[THE RUNNER is running in the park.]

[Curtain]

[Curtain reopens]

[Sorry, I forgot to say The Runner is completely on fire.]

[Curtain]

Carl Burkitt 2025

The lifeguard has been asked to help
clearing the tables in the health club café.
The red of his shorts are ketchup smears
on lowdown, fake leather booth seats.
His yellow t-shirt is a squashed chip on his flip flop
and his shoulders are diving bricks sinking.
I ask what he prefers:
saving vulnerable kids in pools
or saving grumpy adults from messy tables?
He says,
“They are two very different things,”
and I watch our conversation drown
like his thumb in that pot of leftover beans.

Carl Burkitt 2025

The Man United fan has found a new kebab shop.
It’s by the Three Tuns pub.
“My tea was the size of a baby’s arm last night.”
The Man City fan has found a new barber shop.
It’s by The Grapes pub.
“Halfway through my cut today the manager yelled:
‘You need it gluing on, not cutting off!’”
The Stockport County fan has found a new chippy.
It’s by The King George pub.
“They absolutely cover your battered cod in salt.”
The Swindon Town fan has found a new soft play.
It’s by the Costa Coffee.
“It has a really cute painting of an cow on the wall.”
No one is listening.

Carl Burkitt 2025

[PANCAKE is cracking a large egg into a bowl of flour and milk. SIMON is slicing lemons.]

SIMON: Why do they call you Pancake again?

[Pancake does not respond.]

[Simon crouches down to the floor where Pancake, all six foot circular circumference and half an inch doughy height of him, is lying.]

SIMON: Oh yeah.

[Curtain]

Carl Burkitt 2025

If we walk past you by the oak building
then we are on time for school.
If we walk past you by the dragon dog
then we are late for school.
If we walk past you by the shadow mountain
then we are early for school.
If we walk past you by the crocodile lake
then you are late for work.
If we don’t walk past you at all
then you have died
and we are lost
and my mouth will try
to explain to my son that the one adult who smiles
every morning will no longer smile at us.
Or maybe it’s just a Saturday.

Carl Burkitt 2025

[A HORSE walks into a bar.]

BARMAN: Why so sad?

HORSE: Have you seen the length of my face?

[Curtain]

Carl Burkitt 2025

[A VERY SILLY BOY is reading a cook book.]

[He eats the book.]

[Curtain]

Carl Burkitt 2025

[JEREMY’S PEN is writing a short story.]

JEREMY’S PEN: and then Jeremy

JEREMY: You writing about me?

JEREMY’S PEN: French kissed

JEREMY: Haha what are you doing?

JEREMY’S PEN: his own

JEREMY: Don’t do this…

JEREMY’S PEN: mo-

[Jeremy snaps his pen in half.]

[Curtain]

Carl Burkitt 2025

[DAN is pointing at THAT CLOUD in the sky to TINA.]

DAN: Wow. Look at that cloud.

TINA: Yeah.

DAN: Yeah? What do you mean, yeah? That cloud is gorgeous. It’s mysterious, bewitching, a reminder of how fleeting life is. That cloud is unique. That cloud is timeless. That cloud-

THAT CLOUD: [Interrupts] It’s Claude, actually.

DAN: …

THAT CLOUD: Only joking. Carry on…

[But Dan has already died from shock and Tina’s scarpered mate.]

[Curtain]

Carl Burkitt 2025

The monkey puzzle tree on the walk to school, the cracks in the tarmac that look like a crocodile’s mouth waiting to smile, the flecks of fun on our wall from the sun shining through the window onto our disco ball from your auntie who will always remind you to dance, every coconut product I will never eat, the high fives from strangers you breathe life into simply by walking past them, hope, loss, joy, grief, photos of noses on faces you won’t be able to put names to, a bucket of handmade blankets, glass Christmas decorations painted on your mum’s hen do, the faint smell of Dove deodorant in the armpits of a running coat that I hope will fit you the day after I die.

Carl Burkitt 2025