Dark.
Lights up.
Piles of sand on stage. Reddish sand.
In some areas, the sand is piled high, forming mini-dunes. In other areas, thin flat layers.
Sticking out of the sand are shards of glass.
A woman lying on stage wakes up. Why hadn’t we noticed her before?
She is wet. Her long dark hair is plastered to her shoulders and back.
The woman looks around. Tries to get up. Her legs don’t work.
A voice projected loudly, as if through a metallic cylinder, from offstage: What do you mean her legs don’t work?
The woman ignores the voice. Start to crawl. Crawls here and there, inspecting the shards of glass projected glintingly from the piles of reddish sand. The woman picks up a handful of sand and lets it slip through her fingers.
The woman hears the sound of a far-off train. The whistling, the rumbling.
A young boy in a checked hunter’s cap enters. He marches forward militantly, with a sense of great purpose and conviction. Stops in front of the woman.
The woman opens her mouth to speak. Awful otherworldly screeching comes from her.
The woman places her hands over her ears.
The boy places his index finger archly over his lips.
Then the boy picks up a shard of glass, the one titled yesterday. Or tomorrow. From where you sit, much remains unlettered and inscrutable. The devil’s in the details.
The boy sits down next to the woman and slowly rotates the shard of glass, inspecting it with a judicious eye. After several rotations, the boy places the glass in his mouth.
The woman opens her mouth to shout, the awful loud screeching, hands over her ears.
The boy removes the glass from his mouth. Sets it down on the ground. Sifts through a pile of sand and collects shards, lining them up. He rearranges the sequential combinations of the shards until he is satisfied with a specific order, then gets up and leaves.
The woman stares at the glass-arranged pyramid shape the boy has left on stage.
The boy returns, camera in hand. He points the camera at the woman.
The woman turns away, hiding her face.
Metallic voice from offstage: She never said she would show you.
The boy lays the camera down on the stage and exits. Maybe skipping. Yes, let’s say skipping. The boy skips offstage.
The woman stares at the camera. She picks it up.
An old woman in a floral-print housedress comes out. She says—Not that again…will you put that thing away?
The woman doesn’t know how to react.
The old woman, in what they used to call a tizzy, snatches the camera from the woman, says—I’m going to hold this for you. If your father came home and saw you with this thing again.
The old woman shakes her head, and then exits in a perfectly straight line.
The woman manages, with great strenuous effort (and a little help from the audience, particularly the bald man in the third row, second seat from the aisle, who is practically willing her to stand up: clenched jaw, closed trembling fists, beet-red face, you can do it), to stand on her two legs.
Metallic voice offstage: Steady, now, steady.
One leg gives the woman more trouble than the other.
The woman trudges unevenly to different parts of the stage, inspects the sand its resident shards of glass.
Music. Riotously, percussive.
A child in a plastic monkey mask comes out. The child dances around wildly, arms and leg akimbo. Stops dancing and strikes a Herculean pose.
The woman goes over to the child.
Begins to lift the child’s mask from the bottom. Bright light spills out from under the mask.
The woman lets go of the mask. She slowly and theatrically backpedals to suspenseful music.
The child extends its hand. The hand is small and exceedingly pink. The woman doesn’t take the hand.
The woman doesn’t know what to do. Her eyes dance crazily in their sockets.
The woman picks up a shard of glass and thrusts it toward the child.
The child accepts the glass, inspects it, then tosses it aside. The child touches its mask, near the mouth. Then the child extends its hand toward the woman.
This time, the woman takes the hand.
Metallic voice offstage: There was something to be said for touch.
Another child comes out swimming. This child is wearing a dolphin mask. The child approaches the woman from behind.
The woman turns.
The dolphin child hands her a mask. It is an ibis mask. The woman puts it on.
Metallic voice offstage: And death shall have no dominion.
Percussive music returns.
All three masked figures begin dancing around wildly. Suddenly, the woman’s legs begin to falter. She drops to her knees.
Music stops.
Both masked children are whisked away, as if tethered to invisible strings.
The woman takes off the ibis mask.
Opens her mouth.
The awful screeching.
Hands over her ears.
Lowers onto her belly.
Spasms.
Stillness.
The older woman in the floral-print housedress returns, followed by the young boy in the checked hunter’s cap.
The boy, holding a camera, snaps several photos of the woman lying prostrate.
The older woman collects several shards of glass and then ceremonially places them on the woman’s back.
The older woman and the boy exit.
Stillness.
The sound of wind blowing.
Then the sound of a far-off train.
Rumbling.
Whistling.
Silence.
Fade to a different quality of dark from the one in which we started.
John Biscello 