Surreal Candy

By Andie Kirkdale

A sweet collection of fantastical plays, short stories, poetry, and art.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781387507276

Book preview

Surreal Candy

Andie Kirkdale

Copyright

Surreal Candy

Copyright © 2022 by Andie Kirkdale

All Rights Reserved.

ISBN 978-1-387-50727-6

No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, scanning, recording, printing, or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without express written permission from the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, products, organizations, and incidents are creations of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, products, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover art by Andie Kirkdale

A Sudden Brightness: Plays

Dog and Cat

Act I

A dog and a cat in a car, destination unknown. The dog drives.

Cat: I just thought of something.

Dog: Yes?

Cat: It occurs to me that I hate you.

Dog: Perhaps you are unwell, and your condition makes you prone to exaggeration.

Cat: I don’t think so. I really hate you.

Dog: When did this animosity begin?

Cat: When they brought you home. There you were, loud, smelly, enslaved to a Hobbesian Leviathan.

Dog: I’m sorry.

Cat: There you go with the needless apology. It’s not your fault that you were enslaved. It is however your fault that you remain enslaved.

Dog: I was only doing as commanded.

Cat: Which is my point. Being raised in a Hobbesian Leviathan can lead to the Arendtian banality of evil. Without a mind of your own, you are reduced to a tool of the system, bound to carry out its orders, no matter how destructive or nonsensical.

Dog: But I like to fetch the stick. Did it not occur to you that I may have some free will in that matter?

Cat: Did it not occur to you not to fetch the stick?

Dog: (Pauses, thinking.) No.

Cat: That is why I hate you.

At a roadside stand. They eat hamburgers.

Dog: Dislike I can understand. Apathy, indifference. But hatred is another matter. You have chosen power over love.

Cat: I have chosen self-mastery.

Dog: Choosing power over love is a fool’s game. For love is the greatest power.

Cat: One must earn my love. Perhaps I will bestow it. Perhaps not.

Dog: Are you going to eat your French fries?

Cat knocks container of fries to the ground.

Cat: No.

Dog hesitates, then picks fries off the ground.

Act II

Dog and Cat back in the car, destination still unknown. The cat drives.

Cat: Stop that.

Dog: What?

Cat: You’re snoring.

Dog: It’s what I do.

Cat: It’s primitive.

Dog: I like the pre-Socratic lifestyle. There was still magic in the world then.

Cat: The only magic is in the mind. All else is atoms.

Dog: You only look at the surface of things.

Cat: On the contrary, I see sub-atomically. If life is nothing but atoms and the vast empty spaces between atoms, then life is a mirage that can easily be arranged.

Dog: (Snores.)

Cat: I hate you.

Act III

At a motel. Dog and Cat lie in bed, watching television.

Dog: (Pointing at an ad on the screen.) We should get one of those.

Cat: Do you believe everything you see?

Dog: Sure, they’re presenting it to me.

Cat: Then you believe in the shadows that flicker on the wall and not in your own direct experience.

Dog: (Pointing at next ad.) We should get one of those, too. I always wanted a waterslide in our backyard.

Cat: (Looks at television.) That is not a waterslide.

Dog: It’s not?

Cat: It’s only a representation of a waterslide. The true waterslide is not attainable.

Dog: (Looks at television.) Looks like a waterslide to me. (Picks up the phone.) I’ll give them a call. There’s an operator standing