© T. R. Pickerill- All rights reserved
Cesura:the black rites of space
A Dream Play
By T. R. Pickerill2011 -2013
© T. R. Pickerill- All rights reserved
My plays Scratch and Cesura may now be purchased on line at Amazon.com for Kindle. (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IU7U5JQ)
characters:
HE, no one, (m), naked mostly, covered in a white flakey matter, and wearing only a partial shirt in tatters, with white hair and stubble, he has a knife which he never uses only passing from one hand to the other
SHE, memory, (f), naked
set:
- a single bare light bulb
- footlight behind the transmitter
- a transmitter/audio stack with flashing lights and an antenna produces a periodic audio pulse
- each time the lights are turned on and off this is accompanied by a 'tick' begin
SHE:
Begin.
- lights on ('tick')
- a. is working at a transmitter
- SHE is watching him.HE:
The day begins.SHE:
Read it again for meHE:
Three planets
Three mountains
Three pyramids
Three space ships
Three actors
Three masks
One is lost
- lights off ('tick')
- wait 5 seconds
- lights on ('tick')HE:
The day begins.SHE:
It's You.HE:
I begin again.
- lights off ('tick')
- wait 5 seconds
- lights on ('tick')HE:
(speaks haltingly)
I do not belong here
This world is vaporous
Lying
Eternity a twilight of fire
A clawing rock of destruction
Bearing down upon the mind
Of another world I am,
Searching
She is my heart
Lost, I have
Love, she is
For this, everything
I would give
But for life
I have nothing
- lights off ('tick')
- wait 5 seconds
- lights on ('tick')SHE:
You will never see her.HE:
I see her now.SHE:
You see nothing,
and even that I will take away.HE:
You lie!
I will make it out of here.SHE:
It's all in your mind.
There is nowhere to escape.
- lights off ('tick')
- wait 5 seconds
- lights on ('tick')HE:
The day begins.SHE:
It's You.HE:
I begin again.SHE:
You will never escape me.
- lights off ('tick')
- wait 5 seconds
- lights on ('tick')SHE:
Read it again.HE:
How long has it been since I've seen you?
I dreamt of you again. Sitting,
smoking on the edge of the mattress.
Not naked, your innocence
not yet relinquishing your body to the world.
Then you were gone.
A mirage could not have been more real.
I searched for remains of your cigarettes
like bread crumbs in the forest.
I ran my hand across your impression.
Cradled my head in its saddle.
A well to pull forth memories,
to peer into its dark still water.
Hoping, in that mirror, that
I might find that you have returned.
Your hand on my shoulder
pulling me back to bed,
to rest again in your arms.
The stillness is shattered.HE:
I am alone.SHE:
A dream that never was,
you are at a cross roads.
I will take you.
- lights off ('tick')
- wait 5 seconds
- lights on ('tick')HE:
The day begins.SHE:
It's You.HE:
I begin again.SHE:
Again.
Again.HE:
A constant state of desperation,
on the edge of a planet.
SHE:
Again.
- lights off ('tick')
- wait 5 seconds
- lights on ('tick')HE:
The cliffs rise up
The sky falls
upon them,
Warring
I am stranded,
Head on a pike
Body open for display
Blood crying
For the night
And sleep
For the stranger
-- lights off ('tick')
- wait 5 seconds
- lights on ('tick')SHE:
You lick your wounds, crying out,
wrapping your bones around an empty pit. An engulfing,, yawning, desire to be empty. Cultivating sorrow. Walling one's self off, bitterly tempting fate.
You ask 'where I have gone?'
Though I have never been apart from you.
Loving you, calling out to you.
Blindly you deny me.
I am here in your heart.
Why do you run?
Hiding like a child in a dream,
unable to awaken,
pinned with terror,
crippled with your thoughts.
Imagining what is not there.
A bitter world, body falling away.
Untouched.
- lights off ('tick')
- wait 5 seconds
- lights on ('tick')HE:
The day begins.SHE:
It's You.HE:
I begin again.
- lights off ('tick')
- wait 5 seconds
- lights on ('tick')HE:
I saw you again,
in my dream.
You were the earth
white and glowing,
heat and wetness
The universe in revolutions
about you spinning.SHE:
Eternity is your day,
A waking dream.
Leaving you crying for night
to come.
- lights off ('tick')
- wait 5 seconds
- lights on ('tick')HE:
The day begins.SHE:
It's You.HE:
I begin again.
- lights off ('tick')
- wait 5 seconds
- lights on ('tick')SHE:
First there was one hole.HE:
I try to write it down,
but there is nothing left.SHE:
There is no thing left.HE:
She was with me once.
I have visions.
- lights off ('tick')
- wait 5 seconds
- lights on ('tick')HE:
I am a maggot
Death is not far
On my side
A body grows foul
Waiting to rise, holding
Back beasts with
Outstretched hands
Searching the abyss
For a look from her
- lights off ('tick')
- wait 5 seconds
- lights on ('tick')HE:
The sky is purple and there are,
Yellow stripes like veins.
I bleed radioactivity off the thermal piles.
Complex molecules ignite.
My veins are rivers.
Liquid fire.
I flow across her body.SHE:
A dream.HE:
She was with me once.
I have visions.
- lights off ('tick')
- wait 5 seconds
- lights on ('tick')HE:
The day begins.SHE:
It's you.HE:
I begin again.SHE:
It is your heart that you have forgotten.HE:
All I can do is think of her.SHE:
To remember her
is not enough.
- lights off ('tick')
- wait 5 seconds
- lights on ('tick')SHE:
Read it againHE:
Born on cliffs and rocky slides,
terrorizing the earth, piercing the sky,
the little girl road the small Mongolian horse.
Slowly traversing a sky masked in haze and dust,
lifted on heels searching the abyss.
The caravan is pursued as night
rises up in shadows vaporous and milky.
She is alone in her fear.
On either side the limits rise and fall,
in rocks and crags, toothy and howling,
indifferent to her loneliness.
- lights off ('tick')
- wait 5 seconds
- lights on ('tick')HE:
I try to remember?SHE:
You will forget her.HE:
Liar!
She was with me once.
I have visions.
- lights off ('tick')
- wait 5 seconds
- lights on ('tick')HE:
Is it morning?
Is it me in this body?
Still I am not one of the world’s creatures
creeping out of the slime.
Where is she?
- lights off ('tick')
- wait 5 seconds
- lights on ('tick')HE:
The day begins.SHE:
It's you.HE:
I begin again.SHE:
You will never escape me.HE:
Is there nothing more?
- lights off ('tick')
HE:
(screams)
Can you hear me?
Where have you gone?SHE:
I am not the one who did the leaving.End
© T. R. Pickerill- All rights reserved
