But it’s midnight! I’ll be down in a minute-
GEORGE
Don’t bother-
But the bell has rung. Lydia has cut off. George paces the floor, taps out his pipe, starts to reload it, looks at the playroom door, decides against it, looks again, and finally approaches it. He turns the knob and lets it drift open.
Inside the room it is darker. George is surprised.
GEORGE
Hello, what? Is the veldt gone? Wait-no. The sun’s gone down. The vultures have flown into the trees far over there. Twilight. Bird cries. Stars coming out. There’s the crescent moon. But where-? So you’re still there, are you?
There is a faint purring.
GEORGE
What are you waiting for, eh? Why don’t you want to go away? Paris, Cairo, Stockholm, London, they and all their millions of people swarmed out of this room when told to leave. So why not you?(snaps his fingers)Go!
The purring continues.
GEORGE
A new scene, new place, new animals, people! Let’s have All Baba and the Forty Thieves! The Leaning Tower of Pisa! I demand it, room! Now!
A jackal laughs off in the darkness.
GEORGE
Shut up, shut up, shut up! Change, change, now!(his voice fades)… now …
The lions rumble. Monkeys gibber from distant trees. An elephant trumpets in the dusk. George backs off out the door. Slowly he shuts the door, as Lydia enters stage left.
GEORGE
You’re right… the fool room’s out of order. It won’t obey.
LYDIA
Won’t, or can’t?
She lights a candle on a table to one side.
GEORGE
Turn on the light. Why do you fuss with candles like that?
She looks at the flame as she lights a second and a third candle.
LYDIA
I rather like candles. There’s always the chance they will blow out and then I can light them again. Gives me something to do. Anything else in the house goes wrong, electronic doors don’t slide or the garbage disposal clogs, I’m helpless and must call an engineer or a photoelectric brain surgeon to put it right. So, as I think I said, I like candles.
George has seated himself. Lydia turns to come to him now.
LYDIA
George, is it possible that since the children have thought and thought about Africa and lions and those terrible vultures day after day, the room has developed a psychological “set”?
GEORGE
I’ll call a repair man in the morning.
LYDIA
No. Call our psychiatrist.
George looks at her in amazement.
GEORGE
David Maclean?
LYDIA
(steadily)Yes, David Maclean.
The front door springs open, Peter and Wendy run in laughing.
PETER
Last one there’s an old maid in a clock factory!
WENDY
Not me, not me!
GEORGE
Children!
The children freeze.
GEORGE
Do you know what time it is?
PETER
Why, it’s midnight, of course.
GEORGE
Of course? Are you in the habit of coming in this late?
PETER
Sometimes, yes. Just last month, remember, you had some friends over, drinking, and we came in and you didn’t kick up a fuss, so-
GEORGE
Enough of that! We’ll go into this late-hour business again. Right now I want to talk about Africa! The playroom…
The children blink…
PETER
The playroom… ?
Lydia tries to do this lightly.
LYDIA
Your father and I were just traveling through African veldtland; lion grass, water holes, vultures, all that.
PETER
I don’t remember any Africa in the playroom. Do you, Wendy?
WENDY
No…
They look at each other earnestly.
PETER
Run see and come tell.
Wendy bolts. George thrusts out his hand.
GEORGE
Wendy!
But she is gone through the door of the playroom. George leaps up. Peter faces him calmly.
PETER
It’s all right, George. She’ll look and give us a report.
GEORGE
I don’t want a report. I’ve seen! And stop calling me George!
PETER
(serenely)All right-father.
GEORGE
Now get out of the way! Wendy!
Wendy runs back out.
WENDY
It’s not Africa at all!
George stares, astonished at her nerve.
GEORGE
We’ll see about that!
He thrusts the playroom door wide and steps through, startled.
Lush green garden colors surround him in the playroom. Robins, orioles, bluebirds sing in choirs, tree shadows blow on a bright wind over shimmering banks of flower colors.
Butterfly shadows tatter the air about George’s face which, surprised, grows dark as he turns to:
The smiling children; they stop smiling.
GEORGE
You-
LYDIA
George!
GEORGE
She changed it from Africa to this!
He jerks his hand at the tranquil, beautiful scene.
WENDY
Father, it’s only Apple Valley in April-
GEORGE
Don’t lie to me! You changed it! Go to bed!
Peter takes Wendy’s hand and backs out of the room. Their parents watch them go, then turn to be surrounded again by green leaf colors, butterfly shadows, and the singing of the bkds.
LYDIA
George, are you sure you didn’t change the scene yourself, accidentally?
GEORGE
It wouldn’t change for me or you. The children have spent so much time here, it only obeys them.
LYDIA
Oh, God, I’m sorry, sorry, sorry you had this room built!
He gazes around at the green shadows, the lovely flecks of spring light.
GEORGE
No. No, I see now, that in the long run, it may help us in a roundabout way, to see our children clearly. I’ll call our psychiatrist first thing tomorrow.
LYDIA
(relieved)Good, Oh good…
They start to move from the room. Lydia stops and bends to pick something from the floor.
LYDIA
Wait a moment.
GEORGE
What is it?
LYDIA
I don’t know. What does it look like, to you?
GEORGE
(touches it)Leather. Why, it must be-my old wallet!
LYDIA
What’s happened to it?
GEORGE
Looks like it’s been run through a machine.
LYDIA
Or else-it’s been chewed. Look, all the teethmarks!
GEORGE
Teethmarks, hell! The marks of cogs and wheels.
LYDIA
And this?
They turn the wallet between them.
GEORGE
The dark stuff? Chocolate, I think.
LYDIA
Do you?
He sniffs the leather, touches it, sniffs again.
GEORGE
Blood.
The room is green spring around and behind them. The birds sing louder now, in the silence that follows the one word he has pronounced. George and Lydia look around at the innocent colors, at the simple and lovely view.
Far away, after a moment, we hear the faint trailing off of one scream, or perhaps two. We are not quite certain. George quickens.
LYDIA
There! You heard it! This time, you did!
GEORGE
No.
LYDIA
You did. I know you did!
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GEORGE
I heard nothing, nothing at all! Good Lord, it’s late, let’s get to bed!
He throws the wallet down, and hurries out.
After he is gone, Lydia picks up the shapeless wallet, turns it in her hands, and looks through the door of the playroom.
There the birds sing, the green-yellow shadows stir in leaf patterns everywhere, softly whispering. She describes it to herself.
LYDIA
… flowering apple tree … peach blossoms … so white…
Behind her, in the living room, George blows out one candle.
LYDIA
… so lovely… .
He blows out the other candle. Darkness, The scene is ended.
After a moment of silence and darkness, we hear a helicopter thunder down outside the house. A door opens. When it shuts, the lights come on, and George is leading David Maclean on.
GEORGE
Awfully nice of you to come by so early, David.
DAVID
No bother, really, if you’ll give me my breakfast.
GEORGE
I’ll fix it myself-or- rather-almost fix it myself. The room’s there. I’m sure you’ll want to examine it alone, anyway.
DAVID
I would.
GEORGE
It’s nothing, of course. In the light of day, I see that. But-go ahead. I’ll be right back.
George exits. Maclean, who is carrying what looks like a medical kit, puts it down and takes out some tools. Small, delicate tools of the sort used to repair TV sets, unorthodox equipment for a psychiatrist. He opens a panel in the wall. We see intricate film spools, lights, lenses there, revealed for the first time. Maclean is checking it when the playroom door opens and Peter comes out. The boy stops when he sees Maclean.
PETER
Hello, who are you?
DAVID
David Maclean.
PETER
Electronics repair?
DAVID
Not exactly.
PETER
David Maclean. I know. You read the bumps on people’s heads.
DAVID
I wish it were that simple. Right now I’ve come to see what you and your sister have written on the walls of this room.
PETER
We haven’t written-oh, I see what you mean. Are you always this honest?
DAVID
People know when you lie.
PETER
But they don’t! And you know why? They’re not listening. They’re turned to themselves. So you might as well lie, since, in the end, you’re the only one awake.
DAVID
Do you really believe that?
PETER
(truly amazed)I thought everyone did!
He grabs the playroom door as if to go back in.
DAVID
Please.
PETER
I must clean the room.
David steps between him and the door.
DAVID
If you don’t mind, I’d prefer it untidy.
Peter hesitates. They stare each other down.
PETER
All right. It doesn’t matter. Go ahead.
Peter walks off, circling once, then runs, gone.
Maclean looks after the boy, then turns to the door of the playroom, and slowly opens it. From the color of the light inside the room we can sense that it is Africa again. We hear faint lion sounds, far off, and the distant leather flapping of wings. Maclean looks around for only a moment, then kneels on the floor of the room where he opens a trapdoor and looks down at intricate flickering machineries where firefly lights wink and glow and where there is oiled secretive motion. He touches this button, that switch, that bit of film, this sprocket, that dial.
In obedience to this, the light within the room gets fierce, oven-white, blinding as an atomic explosion, the screams get a bit louder, the roaring of the lions louder.
Maclean touches into the paneling again.
The roars get very loud, the screams very high and shrill, over and over, over and over as if repeated on a broken phonograph record. Maclean stands riven. There is a tremendous rustling of wings. The lion rumble fades. And as silence falls, the color of the walls of the room is stained by crimson flowing red until all is redness within the room, all is bleeding sunset light upon which, slowly, slowly, with grim thoughtfulness, David Maclean closes the trapdoor and backs out into the living room area.
Lydia enters with a tray on which is breakfast coffee and toast.
When she sees that Maclean is deep in thought, she says nothing, puts down the tray, pours coffee for three, at which point George enters and frowns when he sees Maclean’s deep concern. The husband and wife look at each other, and wait. Maclean at last comes over picks up his coffee, sips it thoughtfully, and at last speaks.
MACLEAN
George … Lydia …
He hesitates a moment, drinks more coffee, prepares himself.
MACLEAN
When I gave my approval of your building that playroom it was because the record in the past with such playrooms has been exceptionally good. They not only provide imaginative atmospheres wherein children can implement their desires and dreams, they also give us, if we wish, as parents, teachers, psychiatrists, the opportunity to study the patterns left on the walls by the children’s minds. Road maps, as it were, which we can look at in our leisure time to see where our children are going and how we can help them on their way. We humans are mostly inarticulate, there is so much we wish to say we cannot say, so the rooms, and the walls of such rooms, offered a way of speaking out with the silent tongue of the mind. In 99 cases out of 100, it works. Children use the rooms, parents observe the blueprints marked on the walls of the rooms, and everyone is happy. But in this case-(he stops)
LYDIA
This case?
MACLEAN
I’m afraid the room has become a channel toward destructive thoughts rather than a release away from them. George …Lydia … why do your children hate you so much?
LYDIA
(surprised)Hate us? They don’t hate us!
GEORGE
We’re their parents!
MACLEAN
Are you really? Let’s see.
Bradbury, Ray - SSC 17 Page 9