Ned and Houman

[The Portrait of Zool]

The Portrait of Zool hangs regally over the fireplace where he has hung for many years. In between his occasional sonorous eruptians he has hung silently, requiring little in the way of attention or maintenance other than the semi-annual dusting off. Tonight the painting speaks again, but with a different voice.

 

On this quiet and nondescript evening, when relatively few are in the usually boisterous room and the fire has burned down to nothing but low coals, the Portrait, for seemingly no reason, slowly takes to darkening, until the oil painting is completely black, and then resolves within the borders of it's ornate gilt frame many vertical folds of red velvet, as of curtains. After a moment, the curtains part to reveal a stage...

 

A white screen is revealed. The shadow silhouettes of two chairs facing each other at an angle a couple feet apart is cast by backlighting upon the screen. After a moment, the shadows of two men, one from each side of the stage, walk to the chairs and sit in the chair on his side of the stage.

 

Houman: "It was good of you to come."

 

Ned: "Did I have any choice?"

 

Houman: "We have been friends for many years."

 

Ned: "Have we?"

 

Houman: "I have considered you my friend."

 

Ned: "You impertinant fraud."

 

A silent moment passes.

 

Houman: "I miss my friend."

 

Ned: "You have a strange way of showing it."

 

Houman: "I have always supported you - always."

 

Ned: "Not what I needed most."

 

Houman: "I can only do what I can do."

 

Ned: "It wasn't enough."

 

Houman: "You have high expectations of your friends."

 

Ned: "Very reasonable, in my opinion."

 

Houman: "I have done what I could do, done what I thought best, always with the best intentions. Sometimes I was right, sometimes I was wrong - but you would demand more?"

 

Ned: "I demand nothing."

 

Houman: "So the time for that is past - you have judged me and cast me away?"

 

Ned: "You may look at it as you wish, I have no interest in the matter."

 

The shadow of Ned gets up and leaves from the direction he came (stage left), leaving Houman sitting alone. Another silent moment passes.

 

Houman [sadly]: "I suppose there is nothing to be done. Sometimes, even old friends can come to perspectives so different they must go their seperate ways. I so wish he would pause and heed my sorrow for having hurt him, but that is my need. As they say, the true test of love is letting go."

 

The shadow of Houman gets up and leaves in the direction he came from, and the curtains close.