Scratch

A Dream Play (or a libretto)
By Tim Pickerill

© Timothy 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)

Cast:

Noah Person        No One
Ren                       Silence
Sekem                  Intelligence
Khu                     Guardian
Ba                        Ma
Ka                       Double
Khabit                 Shadow
Sekhu                  Corpse

Staging:            

-Positioned center stage is a white Plexiglas platform lit from within.

-Centered on the platform is a dining room table with a corpse and seven dining chairs.

-Hanging above the table is a large bare light bulb.

-The floor is covered with fog from a dry ice fogger.

-Lofted on an elevated platform up stage right is a door. Behind this door is revealed a geometric hallway. This has access and a place for Silence to stand.

-Upstage of the Plexiglas platform and off center to SL is the main projection screen.

-There are two video follow spots to project onto the stage and characters.

-One wide-angle projector projects onto the audience.

-The sound should come from various points of the room at different times and move around the space, echoing and washing over the audience.

-A General sense of dislocation pervades.

-Each character enters from behind No One, as though coming out of him.

-A picnic area is set up by  stage right.

-There is a living room set up stage left: TV, throw rug, easy chair, and lamp.
Props and Costumes:

-No One (Noah Person) is dressed in a translucent suit. He sits before his own corpse at the table centered on the Plexiglas platform. His mouth should be open most of the time.

-Silence (Ren) wears a translucent clown outfit.

-Intelligence (Sekem) sits on stage and reads selected stage direction. Male, dressed in a suit with a music stand and reading light, dispassionate, like a puppet master.

-Guardian (Khu) is wearing a shining and shimmering suit, very shamanic  looking.

-Ma (Ba) is naked with long white hair and red eyes. She brings in a picnic basket, with wine, food, red and white checkered cloth, and a birdcage with a dead canary in it. She also brings in a birthday cake and party favors, glitter, and sparklers. At the end she changes into a black bridal gown and veil. She never sits at the table.

-Double (Ka) wears a black suit with white collar and cuffs only, no shirt, and with a noose. His face is white with a black eye, and red lips. His props include a news paper, 'boom box', walking stick, bloody eye bandages, mirrored glasses, many alarm clocks, game show cards, a fool’s hat, mask and cloak, a Milanese Doctors Plague Mask (Black Crow with straw in the mouth), with a black cloak, a noose, and a flour sifter.

-Shadow (Khabit) is mostly naked and black, with loose tatters like No One (Noah). He also has a cone hat, grey business suit, and a noose.

-Corpse (Sekhu) is laid out as the main course naked, lifeless, and burnt; made out of something edible but mostly hollowed out.

-All costumes however described are made out of plastic.

-There are props that fly in: a ‘salmon of knowledge’, noose, and rose petals, which fall from above.

Pre Show

Sound:                        
The sound of television and radio static, FM tuning, howling wind, the rustling of bugs in leaves and creaking wood. All cutting in and out.

Video:                        
(main, audience, stage)
Begin with static on the screen, then TV channel surfing with static on No One, added to the screen then the audience.

Action:                        
Shadowy and dim, a stillness pregnant with hostility. No One is seated at the head of the table with Shadow and Guardian seated on either side of him. Guardian is reading his newspaper. (This has been cut-up and reassembled from the days news as a string of oracles.)

Video:                       
(main)
A close up of No One’s face.

Action:                        
B/O and Guardian and Shadow exit.

Begin

 

1

Action:                       
The room is flooded with red light abruptly then allowed to fade out slowly over a span of 50 seconds. No One is alone and everything is dark accept the bare light bulb over his head. After a few long moments the door appears, and the bulb over No One grows brighter. Silence and Shadow appear.

Sound:                       
All sounds are sucked out with a whoosh then bring in laughter.

Video:                        
(main)
No One's life begins to flash before our eyes on the main screen. From birth through childhood, school, first love, marriage, war, children, war, and finely Death.
No One:           
Where have you gone?

Action:                        
Double wearing a grotesque mask enters in the dark from up stage right. With his
'boom box' he wakes up Shadow. Shadow crawls to the corner scurrying around the room like a bug as Double tunes the space with his sound effects and boom box chasing and taunting Shadow.
(continuing action)

Sound:                       
Slowly fade out laughter in black out.

Action:                        
Backwards segment begins while spinning Shadow. Double plays music on a 'boom box'. Shadow and Silence dances and runs around backwards and speak backwards.
(continuing action)

Sound:                       
TV audio.

Action:                         
Shadow is standing on his face with Double holding Shadows feet up in the air. With this the space is filled with smoke (lots). Within the smoke Double spins Shadow and runs upstage into the fog.

Video:                       
(audience and stage)
Video of a crowd, traffic and all whooshing in movement.

Sound:                       
Follow the video, traffic, and trains in loud whooshes.

Guardian:           
Within the smoke screen Guardian emerges and begins reading the oracles.

Sound:                       
Laughter.

Double:                       
Double is tuning the space again with his sound effects and 'boom box'.
(continuing action)

Shadow:                       
Shadow becomes agitated running around ranting bizarrely, and then collapses into the easy chair frantically switching the channels looking for something he cannot find.
(continuing action)
                                                           
Shadow:                        
Screams.
Where are you?

Guardian:           
Nowhere and everywhere.

2

Sound:                       
Fade laughter.

Action:                       
When the smoke clears Intelligence stops reciting the oracles. Shadow is watching the TV and finds a video of Ma cursing him. He shrieks pulling back then attacks the TV turning it over and ripping apart the easy chair and beating the TV with a baseball bat. He begins crawling around on the floor trying to find a hiding spot; accompany with bug sounds scratching. Double sets off samples using boom boxes, which eventually fade on their own.
(continuing action)

Sound:                       
Children’s voices.

Ma:            
Enters the space from stage right carrying a picnic basket and a birdcage, which has a dead Canary in it. She sets both down and lays out the picnic which includes a red and white checkered cloth, an empty wine bottle, dry heals of bread, etc. She fusses with the items and props up the bird. She fidgets, waits and fusses about, then lies down for a bit. She then gets up and screams at Intelligence and then at Double.

Shut up!

Get away from him!

(She then looks at the audience and screams at them.)
What are you looking at?

 Ma:           
She begins to pace about talking to herself (improved text) about wounds, scabs, picking at scabs, cutting away dead wood, weeding, removing limbs, etc. repeating herself and obsessing. She tires of this and goes back to the picnic, preening and talking to herself while waiting.
(continuing action)

Guardian:            
Begins again coming in and out with the cut up news.

Ma: In response jabs and cuts with her words.
(continuing action)

Guardian:           
Stops reciting the oracles.

Silence:                       
Clowns around seeming to ignore the whole happening.

 

 Ma:           
Three fingers have I
To wield the sword
To severe the head
To clear the field

Three fingers have I
To wield the knife
To end the dream
To uncover the eye

Three fingers have I
To wield the ax
To fell the tree
To recover the life

 Ma:           
She runs around forcing people down. The lighting goes down considerably, and is accompanied by sirens and flashes.

Duck and cover!
Mother Fuckers!
Duck and cover!
Action:                       
Shadow goes to a spot along the wall and curls up. Double sifts flour over and around him.

Sound:                       
Slamming doors.

 Ma:           
She has been watching this with disapproval when she begins throwing the food at Double and screaming insults at Shadow.
Leave him!

 Ma:           
Exasperated she begins to pace again. Black out and Shadow stands shivering.
You’re Fucking Dead!
Do you here me?
You’re already dead!
Your time is up Mother Fucker
(She begins to circle the space.)

Video:                        
(stage)
Staccato projection of stills and clips from TV.

Sound:                        
Distorted cut-up of soap operas, commercials, and propaganda.
Double:                       
Pacing in the background plucking flower petals.
She loves me.
She loves me not…
(continuing action)

Sound:                       
Isolated footsteps in the farthest reaches of the space.

Action:                        
After much cursing and fuming Ma continues. Ma is speaking to No One but interacts with Shadow. Shadow covers his ears and begins to shake and twitch while she attacks Shadow but is coy with No One.

 Ma:           
Looking at No One and speaking with a soft and gentle voice, even sultry or coy.
I know what you are thinking
I can see your sneering
But I know better the stink that’s in you
That you try to cover with your Masquerades
The pustules between your legs
Held tight

(Laughing)
Where I stand I see the reek
Run down your thighs
And when your towers of gold crumble
And heavens fall,
How will you shriek?
When famine runs your family through
And flies feast on bosom and bone,
What think you then of one as me?
Will you fight?
Will you take flight?
When tongues grow fat and cracked
How will they wag?
(Laughing and spitting out curses at the audience)

 Ma:           
Speak slowly and precisely, pantomime.
(Right hand over eyes)
(Silence, finger over lips)
I might remain
Spinning
Opening outwardly
In waves unfolding
Delight
I remain not           
Turning away

I am not for you
To hold
No, no
But to chase or be chased

Sound:                       
Slow murky water.

 Ma:           
Leaving the Shadow she wanders off spitting out curses then addresses No One directly and again sweetly.
I am the mother returning
To take back the rotten earth
Slobbering down bloodied thighs
And shit crack
Sipping poison from virgin lips

You’ve idolized death
And called it life
You’ve run aground
Time to kill the captain

I am the Assassin
Come for your ticket
Soon we depart
(Laughing)

Action:                        
Shadow begins falling then stands again and continues to repeat this as A begins her dance. This continues until Amok starts.
(continuing action)

Action:                       
Small white flowers fall over A and Shadow.

Sound:                       
Bells jingling and little girls singing with A moving in a circle around the room.

 Ma:           
Begins ring dance around the Shadow 3 x counter clockwise.
Ring around the rosie                                   
Pockets full of puss
Ashes
Ashes
We all fall down
           
She screams and then runs around the stage.
Amok!

Sound:                       
Abrupt, sharp cracks and short bursts of laughter.

Shadow:                        
He is thrown about by the text.

Double:                       
Clownishly mocking, he feels uncomfortable.

No One:           
Grips his table and the floor with his whole body in tension, hyperventilating, and eyes big as saucers.
Sound:                       
Bent signal distortion.

 Ma:
Thrown apart
Against the wall
Blind folded
Singed
Burnt
A coup
A riot
An uprising
A virus
Freedom fighter
Terrorist
Revolutionary
Traitor
Freeman
Patriot
Reactionary
Slave
Intervention
Censored
Programmed
Gunshot
Tear gas
Roadblock
Car crash
Drive by
Forced down
Restrained
Censored
Retrained
Strategic bombers
Smart bombs
Lasers
Microwave guns
Anti personnel mines
Collateral damage
‘Dead or alive’
‘Dead or alive’
Guns pulled
Finger on the trigger
On the button
Razor wire
Watchtower
Compound
Cage
Ethnic cleansing
Electric fence
Cyanide gas
Mass grave
Killing field
Machete
Ovens
Concentration camp
Trap door
Hangman’s noose
Camera in the corner
Watching you watching me
Relocation
Refuge
Crying baby
Crying man
Dead mother
Falling building
Fallout shelter
Firestorm
Firebomb
Sirens
An air raid
Duck and cover
No more shelter
Buzz bomb
Suicide bomber
Martyr
Madman
Angry mob
And mad dog
Lynching
Guillotine
Table and syringe
Dead end
Suicide
Empty shell
An atom bomb
Electro magnetic blast liquidating souls
Foaming at the mouth
Warheads
Glistening teeth
Red flashing lights
Open mouths
Screaming
Flash burn
Blisters
Radiation Poisoning
Silhouettes
Empty
Lost
A running crowd
Falling down
Panic
Stampede
Alarms
Cops with whistles
Breach the barrier
Molotov
Boiling over
Raised heartbeat
Sweaty palms
Red in the face
Eyes bugged out
A paddy wagon
Raised club
Barking dogs
Shadows
Stitches
Trash cans overturned
Cars set aflame
Over run
Pepper spray
Rubber bullets
Bloodied face
Torn clothing
Blood being washed down the gutter
White silhouette on the pavement
Fear
Power
Powerless
‘Your either with us or you are against us’
The sky is falling
Only a shadow left
Aids
Anthrax
Smallpox
Plague
Biochemical
Nuclear arsenal
Strategic reserve
Total war

‘Even the birds were on fire’

No One:           
Puts his hands to his ears wincing with eyes closed, chin up, heels out and knees together.

Ma:           
She runs to the audience forcing them to duck and cover.
Duck and cover!
Game over!
She nocks the Shadow down again then perches on top of him.

Shadow:                        
Shadow begins trying to raise his body with difficulty until she leaves him, ending with a face stand.
(continuing action)
Sound:                       
Ringing and hissing which fades out.

No One:           
Relaxes slightly with eyes blinking rapidly and with a gasp that he holds until the alarms go off.

Sound:                       
Clock ticking.

Guardian:           
Having stopped he begins again nervously reading a confused cut up text from the current political news.
(continuing action)

Sound:                       
A low grumbling and a grinding sound.

Ma:           
She throws bread at Intelligence who stops.
You are all dead
Do you here me?
You’re already dead!

This is not life!
This is not life!

Video:            
(stage)
Children running in circles.

Ma:           
Dances around the Shadow’s body, 3 times counter clockwise. Again flower petals falling around them.
Ring around the rosie
Pockets full of puss
Ashes
Ashes
We all fall down

Shadow:                        
Raises his body again to stand on his face, and continues to contort.
(continuing action)

Ma:           
Into the Shadows ear.
No One
No One
You are a walking corpse
Shit and rotting blood of maggots
Piled high
Caricature of life

Sound:                       
Silence.

Ma:
My lips
Brake
All is silent
I has wandered

No thing
No where
No shelter
No sky
No mountain
No valley
No skin
No flesh

Sound:                       
Lightning and subsonic rumbling comes in and out for some time.

Ma:           
Screams into the Shadows ear.
Dead!
Dead!
Dead!

You’re already Fucking Dead!
She then nocks him over, and then he stands on his face again.

Time is up, Mother Fucker!
She is crying.

Double:                        
Sets off all the wind up alarm clocks.

Video:           
(audience and stage)
Spinning bright colors.

Sound:                       
Ticking out.

Shadow:                       
Runs around turning off the alarm clocks.

No One:           
Slumped over with head dropped, shoulders down, back up, and arms hanging.

Ma:
Time has ended
With an open mouth and an open ass
Screaming into the void
As my sex crawls beneath the night
My sex…
Enveloped in the boiling of the sky

My sex…
Tuberous snouts probing
A cankered earth
Extracting poisons
Time honored

Tongues
Canceling the void

Silence scattered
Between cries

Video:                       
Begin slowing the video.

Ma:                       
The radioactivity of my sex
Emits nightly
Half-life
All death

I cannot help
But to…
(Wrenching body, puking)

Double:                       
Prompts the audience to gag loudly.

Sound:                       
Space tearing apart amidst the subsonic rumble.

No One:           
Open body with knees out, heels in, shoulder back, stomach out, and mouth forward, eyes open wide, and breathing out.

Ma:           
Said with venom, slowly and methodically.
So forget
Forget
Everything
Forget
Everything that
Has ever been written
Or said
Forget all that you have been taught
Forget it
Forget
Everything that
Has ever been done
Forget
Everything
Forget
Everything

Your
Time is up!
Fucker!

I am the mother
Returning to take back the rotten earth
Slobbering down bloodied thighs
And shit crack
Sipping poison from sodden lips           
I am the Assassin
Come for your ticket
Soon we depart

Video:            
(audience and stage)
Through space children running and laughing.

Action:
Shadow is slumped in a heap on the ground, and Double draws another ‘shadow’ around Shadow by sifting flour over him. Then Ma helps Shadow stand, kissing him sweetly and petting him as he watches Double places a music box in the void.

Sound:                       
A music box nursery chime.

Ma:           
Dances around the Shadow 3 times counter clockwise. Again with the flower drop.
Ring around the rosie
Pockets full of puss
Ashes
Ashes
We all fall down

Video:           
(audience and stage)
Merge into shadows and fade.

Guardian:            
Begins the next cut-up text using sex ads, desire and church, mixed with obituaries.
(continuing action)

 Ma:           
This is brief as A walks up stage and stops Guardian and everything slows down. Then turns, collects the picnic items and leaves within the fog and shadows.

Guardian:            
Stops and quietly sits frozen and anxious, ready to run out of the room.

Silence:                       
Silence is the first one out. He steps backwards through the door and up the hallway, and then the door slams shut.

No One:           
Relaxes his body and places his hands on the table.

3

Action:                       
Ma is raising up Shadow who at first refuses to stand.

Video:            
(main, split)
(Some scenes are prerecorded video with actions on top of the table.) Main screen splits. Game show contestants clapping and laughing.

Double:                        
Prompts the audience to applaud as Shadow joins Guardian and No One at the table.

Action:                        
A noose flies in which Double hands to Shadow who takes it and puts it on himself.
No One:           
Gasps slightly, pulls his body up, extends chin, lengthen the neck, with hand on chest below the neck at the collarbone, eyes flutter and close while holding his breath.

Sound:                       
Lightning and whispering voices.

Video:                       
(audience)
Lightning.

Action:                        
The Birthday party enters with A and a party hat is placed on Shadow. There is a cake, glitter, sparklers, whistles, hats, etc. Double places a blind fold on the Shadow and spins him around until he falls and everyone dances around him poking fun at him while A whacks him with a stick and Double tosses candies into the air.

Shadow:                         
Gets up and begins stumbling and running around bizarrely, ecstatically laughing and crying.

Video:           
(main, split)
TV channel surfing and images of earth, people, etc. into static.

Shadow:                       
Shadow falls to the floor confused, moaning and speaking incoherently, he then disappears into the shadows to put on a gray suit.

Video:           
(stage)
Shadows emerging out of the video static, which wavers from light to dark.

No One:           
Firmly grips the table, legs together, shoulders up and forward with head down and chin forward.

Video:           
(main, split)
No One is tuned on the screen.

No One:           
He pulls back now head twisting away from seeing and with his eyes closing.

Shadow:                       
At completion Shadow appears standing just in front of the platform dressed in his suit carrying a briefcase, and stands immobilized for some time then crosses the space to disappear again.

Action:                       
Shadow disappears then returns with Double as the MC on a TV game show.
Video:           
(main, split)
A prerecorded game show with Double and Shadow appears on the screens.

Action:                       
A 'Salmon of Knowledge' will be brought to No One as the grand prize.
(Stage action and video are the same)           

Double:
What fish at maturity returns to its birthplace to spawn?

Shadow:           
The Salmon?

Double:
That’s right. The Salmon returns to its source giving up its body to project itself in time.

Action:                       
Double dressed as Death, with a Milanese Doctors Plague Mask and black cloak, enters and places a noose first around No One’s neck then Shadows. Double (Death) then leads Shadow around by the noose showing him to the audience knocking him to the ground.

Action:                       
Double puts on a fools garb, cone hat etc. He meets Shadow and strips him to his underwear and puts a large cone hat on his head and spins him around while encouraging the audience to laugh at him and heckle him.

Sound:                       
Accompanying laughter.

Double:                       
Double changes into a blind man with bloodied eye bandages and cane.
You say that you loved them.
But did you ever tell them that you loved them?
Shadow:
I don’t know anymore, I don’t know anything anymore.

Double:
That’s a start.

Shadow:
But I have lost everything

Double:
Even better                                   
Its best to start clean, empty.

Shadow:
I’m scared

Double:
Of what?
Living?

Shadow:
I want to die
Double:
He thinks he’s alive.
(Prerecorded laughter)
You haven’t even begun to live.
That’s all we have here,
Not to keep here.
It’s a lesson.  A doorway.
You can’t stay. It’s not allowed.           

Shadow:
Stop!

Sound:                       
Tape recorded laughter.

Ma:           
Dances in front of him and embraces him. 
Tosses rose petals onto Shadow then No One.
These lips are not for you to kiss.

Action:                       
The Double picks up the Shadow and cleans him, then leaves him.

No One:           
Relaxes passively starring ahead.

Double:                       
Double walks up to No One and places his hand on No One’s shoulder while on the video he says.
The Salmon returns to its source giving up its body to project itself in time.

No One:           
In slow motion he silently mouths words of love and longing.                                               

Shadow:                       
Shadow with turrets, screaming it, puking it out.
(briefly, random screams then collapse)
4

Sound:                       
Rustling and crackling

Double:
Stranded...
Born of red earth and ink black night

The knife enters, cleaving the one
Opening an emptiness, emptying a fullness
Person looks for her.

No One:
'Where are you?
Where have you gone?'

 Ma:           
Wearing a black bridal gown
I am not the one who did the leaving.

Double:
As the earth of man recedes from the waters, furthering the
Desert, sapping the body
Salt relieving the void, mirages emptying into thought
Children echo the return of the mother/father.
The first word born of they’re becoming,
Here I am, this is my cipher.
Opening to the sky, fill me
I am yours, beloved...

No One:
When I was three my mother went away
to the hospital. She had cancer,
a lump in her breast. The doctors
cut it out, removing her breast
To the bone.

Double:
One half of the universe dissolves
The son is alone with the father
Silence becomes enthroned in time, which is
separation.
Desperation, 
the chick calls out, randomly dialing numbers
until one connects, the signal holds
Ringing fills the ears, further into the desert, dive...

Guardian:
Yes, hello.

No One:
Do you know where my mother is?

5

Video:           
(stage)
Electronic breakup and distortion

Sound:                       
Strobing color grids

Double:
You were ripped from my arms.
Our embrace cut short.
I will search for you always.
Through space and time...

Shadow:
Mirror before your might and war
Light before your darkling roar

Double:
Sons of daughters
War enough
To have sprung fully loaded
From bloodied womb?
Be not true

Shadow:
Veil of anger
Veil of fear
Unwrap your gauss
From lips and eyes

Guardian:
Loosen your grip
From mortal bond

Shadow:
Flee
As darkness from the dawn

Guardian:
The War Inside Is The War Outside
The War Outside Is The War Inside

 

Double:
Within me is the essence of light
Light unseen
Surrounding me is light ruptured
Torn apart

On all sides space reverberates
A voice never to be heard
Here there is only death
Filled with contempt
In hail stones
I fall upon
My self
I shriek
Falling back upon an idea of self
I, once held to be true

My ancient teeth turn liquid
As bile rises
Flesh rescinds its friendship with bone
Shattered
Splintered
There is no longer any connection
Oracular orbs eclipsed in
Watery graves
Puked up
Over board
Sails torn from masts
Limbs flail
Over board, I fall
Through the earth
In spite of my vile taste
It swallows me in bits

Shadow:
The castration of the father
Flayed
The word is separated
From the action
Thrown onto the fire of the mother
Swimming amidst the larvae
Of sweltering blood beasts
The tongue runs before
The word in fear
Before I was asleep
Living in dreams
Shrinking from the dream
I still sleep
But without dreams
Tangled in stained sheets
Eyes held by salt
In a blur of intrauterine
No time
Floating with feat baked in clay
Colored with blood
Glistening with sweat
Empty of semen
Lacking
Creativity held moldering
Impotent
Yet impatient
A blind man stumbling through unfamiliar houses
They’re where life escapes me
Death is at home
The universe recedes away in fear
From the anger of man
Mother of slobbering lips
Eyes the empty plate
Sitting naked in the wrecked dinning hall
The ancient country kitchen
Meeting place in silent late night hours
When men
Ready for open warfare
Make plans
To kill each other
What takes hold?
The youngest son rushes home
"Is the house still there?
Is all lost?"

Wandering through the dust of vacancy
There is the elder son
Taller than I remember
His face in shadows
Wearing unfamiliar cloths
"Where is father?"
"Here"
Wrapped in a dark cloak
He enters like the ghost of a plague
Naked I swim to shore
Replete
Lost in the moment
I am the fish on the line
But whose line?
What line?
To what end do they wish to serve me?
I demand to know!

I am capsized
I sink to the bottom
Holding heavy weights
Where is the end?
Head splitting pavement
I throw myself
Upon the verge
Captivated
I verge

Video:           
(audience)
Bursting

 

Sound:                       
Whips and electricity cracking

Ma:
I am the mother
Taking back the
Rotting earth slobbering down
Bloodied thighs and shit crack
Sipping poison from virgin lips

You've idolized death
And called it life
You've run aground

Time to kill the captain

I am the Assassin
Come for your ticket
Soon we depart

6

Video:           
(audience)
Red rolling horizontal bar and flashing

Guardian:
Wake up!
The house is on fire
Wake up!
Feel the fire flicker
Upon your toes
Feel the smoke roll
Across your nose
Wake up
Unconscious dweller in dreams
Wake up!
What opium daze
What blind maze
Keeps you here
What fancied illusion
What dark confusion
Keeps you near
Flames flicker
Smoke rolls
And still you sleep
Though not so soundly
You roll and struggle
Toss and turn
And still you sleep
Unconscious dweller in dreams
Wake up!
This house is on fire
Wake up!

7

Video:           
(audience)
Red/green cross matt overlay of masses of people on the street

No One:
Oblivion...

I have tried to avoid this moment,
We may never meet.
But I need to say goodbye.

To everything that is lost
To the other to the rest
That I will never know
Where are you?

The night is cold, dark and hungry
And I run
Naked and bloody, screaming even
I hate you! But little do you care
You are lonely, and still you turn away
Hungry, yet still you eat dirt
Oblivion is not enough for you

So many times I lie to you... I love you...
(pause)

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
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,
a feral cat mews
and neon hums and flashes
and I am alone...
(pause with head down)

I saw you again, in my dream
You were the earth
White and glowing           
Heat and wetness
The universe in revolutions
About you spinning
(pause with head down)

(Scream) then...
It is morning, but still I am not one of the world’s creatures
Creeping forth out of the slime.

8

Action:                       
A dinner party with all the characters accept for A and No One picking at the corpse.

No One:           
After they finish eating and throwing parts around.
Everything is upside down
Somewhere between the heart and the mind
Something went wrong.

9

Double:                       
Double enters with a boom box and cut up text. He dances around Shadow singing a strange cut up song.

Video:           
(Main, layered)
Clowns waving.

Double:                       
Double appears again with the game show grand prize, a Salmon, which flies in.

Video:           
(main split)
Game show footage on the screen.

No One:           
Hands firmly placed on the top of the table, eyes closed and mouth open but silent, with relaxed shoulders and open chest.

Action:                       
Double  moving backwards, dragging Shadow around backwards into the fog.

Shadow:                       
Shadow begins speaking gibberish.

Double:                       
Double directly addresses No One reciting everything that he remembers to be beautiful.

Sound:                       
Silence.

Ma:           
Enters dressed in black wedding gown, and veiled. She embraces No One. Then she disappears into the fog, whispering.

Sound:                       
Space, oscillators etc.

Action:                       
Double returns with the Salmon, holds it up to him and smiles. No One takes Salmon.

Video:           
(main, layered)
Whispery video of the bride veiled but naked dancing with a disembodied voice accompanying.
Action:                        
Ma runs out. Double strips No One, during the text below, as the lights fade and strobe.

No One:           
Have I drowned?
I must have drowned
Here I am
Double
Is this my blood?
Where am I?

Double:           
I, has gone?

No One:
No One answers me except the mirror
It is cold
Still
No Sun
And still my eyes are filled with light
Colors vast
Mirages are more real and solid
But I do not believe them
Yet I am convinced
My heart soars
Is it you my love?
Is it sleep that keeps me from you?
Under cloak have you secreted to my bedside
To draw the curtains which hide this sun?
Morning rising bare and virgin in golden veils
While I sleep
Ashen lips lay silent, senseless, unknown
Lost in valleys of ocean deep
Where have you been?

Ma:
(voice only)
I am here

Double:                       
Double walks up to No One’s platform as the last of the lights go out and touches No One on the shoulder.

No One:           
Where have you gone?

Action:                       
Lights out and the bare lamp above his head flickers out while Guardian, Shadow and Silence exits.

Ma:           
(voice only)
I am not the one
That did the leaving.

Action:                       
B/O

Video:                       
Now a single image again. The last moments of his life as he puts the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger.

Action:                       
Several large strobes go off

END