A kid's curiosity

ACT 1. SCENE 1

Lights up on the stage. We see two chairs and a table. HARMONY is sitting on one of them, while writing on a piece of paper. LIZ enters from the right.

LIZ: You're always doing homework when I see you.

HARMONY: Not always. I have to. Go outside and play.

LIZ: What am I, a dog now? I also have homework, though not as much as you. I do. Yeah.

HARMONY: Go and play with the cat in the patio. You're bothering me.

LIZ sits on the remaining chair and stares directly at HARMONY.

HARMONY: I'm serious. School is stressing me out. Your presence does not help.

LIZ: Why?

HARMONY: Why? What do you mean, why?

LIZ: Well, I could be doing handstands. Can't I be here? Just sitting? I won't talk.

HARMONY: I'm not in the mood for a long, tedious conversation. Because you'll end up talking anyways.

LIZ: Never! But first answer me.

HARMONY: (Low voice.) Kids these days just don't get it.

LIZ: I can hear you. And you're a kid too. You're just taller.

HARMONY: (Normal voice.) Oh, please do make me see the truth. How am I, seventeen years old, a kid? Because everyone around me has this tendency to make me take on huge responsibilities and treat me like an adult.

LIZ: You're stupid. All kids are stupid. Because they think they're wiser, at least during these times, because technology has given them a false sense of power and dominance, and like every time that it happens, in a wrong manner, no doubt, power goes to one's head. Just look at that pathetic attempt of a moldy orange the U.S.A. has as a president. Even better, only the illusion of power. Which makes no sense, yet we trust our delirious imagination with the decision making. I've never thought, for as long as I've had an opinion, that there's a better word for us. Stupid. For parents too, and old people.

HARMONY: Deduced intelligence is the start of ignorance.

LIZ: Exactly! I may have to retreat my statement.

HARMONY: Not necessarily. A single "smart" thought doesn't take away your stupidity.

LIZ: So you agree.

HARMONY: What?

LIZ: You think you're really stupid.

HARMONY: Oh, I don't know.

LIZ: Thanks. But do you?

HARMONY: Yes. My initial offense is more like this defense mechanism we have as humans. That's what adults don't understand, or old people. Well, there's not many differences between the two. What I'm saying is they don't like to look at themselves in retrospect.

LIZ: For the most part.

HARMONY: Of course, in general. That's why I didn't say "never."

LIZ: But that doesn't stop them from becoming self-entitled. Bigoted bastards.

HARMONY: Exactly. What is it about being older that gives you superiority over me?

LIZ: They like to say they have lived and seen more than us. Excuse me, Dr. Prescription Glasses.

HARMONY: And I'm not denying that, by any means. But what have they seen that makes them believe their opinion to be the right one? What do you know about my life, and what do you know about the way it has affected me?