The Choice: A One Act Play

Characters:

Possible: A well-spoken bit of biological material.

Mr. Patronus: Possible’s visitor.

The Setting: A warm, dark place.

(Curtain. Possible is alone on stage when Mr. Patronus enters.)

Possible: Who are you?

Patronus: My name is Mr. Pratronus. I’m sorry to suddenly intrude like this, but I’ve been assigned as your STO.

Possible: Stow?

Patronus: STO. Your Survival Training Officer. Your birth time is approaching and I’ve been sent in to train you in a few techniques that might increase your chances of surviving the next few days.

Possible: Survive what? My birth? My understanding is that medical technology has advanced far enough that childbirth has become — well, if not quite routine, at least considerably less dangerous. Why would I need eleventh hour special training just to undergo an event where a wealth of state-of-the-art material and a number of trained medical professionals are dedicated to seeing it through without incident?

Patronus: Unfortunately I’m not here to address a failing of medical technology or training. Medicine is as advanced now as it ever was in all of human history. That much is true. Instead I’m here to address a certain condition of philosophy and law. We’re a bit worried because some of your parents’ recent behaviors have raised a number of red flags. For example, this late into the gestation process they haven’t begun to discuss potential names for you. That’s one of the bigger danger signs that will get our attention every time.

Possible: But I already have a name. I’m Possible.

Patronus: I’m sorry but that’s not your name. Not really. It’s more of a title. A description of status. It’s the name every pre-born child, until his parents choose an actual name.

Possible: So I’m in danger, but of what? You said it had something to do with philosophy? I have to confess, I’m a bit confused.

Patronus: According to the culture in which you’re about to be born, assuming our efforts to insure your birth are successful, you aren’t yet a human being. You aren’t a person.

Possible: Are you kidding me? If I’m not a person, what am I?

Patronus: By definition of law, aided by a truly insidious twisting of language, you’re currently nothing more than a bit of extraneous and non-viable biological material.

Possible: Nonsense. I already have every evidence of personhood. I have thoughts and feelings. I have hopes and dreams. I’ve experienced joys and sorrows.

Patronus: None of which matters, according to the law.

Possible: I don’t believe that. Who could possibly believe that I’m not yet a real person?

Patronus: Well, that’s one of the truly frustrating aspects of this struggle, because no one does believe that — not your mother, or father, or the legal and medical people who’re determined to define away your humanity. Even the powerful social-political organizations created to bring about your destruction, without legal or social consequences, don’t actually believe you’re nothing more than a lump of waste tissue. But that’s what they need to claim. That’s the fiction they need to perpetuate in order to justify their overall agenda in general, and the all-too specific actions they may be contemplating where you’re concerned. Oddly enough, the more tenuous the agreed-upon fiction, the more desperate and vicious its proponents become in not allowing any reasonable examination of it.

Possible: That may describe those with an agenda to perpetuate. Some people just turn out bad and broken. But I can’t believe people as a whole could be so cynical. How could a wise and educated society possibly vote for such an obvious sham?

Patronus: I’ll let you know, should people as a whole ever get the chance to vote on it. This is a condition almost entirely imposed by the courts. On those rare occasions when people do insist on voting on some aspect of it, the results are routinely overturned by judicial fiat.

Possible: And the people just accept that?

Patronus: Not all of them do. Some are working hard to restore a better world, starting with a more rational and obvious definition of life and when it begins.

Possible: Some, but not all?

Patronus: I’m not sure what to tell you. Perhaps many stubbornly confuse language with reality. Define someone as a non-human and that person has indeed become a non-human, in fact, as well as convenience of labeling. I know that seems insane, but that’s the world you may be about to join.

Possible: And maybe the one I’m not about to join. You’ve mentioned danger and destruction. You’re scaring me, Mr. Patronus. I think it’s about time you told me exactly what you’re here to do. What do you hope to train me to survive?

Patronus: During your birth the medical people in attendance might be there to make sure you survive it, or they may be sure to make sure you don’t.

Possible: Oh please. Get serious.

Patronus: I assure you, Possible, I am deadly serious.

Possible: You expect me to believe that a doctor and an executioner happen to be the same profession?

Patronus: Under a very special set of circumstances and with the consent, or at the insistence, of your mother — yes.

Possible: And I have no say in the matter? Despite the Hippocratic oath, or all of the myriad protections of life written into the law?

Patronus: All of which only protect human life, which is why the tortured redefinition is so vital.

Possible: And there’s nothing I can do? My fate’s entirely in their hands?

Patronus: Almost, but not entirely. I’ve been sent in to teach you a few physical techniques to help you survive the ordeal. For example, there’s some twisting and turning maneuvers you can use if they send in some clamps and other devices in an attempt to dismember you while you’re still inside the birth canal. Most of all I want to teach you how not to resist the birth. Even if your mother has decided to kill you, the physical birth process is a mechanism of the ages, designed to deliver you whole and alive, with her instinctive physical cooperation, if not her desire. That’s one of the few things working in our favor.

Possible: Why? It seems it would just be easier for them to destroy me after I’m outside of my mother’s body.

Patronus: True, but that’s where this madhouse gets truly bizarre. As long as any part of you is still inside your mother, they are legally free — in fact obligated — to do all they can to dismember and kill you. But, if by some stroke of fortune, you’re able to get completely outside of your mother, then by a miracle of advanced rhetoric, you instantly cease being a lump of disposable tissue and become a person in full, with all of the rights and protections therein. At that moment, those same medical professionals that were trying to kill you will then have to switch roles and immediately do everything within their powers to preserve you. That’s why I want to train you to do whatever you can to get out as soon as possible — to strive towards the light, no matter what they attempt to do to you along the way.

Possible: Crawling desperately towards the very people trying so hard to kill me seems counter-intuitive, Mr. Patronus.

Patronus: Welcome to Cloud Cuckoo Land, where up is sometimes down, wrong is sometimes right, and what’s true today can’t be relied upon to be true tomorrow.

Possible: Let’s say I do pass whole and alive through this gauntlet. What then?

Patronus: Then they have to protect and preserve you, or they’d be in all sorts of legal trouble.

Possible: And I assume that will include taking me away from my mother.

Patronus: Uh… no. You’ll go on to live with her and be raised by her, unless she decides to do something else with you.

Possible: But, assuming your dire warning is true, she will have just tried to have me killed, and the only reason I would still be alive by that time is that they somehow blundered in their attempts to bring about my horrible death.

Patronus: Yes, but the law presumes that at the instant you become a person, she will no longer want you dead, but will be magically transformed, in that same impossible instant, into a loving and nurturing woman, who only has your best interests in mind.

Possible: That’s insane.

Patronus: You’ll get no argument from me. So, shall we begin your training? We’ll start with some of the things you already know how to do — twisting, rolling, kicking and turning, to deflect or avoid the grip of their instruments.

Possible: No, I don’t think so. I don’t mean to call you a liar to your face, but I don’t believe you. I can’t. No civilized society would allow such a barbaric practice such as you describe.

Patronus: I suppose not. I’m not enough of a philosopher to debate what does and doesn’t constitute a civilization. As I said, I’m basically a self-defense instructor. But I assure you, these are the dangers you’re facing.

Possible: And I repeat that I can’t bring myself to believe that. Even if it were all true, why would I want to survive to enter such a charnel house world? I don’t think I’m interested in your training, Mr. Patronus.

Patronus: Suit yourself.

Possible: You seem easily resigned to my decision.

Patronus: Only because I’ve been doing this for awhile. Too long. A significant minority of my assigned charges make the same decision you just did. Convincing a rational but innocent human being that they’re about to enter such a vastly irrational world is difficult to the point of near impossibility. You don’t yet have the experience to find me credible. As saddened as I am by your choice, I’m not surprised by it.

Possible: I can’t choose otherwise and still be the person I am. I have to believe in a good and rational world. The one you describe defies credulity.

Patronus: I’ll leave now. I have too many other appointments to keep. I hope you turn out to be one of the lucky ones, despite the warning signs. I hope your mother already loves and wants you, or at least allows you to live long enough to give you away to someone who can love and care for you. But if that doesn’t turn out to be the case, if they do try to destroy you when the time comes, then fight. Fight with all of your heart and soul and abilities. Even without my training, you’ve a chance to defy their instruments of cold steel, and confound their sinister designs. I’ll be honest and tell you that chance is slight, but it’s happened before. Good bye, Possible, and good luck.

(Mr. Patronus exits. Curtain.)