Asphyxia: A Tragedy
Act 1
Host: Welcome back to the Night Show! Today we have a special guest—give a round of applause for...Mr Smith!
Curtains are drawn open revealing a confident man in a designer suit. Audience claps indifferently as Mr Smith struts towards the stage to greet and exchange handshakes with the host
Host: Let us proceed to the first question— just how successful are you, Mr Smith? I'm quite sure our young viewers would love to know that.
Mr Smith: I live in a luxury apartment two blocks away from my workplace with my beautiful wife and two kids. During the day I work as the Chief Director of the Sociology Sector at Prodigy Hospital.
Host: I see. How did you get to where you are now?
Mr Smith: I grew up in an ordinary household. I excelled in school and got into Sociology. It wouldn't have been possible without perseverance!
The host points towards the camera
Host: Perseverance is the key, kids! That's how you can become as successful as Mr Smith!
The hologram is slammed shut
Act 2
Setting: Dark and messy room littered with emptied bottles and reeking of rum.
A woman removes her fists from the hologram and slumps back onto the ragged sofa. 5 minutes left, she thinks.
Samantha: Success? Perseverance? Lies
She slams the half-emptied bottle on the coffee table before wrapping her dishevelled face in her cracked hands
Samantha: I persevered. I was top. I was best. But I was different — I was lesbian. So stupid 18-year-old me came out—thinking the society would accept me. Suddenly I had to work twice as hard, drink thrice as hard and endure 4 times as hard. I was asphyxiated by the society I was once a part of. Being gay became a disability, just like the disgusting infertile and disfigured and deaf. But then there are the others. Who. Become. Billionaires. Overnight. Without. A. Hint. Of. Effort.
Silence hits. The ticking of the ancient analogue clock becomes the only sound.
Samantha: one minute left.
Samantha walks to the stool and drops.
Act 3
He stands. His position definitely different – on two legs three centimetres further apart than they should be, with two arms not side to side but carelessly shoved into the pockets of his designer blazer and with eyes staring in a direction opposite of where they are supposed to. But, most importantly, he stands utmost still in the middle of a one-way lane. 6 PM precisely, when the left-hand-side of the footpath on Worker Street would become a highway of men and women marching out of their workplace to catch a Skytrain home. Of course, if they won't interrupted by a peculiar individual for 2 seconds. Many shoot glances that could kill and pushes that could squash. Suddenly he starts moving, against the crowd astonishingly. He reaches the elevator of an apartment 2 blocks away from Prodigy Hospital and steps in the empty glass elevator. It zooms above the crowd. Instead of stopping at the 49th floor like he usually would every night he goes straight the 50th. The news begins to play.
News presenter: Tonight, two more reported cases of death by asphyxiation – Samantha Brown, and the famous Daren Lee (who invented the life-changing MDU under a year ago).
Lovely how the media disguises why they died, he thought.
News presenter: Moving onto the next topic, yet another controversial sociology thesis claimed to be by R has been released 2 hours ago named Ash—
He exits the elevator at that moment to be greeted by a powerful gust of wind. On the 7th tallest building of the city the view is tremendous; featuring flashes of Skytrains, huge floating screens and blinking lights, flowing people – all of which are in perfect uniform. He smiles to himself and utters—
R: Asphyxia is quite a tragedy; don't you think so?
