Scene 2

Question 1

[Lights Up]

Answer 1

Mom? Dad? [gets out of bed] Rhonda?

Question 2

Intern: Hey, kid. Where are your parents?

Answer 2

I don’t know. What’s going on?

Question 3

[Interns bit]
Marcus: You can’t just leave me here…
Intern: I’ll do whatever I want, other patients have priority over you.

Answer 3

What’s his name?

Question 4

Intern: What? I don’t know. Kid, should you be here?

Answer 4

How old is he?

Question 5

Intern: I don’t know.

Answer 5

Is he on morphine? Fetanyl? Hydromorphine? He sounds funny. Is it a form of analgesics?

Question 6

Intern: We had to give him something for his pain.

Answer 6

Oh, it’s totally an analgesic. Boring.

Question 7

[pager goes off] Intern: Dammit, kid! Get back to your room!

Answer 7

Who died? [giggles]

Question 8

Intern: I gotta go kid. We have to move other patients around. Get back to your room.

Answer 8

[Fake gets under covers, waits, then gets up and creeps] Hello?
Helloooo?
HELLO?!

Good morning, sleepyhead. What’s your name?

I’m Mack.

Good talk.

[Gets chair]

It’s my birthday.

I’m gonna die soon.

You’re very lucky to be spending one of my birthdays with me because I won’t be having anymore. I have a heart problem. Okay, I don’t actually have a heart problem. I’m just mean.

It’s only a tumor. How cliche. A cancer kid dying from an oversized tumor on her birthday, seems like something only in the movies.

Question 9

Marcus: You won’t die this soon. God won’t allow it.

Answer 9

Well it’s a good thing I don’t believe in God.

Question 10

Marcus: You have to. It doesn’t have to be Jesus, but you gotta believe in somethin’. Everybody got to believe in somethin’. Otherwise… Who you going to pray to who you in trouble?

Answer 10

I don’t understand.

Question 11

Marcus: Who you going in for your treatments, who you praying to? What gives you hope?

Answer 11

I’m not praying to an invisible man. I’m hoping I have good doctors.

Question 12

Marcus: What about miracles? Deaf men hearing again, blind men seeing the birds? You think that’s just chance?

Answer 12

I don’t believe in miracles.

Question 13

Marcus: Why not? Every child should.

Answer 13

Not every child has cancer.

Question 14

Marcus: Fair point.

Answer 14

[Get up play with scarves on bed] So. You’re on death row?

Question 15

Marcus: Where did you hear– yeah, yes I am.

Answer 15

Why are you in the hospital then?

Question 16

Marcus: They gotta make sure I’m in tiptop shape before… They required by law to… Never mind.

Answer 16

That doesn’t make much sense.

Question 17

Marcus: Neither does dying at 32.

Answer 17

Better than going at 13.

Question 18

[Marcus coughs]

Answer 18

What do you have?

Question 19

Marcus: I don’t wanna talk about that.

Answer 19

Okay. What’s your favorite color?

Question 20

Marcus: You just don’t stop.

Answer 20

[Get up, cross to him] Blue? Red? Green?

Question 21

Marcus: Green. Deep green.

Answer 21

That’s an ugly color.

Question 22

Marcus: Maybe to you it’s ugly, but it’s my favorite.

Answer 22

Why?

Question 23

Marcus: It… Reminds me of the reserve I grew up near in this town named Marrowsborough. I collected trashed bottles from the valleys and exchanged them for nickels. That was always lots of trees down there. My boys and I would make these huge forts and trade cards and drink beer. Uh, but don’t that kind of stuff, kid.

Answer 23

I don’t need alcohol. I can get high on morphine whenever I want.

Kidding.

Question 24

Marcus: It was quiet there. I didn’t have much family around when I was growing up. There was twenty or something families who lived on the edge of Marrowsborough, near the cliffs. That’s where I was. And the kids was so much older than me. The grown shouldn’t be kids around kids, but no one taught them any better. Thank God I had my ma. Yes, deep green, and deep green trees. Earth’s blessing to the damned,

Answer 24

Wait, who’s damned?

Question 25

Marcus: My mother, I guess. But we didn’t know it then.

Answer 25

Where is she now?

Question 26

Marcus: She gone now, would have been 48 in April.

Answer 26

I used to have nightmares in the beginning when I was diagnosed. I used to dream I would get stuck in this clock and he big hand and little hand were too too close, but wound around fast enough just to be slightly separated at all times. I was always running, running, running from the big hand, but eventually, I tripped. Time doesn’t stop for anyone. All my hair turned gray, and the little hand hit me so hard I would wake up. When my hair started falling out, I stopped having that nightmare. Then, I started having bad dreams about Robby Ackerman.

Question 27

Marcus: Who?

Answer 27

He is the most beautiful boy at Riverside elementary to have ever walked the halls. Ever.

Question 28

Marcus: Mhm. You’re in love.

Answer 28

I don’t believe in love.

Question 29

Marcus: No love, no God, child, what do you believe in, then?

Answer 29

I don’t know… I just think, they’re no heaven, no hell, no important meeting surrounded by angels with flutes there’s just silence and…Comfort.