Episode One: Acronyms

Oscar Wilde, William Shakespeare, and Jane Austen sit in their kitchen chatting and drinking tea.

AUSTEN
Politely complaining
This day has certainly been most uneventful.

SHAKESPEARE
Aye, fair Jane, thou speakest true. Since that strange and wond’rous day when some magic, the origin whereof I know not, didst cruelly rip us from our appointed place in time and disprut the harmony of the celestial spheres by forcing us, an ill-conceived triad of writers from diff’rent islands in the wide ocean of history, to share an abode in early twenty-first century Portland, Oregon, the days have truly passed without event.

AUSTEN
I do believe I remember how we came here, Mr. Shakespeare, but thank you for the clarification.

SHAKESPEARE
It was—

WILDE
And your metaphors are growing progressively more bizarre, my dear Will. If you weren’t so very well-known, one might almost suspect you of trading on your reputation.

AUSTEN
Indeed.

SHAKESPEARE
It was an aside! An aside! And my metaphors doth function at a lofty level invisible to overly critical roommates who write nothing but piddling comedies of manners!

AUSTEN
Did you not write one or two of those yourself?

SHAKESPEARE
Canst understand that—

The doorbell rings.

WILDE
Company! Could that just possibly be someone to talk to other than the two of you? Nothing is better than company, except for solitude.

SHAKESPEARE
Avowedly, that epigram had as little sense as did my metaphor. Thou art slipping, Oscar, as sure as myself. This century is no home for poets.

WILDE
It’s hard to come up with these things at a moment’s notice, you know.

Austen opens the door.

AUSTEN
Good day to you madam, and welcome to our home—a place, it seems, populated by those who see no harm in allowing a lady to get the door.

MESSENGER
Whatev. I got a delivery for a Mr. Shaxper from Happy Computer Co.

SHAKESPEARE
That’s me! It’s here! Yay!

WILDE
That was a truly modern exclamation, Will.

SHAKESPEARE
Slowly as the snail’s footsteps, I begin to understand the strange speech of this marvellous place. Where do I sign?

MESSENGER
Right here, sir.

Shakespeare enthusiastically signs the package slip.

AUSTEN
Quietly, to Wilde
A computer? Have we even enough income for such a luxury?

WILDE
Quietly, to Austen
Oh, income. No one of gravity worries about such things.

AUSTEN
And exactly what does he hope to accomplish with this machine? Surely it will not improve our bored and isolated condition.

SHAKESPEARE
To the messenger
Does it have the internet?

MESSENGER
Sure. We came by and installed the wireless last week, remember?

WILDE
To Shakespeare
So that was the real reason you told us to go see Hamlet without you!

AUSTEN
You were not modest and embarrassed, as you claimed!

WILDE
Devious!

MESSENGER
Happy Computer Co. is happy to provide prompt and cheerful service. Please tell us of your concerns. You’re all set up now, call us if you have problems, the warranty expires in two days.
Pause.
Are you, like, famous or something?

SHAKESPEARE
No! Of course not! Though my art is justly admired, I am naught but a humble merchant, who doth live in this perfectly ordinary dwelling, in this, the year of Our Lord, two thousand and six!

MESSENGER
Right. Just something about your haircut brought back memories of—
She shudders.
--High school English class. Anyway, have a good one.

Exit the Messenger

SHAKESPEARE
I needs must make the acquaintance of this mechanical servant, which doth contain marvels like unto those found in the depths of the vasty sea.

AUSTEN
I’m afraid I do not understand your simile, Mr. Shakespeare.

SHAKESPEARE
Whatev. I go forth to converse with my new servant. Have a good one!

Exit Shakespeare

AUSTEN
Mr. Shakespeare’s style of speech has certainly changed much in the past few minutes.

WILDE
Perhaps it’s simply passed our level of comprehension.

AUSTEN
Indeed. So, shall we pass yet another day by sitting within the house, too afraid of the twenty-first century to venture outside?

WILDE
No, I think that would be altogether too exciting. As you know, many other writers from different time periods have also been transported to early twenty-first century Portland for no apparent reason. Perhaps we should go visit with them and stun them with our brilliant and witty insights.

AUSTEN
I do know that, Mr. Wilde. I fail to understand why the two of you are so very insistent on repeating perfectly obvious facts.

WILDE
There are some things, dear Jane, that a novelist can never understand as a playwright can, and one of them is the need for exposition.

AUSTEN
I don’t—

WILDE
No, don’t argue, we’ll only spend the day sitting inside and fighting again. We must leave the house before I become entirely too social.

AUSTEN
Sir, that made almost no sense at all.

WILDE
My Poetic Genius is not nurtured by lack of excitement. Really, we have to go.

AUSTEN
All right, but I will not use public transit again. It was not at all “Just like riding a horse”


The next day. Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde sit in the kitchen, perhaps drinking from rattly cups again. Is “rattly” a word? It should be.

AUSTEN
I must admit, it was gratifying to converse with great writers from throughout time. I feel most humbled by the experience.

WILDE
Yes, were you all right after we got separated at that wild party the Romantics were having?

AUSTEN
I was quite well, thank you. The Romantics seemed men of great poetical discernment.

WILDE
I noticed you flirting with Byron.

AUSTEN
I noticed you flirting with Byron.

WILDE
I think everyone there was flirting with Byron.

AUSTEN
He is certainly possessed of considerable personal charm.

WILDE
I hope you got away from Fielding all right.

AUSTEN
Yes, thank you. I went afterwards to a … well, to a bar. With the Brontës. I told them of my personal problems and they advised me to go to an open moor and scream my anger and sorrow to the rising moon and to write poetry when I was finished. They assured it me it would be a most gratifying experience, but I was forced to decline.

WILDE
And which personal problems were these, pray tell?

AUSTEN
And what happened to you, Mr. Wilde? You did not arrive home until this morning.

WILDE
Oh, I met Kit Marlowe, Will’s friend. A terribly exciting person, though perhaps overly fond of conspiracy theories. He told me at length about how Queen Elizabeth had implanted a microchip in his brain, though he declined to explain what a microchip is. I can only suppose it is some sort of strangely interesting train of thought.

AUSTEN
I am reminded—where is Mr. Shakespeare this morning?

WILDE
It is unlike him to go un-noticed for so long.

AUSTEN
He’s not in the living room. Mr. Shakespeare! We would speak with you!

Two sets of footsteps throughout the following.

WILDE
William! Where are you?

AUSTEN
Mr. Shakespeare, you are causing us some concern!

WILDE
He’s not in any of the bedrooms.

AUSTEN
Nor the pantry. Mr. Shakespeare!

WILDE
Perhaps he was kidnapped.

AUSTEN
Nonsense. Have you searched the attic?

WILDE
I was not aware that we possessed an attic.

AUSTEN
We have a small crawl space with a leaky roof and inadequate structural support. One would think that whatever strange magic transported us here could provide us with a better habitation.

They ascend to the attic.

WILDE
By George!

AUSTEN
Oh, d---n

WILDE
Did you actually pronounce those dashes?

AUSTEN
Never mind that! Look at poor Mr. Shakespeare—he is a decayed shadow of his former self! Have you been playing with this computer for the past twenty hours, sir? And why are you leaning through the crack in the roof like that?

SHAKESPEARE
OMG, WTF, like, leave me alone! This is the only place where I can get reception that doesn’t suck!

WILDE
This reminds me so much of The Picture of—

AUSTEN
Mr. Wilde, please! What is House Rule Number One?

WILDE
No quoting yourself. But I—

SHAKESPEARE
Go away! Gtg! I’m, like, in a flamewar here! U r distracting me! FTJSKDRTUV!

AUSTEN
If that is an acronym, sir, it might serve you better to simply speak English.

SHAKESPEARE
I’m speaking, like, net slang! That’s what I call the internet now—the “net”! Now leave, I need to flame this n00b!

WILDE
To see language mangled so by William Shakespeare—the irony is delicious.

AUSTEN
The irony is sickening. I will no longer have this infernal contraption in my house!

SHAKESPEARE
Thou canst not take my computer!

WILDE
Pull yourself together, Will! Do you want posterity to remember you as a Great Poet or as a participant in internet flame wars?

SHAKESPEARE
This is posterity, thou cream-faced loon!

Austen seizes the computer and defenestrates it.

WILDE
Oh, look. It seems that Jane has accidentally thrown the computer out the window.

SHAKESPEARE
I shouldst be angry, but … Thinketh that perhaps some demon within the computer hath enchanted me? I felt the strangest compulsions.

AUSTEN
Indeed.

SHAKESPEARE
Well, all’s well that ends well.

WILDE
House rule number one!

The end.