This was part of an evening of "La Ronde," in which each playwright inherited a character from the previous play. I inherited character "B" and had 24 hours to write this. And here it is.
Do No Harm
by Jacob Juntunen
(B is sitting at a table. C is standing.)
C
Nice basement.
B
I expected you sooner.
C
She died at 2am, it’s only 3:30 now—
B
I mean before 24 patients died.
C
Why don’t you call and turn yourself in? It will be simpler.
B
I want my job back.
C
I would have been here sooner if all the deaths had been in oncology. Besides, it’s not like you updated your address in the hospital directory after you quit.
B
How did you track me down?
C
I called your mother. You talked to her everyday on your breaks, so—
B
She’s upstairs if you want to say hi. She still makes that chocolate cake you like.
C
It’s a little late for a visit.
B
So why don’t we just discuss the terms of the hospital rehiring me—
C
There’s no way the hospital’s hiring you back after 24 deaths.
B
You fired me, but didn’t press any charges. You have some new evidence?
C
It’s nice your mom let’s her forty year old son sleep in her basement.
B
We shop together. I help her with the housework she can’t do anymore. She’s pretty weak at 84.
C
You could afford the best home for her, instead you get this crazy notion, and just because you can’t be prosecuted—
B
This is the best way to help these people. I was the best you had.
C
Until you went crazy.
B
You’re the one pumping people full of toxins, shooting them through with radiation—
C
I don’t kill them.
B
I offer the family a way towards the inevitable that is faster and more merciful than—
C
We took an oath: Do no harm.
B
Oh, Jack. Just leave if we’re going to have the same conversations from the break room. This is the twenty-first century. We both know rules are passé.
C
(putting phone on table) Why don’t we see if the police think rules are passé?
B
It’s no crime to die. I saved the ones that could be saved and—
C
The woman tonight, she was my patient. She wasn’t terminal.
B
I saw the chart—
C
Then our interpretations of her symptoms differ; she was scheduled to begin treatment tomorrow—
B
Now, Jack, you can’t have it both ways. First you say there are rules, now you say there are different interpretations of a chart. There’s either truth or there’s not.
C
There’s truth—
B
And you know it?
C
Sometimes. (holding up container) I know, for instance, that this contains enough morphine to kill your mother.
B
That’s a fact, but hardly a truth—
C
Your mother’s old. She’ll die sooner or later. There’s no cancer yet, but otherwise her case isn’t much off the woman you killed tonight—
B
I’m a doctor. I don’t kill people, I give family members the means to let their loved ones go. I don’t give the injection.
C
Then you won’t have any guilt when I kill your mother.
B
Now who’s the crazy one? I just want my job back, and you’re talking about killing—
C
You think I won’t put this into your mother’s vein?
B
And give up your storybook life? What would the wife and kiddies say?
C
If it will keep my patients from dying, it’ll be worth it.
B
And when the police come?
C
I’ll tell them about the 24 bodies at the hospital that died for no reason after you left, after all those talks we had about you perfecting a way to painlessly let them drift away.
B
What if I promise no more deaths?
C
A murderer doesn’t get to work at a hospital.
B
I’m not guilty of anything.
C
Then you shouldn’t feel any guilt when I kill your mother. You can just stand by and watch. Or you can accept that the outmoded rules apply, pick up the phone, and turn yourself in.
B
There’s no chance of getting my job back?
C
Just pick up the phone.
(A moment. Then B picks up the phone)
B
Fine. Put your morphine away.
C
You won’t regret this. I’ll vouch for your character, what you were trying to do, try to get you clemency—
(B hands C the phone)
B
I have a much more sophisticated compound than morphine.
C
For what?
B
We’re going upstairs and telling mother goodnight together. Once you’re done with mother, I trust you can show yourself out?
(blackout)
Read full lengths by Jacob Juntunen here!
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