SETTING: Kitchen. Geraldo making coffee.
SOMEONE in another kitchen. Phone on speaker.
SINGLE SCENE
(Phone rings. Geraldo answers, puts on speaker while handling the coffee maker.)
GERALDO: Hey.
SOMEONE: (voice from phone) Dude, you see this? Everyone posting about karma today.
GERALDO: (pours coffee) Yeah. “Karma never fails.” “The bill always comes.” Thousands of the same posts.
SOMEONE: But like… do you believe in it? Karma?
GERALDO: (sips) No.
SOMEONE: (surprised) How not?! Karma’s a universal law, cause and effect, it’s…
GERALDO: (interrupts, stirs sugar) Which karma? The real one or the Instagram one?
SOMEONE: …there’s a difference?
GERALDO: (tastes coffee) Big one.
SOMEONE: Okay, explain.
GERALDO: (leans on counter) Original karma — Buddhism, Hinduism — is just action and consequence. You act, it ripples. Plant violence, harvest conflict. Plant kindness, harvest peace.
SOMEONE: So you DO believe!
GERALDO: No. I get the concept. Different thing.
SOMEONE: (confused) How do you get it but not believe?
GERALDO: (washes spoon) Getting it is seeing the logic. Believing is thinking the universe keeps score.
SOMEONE: (sound of scribbling) Interesting… the difference between understanding and…
GERALDO: (turns off faucet) And Instagram karma is just revenge with a pretty name.
SOMEONE: (pauses) …damn.
GERALDO: Yeah.
SOMEONE: (sound of footsteps, voice farther) Let me get this straight. Why DON’T you believe? I’m making coffee too while we talk.
GERALDO: (laughs) Simple. If you love someone but sit around waiting for karma to get them…
SOMEONE: (sound of running water) You don’t really love them!
GERALDO: Exactly.
SOMEONE: (sound of coffee maker starting) Dude, that makes sense! Because real love doesn’t wish suffering, so using karma as…
GERALDO: (interrupts, washes his cup) Or it’s just obvious.
SOMEONE: …obvious?
GERALDO: (turns off faucet) If you love someone, you don’t want them to suffer. Not now, not later, never.
SOMEONE: (sound of pouring coffee, voice still distant) But there are layers here. You’re showing that love and cosmic justice don’t…
GERALDO: (dries hands) Nah. Just saying: if you’re waiting for karma, you’re not loving.
SOMEONE: (back closer to phone) It’s the same thing!
GERALDO: (smiles) If you say so.
SOMEONE: (blows on hot coffee) And that saying? “What you put out comes back”?
GERALDO: (opens fridge) You want it to?
SOMEONE: What do you mean?
GERALDO: (grabs something, closes fridge) You want to live calculating everything you do, waiting for the bill?
SOMEONE: (sound of stirring, thinks) …no.
GERALDO: Then why wish it on others?
SOMEONE: (silence, sips) …shit.
GERALDO: Yeah.
SOMEONE: (sound of flipping pages fast) Wait, that means… if I don’t want karma for myself, wishing it on someone else is…
GERALDO: (pours more coffee) Hypocrisy?
SOMEONE: I was gonna say “ethical contradiction”!
GERALDO: (laughs) Same thing.
SOMEONE: (more serious) But what if the person did something really bad?
GERALDO: (sips) Still don’t want them to suffer.
SOMEONE: Seriously?
GERALDO: Seriously. Because if I believed in karma, they’d have to suffer, right?
SOMEONE: Yeah…
GERALDO: (puts cup in sink) But do they?
SOMEONE: …what do you mean?
GERALDO: (turns on faucet) You know if they’re suffering? You sure?
SOMEONE: (sound of setting cup down) No, but karma eventually…
GERALDO: (turns off faucet) Eventually. (pauses) And you wait. Check. See if they posted something sad.
SOMEONE: (uncomfortable, sound of chair dragging) I don’t…
GERALDO: (dries cup) And maybe they don’t even know they’re supposed to be suffering.
SOMEONE: How so?
GERALDO: (puts cup away) What’s suffering to you might not be to them. What you think is karma might just be a normal Tuesday for them.
SOMEONE: (pauses, sips) …damn.
GERALDO: Yeah.
SOMEONE: (processing) You’re saying karma is… subjective?
GERALDO: (leans on counter) I’m saying it depends on the side. What’s bad for me might be good for you. What I think is punishment, they might see as growth.
SOMEONE: (scribbles slowly) That changes everything…
GERALDO: (wipes counter) Or it’s just: you don’t know what’s going on in their head.
SOMEONE: …not the same thing.
GERALDO: (hangs cloth) It is. You expect them to suffer the way YOU would. But they’re not you.
SOMEONE: (silence, sound of pen on paper)
GERALDO: (grabs cup again) That’s why karma doesn’t work. Depending on the side, it flips. Or doesn’t exist.
SOMEONE: (thoughtful, scribbling) Everyone lives a different reality…
GERALDO: (sips) Don’t know. Just know you can’t measure their karma with your ruler.
SOMEONE: (sound of flipping pages) I wrote three pages about this.
GERALDO: (washes cup) Cool. Look nice?
SOMEONE: Yeah. But it might be wrong.
GERALDO: (dries cup) If it makes you think, it’s worth it.
SOMEONE: (confessional) Have you ever wished karma on someone?
GERALDO: (turns off faucet) Yeah.
SOMEONE: And…?
GERALDO: (dries cup) Got stuck on it. Waiting. Checking everything that happened to them, wondering “is this karma?” Wasted months.
SOMEONE: And then you realized…
GERALDO: (puts cup away) It was a waste of time.
SOMEONE: …that’s it?
GERALDO: (closes cabinet) Yeah. Like watching a bad show hoping it gets better. Better to turn it off.
SOMEONE: (pauses, sips) You have a way of simplifying everything.
GERALDO: (smiles) Or you have a way of complicating.
SOMEONE: (laughs) Could be.
SOMEONE: (hesitant) What if I told you I NEED to believe in karma? For peace?
GERALDO: (serious, stops moving) Then believe.
SOMEONE: …seriously?
GERALDO: Seriously. If it helps, use it.
SOMEONE: (confused) But you just spent half an hour saying karma is…
GERALDO: (resumes cleaning counter) I said what I think. You do you.
SOMEONE: And truth? Logic?
GERALDO: (stops cleaning) SOMEONE. If it gives you peace, be at peace. You don’t need my approval.
SOMEONE: (silence, sound of cooling coffee) That’s pretty mature.
GERALDO: (resumes cleaning) Or I just don’t care what you believe.
SOMEONE: You’re doing it again.
GERALDO: (laughs) What?
SOMEONE: Saying something kind and then stripping away the depth.
GERALDO: (hangs cloth) The depth’s in your head, not my words.
SOMEONE: (deep breath) Last question.
GERALDO: (leans on sink) Go for it.
SOMEONE: If you don’t believe in karma, what do you do when someone screws you over?
GERALDO: (crosses arms) The universe isn’t gonna do my part. So I do: I move on.
SOMEONE: That’s it?
GERALDO: (turns on faucet, fills glass) Yeah. Let them live their life. No waiting for punishment, no cosmic spreadsheet.
SOMEONE: (quiet) And the anger? The hurt?
GERALDO: (turns off faucet, drinks water) They stick around. For a while. Then they fade. Or don’t. But I don’t turn them into a religion.
SOMEONE: (scribbling) “Don’t turn hurt into a religion”…
GERALDO: (washes glass) Gonna write about that?
SOMEONE: Yeah. And you’ll read it and say it was just a chat.
GERALDO: (dries glass) Probably.
SOMEONE: And I’ll get kinda pissed.
GERALDO: (puts glass away) And then you’ll build a theory about why you got pissed.
SOMEONE: (laughs) …true.
GERALDO: And that’s how we keep going.
SOMEONE: (curious) For how long?
GERALDO: (looks out kitchen window) Who knows. As long as we want to.
SOMEONE: (scribbles) “As long as we want to…” That’s beautiful.
GERALDO: (turns back to phone) Or it’s obvious.
SOMEONE: (smiles, audible) Same thing.
GERALDO: Now you get it.
(Silence. Sound of coffee being sipped on both sides.)
SOMEONE: (softer) I’m gonna write about all this.
GERALDO: (wipes last thing on counter) I know.
SOMEONE: You’ll break my theory again.
GERALDO: (hangs cloth) Probably.
SOMEONE: And I’ll build another.
GERALDO: (smiles) And I’ll drink coffee while you do.
SOMEONE: (soft laugh) You like this, don’t you?
GERALDO: (pours more coffee) I do. You see stuff I never thought of.
SOMEONE: But that maybe didn’t exist!
GERALDO: (sips) Now it does. You created it.
SOMEONE: …that makes no sense.
GERALDO: (puts cup in sink) Makes sense to me.
(Silence. Sound of scribbling on the other end. Geraldo washes cup.)
SOMEONE: (quiet, distant) Want more coffee?
GERALDO: (turns off faucet) Yeah.
SOMEONE: (sound of distant pouring) Suddenly I do too.
GERALDO: (laughs, pours more for himself) It’s contagious.
(Sound of coffee pouring on both sides. Comfortable silence.)
SOMEONE: (yawning) Getting late.
GERALDO: (sips) Yeah.
SOMEONE: Thanks for the chat.
GERALDO: Anytime.
(Sound of hanging up. Geraldo alone in kitchen, drinking coffee, looking out window. Lights fade slowly.)