Fear of Delta - editors wanted

Opens in a small kitchen, a single window is boarded up. The stage is dim, set up with a table and two chairs. There is a door stage right up. LACHLAN, a 33 year old man in grey, paces beside the table, picks up a pamphlet advertising a faraway place before putting it back down and pacing again.

(SCARLET, a 33 year old woman in a yellow dress bursts through door.)
LACHLAN: Scarlet, by God, where have you been?
SCARLET: We have to leave.
LACHLAN (Sighs and sinks into a chair): Don’t bring this up now.
SCARLET: Lachlan, we must.
(LACHLAN says nothing, staring fixedly at the table.)
SCARLET: The planes are coming. They came down yesterday and the whole market is black with their smoke.
(Pause.)
SCARLET: Don’t you remember what they did!?
LACHLAN (Frustrated.): Of course I remember what they did, I was there.
SCARLET (Begins to walk away.): We’re packing up and we’re leaving now.
LACHLAN: No.
(SCARLET stops and turns back.)
LACHLAN: If you go out there, the planes will have you for sure. We have to stay here, wait for them to pass by.
SCARLET: They won’t pass by. The town next over got blown up. Everyone was killed.
(Pause.)
SCARLET: I knew there’d be a war, we should have left sooner
(LACHLAN stands up and flings chair back. SCARLET jumps.)
LACHLAN (Furious.): My family has lived here forever. The bones of thousands of generations stir beneath the soil. I will not die anywhere else.
SCARLET: Then you’ll die for sure.
LACHLAN: My great, great, great, grandfather discovered this place - an oasis amidst the outer turmoil, a haven from the unknown. Here we have security, you can’t get that anywhere else.
SCARLET: I know, but-
LACHLAN: I promised my father I would tend this land; keep it for my son and his son and his-
SCARLET: Our son won’t have any future here. This is something your father could never have predicted-
LACHLAN: Prediction or not, it’s just a phase, just a shift. Everything will be normal soon if we wait it out.
SCARLET: This isn’t a storm for crying out loud. You can’t ignore it. They won’t spare you.
LACHLAN: Scarlet… (Approaches SCARLET, takes her hands.) A war can’t last forever. When the fighting’s done the world will return to normal.
SCARLET: No… even if we survive the planes now, they will change everything. We can’t stay here.
LACHLAN: Just trust me.
(SCARLET turns away, picks up pamphlet. She goes to window and opens the boards.)
SCARLET: Speaks dreamily: Life isn’t like our heart beats. It’s erratic, uncertain. And the only way you’re going to survive is if you adapt. Life is about change.
LACHLAN: What do you know about change?
SCARLET: I know I ran from it once. Locked myself inside the cellar because I couldn’t live with it.
LACHLAN: You can’t live with it. Like a noose, it’ll snap your delicate throat.
SCARLET: Don’t get hung up on it and you’ll find it’s easier to walk. There is nothing left here. This isn’t a home, it’s a death sentence.
LACHLAN: But here we have closure. Here we know how it’ll end. We can’t predict the rest of the world. It will ruin you.
(The sound of airplanes can be heard.)
SCARLET (Tears in her eyes): We have to leave. I’ll get Christopher. (Begins to walk away.)
LACHLAN: You can’t take him out there! You’ll kill him.
SCARLET: Well he’s damned here.
(LACHLAN watches sadly as SCARLET leaves, then returns with a baby.)
LACHLAN: Don’t blame me when those planes bomb you the moment you run out.
SCARLET: Bomb me!? They’ll bomb you! Come with me.
(CHRISTOPHER begins to cry.)
LACHLAN: Now look, you woke him up.
SCARLET: And you think the planes won’t?
LACHLAN (Takes CHRISTOPHER who quiets down.): All my life I have breathed the same air. I can’t let a few planes’ smoke change that. We’ve survived this once, we can survive it again.
SCARLET: You don’t get it! The planes have changed everything, just accept it.
LACHLAN (Gives CHRISTOPHER back to SCARLET.): I can’t. I’ve lived too long here. I don’t want anything else.
SCARLET: Then you’re stupid. Completely and utterly stupid.
(SCARLET opens door and the sound of planes is significantly louder.)
LACHLAN: Traditional.
SCARLET: Doomed. (Slams door.)
(LACHLAN sinks down in a chair, head in hands as the sound of planes becomes unbearably loud and lights dim out leaving only the sound of planes.)
End