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ACT TWO
SCENE ONE
A PILOT speaks.
PILOT: Good evening, folks. We have begun our descent into New York City. We will be landing at JFK Airport in approximately twenty minutes. I hope youāve enjoyed your flight with us. Youāll notice how dark it is below, there are many areas of New York still without power after the hurricane. And New York continues to be on high alert for a second hurricane.
LALLY: [to the audience] New York City. Speeding through the darkened New York streets in a taxi, I sit in the front seat next to the driver. I feel itās safe because sheās a woman. The driver has a long, thin, pale brown ponytail. I notice very soon that she is missing a lot of key teeth. Sheās overweight, but only loosely. She, like everyone else in this story, is a real person.
NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: First time to New York?
LALLY: No. I live in Australia. But I was born in New Jersey.
NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: Jerseyānow Jersey got hit even worse than we did.
LALLY: I hope my grandparents are okay. Theyāre in a really nice retirement village.
NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: A hurricane donāt care how ritzy their place is. If it wants to hit, it hits. Where you staying?
LALLY: Airbnb.
NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: Aināt that illegal in New York now?
LALLY: I think so.
NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: Well, donāt go getting in trouble. After the hurricane itās impossible to get gas. My husbandās loser brother is trying, but heās a loser.
LALLY: Youāre married?
NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: I got a common-law husband.
LALLY: Thatās nice.
NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: Well, it aināt no picnic. Heās got seven kids. Ranging from six years old to nineteen. I aināt their birth mother. My husband had āem with his first wife. But sheās a drug addict now and hardly ever wants to see them. Just if they can do something for her. Itās real hard on the kids, you know. Especially the middle kids. The older ones have learnt to know better, and the younger ones know me better than they knew her. We keep praying sheāll get her life together. Sheās always asking me for money, but the only salary I got is from driving the cab. My husbandās got a disability, so he canāt work. And this salary donāt go far with seven kids. Plus Iām trying to put some away.
LALLY: Wow. Youāre an angel.
[To the audience] What a great character!
NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: Well, I got a belief. That helps. Have you ever heard of the lost city of Atlantis?
LALLY: Sure. The myth?
NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: Itās no myth. It was a real cityāwhere everything was perfect. They were real advanced in everything. And then it got taken underwater. Some say that Atlantis was greater than Asia and Africa in size. But I donāt think it was really that big. One day and one night Atlantis was taken over by the sea. If it was as big as they said, it would have taken at least a week. But I suppose the sea is powerful though. And Atlantis is still down there under the sea. Thatās my belief. That soon weāll all be taken back to Atlantis. Thatās why thereās the hurricanes and the floods we been getting so much of lately. So Iām saving up all the money I can, to move my family to Florida, so weāll be the first people taken back there.
LALLY: Miamiās in Florida! Will that be taken by the sea?
NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: Of course. Everybody knows that. Miamiāll be the first city to go. Itās a shame, because Iād rather move to Orlando. I got a cousin there.
LALLY: [to the audience] What she says kind of makes sense to me. Even if she is saving up all her money to take her family to Florida to drown them. I realise that to me, Miamiās already under the sea. Perfectly preserved, in another time. Itās already an Atlantis. The Miami that I would want to findāmy childhood, my family home, my pantherāare unreachable in time. And time is just as powerful as the sea.
NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: My belief is what keeps me going. The worldās not like it was. Itās people, you know. The weather is acting like the people. Nobody cares about nobody no more. Everyone mindinā their own business, lookinā after their own interests. Didnāt used to be li...
