LIGHTS

How are you??  How are you??  How are you??

(applause)

What we've got for you today is more human detritus and martyrs.  So don't go anywhere.  We'll be right back after these words from our sponsors...

(applause; fade out)

--Are you tired of feeling tired, of being low in the energy department?  Are you tapped out?  Overworked?  Underpaid?  Then get back to work.  No, just kidding (sort of).  I mean, you would have to be crazy to just sit there while all this is going on.  While the world slides into oblivion.  So...order some of our little blue pills...right away!--

(back to the show; applause)

We're baaack!  I'm sorry about that.  We wanted to go away so you'd miss us!  Did you miss us?  HUH?? 

(images of kittens flashed on screens overhead; audience: Awwww)

I thought you did.  Now it's time for our GUESTS!!!

(several celebrities of various shapes and sizes are presented for our viewing pleasure; some mindless chatter between them and the host; and then...)

And now it's time for questions.  From you!

(kittens; aww)

Who wants to go first...yes, you, ma'am.

(lady in audience stands, shakily)

Yes, I, I...

Spit it out, hon.

(aww)

Yes, I wanted to ask the man in the blue...What was it like to have to force your wife to have an abortion?  I mean, even if it was a Nazi skinhead who....

I'm sorry.  But I'm getting bored, so I think I'll talk to myself while pretending to care about what you just said.  Don't you think it must have been hard?

(gestures knowingly to audience; robotic nodding in agreement)

Yes, I thought you would.  (to the woman who asked the question, still standing, still shaking)  And don't you think that was a stupid question to ask?  I do.  (turns dramatically to audience)  AUDIENCE, WHAT DO YOU THINK??

(cued by screens overhead, in tandem)

STU-PID!!

(the woman returns to her seat, slowly, crushed; applause, then...sniggers from the audience here and there as an ugly mood enters the room)

Ugly mood, can you tell us, what is like to be you?

(sniggers)

Oh, ugly mood...

(sniggers)

What do you portend?

(sniggers)

(curtain falls)

LIGHTS OFF

(several moments of silence, darkness)

(then, a scream is heard, perhaps the woman from the audience, being strangled slowly)

(struggling)

(weaker)

(struggling)

(weaker)

(final desperate struggling...)

(silence)