Play 17: That Feeling

CHARACTERS
BEN, 16
NICK, 16

(They sit on a couch in the middle of the stage.)

NICK
Are you just not tired at night or something?

BEN
No, I’m tired. I’m tired pretty much all day lately, but I still have trouble going to sleep.

NICK
Maybe you’re becoming an insomniac or something.

BEN
Maybe.

(Pause.)

But it’s not that I have trouble literally going to sleep, once I get in my bed I get to sleep pretty quick.

NICK
Then what is it?

BEN
I guess I just don’t want to go to sleep.

NICK
You probably just don’t want to go to sleep cause you know when you wake up you’ll have to go to school.

BEN
I guess that’s part.

NICK
What else then?

BEN
I just always have things I feel like I should do.

NICK
Mean like homework and stuff, I always stay up late doing shit like that I should’ve done earlier.

BEN
Not really, I get my homework done pretty early.

NICK
Then why are you staying up so late?

BEN
I guess I just don’t feel like I’m getting enough done.

NICK
You get plenty done, I mean you play guitar and sax and you’re doing you’re whole play a day thing, I sure as hell don’t do that much.

BEN
But I have a lot more free time than you do.

NICK
True.

(Pause.)

BEN
It’s just, it’s not exactly that I don’t do enough, I just never seem to be happy enough with what I’ve done.

NICK
Maybe you should try be less hard on yourself.

BEN
I know I should.

(Beat.)

BEN
It’s just, you know that feeling you get when you see a scene in a movie that’s amazing, and you just think “I wish I had written that.”

NICK
Yeah.

BEN
It’s just (beat.) I just want to make something that good. I want to find that guitar riff that makes someone want to listen to it over and over again and keep working on it until they can play it. Or that line that perfectly captures a feeling they’ve always felt but never been able to put into words.

NICK
Just keep trying, you’ll find it eventually.

BEN
But what if I don’t? What makes those things so amazing is how hard they are to come up with. How long did Hendrix spend listening and playing before he could play that riff that makes you lock yourself in a room for hours trying to figure out? How much did any great writer observe and write until they could come up with that line? How long did David Murray practice until he got that tone?

NICK
You shouldn’t worry about it so much.

BEN
But why not, I mean, that’s the only kind of stuff that really matters when you think about it.

NICK
You can’t force it though, if you keep working on it eventually it’ll come. Just takes time.

BEN
Exactly!

NICK
What?

BEN
It’s just time.

NICK
So you’re not sleeping so you’ll have the time to do something like that?

BEN
Yeah, I guess.

NICK
But you don’t need to do it now.

BEN
I know.

NICK
You have you’re entire life to do become a better writer and musician and all that stuff, most those guys you mentioned didn’t get good till way later.

BEN
But they started early.

NICK
Not all of them.

BEN
A lot though.

NICK
Still.

(Pause.)

Either way you should chill out about it, you’re just gonna drive yourself insane if you obsess about it for so long.

BEN
Yeah, I guess.

NICK
And try to actually get enough sleep.

BEN
Yeah.

(Pause.)

NICK
So, what set you off thinking about all this this time?

BEN
Just a show.

NICK
Homicide?

BEN
(Beat.) Yeah.

NICK
I know you too well.

BEN
Not really, it’s always Homicide.

NICK
Very true.

BEN
It is an awesome show though.

NICK
Also true.

(Pause.)

BEN
So, wanna go watch an episode?

(Nick laughs.)

NICK
Sure. Sounds like a plan.

(They exit.)

(Blackout.)