Amiel Gladstone is a West Coast–based writer and director who has premiered work with companies such as Alberta Theatre Projects, the Arts Club Theatre Company, the Belfry Theatre, Caravan Farm Theatre, Factory Theatre, the Firehall Arts Centre, the Musical Stage Company, the National Arts Centre, Pacific Opera Victoria, Solo Collective, Vancouver Opera, Theatre Replacement, Theatre Conspiracy, Touchstone Theatre, Theatre SKAM, the Vancouver Playhouse, and the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival.

Florida Dream - May 10,2020                                                                                             

A father and son on the telephone. 

Son:                 Let me just shut the door. The dog is trying to get in. She’s whining to go out. 

Father:            Ah, ok.

Son:                 (off to dog) OK, ok, yes, Luna, some snuggles. Now you stay out here. You stay. 

(back on phone) Sorry about that. 

Father:            It’s fine. 

Son:                 We’re all having to cope. Marlene is working from home now too. She’s seeing clients over Skype. Which she’d done a little before, but doing it for everyone

is new. If I want to get inspired, like if I’m dried up for ideas, I can eavesdrop. I don’t of course, I mean not really.  So she does that, and I mainly sit here and look at the trees. Or make tea. Or hug the dog.  We walk. At night mainly. Then we are less likely to run into any other dogs.  People’re mostly pretty good around here. Although right now there does seem to be more poop on the roads, so…  Anyway.  That’s me.  Pretty much.  Oh! Also! I’m cooking way more now. I’m using an app. You type in what you have in the house and then it tells you what to cook.  Tonight we had penne, lentil and tomato soup.  So that’s another thing that’s happening here.  Looking for the bright side of the silver lining, you know. 

Beat.

Father:            Am I Ok?

Son:                 Dad. Are you Ok?

Father:            Yes. (Beat.) Am I Ok? I don’t feel Ok. 

Son:                 That’s how everyone feels right now. 

Father:            This feels different. Deeper than that. 

Son:                 Deeper than that? There’s some pretty deep stuff going on right now. 

Father:            Should I see a doctor?

Son:                 You do not want to try to see a doctor right now. You’re fine. You’re fine. You’re back living in Florida now. 

Father:            I didn’t ask where I am. I know where I am. 

Son:                Yeah, it’s nice down there, is all I’m saying. When I was a teenager I got to spend my summers there with you. We used to ride around together.

Father:            I gave you forty dollars to buy a bike. 

Son:                 Yes, and I found one a week later at a garage sale. A yellow ten speed. A girl’s bike. 

Father:            That was a good find. Why are we talking about your old bike now? I was asking about this lousy feeling I’ve got.

Son:                 I wonder what happened to that bike?

Father:            Shut up about the bike!

Son:                 Ok. (Beat.) You’ve always felt lousy. No matter where you moved. You keep trying to move to run away from the feeling.

Father:            You do know your old man. I’ve sure lived a lot of places. 

Son:                 Yeah.

Father:            Florida, obviously, and Philadelphia, and Connecticut… I went up to Connecticut because I connected with an old girlfriend and that’s where she happened to be living.  I moved there all of a sudden. 

Son:                 Yes. And then you very quickly found out why you had broken up in the first place.  

Father:            Marigold.

Son:                 That was her.

Father:            We met in the sixties, before you were born.  

Son:                 I know.

Father:            I had a whole life before you… Marigold and I, we both got married to other people and had a whole lifetime, well not lifetime, but I mean, enough time for me to be born, and grow up, that much time… a half life time? Sounds like a carbon dating thing or something.  Anyway, me and Marigold hadn’t said a word to each other in about forty years, and the internet brought us back together.  

Son:                 There’s a thing the Internet is good for! 

Father:            Hunh?

Son:                 You’re always saying, “what’s the Internet good for any way?” and there you go, it brought you back to Marigold… although…

Father:            Nah. It’s just another thing to check.

Son:                 … what?

Father:            It’s another thing to check. The Internet. Already gotta check the voicemail, the real mail, how many more mails I’m going to have to be checking, is all. 

Son:                 Right.  

Beat. 

Father:            Listen. Straight up. 

Son:                 You’re fine. You’re good. You’re doing great down there in Florida. 

Father:            How do you know? You’re so far away. You’re another country away. 

Son:                 It’s not that far. It’s a direct flight. 

Father:            No one is flying these days. It’s very far. 

Son:                 Do you remember me coming there the last time a couple years ago? I flew down to see you. 

Father:            Yes.

Son:                 Yeah.  (Beat.) And you were worried, you wouldn’t find your way back from the airport all right?  Must’ve figured it out. 

Father:            Must’ve.

Son:                 We took a taxi out to the airport and when we said goodbye, I asked if you knew how to get home. You said you were going to take the bus home and I said do you know which one? Your short term- you had become so forgetful. So I was worried.  And I said goodbye and got on my plane.  See, you must have got home ok. 

Beat.

Father:            I miss you. (Beat.)  So. Please. Am I Ok? Would you please tell me what’s going on. 

Son:                 You know what’s going on. 

Father:            No. I mean, with me. What is going on with me? Why do I feel like something is wrong with me?

Son:                 I think you’re fine. 

Father:            Do you? Do you really think I am fine? I said, I miss you, what do you say to that?

Son:                 I keep having this dream. In it, I’m at the Tampa Bay city hall, at the Hillsborough registrar and I’m getting… I’m getting copies of your death certificate and I’m giving all the info to the clerk, your Social security, date of birth all that, and as I’m doing that I see that you are sitting there in the waiting room, waiting for me. And when I look over, you smile and wave, and I turn back to the clerk and the clerk has gone to get something, and then you come over, and you ask what am I doing, and I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to tell you that I am here to get copies of your death certificates, because that would mean you are dead. 

And then the clerk comes back and somehow the clerk knows what’s going on, like the clerk know you are my dead father, and how awkward that is trying to get death certificates with you standing right there, and so he makes up some excuse.  “Nope, no parking tickets under that name after all.” Ok thank  you. 

So the thing is, when you ask, “Am I Ok?” I need to tell you… but I guess I am not able to do that yet, which is why you keep coming to me in dreams, and asking, “am I Ok?” 

And I keep saying, are you Ok? You’re in Florida, you’re fine, you’re doing great, that’s how you’re doing. 

I told Marlene about all this. Stuck together in the house like this, we’ve been talking about all kinds of things.  What are we going to make for dinner? Which one of us does Luna love more? How you were visiting me in my dreams, and looking totally healthy and asking am I Ok, and I am not able to tell you the truth. 

Marlene says, “you need to tell him he’s dead. Then he will stop coming to you in dreams.”

But I don’t want you to stop coming to me in dreams.  It’s pretty much all I’ve got right now. 

Beat.

Father:            (singing) Row, row your boat 

Gently down the stream. 

            Merrily, merrily,                                            

Merrily, merrily                                                         

                        Life is but a dream.

Silence.