Act II, Section Nine of An American Book of the Dead - The Game Show. . .
Act II, Sect. 8
. . . . (Lights out on everything.
Lights up on the game show. Blink and the Spokesmodels wander around the rubble of the Bardo Wheel, and inspect the now empty isolation booths.)
HOST: Uh, Don?
ANNOUNCER: Yeah, Blink.
HOST: They're gone.
ANNOUNCER: That's right, Blink. It turns out that the Bardo of Louie Prima and Keely Smith with Sam Butera and the Witnesses playing the Sahara Lounge in Las Vegas, 1955 is a karmic escape hatch of redemption from the game show. Who knew?
HOST: So what? They're alive now?
ANNOUNCER: Yeah, something like that.
HOST: We never actually killed 'em, did we?
ANNOUNCER: Apparently not.
HOST: Holy frijoles.
ANNOUNCER: You can say that again.
HOST: Holy fri-- ...Yeah.
(Blink looks out and notices the audience.)
HOST: So that means...
ANNOUNCER: That's right, Blink.
HOST (to the audience): Folks, uh... I got some uh...real awkward news for ya. Apparently you're not... actually... dead, being as... apparently we didn't... actually... kill you.
Sorry.... Are you shocked?... Well, I got more news for ya, there ain't actually a Santy Claus either.
SPOKESMODEL 1: Or a Boogie Man.
SPOKESMODEL 2: Or a single gunman
HOST: Or a great gray sadist in the sky.
SPOKESMODEL 1: Or a just and equitable distribution of wealth.
SPOKESMODEL 2: Or an impartial judiciary.
HOST: Or a worldwide conspiracy.
SPOKESMODEL 1: Or an unselfish act.
SPOKESMODEL 2: Or any enlightenment to be attained.
SPOKESMODEL 1: Or any end to attainment.
HOST: We don't exist.
SPOKESMODEL 1: Asterisk.
HOST: Never have.
SPOKESMODEL 2: Obelisk.
HOST: Never will.
SPOKESMODEL 1: Questions of existence are beyond the purvey of this gameshow.
SPOKESMODEL 2: Any speculation of existence and/or non-existence is purely for entertainment purposes only.
HOST: Good night!
(Blink and the Spokesmodels do a big kiss-wave goodbye.
Grand curtain call with confetti and flashing lights, then exeunt all and fade to black.)
End of Play