Parcel Post

AT RISE:

A FedEx package pickup depository. Sterile and white, with funky purple highlights. STEVE stands behind the counter, efficient and neat.

The sound of a sliding glass door, and MARK crawls onstage, wearing a tattered white lab coat, covered in filth.

STEVE:
Hi, welcome to FedEx. How can I help you?

Using the counter, Mark manages to stand. His legs, however, remain unsteady.

MARK:
Are you aware of how difficult it is to find this place?

STEVE:
Customers do occasionally comment on our location, yes.

MARK:
Occasionally comment? You're in the middle of bleeding nowhere! I had to hop a train to get within two miles of this place!

STEVE:
Well, we are in New York City, sir. The subway is a fairly common-

MARK:
I don't mean the subway. I mean a freight train. I had to fight a hobo.

STEVE:
There are easier ways to get here.

MARK:
Not according to your security guard at the gate. The gate FIVE MILES west of here. He even gave me a stick beat off the coyotes. Have I mentioned the coyotes?

STEVE:
No, you haven't.

MARK:
Oh.
(beat)
There are coyotes.

STEVE:
And you beat them off with a stick?

MARK:
Oh no. The hobos took my stick. I had to distract them with leather from my shoes.

STEVE:
Fascinating. Is there anything I can help you with today?

MARK:
...I'm here to pick up a package.

STEVE:
You wouldn't prefer that we deliver it to your home?

MARK:
I would actually. Unfortunately, your delivery man did not seem to realize the technology behind a door knocker, and left without actually delivering me the package.

STEVE:
I'm sorry to hear that. Do you have your package slip?

Mark checks his pockets frantically.

MARK:
...I must have lost it back at the quicksand.

A trombone makes a sad "mwomp, mwomp" noise.

STEVE:
Dem's the breaks, kiddo!

MARK:
Well, that's the last time I go to the Bronx!

Freeze Frame!

BLACKOUT. END PLAY.