Thank you, Mr. Ives.

MARK: Al!

AL: Hey there, Marcus. What’s up?

MARK: Jesus!

AL: What’s going on, buddy?

MARK: Oh, man . . . !

AL: What’s the matter? Sit down.

MARK: I don’t get it, Al. I don’t understand it.

AL: You want something? You want a drink? I’ll call the waitress—

MARK: (desperate) No! No! Don’t even try. (Gets a breath.) I don’t know what’s going on today, Al. It’s really weird.

AL: What, like . . . ?

MARK: Well – just for an example. This morning I stopped off at a drugstore to buy some asprin. This is at a big drugstore, right?

AL: Yeah.

MARK: I got up to the counter, the guy says what can I do for you, I say, give me a bottle of aspirin. The guy gives me this funny look and he says, “Oh we don’t have that, sir.” I said to him, you’re a drugstore and you don’t have any aspirin?

AL: Did they have Crocin?

MARK: Yeah!

AL: Paracetamol?

MARK: Yeah!

AL: Viagra?

MARK: Yeah!

AL: But no aspirin.

MARK: No!

AL: Wow . . .

MARK: And that’s just the kind of weird of thing that’s been happening all day. It’s like, I go to a newsstand to buy the New York Times the guy never even heard of it.

AL: Could’ve been a misunderstanding

MARK: I asked everyplace---nobody had the News! I had to read the Toronto Hairdresser. Or this. I go into this diner at lunchtime to buy a sandwich, the guy tells me they don’t have any ham. How can they be a diner if they don’t have any ham??

AL: Was this a Korean diner?

MARK: This was a kosher from Jerusalem diner. “Oh we don’t carry that sir,” he says to me. “Have some tongue.”

AL: Mmm….

MARK: I just got into a cab, the guy says he doesn’t go to Fifty-sixth street!! He offers to take me to Queens instead!

AL: Mm-hmm.

MARK: Looking at me like I’m an alien or something!

AL: Mark. Settle down.

MARK: “Oh I don’t go there, sir.”

AL: Settle down. Take a breath.

MARK: Do you know what this is?

AL: Sure.

MARK: What is it? What’s happening to me?

AL: You’re in a Philadelphia. That’s all.

MARK: But I’m in---

AL: Yes. Physically you’re in New York. But metaphysically you’re in a Philadelphia.

MARK: I’ve never heard of this!

AL: You see, inside of what we know as reality there are these pockets, these black holes called Philadelphias. If you fall into one, you run up against exactly the same kinda shit that’s been happening to you all day.

MARK: Why?

AL: Because in Philadelphia, no matter what you ask for you can’t get it. You ask for something they’re not gonna have it. You want to do something, it’s not gonna get done. You want to go somewhere, you can’t get there from here.

MARK Good God. So this is very serious.

AL: Just remember, Marcus. This is a condition named for the town that invented the cheese steak. Something that nobody in his right mind would willingly ask for.

MARK: And I thought I was just having a very bad day….

AL: Sure. Millions of people have spent entire lifetimes inside a Philadelphia and never even knew it. Look at the city of Philadelphia itself. Hopelessly trapped forever inside a Philadelphia. And do they know it?

MARK: Well what can I do? Should I just kill myself and get it over with?

AL: You try to kill yourself in a Philadelphia you’re only gonna get hurt babe.

MARK: So what do I do?

AL: Best thing is to wait it out. Someday the great cosmic train will whisk you outta the City of Brotherly Love and off to someplace happier.