Quicklinks:
|
Great Writing - Home > Comedy > The Change of Plan
| READING ROOM | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| COMMUNITY | |||
|---|---|---|---|
|
| ABOUT GREAT WRITING | ||
|---|---|---|
|
| WORK AWAITING REVIEW |
|---|
|
| GW IS... |
|---|
|
Great Writing creative writing community is designed to prompt ideas
and provide inspiration and motivation within aspiring and amateur
authors. Whatever your topic; from love poetry to Doctor Who or Harry
Potter fan fiction, Great Writing's online writing group is where you
can make new friends and improve your creative writing. |
| WHO'S ONLINE |
|---|
| We have 2094 guests online and 15 members online |
Comedy
| print friendly version | |
| The Change of Plan | |
| By Snodlander | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 19 May 2007 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
I know, I know. But it is one of the universal themes of comedy. And the person responsible for inspiring this knows who she is! SCENE: A supermarket. Muzac is quietly coming over the tannoy. The four horsemen of the apocalypse are gathered around a trolley. Minus their horses. [WAR] Crisps! We need some crisps. Crinkle cut. They’re best for dipping. [PESTILENCE] What’s the sell by date? You know what my stomach is like. [WAR] Weeks yet. [TO FAMINE] Fancy some? [FAMINE SHAKES HIS HEAD. WAR RAISES HIS EYEBROWS AT DEATH] [DEATH] No. I’m watching my weight. This robe puts pounds on you, I’m telling you. I’m going to have a word upstairs. I was thinking of something more functional, maybe some cotton-mix trousers and a polo-neck. This is a bugger to wash, and the number of times I get blood on it. [WAR DROPS THE PACKET INTO THE TROLLEY. HE PICKS UP A BASEBALL BAT FROM A DISPLAY AND HEFTS IT EXPERIMENTALLY, THEN PUTS IT BACK] [FAMINE] Anyway, crisps weren’t on the list. What’s the point of making a shopping list if we don’t stick to it? Where’s the list? [THEY ALL LOOK AT DEATH. HE LOOKS BACK DEFENSIVELY] [DEATH] And pockets. Trousers with pockets. What? I’ve got nowhere to put the list, not in these robes, have I? [FAMINE] Oh for crying out loud! What’s the point? [WAR] There was milk. We need that. [DEATH] Semi-skimmed. That full-fat stuff is pure poison. I don’t want to have a stroke because of clogged arteries. I see enough of that at work. [PESTILENCE] Talking of work, I need some aspirin. My head is killing me. God, I hope I’m not going down with something. It would be just my luck if the last trump sounded and I was in bed with flu. [WAR] You might as well stay in bed. We’ve pretty much got things covered anyway. [PESTILENCE] Don’t start. I’m an artist, me! Bloody great big bombs? Where’s the art in that, eh? Where’s the finesse? A plague, now, that’s bloody art, that is. Watching it slowly spread, in ones, twos, fours with an exponential acceleration. Beautiful. They still talk about Typhoid Mary, you know. [WAR] Yeah? What happened with bird flu, then? That was very ‘artistic’, wasn’t it? [FAMINE] Oh God, here we go. [PESTILENCE] You know that wasn’t my fault! That was a rush job. You know I’m not good under pressure. I told them you want sparrows. Chickens can’t fly. But no, no-one listens to me, because I’m only the bloody world’s leading expert, aren’t I? [DEATH] Hey, they’ve got a special offer on pasta. [WAR] [SUB VOCE] Bock, bock, bock, atchoo! [PESTILENCE TURNS TO WAR] Right! You’ve asked for this. [PESTILENCE SQUARES UP TO WAR. DEATH AND FAMINE STEP IN AND PUSH THEM APART] [FAMINE] Stop it you two. Anyway, it’s probably never going to happen. [DEATH] What do you mean? Have you heard something? [FAMINE] [EVASIVELY] Nothing official, no. [WAR] Don’t give me that. [WAR GRABS FAMINE BY THE LAPELS] You’ve heard something. Give! [FAMINE] [LOOKING FROM SIDE TO SIDE TO SEE IF HE’S BEING OVERHEARD] OK, listen. This didn’t come from me, right? But I overheard something from a reliable source. [DEATH] Who? [FAMINE] I can’t tell you that! [WAR] Right! [WAR GOES BACK TO THE DISPLAY AND PICKS UP THE BASEBALL BAT] [FAMINE] Peter! Peter and Michael. I overheard them, OK? But don’t tell anyone else. [PESTILENCE] What did they say? [FAMINE] Well, I didn’t get it all, right? But they were talking about God changing the plan. [WAR] What plan? [PESTILENCE] Christ, you’re thick! The plan. The ineffable plan. How many plans do you think there are? [WAR] You are this close, chicken boy. [DEATH] Shut it, you two. What did they say about the plan? [PESTILENCE] They said that He had re-evaluated the economies of scale. Well, no-one had quite anticipated how good they would be at obeying ‘go forth and multiply’. They said that He had thought they would be as bad at obeying that one as they were at all the other commands. But now, because they’re so many, we have to look to a more efficient apocalypse. [DEATH] Jesus! You don’t mean… compulsory competitive tendering? [PESTILENCE NODS] [WAR] But that’s just stupid. Who’s got the experience that we have? [FAMINE] Well, there’s one group… [PESTILENCE] Oh, that’s not going to happen. They’re not so stupid that they’d tender to arrange their own extinction, are they! …Are they? [THEY ALL THINK FOR A MOMENT] [WAR] Oh shit! We’re screwed, aren’t we?
Only registered users can rate and write comments. Powered by AkoComment 2.0! |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Previous item
|
Next item
|
|---|