The evening begins with a bang. The deceptive calm of a family restaurant, filled with two disgruntled customers and an inept waitress, is disrupted by offstage sounds of war and destruction. The real disruption begins with the entrance of the Colonel, a middle-aged brute of a man wearing the medals and uniform of a commander, who wheels on Stubbs, a mute paraplegic veteran who served with the Colonel's son. According to the Colonel, they have come "to toast the death of my son and have a nice dessert." While the customers, named only White Man and White Woman, and the waitress, Glory Bee, watch, the Colonel dominates and tyrannizes the stage. Stubbs slowly regains the power of speech and memory, and the tables turn when he reveals his enormous battle scar and hints that he is the Colonel's son. In increasingly bizarre and violent scenes, including a whipping and a food fight, STATES OF SHOCK reaches its shattering conclusion.