Last Chapter
February 28th, 2021
Starring: Lorena (female, 40’s), Patrick (male, 70’s)
Early afternoon, the library in Patrick’s home. It’s a neatly manicured space filled with books and encyclopedias, even with a sliding ladder to climb and reach the upper shelves. Patrick, bleary eyed and messy haired, sits in a chair near an antique desk, turned towards a book wall. Lorena, his publisher, looks on:
LORENA
You...you can’t not.
It’s in the contract. You have one more.
PATRICK
I’ll return the advance.
LORENA
Forget money. I’m talking about the social contract. Your audience.
They want this book. Your book. They want your book in their hands.
PATRICK
They can’t have it. I don’t have it, it’s deleted.
LORENA
You’re bluffing.
PATRICK
Command q, didn’t save.
LORENA
Gone.
PATRICK
Gone gone.
…
LORENA
You’ve gone full nutcase.
PATRICK
This is the smartest thing I’ve ever done.
LORENA
Why? Why would you self-immolate like this?
PATRICK
It was Friday night, after dinner. My granddaughter, she was on her phone, laughing at something. I asked her what she was laughing at, so she showed me the video. You know, one of the um...the short video...the popular—
LORENA
TikTok—?
PATRICK
Yes, yes.
And this video... it’s of this teenage girl, sitting in her bedroom. She was impersonating something...a scenario. A particular internal feeling that you have in a certain situation. I didn’t get the context but...something in her mannerisms, the way she spoke, the caption on the screen...I...I dropped the phone. It was so...familiar.
LORENA
What?
PATRICK
It was my protagonist! This young woman had displayed the entire emotional journey of my protagonist, distilled into one clip! It’s as if I was plagiarizing!
LORENA
That’s not—
PATRICK
Not the words, but the feeling?? So direct! Relatable, straightforward!
It hit me all at once. Why would you pay 26 dollars, trudge through 633 pages of my thick prose and goopy similes, all to possibly get at the same conclusion she could reach in 18 seconds?!
LORENA
Because your audience wants it. You’ve earned that right.
PATRICK
But two years? Two years on this damned monolith, and all I had to do was do the TikTok?
LORENA
Noone wants you to do TikTok. Everyone wants you to thrive in the medium you’ve thrived.
PATRICK
Novels aren’t a thriving medium.
LORENA
Your entire career would like a word.
PATRICK
Twenty two million, that video got. Twenty two. Is my book going to sell twenty two million copies?
LORENA
In enough time—
PATRICK
Is my book going to sell twenty two million copies?
LORENA
Unlikely.
PATRICK
Thank you. So again, novels are not a thriving medium. In fact, they are dying.
LORENA
I’m not biting.
PATRICK
When these kids are my age, you think they’re going to the opera? Seeing symphonies? If my own offspring can’t sit through an episode of MASH, how can they be expected to read something? God knows what it’ll be then, but I’ll bet you it won’t be a book.
LORENA
Alright. Pat, I’ve had enough.
What’s happening here is some serious, self-loathing writers block. You’re feeling sad and lonely and invalidated, and this is all some tactic to get me to remind you how prolific you are, and that you have meaning, and that you’re still a star. Is that what you want? Would you like me to tell you that you can do it?
PATRICK
I want communication. Knowledge. The free and open spread of ideas, en masse. Not to who can pay, not to who has the nuance, but to whoever wants it.
For millennia, books were that. That’s over. We’re in the last chapter.
There are better ways to make people feel things.
…
…
LORENA
2101. Books are banned, everyone’s brainwashed.
Not a bad story.
PATRICK
Ray Bradbury beat me to it.
LORENA
You’d do it better.
...
Oh come on, we’re not extinct yet. While there’s still readers, give them the chance to. One last hurrah.
Pause. Something slowly creeps over Patrick’s face:
LORENA
What’s that about?
PATRICK
I’m getting inspired.
LORENA
Please don’t download TikTok—
PATRICK
Nono, I need a pen.
Do you have a—?
Lorena finds a pen and throws it to Patrick, who scrambles to the desk, pulling out some paper and beginning to scribble, head down.
LORENA
Pat...Pat should I...do you want me to—?
Patrick doesn’t answer, completely engrossed. Lorena picks up her things and tip-toes out of the room. Patrick writes on.