But suddenly there were all these kids: thousands, millions maybe, who believed in me and would expect to see me around every tree in every wooded spot. The energy and warmth of those years . . . I don’t want to be one of those suckers that thinks their best is behind them, ’cause then what next? Why keep trying, right? But still, those years . . . they were really good years.
NESSIE
And now . . .
SASQUATCH
Well.
He sips his tea.
SASQUATCH
Not bad. Not as great, but not bad. The new job is a bit more boring. I’m a woodlands deity to a small, barely sentient pack of creatures. But give me cryptozoology over godhood any day. You?
NESSIE
I’m on sabbatical actually. Writing quantum-quadratic poetry for the most part, though I’ve recently been commissioned to write the lyrics for a new opera by Omia.
SASQUATCH
Sounds nice.
NESSIE
For the most part, it is. And a nice break from all that swimming.
SASQUATCH
Let me know about that opera, I really want to see when it opens.
NESSIE
Oh, it won’t be for a couple of centuries yet, but I’ll definitely let you know.
They finish their tea. Sasquatch looks at his watch.
SASQUATCH
Well, I’m sorry we can’t hang out more, but I’ve got to get back. They have these daily ceremonies of summoning that I’m not supposed to miss, though I think missing a few might be good for them. Still, management thinks it knows best.
NESSIE
It was good to see you too. Let’s do this again soon, shall we? Let’s not wait for another half century. I’d love to see Debby sometime as well, maybe the three of us can go see one of Uriel’s concerts in the Heavenly Park?
SASQUATCH
That’d be great. I’ll talk to her about it.
A slight awkwardness returns as they stand and embrace.
SASQUATCH
Take care of yourself.
NESSIE
You too. Love to the family. Remind Mary that she is welcome to take a ride anytime.
SASQUATCH
I will. I will.
They stand for a moment. Sasquatch is about to say something, but stops. Makes a small wave, and exits. Nessie sits back down. Vivaldi plays. The lights slowly, slowly fade to black.