(Oh my gosh now the NARRATOR shows up, it's about goddam time, we've been doing this for awhile and oh my gosh that certainly would have helped. NARRATORS can at least tell us where to put our eyes at least and make a few little connections here and there so that we can really finally connect the dots. The NARRATOR has also been through all of this and might know exactly how it ends.)
NARRATOR: I don't.
(Or perhaps not. It may not matter all that much if they know the exact ending or not, they see things that we don't and give us a sense of security. Let's hear it.)
(The NARRATOR, however, talks like Peter Lorre trapped under a jar lid for the space of a childhood, that is to say, exactly what you would expect but the opposite of what you really want.)
NARRATOR: Honestly, I would like to make these things clearer, except I am very angry with love these past several years, the world has brought me nothing but dark and stormy lovers who I adored, and light and breezy lovers who tickled me, and it's also brought me some of the worst moments of my life, because. Because of this. These rains, these rains, the rains that come down on me, they come down on everyone, and they keep coming down all over me all over me. I remember you, dancing after midnight in the rain, I was covered with white cloth and my tongue was numb from darvocet or percocet, and you were dancing in the rain, and you looked so young in those days, you looked like you couldn't have been older than you were in those days, and your teeth were sharp for the war, but you hadn't tasted any real blood out there, for you it was all always in the family, and that was all much more than anyone should have to live through in one life, but your teeth were sharp, could cut through nails, and the skin on your back was as tough as any kind of hide, and that was the night I fell in love with you for the fifth time. You talked crazy, and your laugh crazy, and your belly held enough wine to drown an army, but I don't think I ever remember you eating anything. And the worst part of it was that when I saw you dancing in the rain, I knew that I didn't want to know myself after I got over you. So I never did.
(Oh my gosh, now that wasn't helpful at all. On these kinds of post-rain nights when the ground is still so very hot and wet from that storm, we all want a promise, something that says this summer will be like this in places, even though we know there will come a point where we all burn for 40 days and there's nothing in sight to make the ground smell like it does when the sky kisses the bushes of the earth. And this didn't help that at all, and the NARRATOR is just as damaged as we are, and that's not so very comforting. Except the NARRATOR always comes before the dogs speak, and that's worth the wait.)
DOG: I think I'm lost here, I can't remember if I was supposed to follow your trail or let you just disappear over the horizon line. But I can tell you that all those nights I spend in the deep part of the desert that no one else knows, in the middle of the heat I see your tracks, and you call to me in your cruelest voice, and tell me these are all the things that I have to know. We lost each other, and it's never been a game about who lost who first, or who lost who first, but we lost each other utterly, and the doors are always sealed with the salt of those kisses that we give when the lovers we want are much too far away, and this war is too relentless, and we just need a rest. But there's always another mountain coming toward us, and when I get close, I remember you very differently, I remember you in a way that makes you come back to me, your bones take shape in the rocks that mark the dead of 40,000 years ago, and your bloodlines are in the rivers, and I am remembered, and I am put together, and I am not alone here. It's true I have my spirits, and they make for wonderful lovers, the kind of lover that marries you inside your head, and they are jealous enough to remind me that you could never be like that for me, except I know something. I know something important. It's close. When you're close, the blood and the bones are close to me like children, and I see something of the divine in this, and the spark of the divine carries the cells that make me remember you. Because I can't forget your smell.
(We don't really know what to do with the dog right now, because it might be much too late, or it might be exactly just in time, but that part hasn't been written yet, it's just stuttering in the back of our teeth and hasn't been born in the tongue. But summer is coming, and everything will be clear enough in another day or so.)
NARRATOR: I don't.
(Or perhaps not. It may not matter all that much if they know the exact ending or not, they see things that we don't and give us a sense of security. Let's hear it.)
(The NARRATOR, however, talks like Peter Lorre trapped under a jar lid for the space of a childhood, that is to say, exactly what you would expect but the opposite of what you really want.)
NARRATOR: Honestly, I would like to make these things clearer, except I am very angry with love these past several years, the world has brought me nothing but dark and stormy lovers who I adored, and light and breezy lovers who tickled me, and it's also brought me some of the worst moments of my life, because. Because of this. These rains, these rains, the rains that come down on me, they come down on everyone, and they keep coming down all over me all over me. I remember you, dancing after midnight in the rain, I was covered with white cloth and my tongue was numb from darvocet or percocet, and you were dancing in the rain, and you looked so young in those days, you looked like you couldn't have been older than you were in those days, and your teeth were sharp for the war, but you hadn't tasted any real blood out there, for you it was all always in the family, and that was all much more than anyone should have to live through in one life, but your teeth were sharp, could cut through nails, and the skin on your back was as tough as any kind of hide, and that was the night I fell in love with you for the fifth time. You talked crazy, and your laugh crazy, and your belly held enough wine to drown an army, but I don't think I ever remember you eating anything. And the worst part of it was that when I saw you dancing in the rain, I knew that I didn't want to know myself after I got over you. So I never did.
(Oh my gosh, now that wasn't helpful at all. On these kinds of post-rain nights when the ground is still so very hot and wet from that storm, we all want a promise, something that says this summer will be like this in places, even though we know there will come a point where we all burn for 40 days and there's nothing in sight to make the ground smell like it does when the sky kisses the bushes of the earth. And this didn't help that at all, and the NARRATOR is just as damaged as we are, and that's not so very comforting. Except the NARRATOR always comes before the dogs speak, and that's worth the wait.)
DOG: I think I'm lost here, I can't remember if I was supposed to follow your trail or let you just disappear over the horizon line. But I can tell you that all those nights I spend in the deep part of the desert that no one else knows, in the middle of the heat I see your tracks, and you call to me in your cruelest voice, and tell me these are all the things that I have to know. We lost each other, and it's never been a game about who lost who first, or who lost who first, but we lost each other utterly, and the doors are always sealed with the salt of those kisses that we give when the lovers we want are much too far away, and this war is too relentless, and we just need a rest. But there's always another mountain coming toward us, and when I get close, I remember you very differently, I remember you in a way that makes you come back to me, your bones take shape in the rocks that mark the dead of 40,000 years ago, and your bloodlines are in the rivers, and I am remembered, and I am put together, and I am not alone here. It's true I have my spirits, and they make for wonderful lovers, the kind of lover that marries you inside your head, and they are jealous enough to remind me that you could never be like that for me, except I know something. I know something important. It's close. When you're close, the blood and the bones are close to me like children, and I see something of the divine in this, and the spark of the divine carries the cells that make me remember you. Because I can't forget your smell.
(We don't really know what to do with the dog right now, because it might be much too late, or it might be exactly just in time, but that part hasn't been written yet, it's just stuttering in the back of our teeth and hasn't been born in the tongue. But summer is coming, and everything will be clear enough in another day or so.)
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