The Perfect Parents

Set: Middle class house – Boy arrives home from school – approaches his father nervously

Dad: Hallo Sebastian! Have a good day today?

Seb: I suppose so...um, dad?

Dad: Yes?

Seb: No stupid tricks tonight, please?

Dad: What? On your birthday? Of course not! Look, mum’s having a quick sleep. She got a bit upset by something in work today, I’m not sure what as I wasn’t listening, but while she’s down why don’t you grab your clothes from your closet and we can go to Pizza World.

Seb: It’s a trick, isn’t it Dad?

Dad: Honestly Seb. It’s your birthday. Now, hurry up with you.

Seb runs to his bedroom, opens the closet door. His mother is hanging inside, grey faced, eyes turned upwards, with a note hanging around her neck ‘Sebastian doesn’t love me enough signed a failed mother’. Seb screams and runs downstairs.

Seb: Dad, dad, its mum, she’s...!

Dad is lying on the kitchen floor with his head inside the oven. He isn’t moving. Seb screams. He runs to the telephone and dials 99 then hears them both laughing. He pulls a card out of his pocket which has a number, name and job title on it with a note – ‘Jackie Davies, Social Worker 075..., “Just in case”. He dials the number.

Cuts to boy being led from house by Jackie. Parents are in the front window laughing. Mum raises a shotgun and fires at dad, who shouts and falls back. Jackie and Seb stop to look. Dad appears at the window laughing grotesquely.

Jackie: Come on Sebastian. Let’s go, shall we?

They drive away amidst the sound of grotesque, uncontrollable laughter from the parents.

© Dean Scurlock 2012