Lloyd Suh
Dramatic
ABIGAIL, late teens
ABIGAIL and JESUS travelled to India together. She loves him, but he dumped her so she went back home to Galilee. Now she has returned, with a plea to him to return home with her.
ABIGAIL Your father’s died. Your father’s dead, Jesus. Joseph is dead. Murdered. It’s all such a mess, back home—there’s hardly home left. It’s war. Herod is dead and there is no order, the Romans have overrun everything, and they won’t stop until they’ve completely eliminated every single Jew from the face of the Earth. But there’s a resistance. We’ve fought, we fight, your mother and I, along with others. I would have come sooner but every pair of hands is needed, there are so few working on behalf of the Jews. I came because we need you. Your father wasn’t a fighter. He wasn’t a zealot, didn’t cause any trouble. He was just there. You know. He was just a man. And they cut him down anyway, like they cut down many who are just men. Your people are dying, Jesus. We are fighting. And we are losing. We are dying. Your mother, she told me everything. About what your father said, about who you are, about what you’re supposed to do, and I believe it, Jesus. I believe in you. You can build a house. You can build a table. But that’s not what we need from you. We need you to build an army. We need you to build a revolution. We need you to build someplace for all these departed souls to go, to find some peace, somewhere your father and all our other fallen family can rest, because there are too many such souls now waiting in the streets and gutters and mass graves of Galilee. Jesus. Please. Build that shit. And I will follow.
It’s time. Let’s go home.