The Treasure

The Treasure

A dialog scene for two actors

By Peter Kenna

Set: Interior dive shop, the place is well kept and tidy, but the building is clearly old. On the left side of the room there is a counter with a register.

Characters:

Sid Caldwell: Approximately sixty-five years old with thinning white hair. He wears a Hawaiian shirt, straw hat, shorts, and sandals. He is more than a little world weary.

Quinn Avery: About thirty-five, short hair, wearing khakis, loafers, a silver dive watch, and a polo shirt. His manner is energetic and intelligent, speaking excitedly and with conviction.

Opening: Side stands behind the register and Quinn enters from the door on the right.

Sid: Whatever you need son you'd better make it quick, we close in ten.

Quinn: (looks at his watch) The sign says you're open 'til six.

S: Ya, but there's a storm movin' in and I don't wanna be driving in it. You get to my age and you start being cautious about that kind of thing.

Q: Then I'll try to be brief. Mr. Caldwell m...

S: Sid.

Q: Mr... er Sid, my name is Quinn Avery, I'm a marine biologist with the Boston Aquarium.

S: Florida's a long way from Boston kid.

Q: I came to meet you sir, I found something incredible during one of my marine life surveys.

S: Ok, I'm gonna stop you right there. You can call yourself anything you like, but if you have something to show me that means your a treasure hunter and I want no part of it.

Q: But it's about the Alvarez.

S: So?

Q: So I know you spent twenty years of your life looking for it and you haven't given up hope, no matter how bitter you seem.

S: (takes a deep breath and exhales) You've got two minutes.

Q: Thank you. Now as I was saying; I was conducting a marine life survey off the cost of Boston and at one of my survey sites I found something. You see back in the thirties the Navy scuttled one of their old battleships which since then has become a marine life habitat. I was surveying it, something we do every five years to track local marine populations, when I noticed something incredible; after the ship had sunk it settled not on the ocean floor, but on another shipwreck.

S: That's an incredible story, but the Alvarez didn't sink in the north Atlantic, it sank in the Caribbean.

Q: Of course, but the Alvarez wasn't lost with all hands, the first mate and six crewman made it off and one ended up serving on this ship, the one I did find. And what's even more incredible is what he had with him when the ship sank; his personal journal which he kept while serving on the Alvarez. In the journal he recounted not only where they had found the treasure the ship was hauling, but also gave detailed description of some of the individual pieces.

S: All of which was in the first mate's official report, now if you're done wasting my time I have to close up.

Q: Not quite, because there was at least one item the first mate didn't talk about.

Quinn pulls a piece of paper from his pocket and starts reading

Q: “But among all these grand treasures the oddest was this, a square board upon which where gilded pathways, straight like rows of crops, but turning sharply at odd points forming a pattern I could not discern. Some of the pathways were joined by small beads, threaded with golden wire and marked with symbols unlike any I had ever come across. Even among these foreign treasures, it is the most peculiar object I have ever seen.”

S: I believe what you're missing there kid, is a point.

Q: But don't you get it, what he's describing?

S: Sounds like an Aztec attempt and cubism.

Q: No, its a circuit board!

S: Oh, lord, this is going to be about aliens isn't it.

Q: Not aliens, Atlantis.

S: This isn't funny anymore kid, I'm leaving and if you don't want me to call the cops I suggest you do the same.

Sid walks swiftly toward the door, but Quinn dashes ahead and stops him

Q: (pleadingly) Please sir, just think about it. All around the world cultures have stories about a great civilization lost beneath the sea. The Ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Aztecs, even the Bible all tell a similar story. What if the stories are true, who knows how far that civilization could have advanced? This artifact could be the first piece of definitive proof and give support to vast amounts of circumstantial evidence.

S: But like you say, the evidence is circumstantial, what makes you think I'd believe you theory, or that this journal of yours is even real.

Q: The journal is real, that much I can prove. As for the rest of it, I guess I'm just hoping your desire to find the Alvarez is enough to outweigh your skepticism.

S: And lets just say I did believe you, what could you possibly want from me?

Q: If I want to find that artifact I first need to find the Alvarez. The journal I found contains other information the official reports didn't have, new clues to the where the Alvarez sunk. I can find the Alvarez, but I need your help. No one knows the story like you do, no one else has as deep an understanding of the evidence. We can do this together. So what do you say, will you help me?

Scene