(Oh ho ho ho, kiddies, it's not over, no, not yet. Not yet at all. It goes on and it gets much much worse. First off, the not far away of everything turned out to be very far away, and the longer it went on being not far away, the further away it all started to look, and that's when things started to take a very peculiar turn. In the first place, there was nothing. Nothing ahead, and the behind started to look smaller, so much smaller, and it kept getting smaller until the behind looked like nothing at all. But first, before that even, there was this moment that came up suddenly, and he found himself sitting in the most easily accessible place in the universe, where everything made sense, and this is what happened there.)
(He is sitting in that fashionable way, crossing his legs in the studied gesture of his time and place. There is a loud thumping on the walls against the insides of his head, and he is dreaming about the things that he could have here if he were somewhere else, if he were someone else, and the list is extravagant and impressive, except for. Except for the lingering thought that this is exactly where he is supposed to be, because this is the night that nothing happens and nothing changes utterly forever.)
HE: Oh, this is the place of easy accessibility and it is exactly what I thought it was going to be like, and it's horrible, horrible, horrible, I wish my eyes were bleeding but instead it's just like this, just like it is, endless and interminable.
(And of course even that's not true, it's not endless, and it's not endless in any extraordinary way, but one that is entirely mundane.)
(This is what life is like without you.)
(And suddenly, without any warning, there are some figures who appear, and from a distance they appear enormously attractive and terribly interesting, but as they get closer we see that they are absolutely not. In this theater, which is entirely based on all the best new methods of social change, there can be moments of improvisation. The performers might take the time to enact a kind of dialogue amongst themselves about the concerns and local politics of the day, and there might be a small argument, and this is the moment when it can open up to the spectactors, who will make suggestions on how this might be resolved. Except this is not one of those moments. And if it were, I would shoot myself in the neck with a blowdart, because that's how I roll. However, there is a possibility that people in the audience may make suggestions on how they could make their lives just a little more interesting, and it would have to begin with how they talk amongst themselves in public, because they have to start saying things that are either shocking or terribly important, because there is a sense that we are really running out of time, and can't keep doing things the way we used to do them any more.)
HE: Have you ever been arrested, come to from a blackout in a room filled with people who are looking at you, eaten something that you suspected might be poisonous, smoked something you thought might be laced, stolen something, had hot needles under your skin to leave permanent marks, walked into a sexual situation that you thought was suspicious (and then walked into the same situation again? and again?), put your hand out to an animal you have never seen before, petted a dog who made sounds that made you nervous, held your ground when a car was coming toward you, slid on pavement at a high speed, lost bone in a machine, been cut open in front of people who were not surgeons, taken a train to a city you've never heard of, walked a city whose language you could not speak, stayed out past four in the morning in that same city, or, have you ever fallen in love with someone who promised you they would hurt you? If you answered yes to three or more of the above questions, I forget the answer. We could be friends. That's it. We could be friends.
(Oh, but not tonight, this won't work tonight, this is not a good month for lists, not in public, there's something else that's going on, or something that's just about to go on, and they're all waiting for that, and it's just about to happen right now.)
(End of play.)
(He is sitting in that fashionable way, crossing his legs in the studied gesture of his time and place. There is a loud thumping on the walls against the insides of his head, and he is dreaming about the things that he could have here if he were somewhere else, if he were someone else, and the list is extravagant and impressive, except for. Except for the lingering thought that this is exactly where he is supposed to be, because this is the night that nothing happens and nothing changes utterly forever.)
HE: Oh, this is the place of easy accessibility and it is exactly what I thought it was going to be like, and it's horrible, horrible, horrible, I wish my eyes were bleeding but instead it's just like this, just like it is, endless and interminable.
(And of course even that's not true, it's not endless, and it's not endless in any extraordinary way, but one that is entirely mundane.)
(This is what life is like without you.)
(And suddenly, without any warning, there are some figures who appear, and from a distance they appear enormously attractive and terribly interesting, but as they get closer we see that they are absolutely not. In this theater, which is entirely based on all the best new methods of social change, there can be moments of improvisation. The performers might take the time to enact a kind of dialogue amongst themselves about the concerns and local politics of the day, and there might be a small argument, and this is the moment when it can open up to the spectactors, who will make suggestions on how this might be resolved. Except this is not one of those moments. And if it were, I would shoot myself in the neck with a blowdart, because that's how I roll. However, there is a possibility that people in the audience may make suggestions on how they could make their lives just a little more interesting, and it would have to begin with how they talk amongst themselves in public, because they have to start saying things that are either shocking or terribly important, because there is a sense that we are really running out of time, and can't keep doing things the way we used to do them any more.)
HE: Have you ever been arrested, come to from a blackout in a room filled with people who are looking at you, eaten something that you suspected might be poisonous, smoked something you thought might be laced, stolen something, had hot needles under your skin to leave permanent marks, walked into a sexual situation that you thought was suspicious (and then walked into the same situation again? and again?), put your hand out to an animal you have never seen before, petted a dog who made sounds that made you nervous, held your ground when a car was coming toward you, slid on pavement at a high speed, lost bone in a machine, been cut open in front of people who were not surgeons, taken a train to a city you've never heard of, walked a city whose language you could not speak, stayed out past four in the morning in that same city, or, have you ever fallen in love with someone who promised you they would hurt you? If you answered yes to three or more of the above questions, I forget the answer. We could be friends. That's it. We could be friends.
(Oh, but not tonight, this won't work tonight, this is not a good month for lists, not in public, there's something else that's going on, or something that's just about to go on, and they're all waiting for that, and it's just about to happen right now.)
(End of play.)
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