DEATH NO LONGER A COFFIN
CHARACTERS
GLADYS Professional social worker, amateur psychical researcher
JANE GLADYS’s grown daughter
ARTHUR GLADYS’s deceased husband
***Note*** All filtered dialogue refers to speech recorded on tape.
1. SOUND: REEL-TO-REEL TAPE RECORDER REWINDS. PLAY BUTTON PRESSED. TAPE HISS.
2. GLADYS: (FILTER) Hello, this is Gladys speaking. Do I have any friends here with me tonight?
3. SOUND: TAPE HISS.
4. (FILTER) If I do, how many of you are there?
5. SOUND: TAPE HISS.
6. (FILTER) What is your world like?
7. SOUND: TAPE HISS.
8. (FILTER) What are you doing?
9. SOUND: TAPE HISS.
10. (FILTER) Where are you right now?
11. SOUND: TAPE HISS. TAPE RECORDER SWITCHES OFF.
12. (DISGUSTED). Nothing. Not a word.
13. SOUND: DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES IN OTHER ROOM.
14. JANE: (OFF MIKE) Mama?
1. GLADYS: Oh! One moment, Jane!
2. SOUND: FOOTSTEPS CROSS FROM STUDY TO KITCHEN.
3. GLADYS: Jane, darling, how are you?
4. JANE: I’m fine, Mama. How are you?
5. GLADYS: Just fine. Like to have some coffee?
6. JANE: Sure, just one cup. I told Christa I wouldn’t be home late. I need to pick up some things for her birthday next week.
7. SOUND: PERCOLATOR CLATTERS ON STOVETOP.
8. What were you doing back there, Mama? Not working, I hope. It’s almost eight. You’ll wear yourself out.
9. GLADYS: (LAUGHING) I may be your mother, but that doesn’t make me old. Anyway, I wasn’t working. At least not on something for the office.
10. JANE: What, then?
11. SOUND: SILENCE.
12. JANE: Mama, are you fooling with that tape recorder again?
1. GLADYS: Jane, dear, couldn’t we give it a rest for one night?
2. JANE: We’ll give it a rest next week, at Christa’s party, how about that? Right now, I want to know why you insist on carrying out those experiments of yours.
3. GLADYS: Sometimes I’m not sure myself.
4. JANE: If anyone at the office finds out, they’ll throw a net over you.
5. GLADYS: It’s not all that bad. Plenty of people come home and drink themselves to sleep, do all kinds of things. I don’t see why I shouldn’t have a hobby.
6. JANE: You call sitting around talking to imaginary people a hobby?
7. SOUND: TENSE PAUSE. CLATTER OF CUPS AND SAUCERS. COFFEE BEING POURED.
8. Have you taken your pill yet tonight?
9. GLADYS: Pill?
10. JANE: For Heaven’s sake, Mama. Your heart pill.
1. GLADYS: Oh. No, not yet.
2. JANE: I’ll get it.
3. SOUND: CHAIR SCRAPES AGAINST FLOOR. PILL BOTTLE RATTLES.
4. There. I wish you’d be more mindful of this. You know how important it is. The slightest shock could—
5. GLADYS: (TOP) I know.
6. JANE: Mama, are you alright? You seem forgetful lately. Distracted.
7. GLADYS: Yes, I’m alright.
8. JANE: Are you sure you wouldn’t rather come live with Christa and me?
9. GLADYS: Oh, spare me, Jane. I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself. Anyway, how would that look, a working woman mooching off her grown daughter?
1. JANE: No worse than someone coming here and seeing that contraption in your study. They’d ask why a social worker needs a dusty old reel-to-reel tape recorder taking up half her desk, and what would you tell them? (PAUSE) Well?
2. GLADYS: We’ve been through all this before, Jane. I don’t see why you keep asking.
3. JANE: Because I’m trying to understand.
4. GLADYS: Well, isn’t it fascinating? Think of it: the possibility that the human consciousness continues in some form after bodily death. Imagine what it could mean.
5. JANE: For who?
6. GLADYS: Well…for all of us. For humanity.
5. JANE: So that’s what you’re doing, is it? Saving humanity?
7. SOUND: SILENCE.
8. But why a tape recorder?
1. GLADYS: People all over the world have been writing about it. It has to do with the white noise it generates. Spirit voices use it to…well, to manifest themselves, somehow, so we can hear them. Researchers have recorded entire conversations. Short ones, of course, and the rhythms of the voices can sound slightly unnatural to our ears, but—
2. JANE: (TOP, SCOFFING) “Researchers.”
3. GLADYS: Well, if you’re going to mock it…
4. SOUND: PAUSE. CLINK OF SPOONS STIRRING COFFEE.
5. JANE: Is it Dad?
6. SOUND: SILENCE.
7. JANE: I knew it. It’s Dad, isn’t it? It’s 1981, Mama. The man’s been dead for two years. And anyway, of all the people you could try to bring back…
8. GLADYS: Really, Jane, that’s enough.
9. JANE: Haven’t you ever heard the phrase “Let sleeping dogs lie?” That man was worse than a dog, he was—
9. SOUND: SLAP. STUNNED SILENCE.
1. GLADYS: (SHAKILY) I’m sorry, Jane. I don’t know what came over me.
2. JANE: No, I’m sorry, Mama. That was out of line. I just don’t get it. I know what he did to me, and I’m sure I don’t know the half of what he did to you.
3. GLADYS: That’s right, you don’t know. You also don’t know what it’s like for me to live alone after all these years. The expansiveness of it. It no longer matters when I do things, if I do them at all…
4. JANE: You still have your work, all the friends you’ve made there.
5. GLADYS: The day is no trouble. It never is. It’s the nights that are oppressive. My mind starts to…oh, I don’t know. It starts to turn back, to look for something.
6. JANE: But why the dead? I ask you once a month to move in with Christa and me. At least then you’d be surrounded by living, breathing people, not begging for the company of ghosts.
7. GLADYS: That wouldn’t be living, Jane. Not to me. My life is still here.
1. JANE: Alone?
2. GLADYS: That’s just it. I’m not sure we’re ever truly alone.
3. JANE: Mama, you’re scaring me.
4. GLADYS: There’s nothing to be scared of. All of this is natural. We just don’t understand how it works yet. That doesn’t make it bad.
5. JANE: Well, if you must summon somebody, why does it have to be him? Why not Grandmother, or Aunt Helen? Summon Walt Disney, for God’s sake. At least he’d be better company.
6. GLADYS: I don’t know. It just seems to…to make sense, somehow.
7. JANE: (UNDER HER BREATH) He’s still got a hold on you.
8. GLADYS: What?
1. JANE: (LOUDER) He’s still got a hold on you. Dad hated me, I know that now. He never accepted Christa and me. But that man manipulated you, Mama. He needed to control every last thing you did. Most of the time you didn’t even seem to realize it. Or maybe you did. And here he is, still doing it, after two years in the ground. You just can’t move on. You won’t move on.
2. GLADYS: He was still my husband, Jane. No marriage is perfect. You’ll soon learn that. But that doesn’t make it wrong.
3. JANE: Imperfect? You call what Dad did to us imperfect? I may not have the wisdom of your years, Mama, but I have eyes. In those first weeks after the funeral, you seemed so much…lighter. You laughed more than you have since I was a girl. You started doing things on the spur of the moment. Now, ever since you dragged that tape recorder up from the basement, the old weight’s back, like he’s pulling you down into the dirt with him. I just wish you’d remember those days for what they really were: one long nightmare.
4. GLADYS: I should think I remember my own marriage.
1. JANE: Then you should see that some things are better off buried. Dad is one of them. Not all the dead are angels.
2. SOUND: A HAND POUNDS THE TABLE. CUPS, SAUCERS, AND SPOONS JUMP AND CLATTER.
3. GLADYS: (SHOUTING) I won’t listen to any more of this!
4. SOUND: SILENCE.
5. JANE: (QUIETLY) I should be going.
6. GLADYS: Alright.
7. JANE: Will you be at the party next week?
8. GLADYS: I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Please just…just let me live life my way.
9. JANE: I love you, Mama.
10. GLADYS: I love you too, darling.
11. SOUND: FOOTSTEPS CROSS THE FLOOR, DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES.
12. GLADYS: (WEEPING) Oh, Arthur, Arthur, Arthur…
1. SOUND: GLADYS SNIFFLES. CHAIR SCRAPES AGAINST FLOOR. FOOTSTEPS RETURN FROM KITCHEN TO STUDY. TAPE RECORDER CLICKS BACK ON. REELS WHIR.
2. GLADYS: (HOT ON MIKE) This is…this is Gladys again. Can anyone hear me? Please, someone…
3. SOUND: TAPE RECORDER REWINDS. PLAY BUTTON PRESSED. TAPE HISS.
4. (FILTER) This is…this is Gladys again. Can anyone hear me? Please, someone…
5. ARTHUR: (FILTER, SINISTER) …friends…
6. GLADYS: It…it worked?! Arthur, is that…? Oh—
7. SOUND: GLADYS STOPS PLAYBACK, PRESSES RECORD.
8. (HOT ON MIKE) Is that you, Arthur? Are there any others here with you?
9. SOUND: TAPE RECORDER REWINDS. PLAY BUTTON PRESSED. TAPE HISS.
10. (FILTER) Is that you, Arthur? Are there any others here with you?
11. ARTHUR: (FILTER) …Gladys… I am here… We are many…
1. GLADYS: My God.
2. SOUND: GLADYS STOPS PLAYBACK, PRESSES RECORD.
3. (HOT ON MIKE) What is your world like? What are you doing?
4. SOUND: TAPE RECORDER REWINDS. PLAY BUTTON PRESSED. TAPE HISS.
5. (FILTER) What is your world like? What are you doing?
6. ARTHUR: (FILTER) …Great beauty… The beauty…tears us apart… Death…no longer a coffin… Busy… We are busy…
7. SOUND: GLADYS STOPS PLAYBACK, PRESSES RECORD.
8. GLADYS: (HOT ON MIKE) Oh, Arthur, that sounds…well, that sounds wonderful. What are you keeping busy with? Tell me, where are you, exactly?
9. SOUND: TAPE RECORDER REWINDS. PLAY BUTTON PRESSED. TAPE HISS.
10. (FILTER) Oh, Arthur, that sounds…well, that sounds wonderful. What are you keeping busy with? Tell me, where are you, exactly?
1. ARTHUR: (FILTER) …Come with us…Gladys…many sights to see… We are here…
2. SOUND: GLADYS STOPS PLAYBACK, PRESSES RECORD.
3. GLADYS: (HOT ON MIKE) But where is here? Are you in the room with me? Please, tell me.
4. SOUND: TAPE RECORDER REWINDS. PLAY BUTTON PRESSED. TAPE HISS.
5. (FILTER) But where is here? Are you in the room with me? Please, tell me.
6. ARTHUR: (FILTER) …In the room…your study…all around…
7. SOUND: GLADYS STOPS PLAYBACK, PRESSES RECORD.
8. GLADYS: (HOT ON MIKE) Where in the room? You must tell me! Arthur…WHERE ARE YOU?
9. SOUND: TAPE RECORDER REWINDS. PLAY BUTTON PRESSED. TAPE HISS.
10. (FILTER) Where in the room? You must tell me! Arthur…WHERE ARE YOU?
11. ARTHUR: (FILTER) …Close… At the windows… By the bookcase… Right…behind you…
1. GLADYS: (CHOKING) Oh, God…hands around my throat…Arthur, no…Arthur!
2. SOUND: GLADYS SCREAMS AS SHE CRUMPLES TO THE FLOOR. SILENCE EXCEPT FOR TAPE HISS. DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES IN OTHER ROOM, FOOTSTEPS APPROACH.
3. JANE: (OFF MIKE) Mama? I was nearly home when I remembered that I need your cake pan, the big one. I want to bake Christa a real—
4. SOUND: JANE GASPS. FOOTSTEPS RUSH TO GLADYS.
5. JANE: Mama? Mama, what happened? Oh, God, her heart…that look in her eyes…pure terror…
6. SOUND: JANE SOBS. TAPE HISS IN BACKGROUND.
7. He came back… That damned machine… She couldn’t let go… She couldn’t let go…
8. SOUND: PAUSE. TAPE HISS.
9. GLADYS: (FILTER) …Jane, darling… We’re here… We’re all…here…
10. SOUND: TAPE HISS LINGERS FOR A FEW SECONDS, THEN FADES OUT.
THE END
Author’s Biography
Originally from New Jersey, Daniel now lives with his wife and son in Massachusetts, where he works in immigration law by day and attends law school by night. One of his middle-grade ghost stories is forthcoming in the anthology The Haunted States of America (Macmillan, 2024), and another appeared in Crow Toes Quarterly. His poems have appeared in Seventh Quarry, Molecule, Daikaijuzine, and elsewhere.
