The Play

I stood on an empty stage. “who is my audience?” I proclaimed. Silence. Nothing. The seats were empty. I remained standing my ground. “oh my piteous lines” I said. “nothing better to say than weep my regrets out into the empty air that does not care. Only I care, standing here alone, hoping that something be different in my past; as though I could come from somewhere else that affords me better phrases and syntax than what I have now.”
I have learned that genius is something worked for; persistence, aptitude, interest, time. What is time? How much time do I spend here standing on the stage until I am finally an actor? Silence. I am lit and the stage is all black. The front seats are visible, but the back is not. I see the light shining but not the lamp. In the box I sit watching myself.
He has two ears that work. He is the only one who listens. He listens patiently. He must get bored, but he still waits. Maybe soon the scenes will appear and the numbers will be sung, and the audience will sneak in late, and I will hear their applause as the curtain falls.
“what should I do” I ask him. He sits there. He is there to give me the effects, the sounds, the cues. “keep going” That is the cue. The play has barely begun. Someone is offstage urging me to go on. “the show must go on!” “break a leg” I hear in my mind. Or maybe it was from back stage. I look around. I want to feel desperate. I begin to act desperate, but I see that I am not. “oh but I am desperate” I yell to the empty arena. What do I say to a crowd that isn’t there in a play that simply cannot end, nor has it quite begun. Where do I go when where I think I should be going is already where I am?

Applause is heard. But it is a sound effect from the booth. I laugh. “that was pathetic”. I realize it wasn’t pathetic, it was me applauding myself, encouraging myself to go on. The show must go on. “I suppose I am my own audience” I say. “and what would I like to hear,” I ask, somewhat rhetorically, yet I have no answer. “I’m listening,” I say. Silence. I begin to realize this silence is empty. Not only is it empty but it has allowed me to say anything, do anything I wanted up until now. My mother walks across stage. As usual she imposes herself onto the scene. She cannot be silent. She sings to herself in the background. I am not in the suitable place to allow this silence to persist. Suddenly there is a kitchen on stage. She begins to make something. I am refusing to look at her because I want to make this show. Something plastic crackles. The stove has been turned on. She searches in the pantry. There is a thud as something is placed onto the glass table. I search for the word that describes that sound.
I say out loud “I hate my mother.” Because she does not have any sensitivity or consideration for what you are doing. I am here on stage and suddenly she has to come and cook herself some lunch. She does not care that my attention is completely focused on you the absent, illusory, audience.

Some drums begin. That is my brother. He is setting them up in his new room. He plays a few beats to get the feeling of his drumset. My mother is still there. She has given up trying to get my attention. I feel bad. I could acknowledge her, but this is too important. I yell and yell at empty seats.
I imagine a man, older, with a moustache sitting in the back. His recline is relaxed into a chair with his legs crossed. He sits in interest at what is going on. He is not in the dark. He sits at the edge of the stage. An imaginary audience member, part of the play.
“My mother just wants me to give her some chocolate.” I say.
“why don’t you give her some” says the man.
“I will. I just didn’t want to break concentration here.”
“why not?”
“ I want to be a writer. I fear that I am heading towards a point of no return. I feel that I may lose my ability to write, to tell a story, to imagine a situation and to capture it with language; to understand the nuance and difficulty of conveying an emotion, or a moment, a symbol, a life, a character. So today I decided that I would just sit down and write. Write with no end in mind; except that is not quite true. I write thinking that I will send this to a friend; he is also a writer. I feel maybe he might be able to tell me something. But I also think he will tell me nothing. He writes because he loves to write. He wants to write. He has written many many things. He is a much more accomplished writer than I. I only wrote in lonely desolate nights when my heart ached for a lover, or when I felt complete desperation for an answer to life. Now I am older and see that there is no answer. I feel I might also lose my passion. My sense of Love becomes more practical, or pragmatic, and less romantic. I face the beginning of a career, and I dread the opportunities in it because I fear I will not be able to resist them.”
The man said nothing just sat there listening. The drums are now louder; the rhythms more complex, more emotional. My mother is outside, gone.
“writing is a lonely business” the old man said. He reminded me of the architect in the matrix. He wore a light grey suit with a vest.
“I do not want to be alone, but I also want to feel passion, know accomplishment.”
The old man nodded in understanding.
I stretch. I have been at this for half an hour now.
“I think I must go take a break now” I say to the man.
“why?” he asks
“well I feel a bit tired. I have to eat lunch and I have to do things this afternoon.”
“writing requires a lot of dedication” he says
“I know” I say.
“do you think you will dedicate yourself to writing every day?”
“dedicating myself to writing is not a problem. Dedicating myself to writing one thing, that is hard. I have given up so many attempts. I feel that I write only in the moment, only when I have a sense of desperation. I do not tell stories, or joyfully play in a fantasy world when I write.”
“oh but you are playing in a fantasy. And you are having a philosophical discussion about your desperation. Very French of you.” He smiled. “you are a philosopher, are you not?”
“No.” I say “ I hate philosophers, I hate philosophy. I am tired of thinking and analyzing and contemplating. I want life!”
“But you have life. Do you think that you give up life when you write?”
I stop. I know the answer but I want to think about it. I do suppose that ignoring my mother by sticking to the page deprives me of life. But that is because I am living here, on the page. In this dimension. Right now. Later I will see my mother and speak with her when I am not writing, when I am living and focusing on those things. But I am never away from here. My mother sees me, knows I am here, knows that I can hear her. I did not allow myself to shift away from this to respond and later come back to this. I see the ending.
“I think that I never come back to these little lives that I lead when I write. I come and visit, but I do not return. Or if I do, it is never in the same vein, never with the same perspective, or the same motives, or the same intuition, or the same will. My interest dwindles. My desperation persists. Out there.”
He smiles. “I think you’ll make a fine writer. No need to fear the kinks, you will work them out as you go.”
“I hate goodbyes” I say.
“oh but you relish their arrival”
It is true. I want out. I want to let go of fearing I’ll ever have to give in. I fear having to let go of an empty audience, and walking away from a lonely stage.