This Is How We Got Here

Keith Barker

• Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781770918245
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Canadian Drama
• Index: Literature

It's been a year since Paul and Lucille's son Craig committed suicide, and their once-solid family bonds are starting to break down. While the now-separated couple tries to honour their son, Lucille's sister Liset and her husband Jim refuse to discuss their nephew. The ties that keep the four together as sisters, best friends, and spouses are strained by grief and guilt… until a visit from a fox changes everything.

This Is How We Got Here

Scene 1 — One-Year Anniversary

Jim walks in dressed up for the cold. He carries a flashlight. He stops and looks around. Paul enters dressed much the same.

Jim: So? Where should we start?

Paul: Depends. Which way did she go?

Jim: That way or was it? No. No, she went that way.

Jim starts to walk in the direction he indicated.

Paul: Where you going?

Jim: She went that way.

Paul: Yeah, but the creek runs that way. Which means she probably followed it down past George’s and over —

Jim: — to Harland’s. Good thinking.

Jim starts to walk towards Harland’s.

Paul: Now where you going?

Jim: You just said Harland’s.

Paul: Yeah, but there’s nothing past Harland’s except the lake. Which means she probably headed north along the hydro lines to Carol’s Creek.

Jim: You really think she’d go that far?

Paul: Only one way to find out.

Both men exit in opposite directions.

This way.

Jim immediately adjusts his mistake and follows Paul.

Jim: Right, this way.

Scene 2 — Fox Story Part 1

Paul: Once there was a fox who lived in the forest and he had a magical gift for storytelling. Animals would come from all around and from far away just to hear his stories. And the fox would spend all of his days making up story after story and telling them to anyone who would listen. But one day, as sometimes happens, things changed, and the fox — when asked by the badger to tell his own story — could not remember it. In fact, he could not remember any of his own stories. It seems he had told so many stories to so many people that he had, in fact, lost his own. This worried the fox. He had never lost his own story before. It had always been there to tell him which way to go and what to do next. But now it was gone and he felt very alone. Luckily he still had the story of today, and today, like all the days before it, had been good. But today was quickly coming to an end. And if today ended before he could find his story again, what would that mean for tomorrow? With no story there would be no tomorrow. What was he going to do?

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