Scene 1
An urban street in New Jersey. Vishnu, the Preserver, is incarnated as an opium user who crouches over his pipe. Another opium addict and resident homeless man, Rajeev, is sitting next to him. Rajeev knows that his friend claims to be Vishnu, but he doesn’t believe him or really care.

Vishnu: The past plagues me, every moment that has existed or will exist, it oppresses me. Because it does exist.

Rajeev: The present oppresses me, my friend. Look at us, look at what we have been reduced to.

Vishnu: Yes. This moment is has its problems. The earth has ceased to be able to support herself, her streets are crowded with the desperate. And you seem to have lost hope, my friend. Drugs and crime control our country. The world seems to have left us behind. But this state is the end of two millennia of history. And that is what weighs on my mind today. If only things had been different…

Rajeev: How can you concern yourself with such matters? I, for one, am hungry. starving. Can we get some food somewhere?

Vishnu: You don't understand. Each moment, this moment, is wrapped in the every second of the past, it is entwined. And, from the perspective of the gods, it is all happening now. I see us talking the same as I see everything that has happened, or will happen.

Rajeev: How will I die?

Vishnu: You couldn't handle the knowledge, my friend. It is for your safety that I can't tell you

Rajeev: That's for me to decide. How do I die?

Vishnu: The opium will kill you.

Rajeev: Seems reasonable. A good guess, I suppose. Takes a hit

Vishnu: Your attitude is good, pious, my friend. Death is not to be feared. It is a beginning.

Rajeev: But then how can the past bother you? the past is death, the death of the past is natural.

Vishnu: There is no denying that, my friend. But there was one time when the natural order was threatened, when even death would have been corrupted. And because there was one time, that time is this time and every other time between.

Rajeev: unenthusiastic, humoring his friend Really?

Vishnu: It began when the demons attacked the earth to fight the Gods for it's dominion. They were led by the demon Raktabija, who, through practicing austerity had been granted a boon.

Rajeev: What boon?

Vishnu: That every time a drop of his blood spilled on the mortal earth, his power would increase and there would spring up another clone of Raktabija, equally powerful. In this fashon, his power would increase during battle.

Rajeev: And how did he plan to take over the world?

Vishnu: Through death.


Scene 2
The bedroom of Drupada, queen of the Pandavas, she of seven husbands. She lies asleep. The demon Raktabija enters and stands over her, with her blade drawn. She wakes up

Drupada: Screams Out! Who are you? Get out of my room!

Raktabija: I am Raktabija, king of the demons, and soon to be king of your domain, my queen.

Drupada: Beast!

Raktabija: It may be so, but I have more power than you. You may die. Or you may come with me, and continue to be queen of your country. My queen. My beauty. I would offer everything to you. The world.

Drupada: You have nothing to offer me. I would refuse to ever be complicit in your malevolance

Raktabija: Whore! You will be mine. Climbs on her bed, and stands over her, his legs over her. Do you have anyone to say goodbye to?

Drupada: My husbands. Are off in battle.

Raktabija: Drupada, mine, the sons of Pandu are dead. your husbands are dead.

Drupada: Kurus have been victorious?

Raktabija: As we speak, I slaughter the kurus; my other selves invade the palace of Dharasthra. You will know my power

Drupada: And so, how have my husbands, unparalleled warriors, fallen? Surely no common man could defeat the cunning of Arjuna, the strength of Bhima?

Raktabija: Don't lie to yourself, my queen. You know that it was I who spilt the final blood of the Pandavas, ere I came into your presence.

Drupada: Evil beast! Scum! you bloodthirsty animal, you've taken my husbands Breaks down into tears

Raktabija: Why do you morn for your earthly existence. I, who know all, know that this life is a lie, my queen. You have no reason to believe your reality, thus it is silly to be attached to it. It is your lust that created your fantasy of your husbands.

As he speaks, blood begins to flow down his left arm, seemingly out of no where.

Raktabija: blood flows again. Lifts his hand to his mouth, tastes the blood Blood sustains me, drives me, my queen, it births me again and again. My power, my heart. Now come away with me.This is the blood of Bhisma, military advisor to the Kurus, most noble of warriors. I have just slain him in his harem, in his land. Ask me how I can be killing elsewhere while I am here with you.

Drupada: because you are a liar, full of hypocrisy, pride and arrogance

Drupada is in anguish beyond words. In a sudden fit, Drupada draws a dagger and sits suddenly, stabbing him in the chest Raktabija. Raktabija stands stoically and allows Drupada to make a large cut in his chest. Blood pours out of his breast.

Raktabija: Blood births me, my heart. The gods will thank you for your sacrifice.

As Raktabija's blood flows to the earth and touches the ground, it forms a perfect clone of the demon. There are now two identical Raktabijas. They both stand over her, facing each other

Raktabija: Both simultaneously: Release your fantasy of existence

They both raise large blades, and simultaneously bring them down on Drupada, killing her.

Fade out

Scene 3
Within the chronology of the play, this scene happens simultaneously with the last one. If you are directing this play, come up with a way to convey that. The Pandava brothers huddle around the hatchback of an old-school boxy yellow Volvo in an empty parking lot outside of a suburban strip mall in New Jersey. They're high-school age kids. Yudusthira “Yud” is the oldest. He is Hispanic. Then Bhima, a portly Black youth, gets out. Then Arjuna, a large black kid wearing a do-rag. The twins, Nakula and Shadheva, actual brothers, lanky kids, mostly silent. Nakula's reading a book. A few of them are smoking cigarettes. Shadheva’s rolling a blunt.

Bhima: Where's Draupadi?

Yud: I donno. I tried callin her, but she didn't answer.

Arjuna: Man, that girl's so hot.

Yud: I know, man. Trust me, I know.

Bhima: Whatcha reading, Nakula?

Nakula: Doesn't look up Charles Dickens. For class. I got a paper due tomorrow, man, and I ain't read the book.

Arjuna: See, man, that's like what I was telling you earlier. Now why the hell do we gotta read Charles Dickens for school?

Nakula: It's literature, man.

Arjuna: It's white man’s literature, right? How's that book gonna help you live on the street?

Nakula: It's about living on the street, an orphan boy.

Arjuna: But an English street, not even an American one. This shit has no relevance to me. Fuck it. I ain't gonna read it, straight up.

Yud: Cell phone rings. He pickes it up: huh? yeah, you wanna meet up? You should. I'm just chillin with the boys. Outside of the outlet mall, Big & Tall, you know what I'm sayin’? Cool. See you in a sec. Hangs up, says to Arjuna Draupadi's on her way here.

Arjuna: good, good.

Shadheva sparks the blunt.
Bhima: This that heady nug we got last week?

Shadheva: That, mixed in with some mersh Nakula picked up from that pusher, Jack.

Draupadi rides up on a moped. She's beautiful, and Indian, not like the boys who are black but randomly and inexplicably have Indian names.

Yud: My girl! wazzup, how you doin'?

Draupadi: She looks worried bout the same, you know They embrace

Arjuna: 'Sup, Drap? You aight? you look a little disturbed

Draupadi: Yeah, well, yeah actually. My dad got arrested this morning.

Yud: Oh, shit. For what?

Draupadi: Possession. Of weed. But that was two months ago. He didn't show for his court date, I guess. So this morning, he was driving on the turnpike, and got pulled over. Cop arrested him, searched the car, found five grams of coke. I don't know what the fuck he was doing with coke, Yud. You know him. You know he's no cokehead.

Yud: disturbed. That's right. shit, man. hits the blunt. Listen, I'm sorry. I don't really know to say, you know how that is? Can I help?

Draupadi: Let me hit that blunt. Pass it, hit it.

Suddenly, a cop car comes skidding into the parking lot. Just for the sake of being explicit, the police force is the modern day reincarnation of Raktabija. Makes sense, right? Two white cops get out of the car. Draupadi flicks the blunt, and it lands, still smoking, under the car.

Cop 1: What're you kids up to.

Yud: Just being law abiding citizens, sir. Practicing our right to free assembly.

Cop 2: Yeah, sure, kid. Can I see some ID?

Arjuna: You can't just ask for our ID's like that, we don't have to show them to you. Legally. You need a reason

Cop 1: We got reason, you loitering in the mall parking lot. This ain't your home, boy, you got no right to be here. Where you live?

Yud: 35th street.

Cop 2: what's that I smell?

silence

Cop 1: Smells like the Mary Jane to me, sergeant.

Cop 2: Yeah. You boys been toking a little reefer?

Bhima: Get out of here, pigs.

Cop 1: We will, just as soon as you hand over the marijuana

Cop 2: Just give it to us, and you won’t get in trouble

Arjuna: Yeah, right. may we leave now, officer?

Cop 1: Are you going to make us search you?

Arjuna: get away from me.

Cop 1: Come here Takes Arjuna, frisks him, empties his pockets, finds nothing.

Cop 2 approaches Draupadi. Yuddhistra gets in between him and her.

Yud: Don't touch her.

Cop 2 advances

Yud: Back off feeling threatened, and manly, he strikes the policeman in the chest

Cop 2: Oh, shit, kid, now you got it. Strikes him with the billyclub, Yud fights back, but is overpowered by the police

Drupadi reaches inside her coat

Cop 1: Shit, she's got a gun!

Two shots are heard. Draupadi falls to the ground.

Silence.

Yud: You killed my girlfriend. You motherfukers. You fucking killed my girlfriend.

Cop: To his partner: Oh, shit, seargant. This ain't gonna be easy to dig ourselves out of. You boys stay here. We’ll go get the authorities.

Arjuna: Gee, we thought you were authorities.

Cops leave hastily, sirens blaring. The lighting changes color to make the scene a little less real.

Yud: They’ve taken everything now. What the fuck to I have left? What do I have to live for?

Arjuna: Only to obey.

Yud: To obey…

Bhisma: To obey the orders of an organized economy

Yud: To obey the greyness, to find a deskjob

Arjuna: to obey my phallus, find another woman to put my seed in

Yud: we'll spend night after night following our testicles around

Bhisma: from darkened streets and sickening parties; shallow selves centered obeying only animal noises

Yud: looking for satisfaction.

Ambulance sirens are heard offstage.

Arjuna: getting more angry obey finally fucked green tile floor. obey linoleum, bottles of holy beer obey and release yourself into debauchery between the lines, allowed rebellion, freak with no consequences. selves bind to selves excluding watchers, dreamers, stoners.

Yud: We will maintain, my brothers.

Bhisma: We will graduate. High school will end.

Pause

Shadheva: meekly When will we fight back?

Arjuna: They fucking killed Draupadi.

Bhisma: Why obey? Your complacency, Yuddhisthra, your complacency is an evil, an opiate. When will you make your mark if not now? They fucking killed your girlfriend.

Fade out

Scene 4
The Pandava brothers are at Bustop, the local strip owned by Nakula and Shadheva’s father. He doesn’t really care that his kids take their friends into the club, they just can’t drink. Kali dances on the stage (poledance)
Yuddhusthra: So that’s her?

Nakula: Yeah.

Bhisma: What does a stripper know of the battle for justice?

Shadheva: She's been at it all her life. She's seen everyone she loves die. And she's so young.

Arjuna: and so hot.

Nakula: She calls herself the goddess of death.

Yuddhustrha: And she can kill the demon?

Nakula: She can kill anybody. With her gaze.

Arjuna: And her breasts.

Shadheva: No, she kills them with her hands.

As part of her ‘dance,’ Kali takes out a large blade—a folding knife. She turns her back to the onlookers, and uses the blade to cut a deep gash in her shoulder. she lets a member of the audience, who paid her, lick the blood off her shoulder.

Arjuna: Damn.

Yuddhusthra: I said goddamn.

Nakula: You're lucky. She only does this act once a month or thereabouts.

Bhima: Sure. You wouldn't want a scarred stripper.

Arjuna: Whatever, man. I'd take one.

Nakula: I can't talk to her. Dad won't let us.

Kali finishes, stands up and walks off the stage.

Yuddhusthra: I can. I'll talk to her.

He walks offstage after her.

Fade out



Scene 5
The Demon is battling the townspeople and wreaking havock. There are constantly more incarnations of the demon as his blood spills on the ground. The townspeople are getting killed. Suddenly, the Goddess Kali, dressed as she is traditionally (four arms, holding a blade, a severed head, adorned with a belt of limbs and severed heads. Black skin—not black like African, but black the color. Long tongue. Black hair. Lots of red in her costume), comes riding out on a tiger. Her eyes blaze red. Immediately, the battle stops and the townspeople flee to the other side of the stage. They prostrate themselves before the goddess. All the incarnations of the Demon also prostrate themselves, and then they all flow back into the original demon, reunifying him. The demon prostrates himself directly in front of the Goddess’s tiger, kissing the ground.

Raktabija: looking up, avoiding the eyes of the goddess Kali, my goddess, most fearsome mother, queen of death. I worship you, I exist from you, you are my birth and my purpose, I am your servant. How may I serve you?

Kali: Lowly demon, your existence is jealousy and avarice. You kill, but only I am death.

Raktabija: I lay my sacrifices at your feet, my mother.

Kali: I need nothing of you. To me, you are a parasite.

Raktabija: Was I not sprung from your womb?

Kali: My womb was never polluted with the seed of a demon. You are of that miserable race of demons, jealous of the power of Gods and lustful after their dominion. Only through your destruction can balance be obtained.

Raktabija: Destruction, my mother, destruction. You who are death know that destruction is only a fleeting glimmer, a moment in the cosmic cycle. With each moment of death, with each wound inflicted, I gain strength, my mother. I gain your strength from my spilled blood.

Kali: To pulverize you, to rip you out of existence, that is my duty. That the cycle will begin again, that is inevitable.

Raktabija: My mother, you realize not what you say. To destroy me is to destroy yourself for we feed off of each other as we are each other. You are death and I am a killer. Violence begets violence, and death is death.

Kali: And you shall then become one with me, I shall bear you back to the spirit realm.

Raktabija: Trying to hide fear No! I do your bidding on this plane. I am your servant. allow me this existence.

Kali: You seek domination, I am not blind. You seek the world of humans.

Raktabija: Humans are stupid, you can see that. Completely unenlightened, living fantasy lives, inventing their own reality as they go. They are totally imprisoned in time; they see neither where they have been nor where they are going. They are paralyzed with attachment to the world, fear of their mortal death. That is why they fear me, because they are attached to their bodies, a fantasy. What arrogance they must have, to simply assume that because their own eyes see a world that it truly exists! They grant themselves too much and have no perspective. The world is nothing like they think it is.

Kali: And you are arrogant enough to think that you know the truth, that you have perspective.

Raktabija: Because I know death, I know death well.

Kali: You are ignorant.

Raktabija: I know that all that is will not be. I know that bodies meet their ends. It is the natural way of things.

Kali: Is it natural to be killed as a child by your heartless minions?

pause. Raktabija looks behind him, as if looking for support or for his minions

Kali: You are delusional, heartless, and arrogant. You believe you have power because you can kill, you believe in your supremacy because your blood is rage. You are powerless because you will never change the eternal order. That of the non-existent there is no coming to be, of the existent there is no coming to be. Your destruction has no effect on this, and that is why you are simply irrelevant.

Raktabija: You are so sure of yourself, that you know what exists and what does not. You’ve surrendered yourself to illusion.

Kali: I am an incarnation of the universal, of the eternal. I am a God—I am one of the many faces of Devali, I am submerged in the ocean of the godhead, the endless source of all existence, and I see all spread out at my feet. The eternal destroyer, the great Siva, is my husband.

Rakatabija: The god's reign will end, and soon. As you were born so will you be murdered, the cycle will begin again

Kali: I am the cycle.

Rakatabija: I am become death, destroyer of worlds.

Prepares himself, and rushes at Kali, his blade raised. Kali opens her mouth. Out of her mouth issues her infinite tongue, which covers the earth on which Rakatabija stands. This takes away his super power because his blood is no longer spilling on the earth but instead on her tongue.

Kali: I drink your death
raises her blade and cuts Raktabija deeply across the shoulder
and bathe my inner self
Strike
in your
Cuts off his arm
viscous evil blood.

Raktabija is standing, bleeding profusely, on Kali’s tongue.

Kali: and with every drop that you spill

Raktabija: I'm growing weaker

Kali: I consume your strength.

Slices his legs, he falls

Kali: You return to me, the source of your idea.

Raktabija: losing strength In destroying me you give me new life. You give me the power of your eternal body.

Kali delivers the final blow, and cuts of Raktabija's head. Then, she consumes his body, and drinks the blood that has pooled on her tongue.

Kali lets out a long, animalistic scream, that fades away long after the lights are dimmed


Scene 6
Kali's scream at the end of the last scene can still be heard fading. The setting is the Strip Club, where the Modern Kali dances onstage. She’s clothed enough to conceal a handgun. Vishnu and Rajeev, and the five Pandava brothers are there in the crowd. She suddenly stops dancing, and screams

Kali: Turn that fucking music off! To audience What are you all?!? Slaves! fucking Slaves, Slaves to your testicles, dirty eyes glued on my body, what do you get out of watching me prostitute myself? I'm giving no fucking handjobs here. I'm not getting you off. That's your job, don't try to pass that shit off on me. Pulls a small handgun out of her bra, begins waving it at the men in the bar. You disgust me. You disgust me when I see you hearding yourselves through the streets, strangled by cheap suits, only obeying to the whims of your fucking tiny balls, do you think this is life? you were built to obey, to obey your bosses. obey the economy.

Someone in the bar: Will someone get that bitch under control?

Kali: You are under control, you fucking cunt. My control now. Nobody come near me, don't fucking pollute me. I am your salvation, I am the final answer. This is for the lowest depths

Two shots ring out. A man in a suit falls to the ground

Kali: This is for the third rail, the deepest subway cataclysms

Another shot. Nakula falls

Kali: For the fucking present moment, the here and now shot Shadheva falls The present, waiting in some quivering anticipation, for some orgastic future Shot, Random guy in bar falls The future holds only death, for which the present waits, wallowing in it's own cum, for a moment's reprieve, a second to take a breath Shot, Yuddhustrha dies a moment to fight back. This is your moment to fight back, and I'll take it Shot, death Rage, Rage against the dying of the light! Rage, Rage, do not go gently into that good night! Shot, Death

There is now chaos in the club, people running out. Kali leaps off the stage and begins biting people, ripping off their skin, soaking herself with blood. Really make this as graphic as possible. This is the goddess of Death going on a rampage here. Don’t hold back.

Kali: between moments of violence If the sewers run green, the plants are bleeding under my fists, poisoning asphalt to grow hallucination-forests in the dreamful anarchist future. Death My future. Death your future is mine! Death And some were born to endless night.

Scene 7
The battlefield in ancient India where Kali has defeated the demon. However, now there are bodies strewn about, both demon and of townspeople. Kali is the only living thing on the stage. She walks among the bodies, ripping off limbs and heads, and adorning herself with them. She makes a belt out of severed arms and puts heads around her neck. She smiles to herself.

Fade out.

   [ POSTED BY Jed @ 11:16 AM ] [ ]

If you are in providence this upcoming weekend, come to WORD!--a poetry performance. It'll be at Rites and Reason theater on Angell Street on Thursday the 13th, Friday the 14th and Saturday the 15th at 8:00

   [ POSTED BY Jed @ 12:26 PM ] [ ]

Another play. If you only have time to read one of them, scroll down and read the Oct. 1st post.

Alex and Bey sit at the table in an apartment's kitchen. It's a dirty kitchen.

Alex: Death comes with immediacy. We are slaves to the idea of time that leads you to death.

Bey: I got a pomegranate yesterday. It's my new favorite fruit.

Alex: And then time is manufactured by society and injected into you at the same time that the myth of cohesive consciousness is injected into your sense of self. The lies at the center of our lives.

Bey: your time is absolute, and so's mine. Different, maybe, though.

Alex: Are you hungry?

Bey: you live from one moment to the next, lusting after each one, slaughtering and dismissing the present.

Alex: Yeah, and you?

Bey: humble immortality, this moment here and forever.

Alex: You're delusional.

Bey: beer and cigarettes, for example. The only worthwhile investment, right? Gone in a night. The present, baby.

Alex: consume. Yes, master, consume.

Bey: It's the only thing you can have any power over—the present, your mouth.

Alex: You eat what you are fed. Do you like Oreos, Bey? Gorditas?

Bey: hey, capitalism is delicious.

Alex: That logic feeds the system

Bey: You don't understand me, not yet. It's not logic, Alex. Fuck logic. It's hedonism, the only meaning we can find in postcapitalism is in hedonism. Be a glutton.

Alex: Anything produced on an assembly line will taste like plastic to me. Let's get tacos.

Bey: You're a hypocrite.

Alex: We all are. We've had this discussion.

Bey: sure, sure. Where do we get tacos? There's no Mexican food on Thayer street, remember?

Alex: There's no Mexican food in providence, as far as I know.

Bey: I've got rice and beans. And they're free to you, cheap to me.

Alex: Let's do it. What you got to throw in there?

Bey: Tofu, peppers—let's make a stirfry with it.

Alex: Fine. You’re in charge. Can I help?

Bey: It's sort of a one man kitchen, we'd be bumping asses. Here, cut this pepper for me. Hands her a pepper

Bey: Singing
Red beans and Rice
Red beans and Rice
Ah could eat a plate twice.

Bey: You know why you can't buy beans and rice on Thayer street or anywhere like that?

Alex: I know what I think, but what do you want to say bout it?

Bey: It's because it'd be a terrible business move, at least in America. You'd haveta sell it cheap, because it's rice and beans, and then everyone would buy it because it's delicious. It's really all the food anyone needs, right? so then they wouldn't buy the other shit, the stuff you can make a profit on.

Alex: I thought it was cause the bougey (As in bourgeoisie) brown kids were too good for beans an rice.

Bey: This product is actually too good to be sold under capitalism. It's my favorite food in the world. It's sustainable. It'll always be delicious

Alex: whenever you make it.

Bey: granted. I've got some experience with the beans and rice.

Alex: It won't be your favorite food when you're thirtyfive with kids.

Bey: And I'll be well on my way to death, right?

Alex: and you'll be working a desk job.

Bey: aw, hell no.

Alex: And you'll be living each day like yesterday and tomorrow

Bey: you think life ends at twenty five, don't you? Well, when I'm thirtyfive, forty, I'll be living my life, whatever it is, man. I hope it doesn't suck. And if it does, I'll change it.

Alex: What, just pick up and leave a family and a job?

Bey: Whatever the situation calls for. Hopefully my family won't be that bad.

Alex: Families can be bad, man.

Bey: That's why I'm not going to marry you. Or even sleep with you, by the way. Just so you know.

Alex: You make it sound like that's your decision

Bey: When we were first hanging out, you were singing a different tune.

Alex: Whatever. Pig.

Bey: You like mushrooms, right?

Alex: no.

Bey: Well, I just put a lot in there. You've got terrible taste in food, by the way.

Alex: I just don't like mushrooms, or cheese.

Bey: Now, there's your problem. Two foods that you can always add to food and it'll increase the deliciousness, guaranteed. Mushrooms are like islands of juicy flavor in food, like an oasis in a desert of rice and beans.

Alex: Whatever. I'll pick them out.

Bey: It's just an excuse not to eat all of your food.

Alex: Come on.

Bey: I'm just looking out for you. I hate eating disorders. Actually, I don't mind them in the abstract, but you? you should be above that.

Alex: You don't know what it feels like, you don't know how deep it runs.

Bey: Sure, I don't. Food is really fundamental to my worldview, you know that. We live to eat.

Alex: And that's why an eating disorder is so hard to overcome, because it was born in a fundamental rejection of your worth as a human being. A denial of existence.

Bey: That makes some sense to me. Don't think I’m not empathic about it, it's the worst thing and it's not your fault.

Alex: But you don't realize how men feed it, and you don't do anything about it.

Bey: what do you want me to do? Men are almost entirely sexual beings. And they'll find attractive whatever society has taught them to find attractive.

Alex: whatever. I'm eating fine these days.

Bey: Good. Here, let's eat this.

They set out the pot on the table, scrounge for a few cleanish plates

Alex: Do you have any juice?

Bey: Tang.

Alex: I'll have water.

Bey: here's the hot sauce.

They eat in silence for a time, Bey eating quickly and with relish (hot sauce, actually), Alex eating at a slightly slower than normal pace, drinking a lot of water. At one point, Alex gets up to refill the Brita filter.

Bey: Can I have your mushrooms?

Alex: Here you go. I think I'm sick, though.

Bey: me, too. Who is healthy at college? I get sick at the beginning of the semester, and then just stay vaguely unhealthy all the way through.

Alex: The torpor of daily life, classes. Also, dorms are cesspools of the nasty.

Bey: delicious nastiness...freshmen...

Alex: what?

Bey: I said nothing. mumbling again.
They eat

Alex: I was walking down the street today, and I realized something.

Bey: Momentous. Groundbreaking. What did you realize?

Alex: How much bad genetics we are burdened with. Most people should not be allowed to breed, that's the problem these days.

Bey: Really. And who is to decide who gets the right to breed?

Alex: I would, or anyone else who isn't blind. It isn't that hard.

Bey: Would I be able to breed?

Alex: Maybe. Sorta.

Bey: I thought it wasn't that hard.

Alex: Alright, you'd be allowed to breed. But not with me.

Bey: I wasn't asking. See, though? It gets harder to make that call when you know someone better. Which means that your initial decision is meaningless.

Alex: I'm a pretty good judge of character. You can tell a lot about someone from looking at them

Bey: Not enough to deny them the right to spread their seed

Alex: We're talking about pure genetics, here. Just cause someone is a nice person doesn't mean that their kids won't be wrecks. People can barely hold it together themselves, and then they have kids and almost always fuck it up. Each generation gets progressively more fucked up and crazy.

Bey: I think you're contradicting yourself, but I wasn't really listening hard enough.

Alex: You can tell, anyway. I can. Most people suck, Bey. Look at the masses of Americans. You can't find any redeeming quality. Look at mass media. These people lap that shit up. Reality television? Have you been to the movie theater recently?

Bey: People eat what they're given. Most people recognize that mass entertainment is drivel, but it's entertaining nonetheless. It's what our culture is selling to them, and, as products of our culture, they'll buy it.

Alex: And you don't think that this is a situation that should be changed?

Bey: It is whatever it is. Most people are at least well-intentioned, most people are able to keep themselves to themselves.

Alex: Well, they're always all up in my face, I don't know about you. You're too forgiving. These people are tools

Bey: Sure, they're being used by the power structure of society. And we are, too. We have a privliged position on that power structure, to the point we can ignore it or be disdainful of it, but we will help reproduce it in the next generation to come.

Alex: It's our decision, it's our lives, we can challenge it if we want.

Bey: And how are you going to do that? Revolution?

Alex: Art. And sterilizing rednecks.

Bey: Art? You're so delusional. Art is great, but all it effects is art. The masses won't see your art. You do art to change the way art is done, which has the potential to change some of the ideas that society operates on. But you're talking about sweeping political change. You're talking about a massive program of eugenics, here.

Alex: you're right. What we need is a dictatorship. Democracy is as flawed as the masses are.

Bey: We have something close to a dictatorship already. A small elite of assholes run the country, and there's no democracy about it. So we can choose one of two names on the ballot? big fucking deal, right? how did those names get on the ballot? It's like an election where Saddam Hussain gets a hundred percent of the vote.

Alex: But it depends on the quality of decision that gets made. we need a different dictatorship. One with balls.

Bey: mmm...balls...

Alex: What?

Bey: Being facetious. I think that we do a bad job listening to each other, Alex. We have the same fucking argument every time we hang out

Alex: That's probably true. I don't really listen to anyone but myself. It's not a bad thing, it just is.

Bey: Yeah. It must be fun to be the center of your world.

Alex: One should be the center of one's own world. We don't have anything except ourselves.
Bey gets up from the table, takes his plate and Alex's plate to the sink, puts away the extra food, and begins to do the dishes. Alex sits there.

Alex: Do you have dessert?

Bey: Fudgesickeles. Want one?

Alex: naw. Too cold. You should keep chocolate around.

Bey: Alright, I buy chocolate. Then I have chocolate around, and so I eat it. And then it's gone in a day, and I've eaten a bunch of chocolate, and I'm not really ahead of where I started. It's not worth the effort.

Alex: What're you doing tonight?

Bey: I'm just going to work, till bout 11, then I think I'll go over to David's and have a beer or something. You?

Alex: I've got to finish my sculpture tonight. I'll be up all night

Bey: as every night.

Alex: Well, I'm out, then. Thanks for the dinner, Bey

Bey: Any time.

Alex leaves. Bey turns to the sink and begins to do dishes. Fade out.

   [ POSTED BY Jed @ 1:25 PM ] [ ]

This is worth reading. It feels good to have finally created a peice of writing that I can tell you is worth reading--it's been years. It's nothing new for me, I've covered this territory before, but it's back.

A bum, Charlie, and Scott, a Brown University student, are squatting on their haunches in the abandoned masonic temple in downtown Providence (before it began to be renovated). Charlie is wearing a coonskin cap. Litter is strewn about the floor and the walls are covered with iridescent graffiti. Scott is shaking an orange spray paint can.

Charlie: Ya know this is my home, kid. Ya taking an adventure, right? where ya live, kid? ya go to school?

Scott: I live in a dorm, meeting street. Brown. sprays a long orange arc on the floor

Charlie: lotsa girlies, upa there at brown, eh? a daring exploration offa campus. mumbling: intrepid he's a motherfucker, intrepid intrepid adventurer, mah house, mah home. you got tobacco?

Scott: Nope.

Charlie: listen, kid, ya got no spirit, no character. ya cantt go through life a-likea that. ya know me, i been surviving for thirtyfive years, out cold in tha world, survivin by mah self, that takes spirit, ya know? ah got mah eyes failing on me, and ah got nuthin to live on, and sometimes ah dig through the trash and ah make mah belts out of the 'lectrical chords, ah ain't like you, goin to sum Brown University. ah know mahself, and ya ain't gots no idea who you are, do ya? ya have a purpose? Eat these. he takes out three little white squares—blotter paper. Here, put this unda ya tounge

Scott: Spraypainting, hell no.

Charlie: Ah, ya know ah wouldn't do anything to hurtya. Ya need this, ah see it, ah knowed it when ya first came heah. stands up, advances on Scott. We see that he is quite large

Scott: Stay away from me

Charlie: eat this. Ah'm givin you a present, heah, ah ain't got much to mah name, and ah'm tryin to sacrifice it tah you, don’t be ungreatful, prick

Scott: What is it?

Charlie: spirit-medicine. your eyes ah hungry, empty.

Scott: get away from me! Charlie advances on him, then suddenly knees him in the stomach, grabs his neck, forces his mouth open and inserts the blotter paper. Scott splutters. Charlie hits him across the head and Scott is knocked unconscious

The camera cuts away, and then slowly fades back in on a dark room. It’s the basement of the Masonic temple. There is a foot or so of dirty, murky water with an oil slick flooding the room. Scott is sprawled out, half in the water against the wall of the room. He begins to come to. Music plays: The End by the Doors

Lost in a Roman...wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah

Scott spasams, hits his head against the wall

Scott: Wha? whathafuck? ooohhhshit, ohgodogadogod. help! meekly help? something's trying to crawl up my nose

Charlie emerges from the darknes. Now he is wearing a raggedy narrow-brimmed fedora, and his voice has changed; now it's crisp and clear

Charlie: Your journey has now begun. You must trust me, or I cannot help you through it.

Scott: You asshole! what the fuck you doing to me? Stay the fuck away from me, I’ll hit you tries to stand up; he is very unsteady and looks nauseous uuurgh lurches toward Charlie as if to attack him-raises his fist scott tries to attack Charlie, but he is too unsteady and Charlie grabs his wrists and physically takes control of Charlie. He lays Charlie back down.


Charlie: You need this, I'm doing it for you, and I'd guide you through it

Scott: Things are moving in the darkness flying at me.

Charlie: What I gave you, three hits of pure LSD. Have you ever tripped before?

Scott: mushrooms.

Charlie: listen. if you fight the drug, it will kill you. If you fight the trip, it will kill you, or at least part of you. if you fight me, I will kill you. I am forcing you to have this experience, and I am guiding you through it. To survive, you must trust me, you must let me in to your mental space, to share in your trip. I have also dosed myself.

Scott: Your face…it's moving, spiraling. it's it's liquid, your nostril is growing, oh, god. I’m going to be sick.

Charlie: Stand up. I got something to show you Scott cowers in fear. You scared of me? You should be. Feel the fear enslave you, drive you, let it fuel you. Ride the beast. Ride the beast. Don't fight it, Scott. You are afraid, let yourself be afraid, if you fight it, you’ll get brain bubbles. Now STAND UP

Scott jerks to his feet, begins trying to run away from Charlie. His feet slip in the water, can’t find a purchase. He runs away, and Charlie lets him.

Scott: after some time running through the muck, stumbles, slows down to a walk breathing hard. what's happening to me right now? where am I? How did I get into this? I'm afraid. It’s ripping me apart, fear. I've always been feeling like this, I've felt this before. I've felt like this every day of my life. How do I know that? I've never known it before…but, I never thought I was feeling this, I've always known it before, never, I've never known this feeling before. But I know I've felt it every day of my life. Where is he? He? Who is He? Where did He disappear to? monsters…animals, what is that? peering into the darkness I think he’s trying to kill me. he's trying to kill me.

Scott trips on something. It is a stray dog, a big one. It growles and menaces, but does not bark

Scott: Oh, FUCK

Dog: growling rriide the beast, riiderrrriiide

Offstage Speakers whispering below the sound of the dog: ride the beast

Scott turns and runs the other direction, runs until he enters a sewer from which the murky water is flowing into the room.

Scott: tripping hard; he has a sickly, unmoving smile glued across his mouth ooohh, tunnel. tunnel. túnnel. toonell. tunnel. sewerspace…..a period of silence in which he walks forward through the sewer ohshit, he's still trying to kill me. he's still behind me, isn't he?...... I feel the tunnel breathing. in and out, breathing. deep, gratified sighs. sounds like a woman, after sex, in and out, afterglow, and I am in her tunnel, breathing. that makes sense, now, tunnel. I am in the tunnel of the city, penetrating it. hello providence, i penetrate you, i fuck you. afterglow. the sewers are veins, with shit for blood. it feeds on providence's shit, and lord knows, providence is shitty. i've known that providence is shitty since I moved here, and now I’m penetrating it’s shithole. our sewers hide what connects us, in our solitary backroom dreaming. our sewers allow abstraction in human encounters, allow us to disappear from ourselves. I can't look at your face, it overwhelms I and I. . our sewers wrap us together in dreamy abstraction. our faucets rip our outer skin off every morning, and pure waterfall flesh cannot hide behind dirt reality. my skin. he is trying to kill me, I’m going to die, I and I. I am plural, I am talking to myself because it needs to know what I am thinking. I am I abstracted, I and abstracted I.

Scott comes upon a ladder, and climbs up it. he opens up the manhole, which is just too small to climb out comfortably. He pushes his body up into it, gets his arms head and shoulders out and tries to squirm up.

Scott: The sewers give birth to I and I. the sewers birth me, fallopian tube shithole.
He emerges into the main hall of the Masonic temple. There are high ceilings, and light from the setting sun streams in through windows near the ceiling. On the wall he faces, there is a giant throne statue with a giant Masonic G symbol and other impressive shit. On the wall is a giant expressionistic representation of a nude woman, sexuality emphasized. Or whatever the set designer wants to do.

Scott, still on his hands and knees from climbing out of the sewer, looks up, awed, quivers, and falls on his face. he lays there for a moment, staring up at the ceiling.

Scott: I've hit the main nerve, I know it, command central, you understand. Men become gods in this room. I am god, god of this moment, god of myself. I am holy, my life will be eternally holy and I will be worshipped as Jesus. this is my burden, this is my burden, this is my duty. The price you pay for being god. ohshit, it's terrifying—I can’t do this, you know I just can't do this. Am I alone? he is trying to kill me, he is Satan, if I am god, but everyone is god, I am everyone. I know I am going to die at the end of this, this is it, the culmination of everything. this is the end. I'm scared to die. where is he? coming up behind me, always, he always has been, always will be, sneaking up behind me. Begins to jolt his head around and back, jerkily looking over his shoulders. Brie appears right in front of him, a girl with dark hair, his first girlfriend. It doesn't matter if she's real.

Scott: Brie! Brie Lehman? what are you doing here? oh, god, am I imagining you? you...you’re beautiful, you haven’t changed.

Brie: I'm here, take me

Scott: my taste in women has gotten worse since you, Brie. Touch, my touch, my feel, I never stopped feeling you, Brie. Sex, love, my body egresses and entrances, I become a worm eating the soil of human flesh and leaving behind me a trail of the same. I become eros. You want me.

Brie: fuck you. narcissistic prick, you have to self aggrandize in order to justify yourself. fucking parasite. you march toward the death of the masses, you and every one like you are small time hitlers doing your part in the holocaust of time. You are a parasite of sickness, a flying demagogue of capitalism. You have freedom, your parents bank accounts and your shiny degree guarantee it. Do you know where I am? Do you smell the vomit on my breath?

Scott the acid is beginning to peak: uhhh….vomit? rooocket. oh god. can I touch your arm?

Brie and Scott suddenly and very jerkily kiss. Suddenly a wheelchair rushes up (can it rush up from beneath her), and she sits down in it suddenly and hard. Her head rolls to the side and rests on her shoulder, and her eyes look vacant, as if she just passed out. Charlie appears behind her, cleanshaven, wearing a bowlerhat, carrying a briefcase, and smoking a cigar, maybe.

Charlie: Is that your thing? would you have sex with a girl in a wheelchair? A fucking gimp? Is that what you’ve come to?

Scott: whimpers why am I sitting in a wheelchair? where did this come from?

Charlie: You are encased in cement, in the navel of urban desolation. You are a shard broken off from a long lost humanity, you are alone. this room was built right before the stock market crashed in '29, it was built in loss, suffering for some mystic elite, the kind of guys today who lock themselves in sportscars and jerk off in their pinstripe suits

Scott: I feel myself vibrating.
Scott: I gotta get out of here, I’m going to die, I gotta get out of this.

Charlie: don't fight it, kid. Don’t fight me. You want to go somewhere else? you want to go outside? I got somewhere for you, you'll fell better.

Scene changes. Now Scott and Charlie are standing on the roof of the temple. Providence is in the distance, sitting there and being shitty as it tends to do. Charlie has changed hats again. He’s wearing a felt long-brim brown fedora.

Charlie: You are talking to a human being now. I exist. Do you give a shit about that? does that enter your narcissistic little universe?

Scott is way beyond words, looks at Charlie.

Charlie: I've been where you are. You know you're here still, you'll listen to me. Do you give a shit who I am? I asked you to trust me earlier. I worked in providence, I wore a white shirt every day. Sometimes I wore khakis. Sometimes black pants. When I felt wild, I wore a Looney Toons tie. I had a boss. I had 'supervisees.' I wasn’t sure if that was a real word or not, though. By real, I mean noncorporated, unamerican. Supervisees. They were peons. I was a peon. I think they may have done something all day. Made things. I’m not sure. I know I didn't. Sometimes I came by their cubicles and 'reminded' them about that report. I smiled, which made me insecure. I have bad teeth, and every time I open my mouth, I feel like eyes are in my empty gullet looking into my blank, 8 ½ by 11 soul. I clean up a little bit. Some people, some people should have the right to decide who deserves the privilege of living, you know? I got a good judge of character, and I know what we need, as a society. I ain't gonna breed, because I know that's what we, as a collective, need. Me, I'm celibate. I skullfuck the American Dream. My testes are lit up green. I kill the already dead. The faceless. The middle managers like me.
Someone reached down my open mouth with a pen and drew a picture on my soul. It was just a pastoral landscape. And when they took their hand out, I went to get more orders from my boss, and I let his eyes into my mouth. And the fresh ink, the nice landscape, reached out, grabbed his eyes, and doused them in stomach acid.
What I'm trying to say, is I shot him in the face with my shotgun. And now I’m an angel, a killer. And now here you are.

Scott: aah, shit.

Charlie: Now I don't know you, and you're just a kid. you're an arrogant prick who doesn't appreciate his own privilege, a sucker on society, maybe, but maybe you'll get out of school and use your degree for something meaningful. maybe you'll do someone some inch of good. is that your plan, punk-ass kid?

Scott: Scared i'm worthwhile.

Charlie: You're tripping face, and you're oozing mendacity. you can't hide from me.

Scott: I have all the power, right now. You are fear, you are my fear. I own you.

Charlie: Feel the fear building in you, ripping away at your consciousness. I feel you fighting me. You can not beat me.

Scott: I cannot overcome you. I'm going to die…I have to resist…I'm dying. Scott utters a grunt that turns into a guttural scream, and launches himself at Charlie. Charlie attacks low and Scott ends up on top of him.

Scott: Ride the beast

Charlie stands up suddenly, launching Scott over the railing and down, falling the six stories down to the sidewalk next to the mall. Charlie stands silhouetted in his hat, while The Doors song plays.

Silhouette: This is death, the drug does not lie. My spirit is broken. I must go west.

Jim Morrison: The west, the west is the best.

Silhouette: Deep in the west, where daily God died, where daily the imperialism of fear ran men's lives, where the middle passage reaches its end in eternal slavery.

Jim Morrison: This is the end, the only end, my beautiful friend.

Slowly he turns around, and we see that somehow it’s actually Scott wearing Charlie’s hat. He turns to walk out. He leaves the rooftop and walks through the anteroom where he first met Charlie. There is a figure huddled in the corner of the room, a bum wearing a coonskin hat. It is, of course, Charlie, passed out in a drunken stupor. Scott exits the stage, and the real Charlie stirs himself

Charlie: now, where did that fuckin kid get off to?

   [ POSTED BY Jed @ 1:19 PM ] [ ]