"The Northwest Passage" by Westward Ho

            (An unsavory REPORTER comes to interview THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE.  

            She is much older now and lives in Pickfair before it fell down.)

THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE

You may think no one cares to find me, but you are wrong.  These furnishings are dusty; I can’t get good help.

REPORTER

You have many visitors?

THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE

Silly boy, no.  I know what you’re thinking.  But you’re wrong.  Some look.  The sensitive ones.

REPORTER

For what reason?  Financial gain?

THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE

Financial---?  I may ask you to leave.

REPORTER

But what about space?  Haven’t your followers turned to space?

THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE

Then let them chase that old whore! 

            (She smoothes her coarse hair)

A few still know I’m here---just northernly accessible, tantalizing.

            (She blows smoke from a long cigarette and tries to make a silhouette in her 

            cracked glass.  The image is wholly pathetic in the tragic sense of the word.)

            END OF “THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE.”

"The Descriptive Passage" by Westward Ho

            (A PASSAGE addresses a disinterested audience.)

PASSAGE

I remember clearly the sound of the radiator hissing and the smell of the paint---for radiators ought never to be painted, yet so often are---and I recall the way that the air moved an old mobile hanging over the radiator, currents causing crinkled papers to shimmy.  The mobile was an old school project, faded construction paper planets tied to a brass coat hanger.  The strings were tangled from years of their radiator dance.

            (Looking at the audience)

Hey, I’m describing up here!

A HECKLER

Describe my ass!

PASSAGE

I’d have to know it to do it.

            (Members of the AUDIENCE hoot.)

                    PASSAGE (Continued)

If you think what I’m doing is easy, come up and do it yourself!

AN AUDIENCE MEMBER

No, no.  You just do what you do.

            (The PASSAGE turns its attention to wild artichokes.)

            END OF “THE DESCRIPTIVE PASSAGE.”

"The Sad Pie" by Westward Ho

            (A PIE sets on a window sill.  Passers by.)

PASSERS

Look!  A pie!  Hist, hist!

PIE

Yes, gawk, you villains!  Here I sit, like a head on a pike, the life slowly training from fluted crust!

PASSERS

Hist, hist!

            (The PASSERS keep bying.  The PIE keeps a-crying.)

END OF “THE SAD PIE.”

"Song of the Pregnant Fish" by Westward Ho

            (A nervous MANTA RAY hides under a cloak of sand.)

MANTA RAY

            (Sighs)

I’m so hungry.

            (Sings)

I fear the fisherman.

I fear the hook.

I fear I’ll find a thing to eat

That gets me “took.”

It’s hard, ’cause here,

In kite-like me,

I have my little manta babies---

One, two, three.

            (She peers out.  Hooks and bait everywhere.)

            END OF “SONG OF THE PREGNANT FISH.”

"March of the Flowers" by Westward Ho

             (The FLOWERS march voraciously, destroying all in their path.)

            END OF “MARCH OF THE FLOWERS.”

"Abraham and Sarah at Breakfast" by Westward Ho

     (ABRAHAM and SARAH are sitting at the table.)

ABRAHAM

Busy day today, dear.  I'm going to cut the skin off my penis.  Then I'm going to gather the guys together and do the same to them.

     (SARAH looks up from her newspaper.)

SARAH

Most men take up golf.

     END OF "SARAH AND ABRAHAM AT BREAKFAST."

"Disentanglement"

            (The kitchen of the Hos’ home, the window overlooking the gravel driveway.   

            MRS. HO is making a diorama of a windswept street, with tiny crumpled 

            newspapers and broken umbrellas suspended by wire.  She paints the eyes on 

            her small doll self, doll grandson in its arms.)

MOCHA TCHOKHA ROSE

Where is your grandchild?

MRS. HO

With his mother.

            (MOCHA sips juice.)

MOCHA TCHOKHA ROSE

“Butch Gardens” has been on another platform for several months now.

MRS. HO

You can hide nothing on the internet.

MOCHA TCHOKHA ROSE

I am successful and don’t need you.  I am taking “Butch Gardens.”

MRS. HO

That’s best.

MOCHA TCHOKHA ROSE

You won’t get any new episodes for “Plays:  Short and Strange.”

MRS. HO

Good.  But you are my intellectual property.

            (She installs the Mrs. Ho doll.)

MOCHA TCHOKHA ROSE

What?

MRS. HO

It doesn’t matter.  I found Westward.  We had a reconciliation.  Or something.

MOCHA TCHOKHA ROSE

Good.  Good-bye forever.

            (She leaves.)

            END OF “DISENTANGLEMENT.”