Occam's razor
This Thanksgiving, I'm grateful to be in print. So, here's an excerpt from my short play"Bridge and Tunnel" - featured in Best Women's Stage Monologues 2013 (Smith & Kraus) and Best Contemporary Monologues 2014 (Applause.)
As Occam's razor states, the simplest explanation is usually correct. Right?
(TGIFridays. Happy Hour. Nikki and Tiffany (30s) gulp margaritas.)
NIKKI I am in major crisis.
TIFFANY What? Why?
Nikki reaches into her large bag and retrieves a woman’s sexy shoe.
TIFFANY It’s too small?
NIKKI I found it at Tom’s.
TIFFANY Oh!!
NIKKI Exactly! It was under his bed. I was lookin' for my i-phone which rolled –
TIFFANY i - phones roll?
NIKKI - under the bed and BAM! I found this.
TIFFANY Just one?
NIKKI Yeah.
TIFFANY Size six.
NIKKI Yeah.
TIFFANY So it’s not Tom’s.
NIKKI NO it’s not Tom’s! OHMYGOD what am I gonna do?
TIFFANY You could ask him about it.
NIKKI Are you crazy?! First, he’ll think I was snoopin' and second, he totally weirds out whenever I ask him anything. Geeze, you shoulda seen his face when I asked what's his vision for the future of our relationship!
TIFFANY Mmm. How many times you been out with him?
NIKKI Three!! Plus twenty five texts and four phone conversations, one that was like forty minutes, so in New York math, that's like 5.6 dates. We done it twice, both on date three, which, as I said, was really date 5.6, so it’s not like I’m a slut or anything, and I thought we had a true emotional connection but now I don't know! I think he lives alone - although he is a teacher and he probably don't make that much money so maybe he gots a roommate, but he never mentioned one. He gots a daughter but she lives with her Mom and, anyways, she's like nine and this is definitely not the shoe of a nine year old. But maybe his daughter was there and when the Ex came to pick her up, she lost her shoe? And then - what? She just left with one shoe? You'd notice that right? It’s not like an earring, those, sure they get lost without you noticin', but a shoe?! No one loses a shoe and don’t know it - unless they’re stoned. Wait! What if his Ex was there and she was totally stoned or, no, what if they BOTH were totally stoned together and then they - OHMYGOD!!! Do you think she was there?! Do you think they got high?! Do you think they're back TOGETHER? Or is it something else entirely?!
TIFFANY Ummm.... Yes?
Nikki collapses on the bar.
NIKKI OHMYGOD.
TIFFANY Maybe you're overreactin'.
NIKKI ME?!
TIFFANY Look, it could be his daughter’s shoe, girls play dress up all the time. Or it could be his Ex’s, like when they split up, she left sooo pissed off, she didn’t take all her stuff. Or maybe it belongs to an old girlfriend who planted it so she’d have an excuse to come back. Or maybe there was a break in the space/time continuum and the shoe belongs to a woman from a hundred years ago and, cuz a' some cosmic blip in the Universe, it slipped through a black hole from another dimension and landed under Tom's bed and he don't even know it's there much less who it belongs to. Or maybe he's cheatin'.
(Beat.)
NIKKI You’re right.
TIFFANY Sorry -
NIKKI Yeah, I bet trippy, time travel stuff like that happens all the time!
TIFFANY Oh. Okay -
NIKKI Only the government hushes it up.
TIFFANY Okay - sure.
NIKKI Totally.
TIFFANY So what are you gonna do with the shoe?
NIKKI Ima put it back under the bed.
