How Does One Breath Underwater

The first humans to discover a pond. The acting space is elevated, with a clear glass pool below them. Inside the pool are some animals and vegetation.

Jeb : Man. I am really... really..

Donny : What?

Jeb : I don't know. There's not word for it.

Donny : For what?

Jeb : This feeling I have inside. Or in my mouth. Where I've put all that food.

Donny : Describe it to me.

Jeb : Well. I feel like it's an empty feeling, but I don't want food. I feel, and I'm going out on a limb to invent a word here, feasty.

Donny : Feasty?

Jeb : It means I want something that's food. I want FEAST.

Donny : We've already used that word for food. Do you remember?

Jeb : I'm sorry. You're right, we invent so many words on every day that I can not keep track of them all the time.

Donny : Time. Did you just make that up?

Jeb : Yes. Do you like it?

Donny : Time. Time. Time. It's nice sounding.

Jeb : Thanks.

There is a pause.

Donny : How about "I feel thirsty."

Jeb : Thirsty. I like how is makes me go sss, because that part of my mouth feels the way it sounds. Dry. With out ... with out....

Donny : Liquids?

Jeb : Liquids! Yes. It is liquidless. Being with out liquids.

Donny : We are very smart.

Jeb : Oh wow. Look at that.

Donny : What?

Jeb : I don't know. That shiny stuff on the ground over there.

Donny : I see it.

Jeb : It's amazing.

They walk over to it.

Jeb : Touch it.

Donny touches it.

Donny : It feels. Weird.

Jeb : Like?

Donny : Like... liquid. While we haven't determined what liquid looks like or is made up of, I'm pretty certain, with about 75% certainty that that right there is liquid. More specifically, Shliquid.

Jeb : Shliquid?

Donny : Shiny liquid.

Jeb : Ah. I think. Maybe I'll have some of Shliquid then.

He drinks.

Jeb : Wow. That's amazing. I feel better.

Donny : Good?

Donny drinks.

Donny : Yeah. Wow. That's great.

Jeb : I wonder. Can we walk in this shliquid?

Donny : Like how we walk on the duloor, dull looking floor?

Jeb : If I jump up and down on the duloor like this,

He jumps up and down.

Jeb : Nothing happens. I wonder if the same affect will happen in the shliquid.

He runs and jumps onto the pool of water. He sinks to the bottom. He is still heard talking. Calmly.

Jeb (as an omnipresent voice) : Donny. It's not like the duloor, where I land safely. I sink. Sink? To the bottom where there is a softer duloor. I think I'll start calling the duloor, ground. Ground. Because it's gray and it's round. But now. I'm having a new feeling. That thing we do. I feel like I can't do it anymore. You know when we move about quickly and run and then we do this? And our stomachs move quickly? I can't do that right now at all.

Donny : Breathing?

Jeb : Yes. Breathing. I can't breathing.

Jeb hunches over and floats back to the top of the water.

Donny : Jeb? Jeb?

He cries. Each word is a miserable sounding whine. There is no realization of what he's saying or that he's inventing the word Water.

Donny : Why! Waaah! Waaa-err! Waaaaterrrr!