A man adrift in a metaphorical sea; A Moon proves himself to be decent, while still being an asshole; A Triage.

*

Part The 1st:

Looking up, he sees an expanse akin to the face of revelation.
Bright and shining, cold and alive. He thinks that he might look down, look away; perhaps toward his own chest, so that he might watch as it bobs up and down beneath the surface of warm, salty water. If he were to look hard enough, he thinks, he might even see how fast his heart is beating; the way it sends a driving tremor up through the surface of his skin, making a tiny, precious ripple in the sea. But he won’t look. He can’t.
He knows it, too.

There are stars above his head. More than he had ever known with his dullard eyes, taking command of the world there-was-to-know by way of white fires in the sky and blurry doppelgängers in the reflective surface of the gently swaying water. The darkness is here, but the light is all around. He thinks it’s peaceful. It barely moves.
He thinks it’s frightening. It is lonely and devastating.
He thinks it’s quiet. It is.
Oh, it is.

He closes his eyes and tries to listen. There is little wind, right now, and the sounds of the waves are negligible at best. He wishes that they would come down hard, that they would crash around him as if he were the screaming heart of a gale -- he wishes that this was not this place. He wishes that there were motion, right here, right now. He wishes there were things to see. There are, of course. But he wishes nonetheless.

He opens his eyes once more, and looks around. Looking up, he considers those stars again, the way they have meaning in their meaningless fashion. He wishes he could be calm, he wishes many, many, many things. The man pushes his head beneath the surface, and listens to the echo of the sea.


Curtains fall across the scene.

*
*

SCENE TWO.

(There is NOTHING here. Nothing at all. A man, a FELLOW is sitting there in the harsh spot of the single light. As he sits there, he looks up…he looks…he looks up. And then, as if it were natural -- because it is natural -- THE MOON descends from the sky and sits down next to him, glowing with luminous sadness. The fellow turns and gives the moon the slightest of non-committal nods.)

THE FELLOW: Well then.

THE MOON: I suppose so.

THE FELLOW: Is there anything that might be done?

THE MOON: I suppose so.

(He looks over in an irritated fashion, as it would appear that the moon is kind of an asshole. Naturally.)

THE FELLOW: You’re kind of an asshole.

THE MOON: Naturally.

(The moon pulls some beef jerky out of the depths of one of his moon-pockets, and begins to gnaw on it as if he were trying to chew on the cow while it was still wrapped in the hide.

He offers some to the fellow, who DECLINES. Naturally.
The moon shrugs, and throws the remainder of the jerky towards the audience, where it misses all who are seated, instead landing with an audibly wet PLOP in a warm sea. The sea may or may not be surrounded by an uncanny field of stars.)

THE MOON: This is foolishness, you realize.

THE FELLOW: That much I can work out, yes.

THE MOON: I could ask you why, but that would make me the fool as well.

THE FELLOW: You’re not wrong.

THE MOON: I never am.

THE FELLOW: How arrogant.

THE MOON: Naturally. Comes with the territory.

THE FELLOW: Oh?

THE MOON: Such is the way of the boundless sky.

THE FELLOW: Oh.

(Beat.)

THE FELLOW: Is there anything to do?

THE MOON: Not that you could manage, no. After all, there is no actual situation -- no actual problem, no actual trouble. No actual earth-shattering revelation. You and I are sitting here on a pleasant evening, looking out over faces who will never be real, but will always be beautiful.

(The moon gestures outward, sending his own light out against the pressure of the spot-light shine. The light suddenly shorts and bursts, sending the lighting technician diving away, shielding his face from the sparks. The technician’s name is Allen, and you would think him a pleasant enough guy were you to meet him. But you won’t. He’s a lovely man, but this isn’t his. Even if it would be more interesting that way.

The only light is that which the moon provides. His glow is what remains.)

THE MOON: It’s nice, you know. And you’re tired.

THE FELLOW: I am.

THE MOON: You are.

THE FELLOW: Is there anything for it?

THE MOON: Sleep, you dullard.

THE FELLOW: Other than that.

THE MOON: No.

THE FELLOW: It’s just…

THE MOON: No.

THE FELLOW: It’s just that…

THE MOON: No.

THE FELLOW: It’s just that I cannot find a way to abide this. This. This looking up and out and around. Constant vigilance is no way to manage living, especially if there is nothing out there that I might see. Looking towards the uncertainty, staring at it, hoping…hoping that it might collapse into a singularity, if only because that crushing nothing is at least a something.

THE MOON: A black hole is nothing luminous, chap.

THE FELLOW: Not remotely, no.

(He looks down, towards his chest.)

THE FELLOW: But it moves you. It gets you moving.

(The moon sighs, and the force of it is uncanny. Everyone in the audience finds themselves trembling at their very core, as if their nerves were suddenly twisting and writhing like the desperate, frenzied dance of a man set ablaze.

The moon does not reach out, does not try to pat the fellow atop his head.
But that’s alright.)

THE MOON: A body doesn’t stop moving. Not til the end, anyway.

THE FELLOW: But…where’s it going to go?

THE MOON: Somewhere, fellow. There’s nothing more than that.

(They sit there, together. Alone.)

*
*
*

Where I am right now, is a great many places. I’m in my old coffee shop once again, looking over at some unknown who is staring down The Pickwick Papers with an intensity that suggests it troubles him, as his hand grasps his coffee cup and occasionally trembles. There are new paintings on the inside, and out there you can see a fire truck funeral, lorded over by a man in full-Scottish regalia playing the bag’d pipes. It’s a day.

But there are other places, underneath the underneath. Places of wondering, places of question, places of past. Places of inquisition, places of stress, places of unknowing. Places of ticking clocks and pleasant eyes. The places we consider, again and again.
Past and Present and Yet To Come.

There’s a lot to say, you know. About these things, these places, these worries and considerations. About what it means to me, and to the lot of us. About what really constitutes a moment, and what is simply the ephemera that sparkles us towards giddiness without granting us any truth. About the differences. About what we know.
But then again…

There’s something to be said for letting them lie.
Here I am, I think. In the quibbling, maddening, silly places, the wondering bothering irritating place. One finds this place via caustic inertia, the kind that begins in neurotic nervousness, the kind that only ceases when all comes crumbling down. And that...that is no way to move, not towards a place of worth and mirth and gently endearing calls, not the world of hearts and heads and fluctuating voices. That's not how to live, jolly chaps. Constant vigilance is only going to make you weary. So. Hm.

So, yeah.

So stop.
Right now.

Right?