Two people turn up in the woods. They make it into a clearing and one of them collapses onto a rock, dropping a potato sack beside him. All of the grass is brown and dry. The other stays standing, and drops a rucksack onto the ground. He begins rummaging, takes out a parsnip, and begins to eat, while standing up.
Louis (on the rock): Why don’t you sit down, Dmitri?
Dmitri (in between bites of parsnip): Why do I have to sit down?
Louis: See, you have to enjoy the pleasures of life. Grandiose gestures. We are in this lovely clearing, with beautiful foliage, and you can’t sit down and appreciate it?
Dmitri: Everything here is dead though.
Louis (hurt): True.
Beat. Dmitri finishes his parsnip, and goes back to the rucksack. He rummages a bit more, and throws a turnip at Louis. He begins eating a turnip himself.
Louis: I need a shave.
Dmitri pretends like he didn’t hear Louis, continues eating. Louis throws his half eaten turnip at Dmitri.
Louis: I was hoping you had a razor.
Dmitri: Not that you can use. Wait until we get to Moscow. You can buy one there.
Louis: What? Jumps up, runs his hand across Dmitri’s face. Look at how smooth this face is. It wasn’t like this yesterday. Dmitri feints a punch, Louis doubles back to his rock. Ow. Beat. Can I use the razor?
Dmitri: No.
Louis: Why not? It isn’t dull.
Dmitri: It’s mine, and not yours.
Louis: Defensively. What are you going to do to stop me though, kill me?
Dmitri: In calm, cavalier voice. I could.
Louis: You can’t kill me in any way that gives you purpose. I will make you regret everything you have done as you mutilate me like the coward you are! I will stain your clothes with martyr’s blood! You would kneel there, full only of penitence, living only in toil, with nothing but the desire to repent haunting your conscious! You can never kill me in any way that matters! (Laughs villainously.) Now, give me your rucksack, you mortal.
Dmitri: Lost in thought. I could kill you with the razor.
Louis: Dejected. That’s poetic. Slumps back down onto the rock, slips, falls onto the ground, begins fake sobbing. I can’t believe you would dispose of me so quick, your only companion. Would you not feel guilt?
Dmitri: I wouldn’t have to listen to someone complain about razors.
Louis (hurt): True.
Dmitri: I wouldn’t have to share my vegetables.
Louis: Slightly more hurt. Also true.
Dmitri: I wouldn’t have to be here, where it isn’t exactly easy or practical to start a fire, I could be back home in Marseille, WARM, mind you, but instead, I’m here with you, cold and tired and sore in this cold, dead, Russian forest.
Louis: Most hurt sounding. Very true.
Dmitri: I’m hungry.
Louis: Me too. Ponderously. I’d like to eat my hat.
Dmitri: That’s really dumb, I’d think.
Louis: I haven’t eaten steak for months, and leather comes from cows.
Dmitri: I guess that’s true.
Louis: If they’re both made of cow, then they must taste the same.
Dmitri: I guess that’s true.
Louis: Well, I’ll challenge a taste. Beat. Bon appetit.
Dmitri: As Louis goes in for a bite of hat. But a cow eats grass, so perhaps leather will taste of grass. You may want to save your hat.
Louis: Exclaims. So I can save my hat, and eat the grass for a taste of steak. Lost in thought. That’s such a lovely idea.
Dmitri, clearly enjoying himself, begins looking through the rucksack, takes out some beef jerky. Careful not to let Louis see, he begins to eat.
Louis: With a mouth full of grass. Dmitri! It works!
Dmitri: Spits out his jerky. What? Really?
Louis: Kind of!
Dmitri: (Shoves the rest of his jerky down his pockets. Clearly irritated, Dmitri fully believes that Louis is trying to mess with him.) You’re fooling. You’re a moron! At this rate, you’re going to find some way to kill yourself in Moscow, if we ever get there, get yourself suffocating in a winter coat like the dopey pelican you are! Lord, did one of the Jacobins take your head or something? Have you ever even been to primary school, Madame Antoinette?
Louis: No, not that I remember.
Dmitri: Perhaps that explains the size of your brain, wherever you’re keeping it. Beat. Your stupidity must be contagious, I’ve pretty much forgotten why we’re going to Moscow in the first place.
Louis: Perhaps. Beat. I’m thirsty now. Dmitri, do you have wine?
Dmitri: (More passionately irked than before.) We’ve been walking for months, living off of rotting parsnip, with nothing for entertainment save grinding our fingernails on trees for nail files, and you expect me to have steak and wine? What am I to you, God?
Louis: There is no God, mind you. (quieter, to himself.) Or perhaps God is dead?
Dmitri: (Much calmer, as to signify he’d forgotten a basic fact. This is not a sarcastically given line.) Ah, my mistake. (beat.) Well, you brought your own rucksack with you. (Now with slight sarcasm.) Why don’t you check in there before we start dancing for the rain to come?
Louis: (With childish excitement.) Oh, Dmitri. I’m two steps ahead of you on this one. (Takes out a large glass cognac bottle, opens it and inverts it, as if to demonstrate. About half a shot’s worth dribbles out. He states proudly:) I’ve been out of this one since this morning.
Dmitri: You’ve been carrying THAT around?
Louis: Uh, Yeah? I’ve got a couple more. (Louis begins pulling out a small selection of different glass bottles, all clearly for different whiskeys and other drinks. He will take out the empty ones first, pause as Dmitri yells at him.)
Dmitri: AND DIDN’T LET ME HAVE ANY OF IT?
Louis: Uh, I think so? I guess so. (beat. Louis looks up.) Sorry? (as Dmitri begins his aside, Louis will begin taking out bottles with whiskey left inside.)
Dmitri: Sniffling. I see how it is. He walks over to another set of rocks, takes out his flask, and inverts it. There is nothing left. That’s why he’s so stupid. Sniffles loudly. And he hasn’t let me a shot. Not even a sip. Dmitri begins to cry himself to sleep.
Louis: Aw, how sad. He makes his way over to the rucksack, rummages, and pulls out a head of cabbage and a razor. Aha!
Louis begins to shave, while intermittently taking bites of cabbage. He cuts himself, and yelps. He continues, in decreasing intensity.
Dmitri wakes and walks over. Louis has cuts all over his face.
Dmitri: Do you know how to use that?
Louis: Um, no?
Dmitri: Then why are you using it?
Louis: I wanted to shave, my face was getting too warm because of all the hair on it. He takes another bite of cabbage. Want some cabbage?
Dmitri: Sighs. I’m leaving. I hate this dead clearing.
Louis: Ok, I’ll catch up with you in a bit.
Dmitri: Please don’t. (He packs up his rucksack, goes toward the one burned tree stump. On his way out, he slows down and looks back at Louis – he’ll do this twice, as if waiting for Louis to come, this is meant to serve as a beat. Goes offstage.)
A light wind passes after a brief pause.
Louis: Hey Dmitri. Beat. My face is kinda cold. He looks around, notices Dmitri is gone. Dmitri? He scrambles and runs offstage in the same direction, leaving his potato sack and whiskey bottles behind.