A troubled father believes his two sons are out to kill him in this drama tragedy one-act play script Fade to Black.

BEAUFORD tosses a brown paper bag at GRAM.

GRAM: Is this both prescriptions?

BEAUFORD: You can tell by the weight of it that it is. Ain’t that what you told me last time?

GRAM: Why don’t you go slower next time?

BEAUFORD: You told me that too and so I did.

GRAM: You know how you’re gonna die?

BEAUFORD: How?

GRAM: One night you are going to go out and get my medication and you will fall asleep at the wheel and bash into a tree.

BEAUFORD: I know it.

GRAM (statement): You do.

BEAUFORD: It’s happened to me many times before…same old same. Is that why you keep asking me and not Gill to get you your meds?

GRAM: It’s possible.

BEAUFORD: It would be nice if for once we can just be a family unit, like when mom was alive.

GILL: Mom is dead.

GRAM: Don’t you go bringing up your mother you b’strd! This is your real family now, the way it was, the way it always should have been. No more fake smiles and terrible dinners, that’s for sure.

BEAUFORD: What then? What is there instead of effort?

GRAM: The truth of reality.

BEAUFORD: And what is your truth of reality?

GRAM: Quiet. Alcohol. Prescription drugs. The heat, the cold and hating the both of you.

BEAUFORD: You can hate us all you want, but that’s your reality, it don’t have to be mine and Gills.

GRAM: But it is, we can’t control it, things are as they are.

BEAUFORD: I can’t get your drugs no more.

GRAM: What did you say to me?

BEAUFORD: I’m not getting your drugs anymore.

GRAM: You have to.

BEAUFORD: No, I don’t. Send Gill.

GRAM: I can’t send Gill.

BEAUFORD: Then don’t.

GRAM: If I don’t get my medicine, I will die.

BEAUFORD: And if I keep going for you, I will die and I’m tired of dying.

GRAM: You have to get my pills!

BEAUFORD: Get them yourself!

GRAM: I can’t drive or else I would!

BEAUFORD: Take a taxi!

GRAM: You are a replica of your mother!

BEAUFORD: Good!

BEAUFORD goes into the house.

GRAM (to BEAUFORD): Hey! You come back here you little b’strd! (to HIMSELF) I’m taking all these Goddamn pills. The hell with it. Go on my own terms.

GRAM pours the pills from the bottle in his mouth and drinks them down with a bottle of vodka.

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In this one-act eplay, Gram is in an ongoing battle with his two sons Gill and Beauford about taking over the house after he dies and turning it into a bed and breakfast.  1 Woman, 3 Men.  Drama.

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