8.12.06, How Many Faces

Scene: Could be any middle class house, second floor, room with grey walls, room with books that are arranged by color first, then size, the streets outside are filled with debris from an unexpected storm. No on knows whether a criminal was caught last night, nor the why. There are family members and friends physically not far but not all together, connected by a thought, a text message, regular calls.

Chorus: How many faces does love wear? How many scenarios do we build around ourselves to make the Real conform to our desire, to our limitations, to our myopia? How many ruses to we employ to read every face as one of love? How many questions can we come up with before we realize that none of the answers matter?

Narrator: Still there is this questioning need, not just a play on words, but the questioning of need. Double genitive construction. Need’s questions & wonderings about our needs. All of its compressed into a calendar that is already unnatural but the degree of which is only highlighted by traumatic events. The immanence of such trauma. My life hasn’t had nearly the amount of trauma as so many, but I feel it as it comes my way. It’s like a preview of trauma, “Coming this Fall.” I already have tickets. Best seats in the house, the most expensive anyway.

Sister 1: Is there anything I can do?

FGC: The scale is mine, I’ve loaned it, I’ve named, I’ve given it over for unlimited use, and wishing the use were, in fact, without limit even though I see the limit every morning when I get up. The number itself may not be mine, but all the numbers are on loan, like Cummings’ line: you’ll have to loan me pain. In game with chips of when. “When?” When is the question that follows right on the heals of the morning’s realization: the a.m., yes it’s real, yes it’s still happening, no it’s not really getting any better, how do we move on? We just do, another no-answer question. It’s just asked because that’s what we do. I want it to be a 10, I’ve watched all day; but what am I going to tell you? It’s not, maybe a 5 or maybe a 6. I can look for more numbers but all that’s in my power is to offer them. hey, there’s a 9 over here man . . ., there’s a 7, too, did you see this?

Sister 2: Is there anything I can do?

Narrator: I imagine the characters say something like this, and I’ve heard most of it said, even if I’m the one that loans out the syntax and verbiage. It’s all just futzing though, cause I’m still looking for the metaphor.

Sister 3: Is there anything I can do?

Chorus: Why is the message the same despite the different faces worn? Or is it? Rather the medium, the form of the message, is actually the meaning? McLuhan style? Are we being given the truth, have you stripped the medium off?

Mom: I’m just going to finish this carrot cake and then . . . , you just wait and see.

Narrator: Nah, thanks I’m good. I’m just going to rest for a bit.

Offstage: There is water running in a sink somewhere. Erik Satie plays downstairs. One door is locked to a nap or to more personal pain. Something we imagine is pain from our seats out in the middle of the audience, where there is a strict hierarchy or pricing for seats. Some are clearly dear, some cheap, there is and SRO area, there are student discounts, and some are even allowed to come in to the performance and then leave, mid-act, before even the possibility of not the surety of applause. No one knows if there will be any, or standing, or throwing vegetables. There is the sound of a keyboard, not mine. The sound of water running doesn’t stop.

Chorus: So is this it? Is this all we get? Not even a metaphor? The metaphor? You trying to tell us it’s just waiting? That we can’t “do” anything? That the traumatic core of the Real might turn out to be anticlimax and no trauma but the trivial and the everyday? Open to any page, pick a passage, and it’s the same as any other? What do you mean by “Yes, except when the book, page, passage, and choice are different”?