“A BAD EXCUSE”

Theme:

• Informative | Humor

Character Division:

• Tooba Areej | Friendly, Sarcastic, Caring

• Maham Siddiqui | Curious, Logical, Understanding

• Rana Shahmeer | Attitude, Rebel, Pain in the head

• M.Talal Arshad | Sees ghosts lol

Plot Of the Play:

• A group of friends who fail to complete their group assignment end up wasting their time discussing the logistics of paranormal existence and why they’re merely just hoax. It’s just a casual conversation between four friends.

SCRIPT:

Tooba: “So let me get this straight, your dog stepped on a bee?

Maham: “Yeah!”

Tooba: *Visible confusion* “And what does that have to do with you, not doing the assignment?”

Rana: *Looking down on his phone* “huh!”

Maham: “well….”

Talal: *Walks in and is visibly exhausted* “Good morning”

Tooba, Maham: “Good morning.”

Rana: “Hunh! What’s wrong with you? Seen a ghost?”

Talal: *Death stare*

Maham: “well, I mean- he is looking at you...”

Tooba: *laughs*

Rana: *Hand gesture*

Talal: “Well, as a matter of fact, I think I did see a ghost- last night”

Tooba: “Oh! A possible ghost story?”

Talal: “NO”

Rana: “Are you 12 bro?”

Maham: “I’m curious to hear a bit more actually…”

Talal: “No! – but here is what you all should know. I couldn’t complete our assignment. “

Tooba: “Are you kidding me?!”

Rana: “Nice, very nice- “

Maham: “Aye same!”

Talal: “I don’t know what to tell ya to be honest… but there is a good reason for that.”

Tooba: “This better be good- “ *Disappointed*

Talal: *Looks at Maham* “what’s your excuse?”

Rana: *Still looking at his phone* “Her doggy stepped on a bee, and got stung”

*Everyone smirks and giggles*

Talal: “Poor bee”

Maham: *Facial expression*

Tooba: “well….?”

Talal: “Okay, I swear to God, if anyone of you laughs. Ima leave”

Maham: “We won’t- I promise.”

Talal: “Right so…. Last night- Ahh, I was working on the assignment right- “

Tooba: “OHH- last night?”

Talal: “Yes, last night…”

Tooba: *Dramatically* “On the assignment that was given to you a week ago!”

Talal: “That’s not the point. The point is, something weird happened.”

Maham: “What happened?”

Talal: “I heard the weirdest noise last night, like a cry… out of pain. And then I started seeing these dark figures and ahh... It scared me ok!”

*Tooba, Maham and Rana look at each other with a straight face and then start laughing*

Talal: *Gets a little loud* “My mom wasn’t home too, I was alone”

Rana: “Bro what is your mom supposed to do?”

Talal: “I don’t know, comfort me??”

Maham: “OH God” *Disappointed*

Rana: “That has to be the dumbest excuse I’ve ever heard”

Talal: “I’m not kidding- “

Rana: “huh”

Tooba: “well, did you sleep?”

Talal: *Still loud* “Does it look like I slept??”

Maham: “A little cranky today Talal”

Tooba: “wait you could be having auditory hallucinations.”

Talal: “Auditory what?”

Tooba: “Auditory hallucination… It’s a type of mental illness because of which you might hear things. Almost as if someone is talking to you.”

Talal: “Mental illness?? Ok so I’m mentally sick now??”

Rana: “Yes!!”

Maham: *laughs*

Tooba: “Happens mainly because of stress.”

Talal: “And stressed I am.”

Maham: “You know I find that there is always a logical reason to most of these things.”

Talal: “What things??”

Maham: “Super natural things.”

Talal: “Hah, Yeh. Reminds me of an article that I read. Have you guys heard about the ghost frequency??”

Rana: “Ghost frequency?”

Tooba: “yeah. The 19 Hz frequency. It’s really interesting.”

Maham: “Well, what is it?”

Talal: “In the early 1980s, an engineer Vic Tandy was working in his lab, working on designing a medical equipment. Now he was on his own, when he began to feel like he’s being watched. He described it as an eerie feeling, a feeling of discomfort and then he began to see faces from the corner of his eyes.”

Maham: “Faces?”

Talal: “Messed up faces, the man was terrified, he ran straight home.”

Tooba: “Who wouldn’t?”

Rana: “Well, what happened?”

Talal: “the next day, he discovered that a noise was being made by a foil blade vibrating up and down really fast. It was being produced by a nearly installed extractor fan. He calculated that the frequency of the standing waves was about 19Hz.”

Rana: “And that has something to do with him seeing ghosts?”

Tooba: “Yeah! The key here is that 19Hz is the range known as infrasound. It’s below human hearing.”

Maham: “And the human hearing Begins at 20Hz. Right?”

Talal: “Yeh!”

Rana: “And how does that affect a man?”

Talal: “Mr. Tandy learnt that low frequencies in this region can affect humans and animals in several ways. Causing discomfort, dizziness, blurred vision and possible chances of a panic attack.”

Maham: *out of shock* “Haan??”

Rana: “That’s actually really interesting, I remember reading something about this with tigers.”

Maham: “Oh yeah, about the tiger’s roar”

Tooba: “Yeah that works on their pray, they freeze out of fear”

Rana: “yeah exactly”

Tooba: “Well I do believe in the existence of the supernatural but there is usually a logical, more scientific reason to these things.”

Rana: “cool, now if you ghost busters are done with your logistics, can we talk about how we’re about to fail our group assignment...”

Tooba: “Oh God...”

Rana: “How are we going to get this done exactly?”

Talal: “Well gang, it seems like we got another mystery on our hands.”

Tooba: “Ok! Stop it with the scooby dooby doo reference, I hate that show”

*Slight giggles*

Talal: *gets up, talks as he leaves* “Yeah nah yeah, we’re failing.”

***** End *****