Short Stories

January 2017

This creative writing follows the reading of Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. It sure is a great play and I enjoyed it in a sense, however the depressing themes and the fact that the play mainly consists of people shouting at each other and not listening to one another was torture. In the assignment itself we had to write a short play containing one of the original play's themes (lies, pastoral ideal, success, family—preferably dysfunctional—etc) and insert two "elements of stagecraft" which connects to the themes and meaning of our story. Here we go...

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Set in the street. A sidewalk stretches from one side of the stage to the other and is cut on the far right by a crosswalk, where a pedestrian light burns red; the constant sound of rushing cars is heard throughout the scene. Sylvie enters left, walking hurriedly on the sidewalk, along with her best friend Mary who is trying to keep up.

MARY: I don't understand, why would you be worried? You've always told me how she's such a great student.

SYLVIE (agitated) : But she is, Mary, she is! Yet her grades have been going down! I feel like she's not even trying anymore. (She is stopped at the crosswalk.) Great, a red light. Just what I need.

MARY: Why on earth would she let her grades go down?

SYLVIE: How should I know, she doesn't even speak to me anymore!

MARY: What? I didn't know that! Why haven't you told me?

SYLVIE: I didn't expect you to understand, you don't have a daughter.

MARY (miffed): I know that. That's not an excuse.

SYLVIE: I just tend not to pester you too much with details of my fascinating everyday life.

MARY: This isn't a detail, Sylvie! I'm not your best friend for nothing, you can tell me this kind of stuff. So how long has your own daughter stopped speaking to you?

SYLVIE: Almost a couple months, I think.

MARY: Geez! Two months! And you've been treating this like it's all normal?

SYLVIE: Of course not! It's just I didn't notice that much at first.

MARY: What do you mean?

SYLVIE: You know what I mean! I'm not home much because of my job, so it took me some time to notice she was consistently silent around me. What's taking this light so long? I haven't got all day!

MARY: How long have her grades been getting worse?

SYLVIE (exasperated) : More than a month.

MARY: Well then, that's not too hard to figure out, is it? Claudia has had a problem and since then doesn't want to talk to you or focus on school.

The sound of rushing cars intensifies.

SYLVIE: But she has her first baccalaureate exams today! She can't give that up! I made sure she was studying, and correcting her failed tests! She spent her weekends studying! She can't give up on that... Oh, forget the red light, I'm moving on!

(She starts across the crosswalk, but the honk of an approaching car sounds right next to her. Mary rushes to grab her and pulls her back on the sidewalk.)

MARY: Are you crazy? The light's still red!

SYLVIE: She can't do this to me! She can't flunk her exam!

MARY: If she's decided to it's too late to change her decision. You need to calm down, Sylvie. You'll need to go talk to her and figure out what her problem is.