Eyes to the Floor by Alana Valentine

Author:Alana Valentine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Currency Press

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SCENE SIXTEEN

The GIRLS line up for Religious Instruction Class. They stand in a line with their eyes to the floor. MRS KAY enters.

MRS KAY: Good morning, girls.

GIRLS: Good morning, Mrs Kay.

They continue to stand.

MRS KAY: Oh. Oh. Permission to be seated.

The GIRLS all sit.

Good, now first. During religious instruction class you will not be required to keep your eyes on the ground.

The GIRLS continue to look at the ground.

I repeat, you will not be required to keep your eyes to the ground.

The GIRLS continue to look at the ground.

Girls, eyes to the front.

The GIRLS continue to look at the ground.

JANE: That’s been used as a trick on us before.

MRS KAY: I beg your pardon?

JANE: That’s been used as a trick on us before. Where we’ve been told we can look up and then corrected when we do.

MRS KAY: [sighing] This is not a trick. Girls, I would like you to look up at me when I read the lesson and then for the duration of the class.

The GIRLS still do not look up.

Today’s reading is from Colossians Chapter 2 verses 18 to 25. Wives, be committed to your husbands, as is fitting in Christ. Husbands love your wives and never treat them harshly. Children, heed your parents in everything, for this is your acceptable duty in Christ. Parents, do not provoke your children, or they may lose heart. You who are enslaved, heed your earthly masters in everything, not only while being watched and in order to please them, but wholeheartedly, revering the Lord. Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for human beings, since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever wrong has been done, and there is no partiality.

The GIRLS are still not looking up.

Does anyone have any questions? Or comments?

The GIRLS still do not look up.

Will you look at me, please. Girls.

Pause. The GIRLS continue to look at the floor. But then, FIONA puts up her hand.

FIONA: What does it mean, never treat them harshly?

MRS KAY: I won’t answer unless you look at me, Fiona.

FIONA very slowly, very hesitantly, looks up at MRS KAY.

MRS KAY: Thank you. [Beat.] Now you may repeat your question.

FIONA: Husbands, love your wives and never treat them badly. What does that mean?

MRS KAY: What do you think it means?

FIONA: I don’t know. That’s why I asked.

MRS KAY: Anyone else?

Pause.

GWEN: It means they should stop before they beat their brains out.

MRS KAY: It does mean that. It means, of course, that they should not be beaten.

JANE: What never?

MRS KAY: No. Never.

DANIELLA: Not even if they deserve it.

MRS KAY: No-one ever deserves to be treated in a violent manner.

JANE: What is a violent manner?

MARJORIE: It’s when you grab someone around the neck and you slam them into a door frame over and over and over again until they’re like bleeding from the head and from the nose and from the mouth.

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