Characters
KLOWN A clown.
BRANE A seated man.
MELLON An unseated woman.
Place
Somewhere with a chair and lots of space.
Time
Yes.
SETTING: A segment of space. There is a chair, at least.
AT RISE: BRANE sits on a chair in the dark. In another part of the space, bright lights and offensively clamorous music attack the audience without restraint. KLOWN enters, dancing and singing.
vvv
KLOWN (singing)
Beneath bone, inside flesh I find my face:
Vessels insisting on retribution.
Cells multiply without my permission
Scavenging death, hunting destroying all.
KLOWN dances and claps to a flourish and clang.
KLOWN (singing)
Tiny bugs with heads hide inside my thoughts.
Songs of my late demise garner reverse applause.
Purple smiles reveal fangs as white as wings,
Tearing flesh, as sharp as muted words.
KLOWN dances more violently, ripping the head off a doll.
The music softens and KLOWN becomes still.
KLOWN (singing monotonously)
Do you ever wake up from a dream and never sleep again?
Do you ever tell yourself you’re still alive after you’re dead?
Do you ever fall in love with someone who does not exist?
Do you ever look into a mirror and slowly disappear?
Do you ever play with dolls that come alive and bully you?
Do you ever pray to God and realize he worships you?
Do you ever kill yourself because somebody tries to stop you?
(slowing down, meticulously)
Do you ask these questions knowing nobody can answer you?
Accosting clangs return. KLOWN dances violently off stage.
Lights rise softly on BRANE, seated in the chair. MELLON enters.
She seems to be passing through but stops to engage with BRANE.
MELLON
Excuse me.
BRANE
Why?
MELLON
It’s the polite thing.
BRANE
Why?
MELLON
I don’t make the rules.
BRANE
Finally, we agree.
MELLON
But why are you sitting there like that?
BRANE
Where?
MELLON
In that chair there, hovering over the pit.
BRANE
This one here? Is that it?
MELLON
That one, yes, the big one. The big, big one. Sitting there. Like that.
BRANE
Oh yeah? As opposed to…?
MELLON
I dunno. Standing?
BRANE
Or?
MELLON
Lying down upright, or sideways squatting?
BRANE
Huh. My body is always here, in this chair.
MELLON
Is it yours, or just… someone’s?
BRANE
Sometimes. Sometimes it is.
MELLON
Well. I’ve never seen you before.
BRANE
Maybe you’ve never looked.
MELLON
I have. I’ve looked high and low. I’ve not seen it. I’ve not found it anywhere.
BRANE
I’m always here, somewhere. Perhaps I’m not noticeable. Perhaps I’m-
MELLON (urgently)
Sitting is dangerous. Haven’t you heard?
BRANE
I have heard, but I haven’t listened.
MELLON
Tell me this: Do you like it?
BRANE
What? Not listening, you mean?
MELLON
It’s almost like sitting on a toilet, isn’t it? But instead, it’s just a chair.
BRANE
Very similar, yes. I am similar to you. And a chair is very similar to a stool.
MELLON
I enjoy sitting on a toilet, you know. But not for an eternity. I scoop in and plop out. The experience wipes away. Then I’m back on my feet, trying to go places.
BRANE
Your feet appear to be stuck. I’m not stuck. I’m… well. I guess I’m floating.
KLOWN enters to intrusive music, dancing.
BRANE and MELLON shake their heads at one another, disapprovingly.
Music softens and remains:
KLOWN (tying a balloon)
I says to the kiddies: Pretty soon you’re gonna grow up and be just like your mommy and daddy and all your pervie uncles and your neighbor’s dog. You’ll start to see purple veins in your legs where there used to be hairs. You’ll see your own flesh rupture. I says: Do you know what rupture means?
(cackling)
Pretty soon, I says, you’ll open the cupboard to see what’s for dinner and ten years will go by and twenty years will go by and thirty and forty and fifty and everyone will die, including you and all your fantasies!
(pops balloon)
I says to the man, have you got some more make up for me? I need it bad. I need a ton of it. The caking kind. To cover all of this dried blood, okay? All over my body, okay? Smeared on like icing, covered up, filling my cracks. Okay? Okay, he says! Okay!
Intrusive music returns; KLOWN exits.
MELLON
So. What about hemorrhoids?
BRANE
What is it now?
MELLON
You get them from sitting. Ruptured veins. In your anus. From sitting there. They bleed.
BRANE
Right.
MELLON
Well? What about that?
BRANE
What am I supposed to do? Get up and…?
MELLON
Yes, that’s it! And take a walk.
BRANE
But then I’ll lose my seat.
MELLON
Well, that’s life.
BRANE
I enjoy sitting here. The view is… something.
MELLON
But sitting is poisonous, dammit. It stops your blood from moving. It stops the oxygen from getting around. Your cells die off. Tumors accumulate. Your feet lose sensation, go blue, get lobbed. Everything inside you is dying right now—you know that!
(BRANE shrugs)
Don’t you want to become very, very old? Or are you still hoping to become young?
BRANE
What’s the difference?
MELLON
They’re just ideas. But they have value. Numeric. Do you have a calculator?
BRANE
I can measure my rings. Like a tree.
MELLON
Where are your rings? I don’t see any. That means no one loves—
BRANE
I’m like a tree—planted, rooted. Rotted, perhaps.
MELLON
No way to quantify things. How can you measure yourself without a ring?
BRANE
Well—you know. Down there.
MELLON
Oh?
BRANE
My bone.
MELLON
Oh!
BRANE
Yeah.
MELLON
And?
BRANE
It’s private.
MELLON
But it will stop working. It will shrivel. Sitting still does that—it shrivels bones.
BRANE
When you’re not looking, I can… you know. Play with it. With my bone.
MELLON
Oh?
BRANE
Oh yeah.
MELLON
But I’m not looking. I’m seeing, but I’m not really looking. Or is it the other way around?
BRANE
They’re both true. I mean, they’re both half-true. Right?
MELLON
Well, at least you’ll get the blood inside you to change positions. If you…. when you… you know.
BRANE
Right. From time to time, I change my legs. Watch me do the work.
BRANE changes position in the chair with great difficulty, wincing painfully.
MELLON
Your legs haven’t really changed—not really.
BRANE
Incremental change, you see?
MELLON
I see. But I would feel terrible if I didn’t reiterate how much danger you’re in from sitting there like that. It’s the most dangerous thing you can do. The riskiest thing in the word. Sitting there—like that.
BRANE
I am a natural risk-taker.
MELLON
It’s safer to roam. Come on—take a risk!
(begins walking through the space)
I’m walking aimlessly. It’s very healthy. I know I am walking, but where? Why? For how long? It’s best not to know. Just walk. Listen to the rhythm of your body moving through space. Feel the vibrations formed by a shoe clomping the ground. Notice the scenery change before your eyes. Look up, look down. Look all around. Wave your hands in the air like you do or do not care. Run for a while then stand still again. Let out a small fart, noiselessly, and let it disperse into the atmosphere. Catch a tiny bug in your nostril and huff it into your brain. Walk sideways into drunken traffic. Bend yourself, naked from the waist down, over a guard rail and wait for the crowds to penetrate you. Lie across a railroad and squirm. Beg to be sliced apart. All, all of this is safer than sitting down. I’m safe, safe, safe…
MELLON continues to walk through the space, in a sort of trance.
BRANE
I am sitting. I am in a position. I am comfortable. I am numb, shifting this way and that.
I am naked beneath layers, but I cannot face it. I am warm in parts and ice cold in others. I work on my stillness and stiffness. I justify the absence of things. I argue with distinct voices that attack from within. The voices are as old as me—they are my real self. I fight them every day. I dig into gravity. I crawl through my bed and fail to find a way out. My pain comes from the walls and ceiling. At night I can’t breathe. In the morning I sweat. In the afternoon I eat until I am sick. I think about exercise. I think about more food. I think and think and think. I am seated here, sinking down deep. Sometimes a challenge comes, and I am seated. I am seated still. I am here, seated like this. Just like this.
Warbling music. KLOWN enters.
KLOWN (singing in high falsetto, operatically)
Get up, get up and fall down.
Get up, get up and stay there.
Get up, get up and fall away.
Get down and up and down and stay down.
KLOWN strips away their costume and wig.
KLOWN stands naked, wearing a soiled diaper and shaking from illness.
MELLON slows down her walk, almost to the point of slow motion.
KLOWN (singing in low register, monotonously)
I am hungry. I am tired.
I am horny. I am fat.
I am ugly. I am awake.
I am no one. I’m still dead.
KLOWN dances oddly off stage.
Silence.
BRANE stands up with great pains.
KLOWN screams offstage, in the distance.
BRANE walks toward the audience then slowly turns to show his backside.
The back of his trousers is soaked in blood.
He remains there, frozen and bloody. He will bleed out.
MELLON moves to sit in the chair BRANE had occupied.
She walks there deliberately, slowly, trance-like.
MELLON
There are little grapes coming out of your anus—grapes that squirt. Makes a fine red wine, aged in a sedentary casket. We crush them, impatient for juice. The red gets embedded beneath our nails. It stains our bones: fermented, sulfuric, bitter, cloudy. It makes us bleed inside and out. It hurts us. It ruptures us. It’s very, very dangerous. It’s a very dangerous thing—sitting there like that. It is a grave, grave danger. A dangerous grave. Let me show you. Allow me to allow myself to become a demonstration. Look here—I now become a seated object. Now—like this.
MELLON sits in the chair.
BRANE bleeds out from his anus; his face is gone.
MELLON (cont.)
I am seated now. There is nothing here. Just enough sunlight to turn me into a raisin. So then: I won’t get up again.
MELLON waits.
Lights fade out.
End of Play.
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Jeremy Trager is a third-year playwright in the Creative Writing Workshop. He’s a transplant from Chicago, where he was a professional actor. He appeared in over 50 theatre productions there, winning the Joseph Jefferson Award, the After Dark Award, and the Broadway World Chicago Award. His plays have been read or workshopped at the UNO Playwrights Fest, Bailiwick Chicago, and the University of South Dakota. His writing and photography have been published in Southern Review of Books, 433 Mag, Ellipsis, Midway Journal, and The French Quarter Journal with a piece forthcoming in The Daily Drunk.
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