The Airmail Disaster

[Hawaii leaves the room]
[pause, iris is busy with some computer thing]
Mary: Iris.
Iris: what?
[pause]
Mary: Through no fault of your own, you may be in serious trouble.
[pause]
Iris: i don't like this...
Iris: ...i don't like this, i don't like this—
Mary: Don't panic.
Iris: sorry, i'm just on edge from nearly having a HEART ATTACK.
Mary: If you still have any, you should take some Clonazepam.
Iris: no, it's fine
Mary: I'm not going to continue this conversation until you do.
[pause]
Iris: ugh, fine.
[goes to the kitchen, gets a glass of water, gets out the clonazepam]
Iris: i don't even remember how much of this I'm supposed to take.
Mary: How much do you have left?
Iris: a fair amount... i don't think i've taken it more than three or four times, and they were all back when it was originally perscribed. [closeup of iris holding the bottle so that mary can't see simon's name on the label]
Mary: [looking out the AR window] Five milligrams is fine.
[iris takes the drugs, puts them away, shuts the cabinet]
[pause]
Iris: thanks. you were right to make me do that.
[pause]
Mary: [turns back around] You're not going to like what I'm about to tell you.
Iris: should i be sitting down?
Mary: No, stay in the kitchen in case you need to throw up.
Iris: jesus christ! what could possibly be as shocking as you're building this up to be?
Mary: People are told to sit down in case they're robbed of strength by despair or faint from shock. What you need to prepare yourself for is panic and disorientation.
Mary: Plus, you're the throwing-up type.
Iris: what's that supposed to mean! you think I'm bulemic, don't you?
Mary: Hawaii got out of the box an hour before it was delivered.
Iris: oh. what—
[long pause]
Iris: you're right, that makes me feel... extremely sick to my stomach...
[pause]
Iris: i'm—
Iris: [starting to panic] where is she?
Mary: She's safe.
[iris regains her composure]
Mary: You are not.
Iris: is she going to kill me?
Mary: Don't be autistic.
Iris: sorry. wait, you ARE fucking with me, aren't you.
Mary: She's in your house.
[pause]
Iris: i honestly can't tell if you're fucking with me.
Mary: Hawaii mailed herself to you. You have a missing eight-year-old girl in your house.
Iris: you're fu—
Mary: Iris.
Iris: HOW? no, this isn't—
Mary: Whom you met online.
Iris: i like how even when you're telling me how fucked i am, you use the correct forms of who and whom.
Mary: As always, your sense of humor twists your sanity out of harm's way.
Iris: [flirtatiously] thank you.
Mary: That wasn't a complement, it was a fact.
Iris: oh! flirt much?
Mary: James, I'm happily married to a student.
[iris throws up in the sink]
Mary: Now replay the day's events and see if you can put the world back together.
[still poised over the sink, iris looks up and to the left with an absent expression]
[long pause]
Iris: She got to me before the box did. She's been real all day.
Mary: Call the police and say you're reporting the location of a missing child. Tell them everything. The truth is on your side, but it will not stay there for very much longer.
[iris brings up a dialpad]
[she hovers her finger over it, and her expression becomes distant]
Iris: mary, are you sure about this?...
Mary: You haven't done anything wrong. You're not making a confession, you're reporting a missing child. Call the police.
[iris pushes 9]
[long pause]
Mary: iris... is there something you're not telling me?
Iris: it's probably... not relevant—
Iris: —well...
Iris: fucking hell.
Iris: this has GOT to be... hypothetically, if...
Mary: Should I be standing near the sink for this?
Iris: [warm bemusement] yes. you might want to.
Iris: [mumbling, vaguely pretending to dial] oh one one eight, nine nine nine—
Iris: uhhhhww... ok. HYPOTHETICALLY...
Iris: hypothetically, would your recommendation to call the police change if i was... change to NOT calling the police, rather...!
Iris: if, rather than being a girl named iris from pontypool, i was a girl named simona from london, who sometimes pretended to be welsh on the internet just to be fucking stupid?
Mary: No. Call the police.
Iris: what if I was actually a girl named SIMON from london?
Mary: Call the police.
Iris: what if I was actually a BOY named simon?
[pause]
Mary: Show me.
[iris becomes simon]
[pause]
Mary: Let me think.
Simon: how about now? is now a good time to be sitting down? or laying down, maybe?
Mary: [circling him] How are you shifting the formant of your voice without leaving artifacts in the background noise? Even your throwup hitting the sink sounded real.
Simon: i erase the background noise completely in ableton live and reconstruct it in REAL after the formant shift
Simon: using prerecorded loops
Mary: You manually isolate and loop every ambient sound source in your life to better pretend you're a Welsh girl named Iris?
Simon: that will be the QC's opening statement, after which the judge will look down and say "well mrSIMON, or should i say mrPAEDOPHILE, perhaps you'll enjoy THIS little noise!" as he BANGS HIS GAVEL!
Simon: cut to prison bars slamming— you get it.
Mary: Eat something if you can and go to bed. I'll to talk to Hawaii and wake you up when I figure out the best course of action.
Simon: i'll write my suicide note before i turn in, that way if my best course of action is suicide you can just have Hawaii smother me with a pillow.
Mary: Goodnight, Simon.
Simon: goodnight, mary! IF THAT'S YOUR REAL NAME!
Simon: [pulling his hair] fucking hell, what am i TALKING about—
Mary: Go. To bed.
Simon: [apologetically] sorr-yyy
Simon: goodnight.