Two characters in a prison cell.
One – How long have you been in prison?
Two – It’ll be ten years on the 25th of December.
One – The 25th of December? Did you kill Santa Claus to nick his sack?
Two – Almost… I killed my father to stop him from beating me up…
One – And you got life for that?
Two – Judges have kids too. It scares them when kids kill their dads for such trivial reasons.
One – The judge who sentenced you must have beaten his kids too. Or worse…
Two – I should have done it two years earlier. I was still a minor, the sentence would have been lighter.
One – Thinking too long is never a good thing.
Two – And you?
One – Me? I don’t remember…
Two – You don’t remember why you’re here or how long it’s been?
One – Why? I’d rather forget. And as for how long… After twenty years, I stopped counting.
Two – I’m starting to wonder if they’ll ever let us out.
One – I’m not sure I even want to get out anymore.
Two – Why do you say that?
One – After all these years inside… Out there, we won’t recognise anything. Or anyone.
Two – And no one will recognise us.
One – The last time I had a coffee at a café counter, I paid 50 cents for it. And the cell phones didn’t exist. Can you believe that?
Two – It’s like we’ve been dead all this time. Buried alive. One day, they’ll throw us back into life. It’ll be like being born again.
One – But instead of being newborns, with parents to look after us, we’ll be old men, with no one to hold our hands.
Two – Like fish thrown back into the sea who don’t know how to swim anymore because they’ve been out of the water for too long.
One – That’s silly… Fish out of water die of suffocation anyway.
Two – Yeah… I feel like a fish in the air.
One – We ended up in prison because we couldn’t fit into society. Do you think that after thirty years in the slammer, we’ll fit in any better?
Two – We just made the wrong choices, that’s all. What did you want to be when you were a kid?
One – When we played cops and robbers, I always wanted to be the cop. I don’t know where it all went wrong. And you?
Two – I wanted to be an astrophysicist. But I was too stupid.
One – What’s an astrophysicist?
Two – Stars, planets, that sort of thing.
One – Oh yeah… Astrology, then. What’s your star sign?
Two – Pisces.
One – Oh, right…
Two – What do you think? Do you reckon we’re alone in the universe?
One – Well, we’re certainly alone in the world. So what does it matter if there are Martians or not?
Two – We’re in for life. An alien invasion is the only thing that could save us now, right?
One – Yeah.
Two – During the French Revolution, they stormed the Bastille and freed the prisoners.
One – So that’s your escape plan?
Two – Got a better one?
One – You’re right, Martians are the only hope we’ve got left.
Two – Unfortunately, I haven’t found a way to get in touch with them yet.
A pause.
One – And supposing Martians do exist, and you manage to send them a message. What would you say to convince them to come and free us?
Two – I don’t know… Got any ideas?
One – It depends… Do you think aliens are on the side of the cops or the robbers?
Blackout.

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