ACT I: A country road. A tree. Evening. Estragon, sitting on a low mound, is trying to take off his cleat. He pulls at it with both hands, panting. He gives up, exhausted, rests, tries again. As before.
Enter Vladimir.
ESTRAGON: (giving up again). Nothing to be done.
VLADIMIR: (advancing with short, stiff strides, legs wide apart). I'm beginning to come round to that opinion... It's too much for one man. (Pause. Cheerfully.) On the other hand, what's the good of losing heart now? That's what I say. We should have thought of it a million years ago, in the preseason.
ESTRAGON: Ah, stop blathering and help me off with this bloody thing.
VLADIMIR: Hand in hand from the top of the Space Needle, among the first. We were respectable in those days. Now it's too late. They wouldn't even let us up. (Estragon tears at his boot.) What are you doing?
ESTRAGON: Taking off my cleat. Did that never happen to you? Let's go.
VLADIMIR: We can't.
ESTRAGON: Why not?
VLADIMIR: We're waiting for Shaun.
ESTRAGON: (despairingly). Ah! (Pause.) You're sure it was here?
VLADIMIR: What?
ESTRAGON: That we were to wait.
VLADIMIR: What are you insinuating? That we've come to the wrong place?
ESTRAGON: He should be here.
VLADIMIR: He didn't say for sure the foot was healed.
ESTRAGON: And if he doesn't come?
VLADIMIR: We'll go with Maurice another week.
ESTRAGON: And then the day after tomorrow.
VLADIMIR: Possibly.
ESTRAGON: And so on.
VLADIMIR: The point is--
ESTRAGON: Until he comes.
VLADIMIR: You're merciless.
ESTRAGON: Up yours, you little pissant.
VLADIMIR: Let's go home and play Madden.
ESTRAGON: All right.
VLADIMIR: Well? Shall we go?
ESTRAGON: Yes, let's go.
They do not move.
VLADIMIR: What are we waiting for?
ESTRAGON: Don't ask me. You frickin' drove here.
VLADIMIR: Freeloading existentialist bastard.
(Curtain.)