Beatitudes Readers Theater
By Residents, For Residents
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THE MYSTERY MEAT (EXPANDED VERSION)
Each reader introduces themselves:
- I’m (________________) the NARRATOR. I’ll keep you up to date
- I’m BILL CHASE (I was former military and conspiracy-minded)
- I’m ELLIE ANDERLA (I’m an amateur chef and food snob)
- I’m CYNTHIA CIELLE (I was a world traveler)
- I’m ROBERT ANDREWS (Formerly, I was a scientist)
- I also read TIMOTHY
- I’m SANDY THOMSON (I’m the overly dramatic character)
- I’m DIANE LEMLEY (I was a licensed registered nurse)
NARRATOR: It’s Sunday at Beatitudes Senior Living, and today’s lunch for the 12:00 Resident Mixer has arrived. The residents stare at their plates with a mixture of confusion and concern.
SANDY: My fork won’t even go into… this. What… what IS IT?
ELLIE: It’s brown. It’s a bit smelly, and it’s cube-shaped. And it’s… glistening.
DIANE: The menu says “Chef’s Surprise Special.”
BILL: The only surprise is that it’s still moving. (pauses) Wait, is it moving?
ROBERT: No, if you look closely, that’s just the gravy… I think it’s gravy. Could be a protective coating.
CYNTHIA: Hmm. The protective coating has a familiar flavor. Slightly gamey, with notes of… regret?
NARRATOR: And so begins the great debate of Table Seven.
ELLIE: I’ve been cooking for sixty years. I’ve made coq au vin, beef bourguignon, even haggis once. But this? This defies classification.
SANDY: What if it’s not even from an animal we know? What if it’s from… (dramatic whisper) …what if it’s an invasive species?
DIANE: Oh, please. It’s probably just meatloaf.
BILL: Meatloaf doesn’t shimmer and wiggle like that, Diane. I was in the service. I’ve eaten mystery meat from seventeen countries. This is something else entirely.
CYNTHIA: (brightly) You know, when I was in Mongolia in 1987, I had something similar. They called it “warrior’s cube.” Made from yak and fermented mare’s milk.
ROBERT: We’re in Phoenix. There are no yaks in Phoenix.
CYNTHIA: That we KNOW of. Although I did see something suspicious near Camelback Mountain last week.
ELLIE: The texture is… bouncy. Like it’s been processed through industrial machinery. Multiple times. (pokes it) It actually springs back into shape.
SANDY: (gasping) What if it’s made from things the kitchen had to use up? The forgotten freezer items. The mystery packages from 1987.
CYNTHIA: I was in Mongolia in 1987, you know. Maybe there’s a connection.
BILL: (pensively) I’ve got a theory. You know how the government had all those secret experiments during CoVid?
DIANE: Oh, here we go.
BILL: Hear me out! What if they created a super-protein? Something that never expires. And now it’s being quietly distributed to senior facilities to test long-term effects.
ROBERT: (sounding worldly) That’s actually not entirely implausible. I worked in a lab for thirty years. The government did create shelf-stable rations.
SANDY: (GASP) Are we test subjects?!
ELLIE: If we were test subjects, they’d probably feed us better food. This tastes like someone described “meat” to an alien who’d never seen it.
CYNTHIA: (clapping her hands) THAT’S IT! What if our chef IS an alien? Think about it—has anyone actually seen him eat Earth food?
DIANE: I’ve seen Chef Cosmin eat three pieces of left-over birthday cake after the volunteer luncheon.
CYNTHIA: (undeterred) Maybe he was studying us. Taking notes on human consumption patterns. Building a database of our weaknesses!
ROBERT: (slowly) Look underneath. You know what this reminds me of? There was a synthetic protein project in the ’70s. “Protein-X” they called it. Supposed to solve world hunger. It was discontinued after… well, after the incident.
BILL: What incident?
ROBERT: (mysteriously) We don’t talk about the incident. Let’s just say… it involved unintended side effects.
SANDY: UGH! I can’t eat this! What if it changes our DNA? What if we wake up tomorrow with flippers?
ELLIE: (dryly) That would certainly make water aerobics more interesting.
DIANE: Everyone calm down. I’ll just go ask the kitchen what it is.
NARRATOR: Diane returns five minutes later, looking very perplexed.
ELLIE: Well?
DIANE: The kitchen staff… doesn’t know.
ALL: WHAT?!
DIANE: Apparently, it came pre-packaged from Morrison. The label just says “Protein Entrée, Style C.”
BILL: (triumphantly) Style C! C for CLASSIFIED!
CYNTHIA: C for COSMIC! It’s space meat!
SANDY: C for CANCER-CAUSING!
ROBERT: C for… well, it could be anything really. C could even stand for “CAUTION.”
ELLIE: (authoritatively) Friends, we’ve reached a crossroads. Do we eat the mystery meat, or do we stage a revolution?
SANDY: Revolution! I didn’t survive three hip replacements to be poisoned by cube food!
BILL: I say we demand answers. I’ll call Morrison. I still have connections.
CYNTHIA: I’ll contact my nephew who works for the FDA. He owes me a favor.
ROBERT: I’ll run a chemical analysis. I kept some equipment from the lab. Perfectly legal equipment, of course.
DIANE: (sighing) Or… we could just order pizza.
NARRATOR: Everyone pauses, considering this simple solution.
ALL: Pizza!
NARRATOR: As the residents place their pizza order, young Timothy from the kitchen appears.
TIMOTHY: Oh hey! Found the label that fell off the box. It’s turkey tetrazzini. Well, “turkey-style” tetrazzini.
ELLIE: Turkey-STYLE?
TIMOTHY: Yeah, it’s actually made from textured vegetable protein, modified food starch, and something called “natural meat flavoring.”
SANDY: (faintly) There’s no meat… in the mystery meat?
BILL: (disappointed) My entire theory… destroyed.
CYNTHIA: No yak?
TIMOTHY: No yak. (cheerfully) Enjoy!
NARRATOR: The table sits in stunned silence.
ELLIE: Well, that’s somehow worse.
DIANE: I’m calling for that pizza.
ELLIE: Make it two. Large. With actual meat. Real meat.
SANDY: (weakly) Can we verify what’s on the pizza before it arrives?
NARRATOR: And so the Mystery Meat remained uneaten, sitting on six plates like brown, glistening monuments to culinary confusion. As for the pizza? It arrived exactly 30 minutes later, and nobody asked what was on it. Some mysteries, they decided, were better left unsolved.
THE END
