The Confession

(Scene - A living room in an apartment; evening. Max, an old M.I.5 agent sits in a chair centre stage, facing the audience.

Enter Anatolia, a female Russian spy)

Anatolia: What are you thinking?

Max: I'm thinking about all the people I've had to kill in my job. Not the scumbags who deserved it. I mean the innocent bystanders. The people who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Anatolia: For Queen and Country, Max, right?

Max: I suppose so. And yet you can't kill an innocent human being without it leaving a scar in you. A feeling that there might be something wrong with you to be doing this kind of job.

Anatolia: Why shouldn't you do it? I've looked at your files, Max. You're one of the best at what you do and think what you've saved the world from? The chaos and the terror that could have been. You're not a murderer; you're a life saver and so am I.

Max: No one ever really saves the world from chaos or terror. You chop off one head here and it grows back two heads somewhere else. All in all, I don't know what good I've really done.

Anatolia: But if you didn't do it then they would just get some other agent to do it; perhaps someone who was more ruthless than you; killed more people and felt nothing of killing them.

Max: So I'm the lesser of many evils. You're probably right.

Anatolia: Ofcourse I'm right. You know, I'm surprised at you, Max. I heard that you were a dinosaur; a man's man; red in tooth and claw. I didn't think you were going to be a softy or a melancholic.

Max: Oh, a dinosaur am I. Well, I may be politically incorrect if thats what you mean. Old fashioned in my views about a lot of things compared with this new breed of agent but they're still the sort of people who have to be able to kill an innocent person in cold blood without a seconds hesitation so how much better as human beings are they really than me. And whats worse they're all cynical, career driven types but, at least when I started, I was naiive; idealistic. I truly believed that what I was fighting for was good, like a knight errant of King Arthur now I just think, like what you said, its just the lesser of many evils.

Anatolia: You sound like a liberal lefty.

Max: Perhaps I have become more...more liberal than I was but thats the trouble with thinking; it causes people to change. And whats wrong with changing; normal people change their point of view. Why should I be like some hardwired, conservative robot, unchanged or unmoved by the things I've seen or done?

Anatolia: Its a question of loyalty, Max. When people in our job have a change of political views they've been known to betray their country.

Max: I said I was a changed man; I didn't say I'd gone mad. Besides which, I can't think of a country worth betraying my country for; they're all either the same or worse. (Pause) I think what I need is a priest.

Anatolia: A priest? Why?

Max: So that I can confess. Unburden my soul to someone.

Anatolia: Why don't you just see a psychiatrist?

Max: Huh. They're no good. They can't do anything to help you. Anyway, I don't want to be cured. I want absolution.

Anatolia: Well, as long as you don't tell me any state secrets you could always talk to me.

Max: None of it is classified. Those people weren't important enough to be classified. Like I said, its just a list of innocent people whose faces I looked into while killing them.

Anatolia: Presuming they were innocent.

Max: Oh they were all innocent. Just poor unfortunate people who got in the way.

Anatolia: But how can you be sure they were innocent. You didn't really know who they were. You probably only saw them for the fleeting moment when you had to make a split second decision. You don't know anything about them at all.

Max: Anatolia, I have killed children. How can children be anything but innocent? How could a child be an enemy agent?

Anatolia: Why not? Why shouldn't a state use children as spies. They use children as soldiers. What if a child was a trained assassin who was trying to kill you? Killing them would be self-defence.

Max: They would still be just a child. You cannot hold a child responsible for what adults make them into. If they are made into a soldier or an assasin then they're a victim.

Anatolia: Well, then they are a casualty of war; an unfortunate thing but you didn't want to kill those people. Like you said, you had no choice. Why feel bad about it?

Max: Because, in my book, thats what makes me a good man, the fact that I feel bad about it, even if I had no choice. I don't just make some justification and then wash my hands. No. Those people have a right to haunt me till the day I die.

(Max takes out a gun and, standing up, turns to face Anatolia, pointing it at her)

Anatolia: What are you doing, Max?

Max: I'm supposed to kill you but I wanted to know what kind of a person you were first. You've made this easier for me.

Anatolia: What? You don't know me. You don't know a thing about me.

Max: I know your the kind of person who isn't troubled by killing people. Even children.

Anatolia: I was only talking to you. Trying to help you.

Max: An attack of conscience is not a problem except to those who don't have one.

(Anatolia gets down on her knees and starts to cry)

Anatolia: Max, please. You've got me all wrong. I'm not like that. I'm telling you the truth.

(Max lowers his gun sitting down in a chair. He looks weakened)

Max: There is something wrong with me.

Anatolia takes out a gun.

Anatolia: Big mistake, Max.

(She shoots him)