4:48 Psychosis
BELLA How do I stop this? Every act is a symbol of the weight of which crushes me.
JILL A dotted line across the throat JILL/KARINA: Cut here
AVA It's not your fault BELLA I know it's not my fault. You've told me that so often I'm beginning to think it is my fault. AVA It's not your fault BELLA I KNOW KARINA But you allow it (silence)
ALL Don't you? (silence)
KARINA I am bored and dissatisfied with everything AVA I am a complete failure as a person
ALL I would like to kill myself
BELLA Please don't cut me up to find out how I died. I'll tell you how I died.
ALL One hundred Lofepramine, forty five Zopiclone, twenty five Temazepam, and twelve Melleril
KARINA Not speaking, no sex drive AVA In despair ZOEY Wants to die BELLA Diagnosis
ALL Pathological grief
Now in a mental institution BELLA A room of expressionless faces staring blankly at my pain, so devoid of meaning there must be evil intent. I shake without reason and stumble over my words and have nothing to say about my illness because I'm going to die anyway.
ALL Shame, shame, shame JILL Drown in your never ending shame
AVA I cannot be with others BELLA At 4.48, when depression visits, I shall hang myself. I do not want to die. I have become so depressed by the fact of my mortality that I have decided to commit suicide. I do not want to live. I am jealous of my sleeping lover and cover his induced unconsciousness. When he wakes he will envy my sleepless night of thought and speech unslurred by medication. I have resigned myself to death this year. Some will call this self-indulgence.
ALL They are lucky to not know the truth
BELLA Some will know the simple fact of pain
ALL This is becoming my NORMality
BELLA I'd be standing on a chair with a noose around my neck (silence) ZOEY If you were alone do you think you would hurt yourself? BELLA I'm scared I might. I hope to God that death is the end. I feel like I'm eighty years old. I'm tired of life and my mind wants to die. KARINA That's a metaphor, not reality ZOEY You are not eighty years old AVA Are you?
JILL Are you? ALL Are you? (a long silence)
BELLA I don't think so KARINA No? ZOEY And who are you blaming? BELLA Myself. After 4:48, I shall not speak again. I have reached the end of this dreary and repugnant tale. I have been dead for a long time. KARINA You know you're being manipulated (silence) (BELLA screams) (silence) ZOEY Oh dear, what happened to your arm? BELLA I cut it KARINA That's a very immature, attention seeking thing to do. Did it give you relief? BELLA No AVA Did it relieve the tension? BELLA No
JILL Did it give you relief? ALL Did it give you relief? (silence)
KARINA I am charging towards my death BELLA I am terrified of medication ZOEY I cannot love
JILL I cannot be alone
AVA I can't eat KARINA I can't sleep ZOEY I can't think
JILL I cannot overcome my fear, my disgust
BELLA No ZOEY I don't understand why you did that (silence) AVA I thought you might do this KARINA Lots of people do
JILL It relieves the tension
BELLA Nothing can extinguish my anger and nothing can restore my faith. This is not a world in which I want to live in. AVA Have you made any plans? BELLA Take an overdose, slash my wrists then hang myself ZOEY All those things together? BELLA It couldn't be misconstructed as a cry for help (silence) KARINA It wouldn't work BELLA Of course it would
JILL It wouldn't work. You'd start to feel sleepy from the overdose and wouldn't have the energy to cut your wrists. (silence)
BELLA No, I don't know where you heard that, but it does not relieve the tension (silence) Why don't you ask me why? Why did I cut my arm? ZOEY Would you like to tell me? BELLA ASK. ME. WHY. (a long silence) AVA Why did you cut your arm? BELLA Because it feels ****ing great. Because it feels ****ing amazing. KARINA (looks) And you don't think you're ill BELLA No ZOEY It's not your fault BELLA No? AVA No, it's not your fault. BELLA It's not your fault, that all I ever hear, it's not your fault
JILL It's an illness
BELLA Okay, let's do it, let's do the drugs, let's do the chemical lobotomy, let's shut down the higher functions of my brain and perhaps I'll be a bit more capable of living. BELLA Symptoms include
JILL Not eating, not sleeping
ZOEY Everything I had AVA Swallowed
JILL Slit
ZOEY I'm sad
JILL The future is hopeless and things won't improve
ZOEY Don't let this kill me AVA This will kill me and crush me and send me to hell (silence) BELLA At 4:48, I shall sleep. All I know is snow and black despair. AVA Nowhere left to turn KARINA An ineffectual mortal spasm
JILL The only alternative to murder
ZOEY You have friends (a long silence) AVA You have a lot of friends KARINA What do you offer your friends to make them so supportive? (a long silence)
JILL What do you offer your friends to make them so supportive? (a long silence) ALL What do you offer?
BELLA Do you despise all unhappy people or is it just me specifically? AVA I don't despise you ZOEY It's not your fault
JILL You're ill
KARINA Hung (exit ZOEY) BELLA It is done (exit ZOEY)
SCENE