© Chris Port, 1994. All rights reserved.
Scene 8.
Narrator, Mark Fowler, Sick Victim, Monica.
Mark vomits on the Sick Victim.
NARRATOR
Now, having covered drink, I suppose we should take a look at being sick. You can normally predict from fairly early on who’s likely to be sick and, if you’ve been paying attention, I think you’ll know whom I’m talking about. Where is he? (He finds Mark Fowler standing on his own). Here he is. Our old suicide-squad of a person, Mark Fowler.
Now Brenda is supposed to have been looking after him. But Brenda’s been running around all night like a social worker on speed. Louise said she’d look after him. But Louise says lots of things and, lets face it, if you had the choice between talking with your friends, being chatted-up, and generally having a good time, or sticking close to a walking brain-death who’s likely to chuck up doner kebab with chilli sauce into your concerned face, which would you rather choose?
(The Narrator starts to examine Mark as though he were a grotesque animated graphic).
Mark’s not feeling too good at the moment. You can tell that by the expression on his face, like a man unsure about a liquid fart, the beads of perspiration, and the six foot total exclusion zone that’s been imposed around him by all the other people who have noticed exactly the same things.
Now, the toilet is out. It’s just too far. There’d be a trail of regurgitated gristle all the way up the stairs, on every snogging couple’s heads and every jostling shoulder in the loo-queue. Logic should therefore dictate that he run straight away out into the garden and find a nice big rose-bush to hide behind.
But have you ever been sick? When your stomach’s churning with squirming grease, your mouth floods with spit, and there’s a horrible hot tickle of bile in the back of your throat. Who can think logically under such conditions?
At first, you daren’t move. If you can just keep still enough, it might go away. But then you know. It’s irrevocable. What goes down, must come up. And that’s when the panic sets in. At best, you’ve got about four seconds before swallowing becomes a futile joke. So you run, pushing blindly against everything in your path, hand clamped over your mouth like a rotting oxygen mask. Three seconds... two seconds... one second... now! It doesn’t matter where you are. It doesn’t matter who’s there. Run, Mark, run!
(Mark runs for the garden. He bumps into Sick Victim and vomits all over her front).
SICK VICTIM
No! No! I don’t believe it!
MARK
(Trying to wipe away the mess). I’m sorry.
SICK VICTIM
Get away from me! Just get away from me! This is my best top and... oh Christ, I don’t believe it. It’s... oh... chilli sauce. Get it off me!
(Monica comes over).
MONICA
I knew this would happen. Mark. Go into the garden. You might need to be sick again. (To Sick Victim). Come into the kitchen and I’ll clean that off you. Louise. Get a cloth and clean the carpet. Now!
(Mark goes out into the garden and sits on the patio step. Monica goes offstage with Sick Victim. Louise follows).
NARRATOR
Well. It was hardly unexpected, was it? But don’t smirk. Mark Fowler may be a walking bag of puke but he’s still a human being. And he’s crying out there. Partly because he’s been sick, and he always cries when he’s sick. But also because he’s embarrassed. Yes. Even walking bags of puke get embarrassed. Human beings are funny like that sometimes.
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