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Evening at the St. James’ Tavern. ROSA and GOLDIE, college students, are sitting at a table, sipping their favorite drinks. The gentlemen they are waiting for are late. There is a stack of quarters in front of each of them; but the stack in front of GOLDIE is far the larger of the two (59 to 21 at the rise).
ROSA
We’ve been flippin’ these flippin’ coins for an hour, Goldie.
Where are they?
GOLDIE
I don’t know, Rosa. Car trouble, I guess. You know men.
ROSA
And they keep landing heads. And you keep winning. Why?
GOLDIE
I whisper.
ROSA flips a coin from her dwindling stack.
ROSA
Another head.
ROSA hands the coin to GOLDIE.
ROSA
You always win.
GOLDIE
I whisper.
ROSA
Whisper what?
GOLDIE
“Lord, have mercy, make it heads for me.”
ROSA
You pray?!
For flippin’ heads?
GOLDIE
Okay. Call me a sinner.
But I like to win.
ROSA
Are you crazy?
GOLDIE
I don’t know…. Why? Because I like to win?
ROSA
Because you believe prayers can change reality. That’s why.
GOLDIE
See any tails? Lately?
ROSA
And you think that’s because of you?
GOLDIE
Why not? I don’t see you praying.
ROSA
I pray for real things. Like a COVID cure and Ukraine.
Not random things. Like coin flips. Like genuine random happenings.
The world is full of randomness. And praying doesn’t change that.
GOLDIE
My Chinese friends don’t think so.
They believe we’re put on Earth to follow the rhythms of the universe.
[with air quotes] To them there are no “random happenings.”
Everything is dictated by waves.
It’s Ming.