(Reading the title page) To Lie Facedown in a Field Full of Snow. Good title.

CHRISTOPHER

Will you read it?

BELLA

(At an impasse) Christopher, I invited you over here tonight because …

CHRISTOPHER

Because you were reaching toward something in a dark room.

BELLA

I’d like you to help me die.

(To the audience) I explain to him the severity of my cancer and my disinterest in going through chemo and destroying whatever quality of life I might have left.

I tell him about my experience with my mother.

I then explain the three-part injection process, how it’s impossible to complete without the help of an injection buddy.

I tell him that we have everything we need, how all the materials are in the refrigerator.

(To Christopher) I’d like to do this tonight … I realize this is a lot … I don’t have the perfect thing to say … I want to do this.

(A silence.)

CHRISTOPHER

I mean, you barely know me.

BELLA

I think I do, though.

CHRISTOPHER

You don’t even know my middle name. Or what my favorite book is. Or if I have like any phobias.

BELLA

What’s your middle name?

CHRISTOPHER

… Corbit.

BELLA

Christopher Corbit Dunn. That’s a good name.

CHRISTOPHER

I have an Uncle Corbit.

BELLA

Your mother’s brother?

CHRISTOPHER

Father’s. He lives in Elmira, New York.

BELLA

Do you have a relationship with him?

CHRISTOPHER

No. When I was ten I went to go stay with him for a weekend and I walked in on him having sex with a taxidermy pheasant.

BELLA

Okay.

CHRISTOPHER

Yeah, he’s a hunter, so …

(Beat.)

BELLA

What’s your favorite book?

CHRISTOPHER

Old Yeller. And Franny and Zooey. And Faulkner’s The Wild Palms.

BELLA

That’s three books.

CHRISTOPHER

They’re interchangeably superlative.

BELLA

Fair enough.

CHRISTOPHER

Old Yeller probably has a slight edge over the other two. When Travis has to shoot Old Yeller it’s more heartbreaking than fucking Bambi. I’m even cool with the puppy being born at the end—it’s that good. And Carl Burger’s illustrations are individual masterpieces that should be hung in museums … And the last paragraph … “When finally I couldn’t laugh and cry another bit, I rode on up to the lot and turned my horse in. Tomorrow, I thought, I’ll take Arliss and that pup out for a squirrel hunt. The pup was still mighty little. But the way I figured it, if he was big enough to act like Old Yeller, he was big enough to start learning to earn his keep.” People talk about the end of Moby-Dick, but Old Yeller …

BELLA

And do you have any phobias?

CHRISTOPHER

I’m terrified that if I’m left alone in a room with a baby I might throw it out the window.

BELLA

Oh.

CHRISTOPHER

Yeah.

BELLA

What if there’s no window?

CHRISTOPHER

Then I’m fine.

(Beat.)

BELLA

I have a strong sense that you can handle this. Do you not agree?

(Silence.)

I’m with you on The Wild Palms, by the way. It’s Faulkner’s most underrated novel.