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 ] [ ]