Daniel Sherrier's Blog, page 63

When life throws you bozos, write a play

My high school senior Homecoming resulted in my first original one-act play -- a farce.

The play, “The Play About Homecoming,” went over well with its high school audience, and my cast did great. The show brought considerable laughter to an auditorium full of teenagers. But what I and a few friends had to endure to get it…

I was very last-minute with the whole Homecoming thing. Three days before the dance, I learned one of my female friends was dateless, so I figured I’d swoop in and save the day.

She wasn’t the problem, and neither were her two best friends—but their dates left pretty much everything to be desired.

One was a 21-year-old guy who for some reason wanted to go to a high school Homecoming with a 17-year-old girl he barely knew. The other was our same age, but not our same level of hygiene, and he wore a tie-dyed shirt under some garish sportscoat.

I’ll withhold the names of the girls. They suffered enough. I don’t even remember the guys’ names at this point.

Neither fellow qualified as a gentleman. I’m not saying I was Mr. Wonderful, but I was at least Mr. Tolerable. However, Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum...no.
A highlight of the dinner was when the 21-year-old decided it would be clever to attempt to resuscitate his chicken dinner. He certainly made an impression.

A moral conundrum occurred as we were leaving the restaurant, when I witnessed No-Hygiene-Guy exiting the restroom without having washed his hands. Do I tell his date? Or do I let her remain blissfully ignorant? I opted for the latter, and my date seemed to agree that was the better course of action.

So then a couple of months later, I wrote the play for my school’s annual one-act festival.

Everyone knew it was based on a true story, inevitably leading to questions of what was real and what was my own embellishment.

Such as this question, asked with a combination of dread and tentative anger: “So wait, this part about my date not washing his hands, you made that up, right?”

My date instantly distanced herself from me: “It was Daniel’s idea not to tell you!”

I lived, in case you were wondering.

Answers to the frequently asked questions included:

“Yes, I did tell my date to punch me if I ever became anything like those two guys. Yes, she agreed to.” (I’m pleased to report she never punched me.)

“No, those guys didn’t actually beat me up.” (I guess I just felt guilty on behalf of the male gender and wanted someone punch me.)

“No, we didn’t ditch them at the restaurant.” (I was writing with the benefit of hindsight. Plus, I figured making an audience spend more than a dinner with them was pushing it.)

“Yes, he really did try to resuscitate his chicken. And yes, he really was 21 years old.”

The play had no moral value or life lesson whatsoever.

But the surrounding events certainly did: When life throws a pair of bozos at you, make a play.

Coming soon...

What's better than one ebook series? Two ebook series!

Coming soon...an episodic series of novelettes about ghosts. So, if you like sci-fi space travel, Earths in Space will continue, but if you prefer supernatural fantasy, I may have something for you later this year.

I'll announce the title and other details when I'm further along with revisions. For now, I'll leave you with this dialogue exchange:

“Do I have to worry about zombies, too?”
“I never met any.”
“Not really the firm answer I was hoping for.”
“I’ve only been dead a couple of years. What am I supposed to be, the Encyclopedia Brown of death? ... Was that the correct usage of Encyclopedia Brown?”

Note-taking during auditions

Continuing the series on theatre education for high school students...


So you’re the director going into auditions to cast your wonderful show. You’ve got some excellent cold reading pieces picked out, and you’ve thought of some sample directions to throw at people. Plus, you know precisely what sort of actors you’re looking for.

You’ve got it all figured out...except for one thing.

While the actors are jumping through your hoops, what are you supposed to be doing?

Simple: Take notes. Good notes.

Different people have different styles. There’s no one right answer on what to do here. But here’s what I’ve done...

On some line paper, write down each actor’s name as they come in to audition. If it’s someone you don’t know, jot down some quick notes about what they’re wearing and what they look like--whatever will jog your memory and help you connect the name to the performance 30 auditions and two hours later.
No need to write a book. Usually, “red shoes,” “wacky hair,” “really, really tall,” “goatee and button-up shirt,” “really young face,” and the like will do the trick. As always, though, do what works for you. Your memory may function differently than mine.

When they start auditioning, give them your undivided attention. If they do something extraordinary (for good or bad), make a quick note, but my recommendation is write your assessment as one audition group is leaving and the next is arriving.

If I didn’t like a particular actor and I knew I didn’t want that person, I’d write “maybe” or “okay” next to his or her name. Often, “maybe” meant “no way,” but I was always hesitant to write anything too negative on my audition notes. In theory, these notes are private, and no one should ever see them. But you never know, especially in a school setting.

Maybe I’m paranoid, but rather than risk hurting someone’s feelings, I like to just write “maybe,” and I know what I mean by that. Not that “okay” is much of an ego-booster, but it’s not the self-esteem crusher that “no way, never!” would be.

For the people I like, I’d write down the names of possible roles I could see them in. Some actors might have the potential to excel in two or three roles in your show.

And for some actors, one character name might be all I need to write down, aside from the brief physical description.

But if someone blew me away, I’d write that character’s name plus an “excellent” or “great.” For someone who was above average, but not quite wonderful, I might add a “good.”

My audition notes might look something like this, only scribbled in horrendous handwriting:

You don’t need much, but you do need something to cue your memory.

Also, if you’re casting a one-act play for a school, you’re probably competing with other directors for the same pool of actors. During auditions, you need to formulate back-up plans. You’ll probably get some people you want, but it’s highly unlikely you’ll get all of your first choices.

After the show is cast, however, your actors will never know whether or not they were your first choice. That will not matter. Once the show is cast, they’re who you have to work with.

For now, just realize you may need to cast each role multiple times in your head before you get together with the other directors. Use your notes to organize a hierarchy of how much you like each actor for a particular role.

It’s almost like you’re giving each actor a grade. Who are the ‘A’ students you definitely want, the ‘B’ students you’d be happy to work with, the ‘C’ students you’d be okay settling on for certain roles, and the ‘D’ and ‘F’ students you want to avoid? Most likely, you’ll wind up with a mix of ‘A’ and ‘B’ students, with perhaps a ‘C’ student included also.

Of course, this has just been my system. Someone else might suggest something different, and that’s fine. My concise style might not work for you. Maybe you’d prefer taking more extensive notes. There’s no one right answer here.

When it's all done, hide your audition notes somewhere an actor won't stumble across them. You might want to hang onto them for a little bit, just in case someone drops out. But as soon you’re comfortable doing so, destroy them. Rip them up in many pieces and throw them in the garbage.

Cold readings

Continuing the series on theatre education for high school students...

I never liked auditioning as an actor, but the process is much more fun when you’re on the other side of the table.

Still, as the director, you need to have a plan going in.

Part of your job is to pick out excerpts from your script for cold readings. For those unfamiliar with the term, a cold reading is basically the opposite of a prepared monologue. A cold reading is an excerpt from the script handed to actors at an audition, and they have maybe a few minutes to prepare before they’re called to perform it in front of the director.

The cold reading will help you determine which actors can think on their feet and demonstrate creativity.

After they perform their initial reading, you can give them some direction. This is the most fun part.

The goal here is to see if the actors can take direction. The ideal actor can both develop his/her own ideas for the role and also incorporate your ideas. It’s the old saying: Two heads are better than one. Theatre is a collaborative art. A wild card actor or a tyrannical director might reduce the quality of the overall production.
So, in the initial cold reading, you see what the actors can do on their own. Then you throw some direction at them to see how they respond to you. Maybe they’ll nail the reading exactly as you wanted them to, or perhaps they’ll develop something that will exceed your expectations. But if they go down some other path that’s not what you’re looking for...well, better to discover that before you cast those particular folks.

The direction you give during an audition doesn’t have to be the exact same direction you’d give during a rehearsal. It can. There’s nothing wrong with that. But here, in the audition, you have a bit more flexibility.

You’re on a hunt to discover which actors have the specific skills your show needs. If your play is a comedy, you can give some ridiculous direction like “Now read that part as a mad scientist” or “Please read it as a gorilla with head lice,” and enjoy watching what the actors come up with.

When you throw these ridiculous directions at them, you start to get a feel for each actor’s range. If the mad scientist, lice-infested gorilla, and original character all bear a striking resemblance to each other, then you might have a one-note actor. It might still be the one note that you need, but if you later decide you want to do something different with the character, you’re going to have to work extra-hard with that actor to pull him/her out of that narrow range.

But how do you select the cold reading samples in the first place?

Generally, the length should be about a page or two--or a minute or two when read aloud. (And you can always stop actors in mid-audition whenever you’ve seen what you needed, for good or bad.)

A scene between two people usually works well. You want to see how each actor works with other people. If you need to edit the script a bit--maybe rearrange or reassign some lines to make it work--you can do so. Auditions are not public performances, so don’t worry about copyright here. Use whatever will help you find the right actors.

Don’t stop with just one cold reading scene. Try to have three ready. Maybe one can be a two-actor scene, another a monologue, and the final one more than two characters. Give yourself some options to work with. You might not know exactly who’s going to show up until the auditions start.

Also keep in mind gender combinations. Do you need to see a guy/girl combo, or something else? Here, too, it’s a good idea to give yourself some options. Be prepared.

The key is: Know what you’re looking for, and tailor your cold readings to seek out those qualities in the auditioning actors. Then have a strategy for what you’re going to do with the actors when they’re auditioning in front of you.

Who was this John Hancock fellow anyway?

I saw a clip from Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? in which a woman was shocked to learn that Europe was a continent, not a country.


We all have lapses in common sense (some more than others, it seems), but we should at least have some shame when we do.

I was reminded of an incident from my retail days. I was an assistant manager at a store in an outlet mall. For reasons that were never sufficiently explained, whenever I completed a refund transaction, I had to get the signature of one of the other employees -- in addition to my own and to the customer’s, resulting in a most impressive triple-signature document.

One day I asked a 21-year-old co-worker to sign one of those receipts, and she said, “Alright, I’ll give you my John Hancock.” Then she stopped and thought for a moment, wondering aloud, “Why do they call a signature a John Hancock?”

I immediately responded, “John Hancock was the first person to sign the Declaration of Independence, and he signed it really large.”

She laughed, clearly not expecting anyone to actually know such a thing. “OK, nerd.”
(And I didn’t even mention that the guy presided over the Continental Congress, or that he’s a character in the hit Broadway and motion picture musical 1776.)

My response was, “But wait, who doesn’t know who John Hancock is?”

Naturally, this led to a poll among the other employees who happened to be there. To my dismay, only two others were familiar with the late Mr. Hancock.

One was a friend of mine from the College of William & Mary, thereby doing nothing to dispel the “nerd” allegation.

In fact, that was the rebuttal: “Oh, well, you two went to the nerd school.”

So we were apparently disqualified.

The other was a high school junior whose history class had only just covered the Revolutionary era.

The high school boy answered, “Oh! He signed his name big enough that the king could read it without his spectacles!” Maybe that’s a bit of a myth, but close enough.

There were several others working that day, all in the teens through 20s range. None of them had the slightest clue who the man was, and they were all astonished that anyone would know this random piece of trivia.

Thankfully, this was before the Will Smith movie Hancock, or else the survey results might have been a tad more facepalm-worthy.

So, was I being some nerd or intellectual snob by expecting everyone to know automatically that John Hancock was the first signer of the Declaration of Independence?

Or is there a tendency among some youth to perceive social rewards for knowing less?

Of course, the “I have a life; therefore, I don’t know much” argument is a tad fallacious, but kids will figure that out when they’re older. Unless they aspire to appear on Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? Can’t help them then.

But really, how do you not know who John Hancock was? He was in 1776, for gosh sakes!

Ground plans

Continuing the series on theatre education for high school students...

Directors need to establish the framework in which their actors move around. That’s the ground plan.

After you read the script several times, sketch out what the stage will look like--but only generally. Don’t be picking out the color of the couch just yet. That’s irrelevant at this point. But do figure out where that couch will be located in relation to other prominent set pieces and props. Here, you’re focusing on what goes where.

As you do so, you have to keep two things in mind. First, how do you need the actors to move? Second, how would your ground plan compel the actors to move in the absence of your direction?

And realize this: Copyright law dictates that you follow the script’s dialogue exactly as it’s written, but you are free to ignore the stage directions. (I’m no lawyer, of course, but that’s what I was taught.)

So, the actors have to say all the lines in the script as written. When you’re designing the ground plan and blocking the show, think of the script’s stage directions more as suggested guidelines, but do whatever works for your production. (After all, the playwright doesn’t know what performance space you’re working with.)
Let’s say your play is set in a house, but aside from entrances and exits, the script features little action. It’s just talking heads, basically. Or it’s written as talking heads, but you and your cast need to fill in the blanks with interesting and relevant movement.

This is where your ground plan can be a true and valued friend.

Think: What would be in this house? How can you arrange the furniture to make full use of the stage?

For most shows, you probably don’t want all your action taking place on a straight line. Spread out the movement. This isn’t old-school Nintendo where Super Mario can only walk forward or backward. You’ve got multiple dimensions, so use as much as you can. If you go overboard in rehearsals, you can always pull it back to something more appropriate for your production.

In our hypothetical script, let’s say a phone rings somewhere along the way. Make sure the actor needs to get up and walk over to answer it. If you’ve got him on a couch upstage-center, then put the phone on a desk located downstage-right...and then have the pen and paper he needs set on a table downstage-left. And then he can crash back on the couch afterward.

So he moves in a triangle, basically.

In college, I was taught to design ground plans as a triangle, with three points that the actors would be drawn to for whatever reason. One point would be about upstage-center, and the other two points would be downstage-left and -right to anchor the movement.

Within that, you can place obstacles in the actors’ path to inspire more movement and action from them. Maybe between the couch and phone, there’s some clothing strewn about the floor that he needs to avoid tripping over.

You can also have multiple levels. Maybe you can set down a platform to elevate some of the action, or elevate one actor over another.

Remember, the ground plan establishes a pattern of movement.

Of course, in art, there’s no definitive right and wrong. But generally, you’ll want to avoid any of the following: aimless actors, purposeless movement, actors standing around for long periods of time not moving, and large unused portions of stage. Make sure your show--and everything about it--has purpose.

What I’ve said here is by no means the be-all and end-all on the subject of ground plans, but I hope it’s enough to get you thinking.

Preparing to direct

Continuing the theatre education series for high school students...


Photo courtesy: www.stockfreeimages.comWhen you’re the director, you have to do several things before you step foot into the first rehearsal. Otherwise, your leadership may amount to little more than “Okay, actors--go!” and “Okay, actors--stop!”

After you find the script you want to direct, you need to re-read it several times. Each time, have a different focus. Here are four important topics to consider:

1.) You want to define in your mind the purpose of the play. Is it just a simple comedy designed to make people laugh, and that’s it? Is it trying to provoke thought? Does it have a theme you want to emphasize?

The production needs a reason to exist beyond “Well, I felt like directing a play my senior year, so...yeah...I’m doing this one...”
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the purpose being harmless entertainment. Not everything needs a deep, complex meaning. If you’re just out to have a great time and share some fun with the audience, that’s plenty of purpose right there.

So that's the what. Now to start thinking about the how...

2.) You’ll want to focus on developing your ground plan. You don’t have to design the whole set just yet. (However, if you’re a student director doing a one-act, there’s a very good chance you will have to double as set designer...But that can come later.)

With the ground plan, you’re thinking about basic patterns of movement for your actors to follow. The ground plan is a large enough topic for another full post, but the main thing to keep in mind right now is this: Your job, as director, is to direct, and your ground plan is an important tool for guiding your actors. A good ground plan will prevent your cast from wandering around aimlessly as they say their lines.

Think: What are some key props or set pieces that they’ll interact with? What obstacles will you place in their path? Where do actors need to be positioned as entrances and exits are made, and how do you get them there?

Get out some white copy paper and a pencil, and start drawing.

3.) Once you have a rough sketch of your ground plan, then it’s time to break down the script into smaller chunks. Find the scenes within the scenes.

Here, you identify key moments of the story -- the most important actions that take place. Basically, you’re thinking, “What MUST my actors do, and when exactly must they do it?” (No shame in changing your mind later, though.)

This leads directly into...

4.) Start blocking the show. Outline all the major movement you want to happen.

You don’t have to plot out every action. The actors have to figure some of that out, too. But you do need to be prepared just in case someone’s feeling lost in rehearsal one day.

Side note: For some, I know it’s inevitable. As you read through the script before auditions, you’re going to feel tempted to cast the roles and imagine specific actors going through the blocking you’re beginning to brainstorm. You probably can’t turn this off entirely, but you can maintain an open mind during auditions. Remember, everyone has to start somewhere. A freshman or sophomore you’ve never met before might surprise you, and he or she might actually be better suited for a role than your good friend you’ve worked with for the past few years. So don’t get too attached to your imaginary cast. They might not all be available anyway.

5.) Make a list of all props, costumes, major set pieces, lighting effects, and sound effects you might need, and start thinking of how you’re going to pull it together.

*******

All of these points deserve elaboration. But that should give you a general idea of the pre-rehearsal work a director needs to do: Identify your show’s purpose, develop a ground plan, break the script down into smaller scenes, find the key moments, start blocking the show, and brainstorm all the materials you’ll need.

Of course, before you do any of that, make sure you've found a script you like.

Why theatre?


A few years ago, I wrote some theatre education articles for another website. I'll gradually transfer them over here for whoever happens to be interested. Here's the first:


 With so many forms of media in existence, what’s the point of continuing to do theatre? After all, theatre is old enough for Sophocles to have taken part. Ancient Greece had no television, movies, CDs, iPods, or anything of the sort to keep them entertained. They didn’t even have the printing press back in the day.

It’s clear why theatre appealed to people in ancient times. Their options for artistic recreation were limited. But why do we continue thousands of years later?

Just because something is old doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it. Theatre can do things no other medium can.
Theatre gives you a live performance -- an experience shared with a group of strangers both in the audience and onstage. For the theatre-makers, preparing for a live performance cultivates a different type of discipline than movies or television: more memorization, adapting a fixed space to suit the production’s needs, and making sure all technical elements are ready to go in sequence and perfectly timed -- not just for a scene, but the whole show -- plus more.

I’m not saying TV and movies are bad, simply that they have different strengths and weaknesses.

Sure, a movie can move around from place to place and shoot in a wide variety of locations, and that’s great. But sometimes working with strict limitations inspire additional creativity.

If a play chooses to rely on spectacle, it’s not as straightforward as finding an exotic location or adding in some CGI effects. There’s little room for error during a live performance, and weak acting is much more annoying in a live performance. For musicals, theatrical performers need to sing and dance and act all at the same time. Usually, a film musical records the songs in a studio, then shoots the physical performance, and edits them together.

A good play is a different sort of accomplishment than a good movie or TV show. It impresses and awes the audience in its own, unique ways (and in many more ways than I’ve listed here). There's nothing redundant about it. Theatre will remain relevant as long as people appreciate it.

Meet Amena, the whimsical realist

 Presenting...the lead character of the Earths in Space series...Amena Wharry!

Amena has one true love: exploration.

She just wants to find something amazing...and then something else amazing...and something else...

Okay, so she really wants to find everything that’s amazing. Best way to do that? Find everything. After all, how could you possibly assess a thing’s amazingness if you’ve never once come across it?

Amena, a 29-year-old whimsical realist, leads an elite team of space travelers. The official mission is to scope out these alien planets and make sure none pose a threat to the Earth.

It turns out they’re all Earths, so they only meet aliens in the foreign sense, which sure is disappointing. A whole gigantic universe, and only one sentient species? It couldn’t muster any more variety than that? What’s the universe’s problem?
There’s got to be more, something she missed. She has to keep looking.

In the meantime, however, people on these Earths tend to need help, and she’s afflicted with a compulsion to heroically save days. She used to be a sheriff’s deputy in her rural hometown, so serving and protecting comes naturally.

It’s easier to protect folks when you’re such a superb marksman you can’t remember the last time you missed a shot. Amena never fired a bullet on duty, but she's lost track of how many archery competitions she's won. She prefers her bow and arrows, but sometimes she’ll settle on her laser gun, or “lighter” as she calls it.

Oh, and she’s asexual. She completely lacks romantic desires. No, it’s not repression, not due to any trauma. It’s just how she is. Besides, she’s too busy trying to see everything. Why focus inordinate time on one person? There are always so many interesting new people to meet.

Of course, this does not mean others lack interest in her, though the odds of her noticing are so slim as to be imperceptible.

No dark past motivates Amena -- no skeletons in the closet or horrific life events.

She just wants everything to be amazing.

Amena is the lead of an ensemble. To meet the rest of the cast, purchase Earths in Space from these fine digital outlets:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Copia

eBookPie

Kobo

Earths in Space: Episode Two teaser

I've already shared a teaser for the first story in Earths in Space vol. 1: Where Are the Little Green Men? You can still read it here.

There is another.

Here's the opening of Episode Two: "The End of an Earth."

All text copyright Daniel R. Sherrier. Do not use without permission. However, feel free to share this link far and wide.



The world was going to explode in ninety minutes. Onella simply needed to wait.

She lounged on a thick branch more than ten stories above the ground, but still well below the tree’s highest extremities. She gazed through healthy leaves at the deceptively clear sky. It seemed so peaceful, and the red sun cast a surreal tint that would have fascinated her way back when. The younger Onella would have wanted to freeze time and study it forever before moving on to the next, even more fascinating discovery. The older Onella was glad she only had ninety minutes.


This Earth’s impending doom was merely a formality. It had died billions of years ago, prematurely. Onella scoured half the globe but could find no trace of any man-made artifacts dating later than three-thousand years after the earliest hieroglyphics. The latest writings spoke of war, famine, plagues, and natural disasters striking in unforgiving succession. Civilization here had a lifespan in the lower four digits. They never even came close to achieving the early milestones, like motorized transportation or electrification.

Such a waste. Such a typical waste. How fitting that this should be the last Earth Onella explored.

She considered shedding her second skin. A comfortable fabric with circuitry woven throughout, it was several hi-tech tools in one color-shifting, form-fitting package. It served her well on her many disappointing adventures. Yet perhaps she had grown too dependent upon it. Maybe for her final hour and a half, she could do without her tricks and rejoin the natural world.

Before she reached a decision, her wrist beeped. A holographic display projected from her arm. She read the data.

Four other humans had just arrived on the planet, and they weren’t far.

With a thought, Onella vanished from the tree.

#

Our favorite space-faring octahedron, The Patrick Henry, shot down four of its crew to this Earth’s surface.
A column of hard energy barreled through the atmosphere and safely deposited its passengers adjacent to an ocean and high above it.

Apparently, someone smashed the landscape with a few mountains, and the mountains broke. Eroded tips of stone pyramids peaked through the jagged rubble here and there.

The place was scorching—upper nineties, easily. Patrick Henry’s computers had already determined that, so they brought along a jug of water and set it on one of the more level rock formations while they explored.

“I love this sky,” Amena said, grinning. “That is the most amazing sky I have ever seen. How long until we get an enormous red sun?”

Examining her hand-held sensor, Sela said, “Well, this world is more than ten billion years old, so I’d advise some patience.”

Mariana glanced at the device from over her shoulder. “When does it blow?”

“It doesn’t have long, geologically speaking.” Sela kneeled to hold her sensor closer to the ground. “I’d say a month, give or take a few days. If it was lower on our list, we’d have missed it entirely.”

“Sure about that month?” Mariana asked.

“As certain as one can be,” Sela said. “Don’t worry. If I’m wrong, we’ll get warning signs.”

Kaden rested a hand on his katana’s hilt as he listened for sounds of life. For a moment, he thought someone was watching him, but it must have been the breeze tickling his neck.

He heard only the waves and some birds singing in the distance, and he saw only desolation—clean desolation, though. The air smelled of no more than saltwater, and it felt unusually gentle. “Seems you were right about no people being here,” he said.

Sela smiled. “Were you expecting me to be wrong?”

“No, I just…I never know what to expect with you all, quite frankly,” Kaden said. “Except that it’s always impressive.”

“That’s generally what I strive for.”

Amena snapped her fingers on both hands. “Yes, yes, yes. We already established from on high that not even a speck of human life remains anywhere, and now we’ve got some visual evidence to support that. But let’s remember, kids—Sela calibrated our instruments to hone in on people as we know them. You know what even she, brilliant as she is, can’t possibly calibrate for? Some incredible future stage of human evolution that we don’t know the first thing about, because it’s a future stage of human evolution and our world hasn’t been around for ten billion years. We do know there’s other animal life here. I’m thinking, hoping, wishing, and praying some of that’s our descendents. Or the descendents we will have? The cousins of the descendents we’ll have? Not quite extra-terrestrial cousins, but bi-terrestrial, maybe? Pan-terrestrial? What’s the right word?”

“You had it with ‘wishing,’” Mariana said, her arms crossed.

“It’s a possibility,” Amena said. “Can’t deny it’s a possibility.”

“Only ’til I prove otherwise,” Mariana said.

“There could be several sentient species,” Amena said. “Mankind might have splintered off into all sorts of wacky directions. And maybe, maybe not even just mankind. Rabbits could have evolved into bipedal, intellectual super-rabbits for all we know. We, really, we might as well be billions of years in the future.”

“Except we’re not,” Mariana said. “Different Earth, different history.”

“Oh, you killjoy,” Amena said, waving away her skepticism as if swatting a fly. She turned around. “Kaden, tell her—”

Kaden wasn’t at her side. He was over at Sela’s side.

“So how does that thing work?” he asked, looking at her sensor.

Sela began her explanation, pleased to offer it. “The principle isn’t unlike sonar. See, it sends down these waves…”

“Kaden!” Amena called out. “My whimsy needs back-up! What’re you doing?”

Kaden remembered the rest of existence. “What? Oh, I was just curious about the, um, sensor here and…”

Mariana told him, “Don’t worry about Amena. I’ll ease up. We’re checking out the pyramids. You learn about Sela’s equipment.” She grabbed Amena’s arm and led her in the opposite direction. “Refresher on double entendres…”

As Mariana whispered a concise lesson, things began to make much more sense. Amena blushed and spun around, about to issue a sincere apology for the interruption—until Mariana grabbed her and steered her forward once more.

“Don’t. You’ll be awkward. Let’s see if your little green men are hiding under the rocks.”

“They might very well be,” Amena said. “You never know.”

“Until we know.”

“You said you’d ease up.”

“That was eased up.”

None of them realized Onella had been lurking around nearly the entire time. Why would they? They all lacked the ability to see invisible people.

Onella lamented how disappointed Amena was going to be.
 
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