Is Jess in a Cult?

Three girls sit in a living room. Eva has just had her wisdom teeth taken out.

Eva: I am not seeing him. I am seeing him insofar as that we are hanging out, but we're not dating.
Sal: But you're kissing him.
Eva: Ya'll! He's kissing me with my puffy cheeks.
Sal: Post-surgery? Ewww.
Eva: Yes. He's like looking in my eyes and kissing me, but my face is swollen and my lips are numb. I couldn't feel the kiss.
Sal: That's weird.
Taylor: Jess is in a Cult.
Sal: Oh my god, Taylor.
Eva: What?
Taylor: She is.
Sal: No she's not.
Taylor: Jess is in a Cult. I yell it out like I'm joking, but I'm only talking about it all the time becuase I'm worrying about it. 'Jess is in a cult' haha but seriously... Jess is in a cult.
Eva: Why do you think she's in a cult?
Taylor: I looked it up online and what's she's told us about her "group therapy" fits almost everything. Loss of ego... cutting ties with friends and family.
Sal: What I think is going on here is Jess is doing something not considered normal. But that isn't bad. We just don't know.
Taylor: You heard her talk about it when we visited.
Eva: This was going on when you guys went up there?
Taylor: Yeah, and like, people can change a lot and I get that, but Jess has never been a "group" person, and now she's relying on this group-
Sal: We don't know that.
Taylor: Yes she is! They told her to give up photography, and she did. Giving up your passion for the group is a sign.
Sal: But was photography really her passion?
Taylor: I think she really liked it.
Sal: And they didn't tell her to give it up, they told her that they didn't see her passion in the photographs that she brought in and then she decided to set it aside for awhile.
Taylor: This isn't a photography group. So why are these people even telling her stuff about her art? They aren't even real physchologists-- they're like people who think they know how to help. But they're not even educated--
Sal: We don't know--
Taylor: They call each other names like Laughing Dolphin and Red Bear.
Sal: This might be a positive thing for Jess if she's feeling lost in the city.
Eva: I mean I know the difference between doing something different and outside your comfort zone and... drinking the koolaide.
Taylor: Jess is more... susceptible... now, to this stuff. she's way wrapped in it. They told her to cut her ties to her friends and family.
Sal: No they didn't.
Taylor: Yes they did, didn't you hear her say that?
Sal: No I don't remember.
Taylor: Look there's a deer.

They all look.


Taylor: It ran away. She told us that they straight up told her to stop talking to her friends and family back home.
Sal: I mean her mom is actually crazy.
Taylor: My mom is actually crazy, but I don't need somone saying, "you don't need to talk to her anymore." Friends wouldn't do that. Eva wouldn't do that.
Sal: Yeah.... We just don't know how they're talking to her, what they are saying. We could have found out if we went to the meeting. She asked us to go. She wasn't being secretive. That's not cultish, being... unsecretive.
Taylor: I'm glad we didn't. I asked like can we just listen? Because in highschool if I went to those bible studies where people talked in tongues, Maggie told me I didn't have to participate. Maggie is the one who brought me. But Jess said that if we went, we had to talk. And I was like, I don't want to talk. I'm freaked out that they would... like attack me. Like whatever I said. And I'd probably just blurt out oh my God you guys are in a cult. And if I said that I don't want to talk, then they would talk about why I didn't want to talk, and ask me questions about it--
Sal: Like "Why do you feel uncomfortable sharing with strangers? Why do you assume that you will be attacked or critisized if you talk about yourself?"
Taylor: Yeah...
Sal: (to Eva) Do you think its weird, to make everyone one-- strongly encourage everyone, to participate?
Eva makes a face like 'thats drinking the koolaide'.
Taylor: I am just freaked out if I went to something like that, they'd make me feel like the crazy one and they'd be the sane ones.
Sal: We just don't know. We don't know what's going on.
Taylor: You don't want to know what's going on. You are not thinking about it at all so you don't have to worry.
Sal: There is a thin line between cult and... say in Eastern philosophies, in Buddism, when you have a spiritual guide or a guru, they run your life. That's a path to enlightenment, and brainwashing to others.
Taylor: I've read that book too.
Sal: What book. There's lots of books?
Taylor: In highschool... Mrs. Hughes, Siddhartha.
Eva: This is like Waiting for Godot, except it's waiting for a cult.
Taylor: I hate that play.
Sal: The cult is everywhere, the cult is nowhere.
Taylor: I just feel like a bad friend, the cult thing makes me want to run away and have nothing to do with it. If we were closer I could talk to her. We used to talk a lot freshmen year right when she moved out there, but in the last two years we havent hardly at all. And I can't come out of the blue and say hey we haven't kept up with eachother, you are in a cult.
Eva: I've got to run.
Sal: Okay, see you soon?
Eva: Yeah, I've got a job interview tomorrow, so after that. Tylers driving out there with me. You know, just pecking kissing is getting boring. We can't do more than that because--

she gestures to to her mouth.


Eva: You know.
Sal: Ew.
Taylor: Tyler is a racist. But I love you.
Eva: I love you too.
Sal: See you soon.
Eva: Okay bye!

End.