MIRIAM AND HARRIET REDECORATE (a micro play in one act)

Setting: An I Dream Of Jeannie style living space. The room is beautifully furnished in a moroccan style. Velvety couches and throw pillows for miles. Patterned walls and soft lighting. French music is softly playing. Harriet is draped listlessly across a purple couch. Miriam enters.

MIRIAM

Whatever is the matter, dear?

HARRIET

(Moodily) Oh, you know, ever since she got into her early forties it’s felt like there’s just nothing left to do. She’s reached her full height, her BMI is at a workable 20.5, and her hair is lustrous and full. 

MIRIAM 

We did a great job with her, didn’t we? 

HARRIET

Yes, but it seems as though we’re not needed anymore! I’m young! I’m creative. I’m full of brilliant ideas and have no way to execute them. To quote Toni Morrison, I’m an artist without a medium. Nothing to do but eat ice cream and get fat.

MIRIAM

Come now. Surely we can think of better things to do. She’s beautiful, it’s true, but that doesn’t mean she’s finished.

HARRIET

What do you mean?

MIRIAM

Well, now that the structural engineering is done, the fun starts! We can start thinking outside of the box.

HARRIET

You mean like … redecorating?

[Miriam pulls out a giant cardboard box from behind the couch.] 

MIRIAM

I’ve been collecting these over the years. Christmas is right around the corner, what say we put some of these decorations up?

HARRIET

(Claps her hands joyfully and starts digging in the container). Oh, an anomaly! Where shall we put this? I was just in the eastern hemisphere and noticed a little bare patch; that might work. 

MIRIAM

This little tusk will go nicely at the heel. There’s so much wear and tear in the area perhaps it will shore things up a bit.

[They work busily, pulling out various treasures, exclaiming over them, then running from the room to place each item.]

HARRIET

I think a little more shrubbery on the philtrum? Where can I get some?

MIRIAM

Try the upper ocular ridge; there’s plenty there. In fact take it all.

HARRIET

There’s a small tangle in the left vestibular that needed sprucing up, so I hung tinsel and draped the ends out the window. This extra areola looked smashing on the right wall, but this teratoma is just a little too plain, don’t you think? 

MIRIAM

Well, we could festoon it with a sprinkle of hair and a chipped tooth. That’s what my grandmother always did and it was hugely popular; in fact, many of her creations became part of traveling exhibits—did I ever tell you that?

HARRIET

Only thirty-seven times. [Turns the box upside down.] Hey, that’s everything. [Both stand with hands on hips and survey their handiwork.] Now THAT’S what I call beautifully decorated. Wait till she wakes up. She’s going to be thrilled!

[Camera zooms outward, out, out, out, to reveal a stretching, yawning forty-something woman. She crawls out of bed and screams when she discovers a tooth sprouting from her heel, she has a fine new mustache, there is now a third nipple on her hip and her eyebrows are gone.]

END