(To be read aloud on a pitch-black stage by one actor.)



Ariel and Andreas.

Ariel. You haven't changed in the least.

Andreas. You have changed considerably; you no longer bear a resemblance to your face.

Ar. It happened so many years ago- maybe centuries I don't know.

An. It happened only yesterday.

Ar. How long have you lived in this city?

An. I don't live in this city.

Ar. But I believe-

An. I don't live in this city.

Ar. I'm truly sorry to hear that.

An. I won't ever forget, Ariel. You know? I won't ever be able to dismiss the claws of this monster. Like a worm eating my insides away. That's what memory has done to me- that's what memory
is. Mine.

Ar. I don't remember anything. I can't remember but what I dream.

An. I can't forget anything: anything that I taste, hear, speak, smell, fear. Everything. I can't fucking forget one single goddamn thing.

Ar. Did I push him?

An. Don't you dare speak!

Ar. Was I-?

An. Don't!

Ar. I don't recall.

An. You're awfully damn fortunate. To die without remembering your life. It's difficult to be divinelypunished when you have no awareness to account for. Hell, you can't be overly certain that you
truly exist, can you? Whether your dreams are your existence or whether you have died some time ago in a ditch somewhere and this discussion is your dream to resurrect your reincarnated pity: a dream you concocted to satisfy your guilty spleen.

Ar. If that is true, you're nothing but a figment of my sleep- nothing but a part of me, a miniscule part and an unthinking part. Fortunately, though, I recognized your face from a nap I took
several weeks ago, and your name is always on the tip-the very tip- of my weakness.

An. Fortunate for whom? Surely not I- positively not you.

Ar. We were friends once.

An. We were acquaintances who chances to ascend the terribly wrong roof in the wrong month in the wrong year. Nothing more than that.

Ar. I still believe we were friends once.

An. Believe believe! By all means, please believe that. I'll have no such belief.

Ar. I dreamt the other night-

An. you fancied you mean- you fancy now. You have no influence upon life in your conjurings. They're fluffed and powdery nothings.

Ar. I dreamt that-

An. You wear your dreams like a wig to conceal the sparseness of your courage.

Ar. When he- when he stood there he mouthed something through the cloistered gags of-

An. The sun isn't a dream, is it? Do you see the sun? Do you recall it shining there? If you fail todream the sun, can you be sure that it will steal across your face in the morning?

Ar. Can you be sure that it will?... There was a nun during a war-

An. A dream?

Ar. Who took a vow of silence to an end to the hostilities-

An. Did said nun have very many restful nights? (Alas, this isn't Boccacio!)

Ar. Before long, she had been faithful in this vow for over four years, never once uttering a singleword- she even restrained her breath according to a creak in the floorboard, a knock upon thedoor, or the wind kneading some leaves.

An. Of course. As well she should.

Ar. She had only a handful of close friends, and in the severity of loneliness you do not tempt your infallibility to succeed.

An. Breaking a sacred vow is akin to cheating at solitaire. If a man disrupts the unchangeable rules guiding human behavior there is no telling what he is capable of doing. Is there more?

Ar. Well. Well, a friend came to see her late one evening and found her sprawled on the floor and bleeding from the collision. The friend immediately took her to a physician she was well acquainted with. They carried the old unconscious nun to the sofa.

An. That doesn't explain your preoccupation with-

Ar. The doctor decided that she should stay the night, as he would ensure her death a happy one, and a comfortable one with his care and in his presence.

An. You disgust me, Ariel. More even than I disgust myself.

Ar. Hoping too, her death to be a quiet one. The close friend left for the night, but returned the following morning. The poor, self-muted woman had died sometime in the early hours. The friend said to the doctor, "This pitiable creature has remained silent for almost five years now, to put a hasty conclusion to the grotesque display of this war. It seems to have accomplished nothing. The war still rages unwon and unwinnable." The kind doctor stepped up to the grieving friend and replied, "of course not, for she talks in her sleep." That very day, later in the afternoon, the surrender papers were signed and the war officially ended.

An. Of course this didn't happen.

Ar. A dream I experienced last night. I can't say whether it happened or not.

An. It doesn't matter. I have no further use for this.

Ar. ... It is true as far as I can tell... When he fell he left himself sunning on the roof.

An. You don't know. Be appeased and doubly grateful for what you do not know.

Ar. Yes... I can't be sure of what I do know. Can I?

An. Simply: you've guarded yourself in the fortified ramparts of a feigned isolation from reality. You live in the ethereal spray, white and blank with the sepia intonations of your dreams.

Ar. Perhaps. But I have no regrets. I sleep. I wink an eye occasionally. I sip on whatever is close to my lips. What regrets what you like I should carry atop my shoulders?

An. It isn't an alternative. Regret is extraneous and extroverted guilt, mixed, hopefully, with personal sorrow. Can you fathom such a device in your current state? In our plight, is regret really necessary?

Ar. Yes.

An. Regret is not a part of possibility.

Ar. Anything that is possible can be regretted, and usually is. (Did Saint Augustine introduce guilt,or did guilt introduce Saint Augustine?) POETRY is regret and guilt and-
An. Therefore-?

Ar. Therefore regret-

An. Therefore regret is poetry. I know. I hope you may soon awake from your dreams, Ariel. And yet, I pray that you always have just one or two dream left to delude yourself into believing.

Ar. I didn't outstretch my arms. I didn't push him. I didn't see him, do you understand? Do you-

An. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND?" We can't know what we absolutely, without a flicker of doubt, know. Or even what we experience. Do YOU understand, Ariel?


Ar. We cannot know what we-

An. Do you understand?

Ar. I understand what I know.

An. No. You wish to know what you understand.

Ar. It's dark in here. I can't see your face.

An. ...

Ar. I shouldn't see your face. I may not recognize it. I may not remember.

An. Turn the light on, won't you?

Ar. I can't find the switch.

An. Perhaps you should stop worrying. A trauma such as this trauma may forcibly strip you of your dreams. You'll puncture your face on their sharp, jagged, sparkling fragments.

Ar. I'll-

An. You'll puncture your sweet boyish face, sweet man. Just resume.

Ar. I've nothing to resume.

An. Then resume your speechlessness, like the decrepit, non-existent nun. It is a pleasant enough articulation.

Ar. Silence is the key to eternity.

An. It is also the triply-sealed padlock.

Ar. Thus proving as correct the parable I recounted less than fifteen minutes ago.

An. Nothing is true here.

Ar. Everything is false.

An. Excepting our interpretations, which are always (god bless them) convicted of truth.

Ar. As they are of falsity.

An. Of contrite falsity.

Ar. Falsity begging forgiveness for its is-ness.

An. Yes, and yet, within the vast landscape of contrite falsehood, or sorrowful untruth, it is always entangled with the affairs and liaisons of the Bitch Goddess Truth. You still cannot make yourself thoroughly dead in your sleep: you cannot will yourself into non-violent non-existence and doze in perpetuity.

Ar. That isn't fair: I've killed myself thousands of times in my sleep.

An. You have no control. Your ineptitude towards death halts any potent sentimentalities in its actuality.

Ar. Whereas your continual experience-

An. Ariel... The constant nagging of suicide keeps me alive from day to day. I have no other thought- no further motivation.

Ar. Whereas you consistently corrupt the only thing you have remaining by your staunch connivance for reality: your realism is only a facade for denying death.

An. I haven't had a dream since.

Ar. Since then?

An. Since that day.

Ar. Was I the offender?

An. You and I.

Ar. Did I push him?

An. He begged us without speaking- he pleaded and he remonstrated.

Ar. He said so much? What did he say?

An. He said so much. The words he didn't speak turned to bribing distortions. Images were on his closed lips.

Ar. But we were so young.

An. His mouth didn't move. He pleaded without looking into our faces.

Ar. A martyr.

An. A martyr? There is no martyrdom without a cause.

Ar. He had no cause.

An. He didn't.

Ar. I dreamt that we walked up a gilded silver staircase-

An. you didn't dream that.

Ar. In- it seems so faded- in some cathedral or temple. I remember no one was around and the stairs didn't make a sound as though they had been expecting us, as though they lay in wait for our shoes. We opened a hatch leading to the roof where the bell-tower rose above us like our future and I think we were happy-

An. You did not dream this in your sleep!

Ar. I did and the hatch was so heavy-

An. You are a child still.

Ar. I'm always a child in my sleep. When I dream I haven't yet been born.

An. It wasn't a goddamn dream, Ariel.

Ar. Andreas-

An. Are you dreaming now?

Ar. No. I'm not. I remember everything that happens in my sleep.

An. ...

Ar. ... And I don't recall having met you.

An. You are still a child.

Ar. The great turrets of the bell-tower were the holiest things I had ever seen. I think he was standing on the edge of the roof- he was staring up at the bells, too. He didn't notice as we approached. When he jumped-

An. He did not jump.

Ar. You can't know.

An. I know that he did not jump.

Ar. He jumped.

An. He leaned over the ledge like a statue contemplating its conquests- looking up at the bell-tower- then down- so far down below that its distance was immeasurable.

Ar. No.

An. He must have recognized someone down there on the street because he smiled for an instant and opened his mouth to say something.

Ar. he didn't say anything.

An. He said nothing and slowly curled his lips shut.

Ar. What did he say?

An. I've told you he didn't speak. We spoke for him.

Ar. He said-

An. We whispered about immortality. We muttered his thoughts behind his back.

Ar. He didn't notice us.

An. Perhaps not. Perhaps he did and wanted us to save him.

Ar. We saved him.

An. Yes... The only salvation is memory decay... After that...

Ar. After that?

An. After that again and again and again. We are doomed to salvation or salvaged in our damnation.

Ar. Nothing is contradictory.

An. It just so happens that everything is contradictory.

Ar. his hands were fumbling in his pockets- a golden watch flashing intermittently in and out of the sun with each pulse of his wrist. Then-he-he-took-

An. He took his hands from his pockets.

Ar. And when he fell-

An. I pushed him over the edge- my hands reached into his back to-

Ar. And when he fell he-

An. You pushed my clutching hands into him, Ariel. You forced my hands to lower him onto the cold sidewalk.

Ar. I- We were there to save him.

An. you pushed me into him- you were staring at that god-forsaken bell-tower- you didn't see where you were going.

Ar. That's not it. That isn't what happened..

An. You've dreamed the finale in a differing context?

Ar. You pushed him the split second beginning his descent. You tried to convince me along to the ledge but I refused to follow.

An. We never saw his face.

Ar. You and I are accomplices in his death.

An. Yes. Accomplices in a suicide.

Ar. The stairs creaked when we went down them. Our intention was so different when looking back to that day. We did, indeed, with the persuasion of our wills, intend upon his destruction.

An. That golden watch catches my eye even now. I can see it glimmer.

Ar. We're back here again. The same roof. We haven't changed at all.

An. we've changed completely. We are new this time around.

Ar. Do you have a dime, Andreas?

An. I have a quarter.

Ar. Listen---------- Did you hear it fall?

An. I heard nothing.

Ar. Nor will you up here.

An. This happens to be the end.

Ar. It does.

An. As a child, I spoke as a child- I listened as a child would listen, with hope in his breath, and heard things I will not forget.

Ar. Youth brought us here and maturity brings us back- compels our feet to linger on the edge. We probably killed a man here while his fall brings us here again. I stepped to the edge, determining my salvation in hundreds of useless worlds. We grow old, terrible and constant in a forever resembling recurrence- each with ivory white knuckles based in reality and loosely founded in rigid fabrications. My future lay before me on the pavement, struggling to reverse, struggling to synthesize with heaven or something in its image; struggling even to struggle. I thought of the height- I precipitated the fall-

An. And when I jumped I did not land. We no longer resemble our faces.

(Silence for twenty seconds until the sound of one pair of retreating footsteps is heard.
Lights.
Curtain is drawn to reveal an empty stage.)

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