Under the Comatose Sky (Incipit)
Act I
Scene 1
SETTING: A modest farmhouse in rural Kansas, 1963. The room is small, with mismatched chairs and broken shelves filled with old books that do not belong among the rows of canned goods and the occasional decorative plate. A radio sits on the counter, softly playing a news broadcast. A lamp casts a pool of light over the kitchen table. Through the window, the night stretches over an endless sunflower field.
AT RISE: CORA, 41, sits at the kitchen table, surrounded by papers, a slide rule, and a coffee cup. Her posture is stiff and her face is tense as she scribbles notes and cross-references charts. She mutters calculations under her breath. PHOEBE, 33, moves about the kitchen, chopping vegetables for a salad. She glances at her sister with increasing irritation. A faint male voice reports on the cancellation of Mercury 10.
PHOEBE: You know you have an office upstairs, right? I defiled Mother’s sewing room so you could have your own corner of chaos.
CORA (not looking up): Mm-hmm.
PHOEBE: It’s where normal people keep... office things. Work-related things. Like, oh, I don’t know, all this.
CORA (absentmindedly, still writing): It’s too cramped.
PHOEBE (pausing her chopping): Cramped? You mean cluttered. You can’t even see the floor up there!
CORA: That’s why I’m working here. The light’s better, anyway… and it’s warmer.
PHOEBE (gesturing with her knife toward the mess on the table): The light’s better, but the table’s worse. We’re supposed to eat dinner here, Cora. You’re turning our kitchen into Mission Control!
CORA (finally looking up, defensively): I’ll move it before dinner.
PHOEBE (sighing, resuming her chopping): You said that yesterday. And the day before that.
CORA: It’s not like I’m doing this for fun, Phoebe. These calculations—
PHOEBE (interrupting): If you’re not doing this for fun, then what was it all for?
CORA (shaking her head): No, I misspoke. I—
PHOEBE (interrupting once more): You know what, it’s fine. I don’t need to know. You’ve just got your head in the stars, as usual. But down here on Earth, I’d like to eat a meal without accidentally ingesting a trajectory chart.
CORA: Actually, the moon is a satellite, not a star.
(Phoebe chops louder and louder, letting the thwacks echo against the cutting board.)
CORA: Nevermind.
PHOEBE: Seriously, though. It’s not like this is just your space. What if someone—someone—needed this room to feel, you know, inviting?
CORA (raising an eyebrow): Inviting for what?
PHOEBE (nonchalantly, tossing the salad): Oh, you know... for kids or something.
CORA (blinking, caught off guard): Kids?
PHOEBE (shrugging): Sure. Kids. This place would be a death trap for the little ones, what with the paper everywhere. One may accidentally sit on the pointed end of a compass or eat a chalk from your blackboard.
CORA (setting down her pencil, staring at PHOEBE): Why are you talking about kids all of a sudden?
PHOEBE (busying herself with seasoning the salad): No reason.
CORA: Phoebe.
PHOEBE (sighing, turning to face her sister): Do you ever think about meeting someone and starting a family?
CORA (laughing): That’s ridiculous! I have every intention of dedicating my life to my work.
PHOEBE: And I have every intention of getting married. There, I said it.
(Cora freezes and her back tenses. Her pencil hovers over the paper and she grips it tightly until her knuckles whiten and the wood snaps in half.)
CORA (carefully): Married?
PHOEBE (with a nervous laugh): You know, that thing people do when they love each other and want to spend their lives together? It’s not exactly breaking news.
CORA: It is for me.
PHOEBE (softly): I have a date tonight.
CORA: And does the poor fool know y’all are getting married?
PHOEBE: Oh, hush you! We haven’t met yet, but Brenda is introducing us at The Corncrib. His name’s Norman. Norman Haldeman.
CORA (leaning back in her chair, crossing her arms): Norman. Norman Hal-de-man.
PHOEBE (nodding): He’s... nice, I think. Kind. He listens and he wants a family. Or so Brenda told me.
CORA (in disbelief): A family?
(The timer rings, loud and jarring. PHOEBE jumps and rushes to the oven, pulling out a corn casserole and placing the dish on the counter.)
PHOEBE (cheerfully, trying to cut the tension): Well, dinner’s ready!
(CORA quietly gathers her papers into a messy stack, her movements deliberate but stiff. She doesn’t look at PHOEBE.)
CORA (flatly): I’ll move my things upstairs.
PHOEBE: Cora, you don’t have to—
CORA (interrupting, standing): I should get back to work. Enjoy your dinner… and your date.
(She lifts up her stack of paper and exits the room, leaving PHOEBE alone by the counter. CORA’s footsteps echo in the staircase behind the kitchen. When the sound fades, PHOEBE begins to cut a piece of the casserole.)
