Character: OLIVIA - She/her/hers. Any race/ethnicity. Marin’s mother, also a genetic researcher. Appears early-mid 30s; does not appear to age throughout the play.
OLIVIA: It must seem cruel of me. I’m sorry. But I couldn’t let you die in the street, Marin. I had to make you understand. To finally see. And you do see it now, don’t you? You understand. This is just how I felt in the last years of your grandmother’s life. Staring into those eyes that saw less and less, those windows into a darkening room. That helpless, aching, gnawing grief—I know it well. I don’t want to feel it again. I don’t want those empty eyes to be yours. And they don’t have to be.
(She holds out a pill bottle to Marin.)
Take it. Please, Marin. It’s too late for him—his age was already far too advanced when they brought him here—but not for you. Take it and you’ll never grow older. You’ll never grow sick and weak and useless. You’ll never be a burden to those who need you, and you’ll never abandon them. Think of Coral—you’ll never forget Coral. You’ll never die and leave her behind.
