Theater

Setting: Huts weaved from branch. Ancient protection, caves. This idea of shelter. More from god than the elements. A private encounter. Red bloom.

Stage directions: Contract your neck. Bleed. Sigh. Pant. Wet.

Dialog:

The first man says:
        “If I fell down I wouldn’t know what to say. All I can remember is how fantastic your body feels. I lack an understanding of how glass works. You can see right through me. This isn’t sentiment. We can sit in a circle & talk. Let me tell you about my dream: the bus I’m in sloshes around in mud, children laugh as they fly out of windows, it’s fun for them. My lips tingle in pain. Snakes & lizards crawl under the mud. The bus almost slides off the edge of a cliff. As passengers we all seem non-plussed. We are all ok. Outside it never stops raining. It’s not too cold. The lizards & snakes attempt to strike fear, they insist they’re taking over but I’m not worried. I taught myself to walk on water.”

The next man says:
        “To hover an inch above the ground at all times feels even better than continual linked orgasm. A new understanding of freedom. In my dream I’m being lead down a dirt path in a forest. My grandmother never allowed me in this far in. I’m not sure who is leading me, but I am sure of my excitement. Objects in the trees blur & begin to glow gold & blue. It’s either movement or a tactic of disorientation. In nature all movement is strategy. Snails sliding over flowers: certain realms can never exist because they are too perfect. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. The colors are so important. It’s more than you realize. There is no point in pretending like you know what the answer to this question is.”

The first man says:
        “But the question is only of silence. And this is not an explanation, only a new encounter. Now let me tell you what happened outside of the dream:
        “The scene describes a cave on the coast where a man tortures boys in their late adolescence. It describes the items he uses, the wooden structures he attaches bodies to. The temperature of the air. The smells. He had tears in his eyes when he told me. Sometimes people just want to hear that they’re not horrible.”

The next man says:
        “IN THIS ECSTASY there can be no reply. Now I’m going to teach you how to spin in a circle until you’re rotating so fast you die. An airy death, like drowning but the opposite.”

Curtain.