Ramped Up - a play I wrote

Throwback Thursday!! This is a play I wrote last year.
These are 2 pages from the middle of the play, which is 10 pages in total. The two main characters are Alfred and Travis, two best friends who are both high school juniors. Travis is an adrenaline junkie who wants to live life to the fullest and not stress about the future. Alfred couldn’t be more of the opposite. He is very academic and studious and just wants to get through his last two years of high school. In this scene, Travis has finally convinced Alfred to come skiing with him one weekend, despite Alfred’s complaint of all the homework they have. They are sitting at the top of the ramps, about to hit them, and Travis starts telling Alfred his feelings about hitting ramps.


TRAVIS
Well, Here we are. The top of the drop in. Isn’t it a great feeling? Just looking ahead and seeing a line of ramps waiting to be hit.

 
ALFRED
Yeah, only if you’re a lunatic. Come on man, I ain’t doing it. Why you gotta mess with gravity?

 
TRAVIS
Come on, you know you gotta do it. Now you may not want to, but as soon as it’s over, you’ll be stoked. Assuming you don’t kill yourself, of course. Flying through the air is an incomparable feeling, kind of like... Well, it’s incomparable. You know you can get seriously hurt, but you do it anyway. Why? You don’t know, but it feels great - and horrible - at the same time. That feeling of weightlessness is priceless. Seeing the lip get closer, then seeing the ground disappear under your board - or skis, then seeing it get closer, and closer, then BAM! As you see that wedge of snow getting closer, and closer, everything in you is fighting to stop, to slow down. Your body says no, your brain says no. everything is asking “WHY?!” But you know you have to do it. And the ground leaves from underneath you. You’re flying! And then you’re not. The feeling at the top of the drop in – that’s the worst part. The feeling in the air and after stomping it, that adrenaline rush, that is what we live for. But as you sit there in the snow you know you’re gonna have to do it at some point. You can’t just sit there forever. The more you put it off the harder it gets. So go – send it! Because you’ll regret not doing it!
 

ALFRED
No. Okay?

 
TRAVIS
Life is like a ramp, Alfred. You just gotta go for it. You can’t sit there and do calculations in your head. You know what happens when you don’t commit to the ramp? You knuckle.

 
ALFRED
Knuckle? Is this another one of your snowboarding terms?

 
TRAVIS
Yeah. It means you come short of the landing. (slaps one hand down on the other) BAM! That’s no good.

 
ALFRED
I can’t do this. I just can’t. It makes no sense. No sense at all.

 
TRAVIS
It doesn’t have to, man. It doesn’t have to. Fine, I’ll drop first. Dropping! (exits)

 
ALFRED
I’m not doing it!!! (follows him)
 

NARRATOR
So Alfred didn’t send the ramp. Then he suddenly remembered he was planning to study math in the lodge

 
(At the bottom of the run, by the lodge)

 
TRAVIS
That was awesome! Next run dude. You can do it.

 
ALFRED
Hey, I said I may only do half a day. I have to study math and bio and SAT. This may be fun, but it’s not benefiting me.

 
TRAVIS
Not benefitting you? What do you mean? You gotta learn to chill. To let go, man. Let gravity do all the work. Remember life is as stressful as you want it –
 

ALFRED
SHUT UP OKAY?!?! I don’t want your philosophy! I just need to get to college and then life will be good, but now – these last years of high school – I gotta work! I don’t care if your ideas are different from mine but I need to get my grades okay? I’m afraid we’re just too different. Maybe you’re the one who needs my advice! Heck, you just point your snowboard at those ramps and send yourself off them like you’re indestructible. You’re not, OK? I’m going to sit here in the lodge and study because I have to!

  

TRAVIS
(Pause. Says, dejectedly) Oh, ok. I’m sorry. I just thought you’d like to have some fun. You can have good grades and still have fun.

 
Silence. JAMIE walks in.

 
JAMIE
Hey, Travis. Did you hear? They just opened the mega ramp!



TRAVIS
(his mood immediately picks up) Really? Sick! Hey Alfred, I’ll be back later, ok? (exits, almost singing) Ramps! Ramps! Raaaaaaamps!
 

Alfred sits at a table in the lodge and pulls his AP bio book out of his day pack. Somehow shows passing of time

Then ski patrol enters, talking on a radio.

 
SKI PATROL
Hey, we have a teenage boy lying unconscious at the bottom of the mega ramp. It looks like he overshot the landing by quite a lot. He’s not moving. We’re going to need ski patrol there fast.

 
ALFRED
(immediately gets up) Travis Mueller you crazy idiot! (runs off stage)