PLAY #4

FREE FROM THE MASTERS OF WAR

Written by
Joseph Frost

Draft
8/4/17

written as part of the 2017 31 Plays in 31 Days challenge

4550 Normandy Dr
Jackson, MS 39206
FrostJosephD@gmail.com
Member, Dramatists Guild of America
 Rubble. Like a city block has been bombed.

A child emerges from the rubble, carrying an average semi-

automatic weapon.

CHILD
Yesterday seems long ago to me. So much has happened in that time.
My father died when I was young. Fell ill in the night, and by morning, he was a spirit.
But we couldnt pay for someone to take his body away. For days it took up one room of
our two room home, the rest of us huddled together in the heat and the sweat.
He would not like to see what has happened here. I dont think he would understand.
I dont know if I understand.
One day, men came from the next town, telling us to leave. Screaming, shouting. Warning.
The Masters of War are coming, they said.
Ive only seen one comic book in my life, but these Masters of War sounded like they
might be super heros. I pictured bright colored costumes, and capes. Striking heroic
poses, and standing for what was right, and true. Thats what I pictured.
These men, the men who came after the men who warned us; those men were not what I
pictured. Their costumes were not bright colors. They wore no capes. The struck no
heroic poses.
Mother had kept us home from school, so we were home mid-morning. Thats when the
wall of our home exploded in sound and fire. My left ear, I still hear it ringing.
In came a man. A master of war, I thought. He held one of these. I had seen one on the
television down the street once, when I had snuck out after mother was asleep. Im sure
Ive seen others before, I must have never noticed. Now I see them all the time.
The man who was in my home, he yelled at my mother and at me and my brother. I
couldnt hear him for all the ringing. He was mad. He shot my mother when she wouldnt
do something. My brother hit him with a chair. The man was on the ground and dropped
his gun. My brother took it and shot him in the face. Then my brother ran away. Left me
in the room with my mother, the man, and the gun. It was the room where my fathers
body had lain for days. I think I might have cried. I dont remember.
At night, a man from my town came through the hole in the wall. I could hear better
because the ringing was smaller. He told me to come with him, and to bring the gun. So I
did.
He was a nice man. Gave me some food. Told me where I could sleep. He let me keep
this. So I have it with me when the Masters returned. Taught me how to use it. Where to
shoot them so they cant hurt anyone ever again. Make them dead. So I have it with me all
the time now. Right next to me. Like its my brother. Instead of my brother. Its heavy. I
dont like carrying it. I dont like having to carry it.

Sometimes I get scared. When it gets real quiet. Sometimes at night, but sometimes in the
day. When the ringing gets small, and I feel like I should be able to hear something, but I
dont.
(MORE)
 2.

CHILD (CONT'D)
I hope someday my brother will come home. But Im not at home, so maybe hes there
hoping I come home. I dont care about home so much anymore. But Id like to be with
my brother. Id like that.
And Id like... Id like for the Masters of War... that theyd not like War so much any more.
I dont want to shoot them anymore. I dont want them to shoot my family or blow up my
walls any more.
You know what I think.
I dont think theyre Masters of War at all.
I think, sometimes, that they... suffer from war, too.
That maybe they dont like carrying this around the way I dont like carrying it around.
That were all being made to carry them around.

But then I wonder, if they arent the Masters, then someone else might be. And who is
that? And how do we... me... and them... how do we get free?

The child crawls back into the rubble.

Carrying the weapon.

End.