In drama scene from one-act play, “Error-Free Zone” Dimiti explains to Masha the risk of being unlocked to acquire deeper knowledge.

MASHA: What happens to the people who cannot manage what they are given?

DIMITI: They die.

MASHA: …How do they die?

DIMITRI grows uncomfortable.

DIMITRI: That isn’t really any of your concern.

MASHA: Please..

DIMITRI: We have tried to bring them back to their former selves, but once a human being is unlocked, they cannot go back. The only thing left is to be polite about it.

MASHA: Polite?

DIMITRI (sadly): At first, things were done violently, much too violently. There was a panic, you understand…we did not know how to handle the first reaction and so…but now, now we are better prepared for the negative reaction. If someone goes outside of themselves, we put them down gently, efficiently. I wish it wasn’t this way, but there is no other choice. Great beauty comes with great pain.

MASHA: There is no other way for me, Dimitri. I must go, it is time that I know.

DIMITRI: I understand this.

MASHA: Why do you do what you do?

DIMITRI: I wish to give others a chance to be something more.

MASHA: When you first told me about the zone I didn’t believe you.

DIMITRI: Of course…

MASHA: Part of me still doesn’t believe you.

DIMITRI: Then why did you choose to come with me?

MASHA: Did I really have a choice?

DIMITRI: Yes.

MASHA: I did not feel as though I had a choice.

DIMITRI: I did not force you.

MASHA: What were my alternatives?

DIMITRI: You can go back to your life if you still wish. I do not hold you here against your will.

MASHA: Why not?

DIMITRI: Because I believe in free choice.

MASHA: You call this free choice?

DIMITRI: What would you call it, Masha?

MASHA: I would call it no choice. Everything that has happened to our world…that was when we had a choice. How many decades went by before any of us got the message…and now, it is all too late, isn’t it? Everything I have ever known, gone forever. All my dreams…

DIMITRI: You can still dream.

MASHA: Not anymore!

DIMITRI: Maybe not in the way you once did, but there is still hope.

MASHA: There is no hope anymore. It has died with everything else.

DIMITRI: Have I been nothing more than kind to you?

MASHA: You have been kind.

DIMITRI: That is why we have hope.

MASHA: Why?

DIMITRI: Why what?

MASHA: Why have you been kind to me?

DIMITRI: There is no reason to be otherwise. Life is too short, no?

MASHA: What if everything you told me is true? Finding out has become my mission and hope, because if what you say is real, it will change my life forever.

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In the one act eplay Error-Free Zone, Dimitri is Masha’s guide to travel to the error-free zone where she will be unlocked, putting her in touch with deeper knowledge.  This short play takes place in a post-apocalyptic world and is a drama/science fiction piece.  1 Woman, 1 Man.

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