===================================================================== SLIGHT UPSET FROM THE YEAR 5000 ===================================================================== a one-act play by Craig J. Clark (cjclark@earthlink.net) ===================================================================== based on the movie "Terror from the Year 5000" ===================================================================== [Curtains open to reveal an office. As a matter of fact, it is the office of DR. ROBERT HEDGES, museum curator and moron. On his desk is the radioactive statue he received from Claire Erling, along with the lab report on it. HEDGES is studiously reading something (not the report), but seizes up and suddenly clutches his stomach. He presses a button on his intercom.] HEDGES: Miss Blake, do you have something for an upset stomach? MISS BLAKE'S VOICE: Well, a punch in the gut usually works. [HEDGES pauses for a moment before plunging onward.] HEDGES: Let's try this again. Do you have something to *get rid* of an upset stomach? MISS BLAKE'S VOICE: You mean you already have one? HEDGES: Yes. MISS BLAKE'S VOICE: Oh, you should have said. Hold on for a moment. [After a second's pause, MISS BLAKE enters with her purse, which she dumps out on HEDGES' desk. As she sorts through its contents, she notices the report and peruses it.] MISS BLAKE: How long has your stomach been upset? HEDGES: Since yesterday. MISS BLAKE: Oh, you mean ever since this radioactive statue arrived? HEDGES: What radioactive statue? [MISS BLAKE pauses and points out the statue on the desk.] HEDGES: Oh, that radioactive statue. I've got to remember to return that one of these days. Say, do you think it has something to do with my upset stomach? [MISS BLAKE considers this for a second and then puts down the report, going back to her sorting.] MISS BLAKE: No, it was probably something you ate. What did you have for breakfast this morning? HEDGES: Oh, you know, the usual. Eggs, pancakes, sausage, toast, peppers, sticky buns, rutabagas, grapefruit, hash browns, donuts, grits, chutney, brie, crackers, marmalade, bacon, corn bread, lox, bagels, oranges, cereal, cream cheese, fried zucchini, sugar beets, cucumbers, french toast, biscuits, plantains, kippers, chicken fried steak, kale, croissants, apple sauce, liverwurst, sauerkraut, cabbage, lemon, pastries, creamed chipped beef, tuna salad, onion dip, and a steaming hot cup of mud. MISS BLAKE: Nothing unusual there. [finds a bottle] Ahh, here we are. HEDGES: But of course. Where else would we be? [MISS BLAKE ignores him and hands him a couple pills.] MISS BLAKE: Here, take these with some ginger ale and that should settle your stomach. HEDGES: Thanks, Miss Blake. [As MISS BLAKE starts to repack her purse, HEDGES swallows the pills dry. They go down hard.] HEDGES: Well, that didn't help at all. [picks up statue] Somehow I think this radioactive statue *does* have something to do with my upset stomach. [He starts to exit.] MISS BLAKE: Where are you going? [HEDGES stops and turns around, holding the statue aloft.] HEDGES: The answer lies in the Everglades! [He freezes in that position. Slowly, ever so slowly, the curtains close. After an interminable period of time -- or the majority of the audience has left -- the curtains open again. While they were closed, the setting has magically been changed to that of the jungle laboratory of PROFESSOR HOWARD ERLING. ERLING is present, as is his financial backer VICTOR, his daughter CLAIRE and his chief cook and bottle washer ANGELO. HEDGES is also there, holding the statue in much the same position as before. They are frozen in tableau until the curtains are all the way open. Then and only then does HEDGES lower his arm, exhausted.] HEDGES: So, you see, I had to bring this radioactive statue back to see if you could tell me why I have an upset stomach. [Nervous glances all around. Finally, VICTOR steps forward and takes the statue from a grateful HEDGES.] VICTOR: Well, to be perfectly honest, we've all had upset stomachs, Dr. Hedges. HEDGES: You have? VICTOR: Yes, they started soon after Professor Erling and I started our experiments. HEDGES: Amazing. Tell me more. [VICTOR lowers his eyes. ERLING steps forward.] ERLING: There's not much to tell. We use this time machine to send things into the future and other things -- radioactive things -- come back. We've been to the hospital on the mainland, but no one can tell us why we've all suddenly taken ill. Heck, I was only 45 when we started and now look at me. [HEDGES looks at ERLING. Not to be upstaged, VICTOR tears open his shirt sleeve.] VICTOR: You think that's bad? Look at this. Radioactive scarring. [HEDGES examines the scar.] HEDGES: Fascinating. [Hesitantly, CLAIRE raises her hand.] HEDGES: Yes, Claire? CLAIRE: Yesterday I thought I was having a heavy period until my entire uterus fell out. Plus, I vomit blood almost every morning now. HEDGES: Is that true? ANGELO: Oh, she certainly does. I've watched her. HEDGES: And what about you, Angelo? ANGELO: [feeling all of their eyes on him, sheepish] Well, I was in my shed the other night doing some reading when all of a sudden my...you know...my thingy fell off. [HEDGES is awed by what he is hearing.] HEDGES: Incredible. It sounds like more than just upset stomachs have been going around. ERLING: Well, we've been around these radioactive objects longer than you have. Give yourself some more time and you'll begin to have the same bewildering medical problems we do. HEDGES: But what could be causing them? [From inside the time machine, they hear a screechy, echoey VOICE.] VOICE: I'll tell you what's causing them! EVERYONE: What? Who was that? Where did that voice come from? [EVERYONE looks around the lab, avoiding the most obvious place. In the chaos, the FUTURE WOMAN steps out of the time machine.] FUTURE WOMAN: It is I, the Woman from the Year 5000 and I'm going to hypnotize you with my glittery fingernails. Wooooooo! [She runs around, waving her fingernails in people's faces. Instead of being hypnotized, though, they all contort their faces in pain, holding their stomachs.] VICTOR: Oh, man. I feel another stomach cramp coming on. ERLING: This is worse than the last time she did this to us! CLAIRE: I can feel them! There go my ovaries! Now I'll never have children. [Then, just as suddenly as she started, the FUTURE WOMAN runs back into the time machine and everyone goes back to normal.] HEDGES: Wait, you mean that woman has been causing your stomach aches? ERLING: Sure, didn't she visit you at the museum when you got yours? HEDGES: No. ERLING: That's strange. I thought for sure that was the answer. HEDGES: Well, it wasn't. I guess it's back to the museum for me. [He starts to leave. VICTOR holds out the statue.] VICTOR: Wait, don't you want this statue? HEDGES: No, thanks. [Everyone laughs in an extremely fake manner and they freeze in their positions as the curtains slowly begin to close again.] ANGELO: Say, do you think I could have another line before we change location again? VICTOR: No. [The curtains are closed all the way. After another interminable waiting period, the curtains open again on HEDGES' office. HEDGES is standing in front of the desk, his hands frozen in a gesture which indicates that he is in the middle of a story. MISS BLAKE is sitting on the desk. looking at him. Once the curtains are all the way open, HEDGES finishes his story.] HEDGES: There were no answers for me there, so that's why I came back early. MISS BLAKE: I see. Well, it's a shame you had to waste the trip. HEDGES: Yes, it is. Now, if you'll excuse me, Miss Blake, I have some work to catch up on. MISS BLAKE: But of course, Dr. Hedges. [HEDGES goes to sit behind his desk again and MISS BLAKE starts to exit. At the door she pauses and flashes one of her fingernails -- which we now see is glittery like the FUTURE WOMAN's -- at HEDGES. HEDGES immediately clutches his stomach.] HEDGES: Oh, man. [MISS BLAKE giggles. They freeze. The curtains slowly close for the last time.] T H E E N D ===================================================================== THE MST3K ONE-ACT PLAYS BY CRAIG J. CLARK ===================================================================== [801] Return of the Creature [802] Boy, Am I Gland to See You [803] How to Irritate Mole People [804] Kiss Me Deadly Mantis [805] The Trouble With Things That Can't Die [806] The Grateful Undead Talk Back [810] They Might Be Giant Spiders [811] clonus: the lowercase horror [814] Riding with Death on Long Island [815] Re-Animation Agent for H.A.R.M. [816/906] The Prince of Space Children [817] The Mild Apprehension of Party Beach [818] Touched by a Devil Doll [819] Evasion of the Neptune Men [820] Pigs in Space Mutiny [821] Vodka with a Time Chaser [822] Eating Raul or: Overfed at the Memory Banquet [901] The Alan Parsons Projected Man [902] Phantom Planet, Schmanet or: The Next-to-the-Last of the Dogmen [903] Strong Enough for a Puma Man... [904] Where Wolf? There Wolf! [905] The Deadly B-Sides [907] Hobgoblins 2: The Grue Batch [908] Analyze What? or: The Bad Touch of Satan COMING PRETTY DAMN SOON, I SHOULD THINK: [808] She Features She Creatures Down by the Seashore [809] I Was a Teenage Marketing Ploy or: Teen Wolf Zero [812] The Incredibly Strange Creatures Stop to Conquer [813] Yet Another Movie Called Jack Frost You can read these one-act plays and more at http://home.earthlink.net/~cjclark/mstplays.htm