A short one act play I wrote.
Rehearsal: 10:38pm, Friday (1983)
“Just...” he explained to his photographer, pointing and twisting his arm with a grotesque surly force, “just fuck the audience with the camera,” really filling out the consonant, and indicating with his arm the physical motion he wanted the camera to make and also the protruding molestation that would occur in the mind of the audience.
“You know,” he went on, “just keep them off balance, keep taking them by surprise,” he held his hands together and created the shape of a box and put it up to his eyes and looked through it. Then he began tilting his head and hands from side to side, his eyes constantly within the frame, indicating how he wanted the camera to see the actors.
He put his hands down and stood there for a moment looking around, as if seeing the set for the first time and then walked briskly back to the chair and sat down. He is a short man by Midwestern standards, those by which he was raised, but here that doesn’t matter, and not because most of the people with whom he associates - actors and the like - are the same relative slightness in stature, but because here, he is big. This is Hollywood. He yelled to his photographer from the chair, “I want it to feel disorienting you know, disassociate the audience from the story.”
The photographer, a tall quiet gaunt man with thinning hair and a pale complexion, replied with a lazy resounding voice as if it were emanating from the thick hollow hull of a ship, “They’re going to be aware of the camera though, you’re making them aware, I think the story is great, why disassociate the audience from it?”
The Director looked at him for a moment, “Well sure Frank, I think the story is great too, that’s why I accepted the project,” he sniffled quickly and half raised his hand to his nose, “but I think my vision is going to add to the story, not take away from it. It’s an artistic choice.”
The photographer nodded and shuffled his feet. He looked up at his lights and then back at the Director, who was lazily staring back at him. He had an off-putting, almost silly confidence that he wore in that grim stare that couldn’t be vanquished. He simply wore you down. The photographer looked toward the talent and lazily protruded his arm and twisted as the Director had vehemently coached a moment ago, laying on a thin layer of facetiousness by juxtaposing his languid action to the directors vigorous screwing.
“Fuck em,” the photographer said, “with the camera.”
“Yeah.” The director added, “keep em’ off balance you know?”
The photographer nodded his head and walked back to his camera set up on the tri-pod, his crew looking to him, alert and at the ready. He looked through the lens out of habit and then pulled back and looked at the talent. He ran his hand through the thick grey hair above his wrinkled forehead.
The director sat back and clapped the headphones over his ears and looked into the screen. “Lets run it one more time... lets run it one more time!" He yelled.
The photographer turned to an assistant of his and smiled mildly, almost wisely, like a secret could be found in that smile, some lost ancient wisdom that kept him going, kept his heart alive; the photographer nodded and walked into the shadows.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
Soliloquy After the Storm
The other day a man fell off my roof. I thought about it a lot the last few days. Putting myself up there with him. That terrifying instant when you know. Luckily he is OK; broken pelvis. We thought he had broken his back.
Here is a soliloquy I wrote recently. I'd like to make it into a short film if I can find the right actor.
Shaded by the large looming maple tree, he sat, reverent somewhat but with a sort of immediate detachment from the world around him. It was dawn and the sun rose slowly behind the small placid lake. He did not know how long he had been awake. His clothing was still damp but began to dry as the sun broke the horizon and glinted brilliantly across the becalmed water. Sometime before he slept, he couldn't remember when, he had taken off his dirty white sneakers and set them beside the tree with his damp socks tucked carelessly inside them. The air was still warm and had been all night, even through the storm which allayed somewhat the indomitable humidity of the previous evening. He did not know how far he had walked, and lacking direction or any sort of equanimity when he began, he could only guess at where he had ended, where he was now. Indiscriminate birds chirped or sang and he lifted his head, less in an attempt to discern and categorize them and more in a simple amazement at his recognizing their sounding at all, as if it had been a long time since he heard the sound of a bird, or at least gave effort to listen to one. But now he heard them. The thick grey clouds had spread sometime in the early morning. There were a few puddles about but for the most part the large maple's broad leaves stymied even the heavier rain. He had weathered the storm as long as he could but had to take refuge, though he hardly remembers doing so.
He pushed with his palms on the soft grass and lifted himself into a sitting position against the trunk of the tree. He dug a damp single cigarette out of his pocket and stuck it into his mouth; then retrieved a lighter as well from the same pocket and tried to strike a flame. It was too damp to spark but he continued to roll the wheel over and over methodically and without restraint for a long time; sitting and staring at it, thinking not of it but of something and everything else, still surprised at hearing the birds. He rolled it over and over as if he couldn't believe it didn't work, that flame depended on a tangible and natural reaction, one that could be altered or stymied with other simple natural occurrences like rain, not believing like a kid doesn't believe he can't lift an automobile over his head until he has tried it over and over to exhaustion, as if the routine of dependency on the objects was so ingrained that his mind simply could not accept their not working, and like a child believing that the natural law held no jurisdiction on his expectation. Or maybe he was simply too tired to believe. His energies did not reach beyond his self-habituated daily process, on which his faculties and the objects that served his habits relied. He stopped striking the wheel and returned both damp objects to his pocket and the birds and wind sang loudly in his ear. He heard them in a slow steady build like a wave of crickets in the wet summer grass, and he heard them as well and he was surprised. He felt the early breeze, warm and palpable, but it was somehow less a sensation for the skin and more tactile for the olfactories, as if he could smell the breeze was warm, as if his nose had assumed the physiological function of his somatic senses.
Large Canadian geese floated effortlessly toward the shore. They stopped once they reached the edge of the water and did not get out. They faced him, unmoving, hunkered down on their large white breasts like feathered inner tubes. He looked at the geese and looked around.
"Believe me, I'm as shocked as you are of my being here this morning," he looked up at the tree waving gently in the breeze, "under this tree in the middle of who-knows-where, shoeless and damp like some homeless..." he trailed off and became indecipherable as he yanked his wet socks from the shoes, whipping them about trying to shake water from them. He stood and stretched his back.
"Jesus Christ," he pressed his fists on the back of his hips and pushing outward. Then he raised his arms high above his head and stretched, the socks dangling from his clenched hands.
"No hotel is it?" For a moment he stood there, clenching the damp socks, holding them out almost, like a child handing his mother two bottles of wine. He turned and went to a low branch and draped one of his dirty white socks over it, he stopped and turned around, looking at the geese who had yet to move.
"Oh, do you mind?" He stared at one of the geese for a moment and almost laughed but held it back. He smiled broad and elegant like a maitre d' and his movements were languid and polite. But his tone was biting, "Of course you don't mind, what do you care you mindless fowl..." He turned back around and draped his second damp sock over the bough of the tree. He pulled off his damp and stretched out white shirt.
He was thin, too thin, and pale; he had one patch of dark hair in his sternum and you could see his sharp collar bones protruding from his ill fitting skin. His round belly stuck out. It was small but in proportion to his body it gave him an appearance of being fatter than he was. He was lean otherwise and his skin bore the signs of age, though he was less than forty. He hung the shirt next to the socks and began removing his belt. He looked back at the birds floating motionless, watching him.
"Whats that you ask? What is it that makes you find me here? At this time of the morning? Damp as a rag and it being clear, with the wet clothes and all, that I arrived late last night seeking shelter from the storm and slept in this very spot?" He looked at the geese while he unbelted and dropped his pants. "Oh you are quick to decipher aren't you, my not belonging here. Not a stranger gets by you on the banks of your pond eh? Though I expect you think I'm no different than a damn duck, just one you haven't seen before." He stepped out of his wet trousers and moved them aside. Well don't worry I ain't going swimming today," raising his arm "not here to disturb your reverence at the dawns beauty and what not....not here wade about in your little oasis alright, mindless fuck."
His legs were merely sticks protruding out of his baggy underwear, pale with thin dark hair. "And what makes you find me here this morning, I believe was the question?" His knees looked like knots on a tree. "The very same question I awoke with in my mind just moments before you shirked over here. The very same. And though not remembering the particulars of the walking, stopping or resting, and only part of the debacle that set me to perambulate in the first place, and not knowing you, or wanting especially to talk about it at the moment, I say nothing more on the subject. Nor do I find anything particularly worth while, I might add, opining to a fucking bird, especially one of your particular ilk," he trailed off a bit, mumbled under his breath, "you mangy son of a bitch." He hung his pants on the branch and a heavy black object fell out onto the ground. He glanced over at the geese and then at the object. He smiled and gestured to it.
"Well there you go, I am naked and ashamed, are you happy? Hey?" He picked up the gun from the ground and looked at it for a long time.
He spoke quietly, "Just a drop of paint." He paused and pondered, "All I am really," he played with the weight of the gun in his palm, "just a fucking drop of paint on an otherwise clean front porch. Oh you see me, yeah you see me there, but I draw attention only by the seer's realization of the drops being a mistake to the harmony of the construction," he looked at the geese with an expression of surprise as if it were them that had been talking to him, "a fucking unintended nuisance is what I am, and in the end forgotten or removed." He held the gun with a limp wrist and wiped the air with it.
"So what keeps one, who knows they are only a drop of paint, from doing the removing one's self?" He looked down the barrel of the pistol and then at the geese. "Does that satisfy, meet your expectations? Shall I describe to you what cause she had in leaving? Because I'd simply repeat myself again. Yes?"
He pointed the gun at the geese.
"Yes!?" He yelled, standing still.
They began to drift slowly away, carelessly and without haste.
"Ah, that's right, very fucking clever! More so than previously accredited, and no less, you being a fucking bird!" He fired the pistol into the water. The shot was tremendously loud in the early hours of the morning and it sent the geese splashing out of the pond in a jolt and flying away, honking wildly.
"If you're going to go away then you're going to fly away screaming you sons of bitches!"
He wheeled around and walked over to his hanging pants. He reached into the pocket and found the cigarette but the lighter was gone. He found it on the ground and snatched it up, nearly falling over, then went and sat back down against the tree, sitting cross legged. He laid the gun at his side on the grass. The lighter was still damp and would not strike. He threw the cigarette and lighter aside and picked up the gun again. He pointed it toward the sky, closed one eye, and followed the birds as they became smaller and smaller against the brooding morning sky.
He spoke quieter now, "Fly away, fly the fuck away and leave me alone." Again he flicked the air with a limp wrist and the gun.
The breeze became warmer still as the sun rose higher in the morning sky, he sitting upright against the trunk of the tree. Bright white clouds moved in sporadically. Looking at the sky he thought that it felt like fall was coming. He was pleased by this, not necessarily fall, but simply his noticing. He hadn't thought about the changing seasons, it seemed, in a long time. He felt something strange inside himself, something he could not think to explain.
"She was too young to marry anyway, at least to marry me." He turned his head sharply, almost looking over his shoulder as if someone had walked up. He nudged the tree with his elbow, as if confirming with whom he spoke. "Married on a whim that one, and my guts knew it," he put the tips of his fingers together as if cradling something small on them and pressed them into his belly, "right in here, knew it the whole time, both years. And I loved her. I did. Don't think I didn't. I loved her. She was too young. Just a spontaneous grasp at a comfort and stability until then absent in her life, with no genuine thought, no honesty with herself as to the actuality of the breadth of time and life. It was no more than a quick fix. She didn't want to work or do anything or be productive, or give anything to the relationship. And who would really? To what end is our productivity anyway?"
He stood and followed a low hanging branch, running a hand along it, the pistol in his other.
"And we had great times together. Great times." He pulled off a leaf and spun it by the stem between his fingers. "But she didn't want to make it work. She wasn't ready to be a married person. To give the kind of time and effort it requires; to clamour over the rocky cliffs, hold tight the reigns (he imitated both gestures as he spoke). She wasn't ready for that, and I let her get herself into it. And how could I blame her for getting bored? What could I offer her at my age and her at hers?"
He turned back to the tree, now standing a few yards away from the trunk.
"Some chatterbox you turned out to be. You think I give you credit, for merely listening? I suppose I do. Most would do less. Though ignorance is clearly well suited in you, being that you are yet to fucking uproot yourself and cast shadows elsewhere along the pond here, away from my mania. You spineless rube. I wouldn't follow you, your shade is not so welcoming, or your limbs so necessary. Here let me remove my garments from your delicate boughs, so as not to upset you too."
He walked quickly over to his hanging clothes and yanked them down. Leaving them on the ground.
"And let me tell you, it's not a real comfort to sleep under you either."
He lifted his shoulders and squeezed his back together, then bent at the waist and let his arms dangle to the grass.
Taking a deep breath he unbent and stood straight, "Jesus Christ." He looked sharply at the tree and stared for a moment.
"And you ask what else? Well what do you expect!? She looses the comfort that was her sole reason to stay. What do you think is going to happen? Based solely on the needs of her situation, she did right by herself."
He moved around under the branches of the tree and began to pick up the clothing he had pulled down off the branch. He hung them back up. He laughed but stopped himself.
"And who is to blame for that, is what you're really asking, the loss of the one thing that kept her in my bed at night?" He smiled. "Well who else? That's what I do."
He held a single leaf in his palm, still attached to the tree.
"And why would I, who has had such success in his job - who has carved out a place for himself in a company, drawn up a future, who had built something there, why would I be so careless, and appear, you might even say, to be the very author of the sudden destruction of all that was built? The doer responsible for the entire ruination? Well I wouldn't expect you to know, being your trifles deal merely in weather and bird shit. But is it not so obvious that I need explain?"
He moved about under the tree again. The geese had returned with a splash but stayed clear of the shore. He stopped and began talking to another set of leaves on a different low hung branch.
"Because what pleasure could I draw now from it? Because it is my nature. That I had such success in constructing something I care so little for, despise even, repudiate the very nature of! What pleasure was left there except what I knew lay in seeing it's destruction? What pleasure could I still expect to draw from this well save for that which I got when I razed the son of a bitch to the ground?"
He walked over to his previous place and picked up the pistol. He played with the weight in his hand, lifting it and letting it sink back down. He ran the barrel along a branch of the tree. He laughed in a short burst, not loud.
"Why you ask am I then surprised at my being terminated from the position," he gestured with the gun, waving it around, "oughten I had known that to pursue such a destructive end would be nothing less than a guarantee of my separation? Might even you say I brought the end on myself given the means? If that is what you say by your rustling and your dumb flapping of leaves, the yes, you are correct. But I would argue less surprised, I am, and more shocked. Why shock? Does shock not set in after all destruction regardless of intent? Regardless of whether it was myself initiating the full means of descent? And it was my fault. But am I not allowed the surprise of shock even at my own actions? Because what the fuck else are we if not a collection of vices?"
He began to raise his voice and move quickly around, his thin pale knee-knot legs bending around the uneven ground.
"That is all we are. All of us, just a collection of vices retrograde to whatever intention the 'one in charge' set as a design, and fuck-all good that design has done for us; sentience is a curse as far as I'm concerned, left to curdle and writhe in the mud like pigs, and we cover ourselves on hands and knees, lie and fucking ruin everything!" He began to trail off. He moved quicker now and accidentally stepped in a puddle that had formed after the storm.
"Shit, god-damnit!" He yelled and shook his foot, "left to shake my leg like a mangy dog."
He turned and looked at the tree.
"That's man's nature!" Holding out his arms, the pistol still in hand.
"To fuck up whatever design has been set for him, benevolent or otherwise, by whoever it is that does the setting, to the point that we are merely clumps of shit for nothing better than to prod at and toss away in fulsome disgust! There is no such thing as fate, we ruined fate! Do you argue otherwise? Rustling your leaves... what is that supposed to mean anyway?"
He became loud again, "And why, you stuck fool, would one carry on, through this, why would one crawl like a beetle through the mud and excrement? For what? Just to live? How foolish are we to remain among the shit and pretend the wading through does nothing to our spirit, paddling along in our little boats with all our things, passing ourselves off as some sort of verity in life! Well I'm not fucking doing it anymore! And if you have anything to say about that!"
He slid down against the trunk of the tree and put the pistol against his temple, he was quieter now but the intensity blazed through his eyes, "Then you can just shut the fu..." He began to breathe heavily, his nose ran and his eyes teared up, his chest moving in and out rapidly. He calmed himself after a moment, the gun remained at his temple.
"Why then let it take me when I can take myself? To spend time? Doing what? Drinking into an unrecognizable dementia? Should I live to become like my father? Swallow gallons of booze and watch my life become confusion and darkness. Wander aimless through the streets, shirtless with one shoe on, leaving those who know me to set aside their secret wish of my demise to track me down in my aimless jaunt, put their life on the line and have to try and convince me I know them, that I should trust them to remove me from the myriad of cars veering and darting out of the way, my confusion creating only dissension and them fighting the urge to let me alone and watch from the curb, stand aside so one of the speeding brutes might do what they really, what they really want to do, what I should have done years before, what I should do now? Shall I remain alive so I can forget the use of a spoon, or a wad of fucking toilet paper, and only after watching my brother walk into the dark and confusion first, learning nothing? 'Cause that's what I've got now to look forward to!"
He spoke with an intensity but he was not yelling, "So you shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck up! You shut..."
He pressed the pistol firmly against his head, his finger shook wildly on the trigger. His nose ran onto his lips and his eyes filled again. He breathed heavier still, and more rapidly, his chest heaving like the sea on the hull of a great ship. Then he took one deep breath and closed his eyes and very calmly spoke, "forget me, I am gone."
The geese circled around the small pond, floating on their large breasts with an almost brash air. They sped after mallards, chasing them from the pond and making small streaks on the otherwise glassy water. The birds sang in full now, the sun rising still; he heard them, he heard all of them, and this pleased him.
He opened his eyes and stared ahead for a long moment before he dropped the pistol, watching the world about him come alive. He heard a woodpecker tapping along, the leaves on the great maple behind him, prophesying the great unheard secret. He spoke calmly now.
"And yet... Maybe it is in the recognition of our vices, the realization that we are not more than simply that which we can not control, that we become human; or at least more than clumps of shit."
He glanced over his shoulder at the tree.
"Might that be our willed existence? To simply recognize that which makes us clumps of shit, and in doing so find exactly that which makes us human? In order that we may rise above? So that any hope of dealing amicably with those around us isn't merely a forlorn hope, and that we are let to live as we are?"
He spun around on his hands and looked at the tree.
"You sly son of a bitch."
He stood quickly, knot-kneed and thin, pale, his thin legs sticking out of his stretched out dirty white underwear, giving the effect that they were disconnected somehow from his body; one foot muddy from the puddle. He walked over to the branch on which he had left his drying clothes. They were warm on his skin when he put them on. He walked down to the edge of the pond and put his foot in, rubbing the mud off with this hands. He splashed water on his face and walked back toward the tree. The sun was warm on his back and this pleased him. He was dry now.
He looked out over the pond and took a deep breath. He did not smile, he walked away.
Here is a soliloquy I wrote recently. I'd like to make it into a short film if I can find the right actor.
Shaded by the large looming maple tree, he sat, reverent somewhat but with a sort of immediate detachment from the world around him. It was dawn and the sun rose slowly behind the small placid lake. He did not know how long he had been awake. His clothing was still damp but began to dry as the sun broke the horizon and glinted brilliantly across the becalmed water. Sometime before he slept, he couldn't remember when, he had taken off his dirty white sneakers and set them beside the tree with his damp socks tucked carelessly inside them. The air was still warm and had been all night, even through the storm which allayed somewhat the indomitable humidity of the previous evening. He did not know how far he had walked, and lacking direction or any sort of equanimity when he began, he could only guess at where he had ended, where he was now. Indiscriminate birds chirped or sang and he lifted his head, less in an attempt to discern and categorize them and more in a simple amazement at his recognizing their sounding at all, as if it had been a long time since he heard the sound of a bird, or at least gave effort to listen to one. But now he heard them. The thick grey clouds had spread sometime in the early morning. There were a few puddles about but for the most part the large maple's broad leaves stymied even the heavier rain. He had weathered the storm as long as he could but had to take refuge, though he hardly remembers doing so.
He pushed with his palms on the soft grass and lifted himself into a sitting position against the trunk of the tree. He dug a damp single cigarette out of his pocket and stuck it into his mouth; then retrieved a lighter as well from the same pocket and tried to strike a flame. It was too damp to spark but he continued to roll the wheel over and over methodically and without restraint for a long time; sitting and staring at it, thinking not of it but of something and everything else, still surprised at hearing the birds. He rolled it over and over as if he couldn't believe it didn't work, that flame depended on a tangible and natural reaction, one that could be altered or stymied with other simple natural occurrences like rain, not believing like a kid doesn't believe he can't lift an automobile over his head until he has tried it over and over to exhaustion, as if the routine of dependency on the objects was so ingrained that his mind simply could not accept their not working, and like a child believing that the natural law held no jurisdiction on his expectation. Or maybe he was simply too tired to believe. His energies did not reach beyond his self-habituated daily process, on which his faculties and the objects that served his habits relied. He stopped striking the wheel and returned both damp objects to his pocket and the birds and wind sang loudly in his ear. He heard them in a slow steady build like a wave of crickets in the wet summer grass, and he heard them as well and he was surprised. He felt the early breeze, warm and palpable, but it was somehow less a sensation for the skin and more tactile for the olfactories, as if he could smell the breeze was warm, as if his nose had assumed the physiological function of his somatic senses.
Large Canadian geese floated effortlessly toward the shore. They stopped once they reached the edge of the water and did not get out. They faced him, unmoving, hunkered down on their large white breasts like feathered inner tubes. He looked at the geese and looked around.
"Believe me, I'm as shocked as you are of my being here this morning," he looked up at the tree waving gently in the breeze, "under this tree in the middle of who-knows-where, shoeless and damp like some homeless..." he trailed off and became indecipherable as he yanked his wet socks from the shoes, whipping them about trying to shake water from them. He stood and stretched his back.
"Jesus Christ," he pressed his fists on the back of his hips and pushing outward. Then he raised his arms high above his head and stretched, the socks dangling from his clenched hands.
"No hotel is it?" For a moment he stood there, clenching the damp socks, holding them out almost, like a child handing his mother two bottles of wine. He turned and went to a low branch and draped one of his dirty white socks over it, he stopped and turned around, looking at the geese who had yet to move.
"Oh, do you mind?" He stared at one of the geese for a moment and almost laughed but held it back. He smiled broad and elegant like a maitre d' and his movements were languid and polite. But his tone was biting, "Of course you don't mind, what do you care you mindless fowl..." He turned back around and draped his second damp sock over the bough of the tree. He pulled off his damp and stretched out white shirt.
He was thin, too thin, and pale; he had one patch of dark hair in his sternum and you could see his sharp collar bones protruding from his ill fitting skin. His round belly stuck out. It was small but in proportion to his body it gave him an appearance of being fatter than he was. He was lean otherwise and his skin bore the signs of age, though he was less than forty. He hung the shirt next to the socks and began removing his belt. He looked back at the birds floating motionless, watching him.
"Whats that you ask? What is it that makes you find me here? At this time of the morning? Damp as a rag and it being clear, with the wet clothes and all, that I arrived late last night seeking shelter from the storm and slept in this very spot?" He looked at the geese while he unbelted and dropped his pants. "Oh you are quick to decipher aren't you, my not belonging here. Not a stranger gets by you on the banks of your pond eh? Though I expect you think I'm no different than a damn duck, just one you haven't seen before." He stepped out of his wet trousers and moved them aside. Well don't worry I ain't going swimming today," raising his arm "not here to disturb your reverence at the dawns beauty and what not....not here wade about in your little oasis alright, mindless fuck."
His legs were merely sticks protruding out of his baggy underwear, pale with thin dark hair. "And what makes you find me here this morning, I believe was the question?" His knees looked like knots on a tree. "The very same question I awoke with in my mind just moments before you shirked over here. The very same. And though not remembering the particulars of the walking, stopping or resting, and only part of the debacle that set me to perambulate in the first place, and not knowing you, or wanting especially to talk about it at the moment, I say nothing more on the subject. Nor do I find anything particularly worth while, I might add, opining to a fucking bird, especially one of your particular ilk," he trailed off a bit, mumbled under his breath, "you mangy son of a bitch." He hung his pants on the branch and a heavy black object fell out onto the ground. He glanced over at the geese and then at the object. He smiled and gestured to it.
"Well there you go, I am naked and ashamed, are you happy? Hey?" He picked up the gun from the ground and looked at it for a long time.
He spoke quietly, "Just a drop of paint." He paused and pondered, "All I am really," he played with the weight of the gun in his palm, "just a fucking drop of paint on an otherwise clean front porch. Oh you see me, yeah you see me there, but I draw attention only by the seer's realization of the drops being a mistake to the harmony of the construction," he looked at the geese with an expression of surprise as if it were them that had been talking to him, "a fucking unintended nuisance is what I am, and in the end forgotten or removed." He held the gun with a limp wrist and wiped the air with it.
"So what keeps one, who knows they are only a drop of paint, from doing the removing one's self?" He looked down the barrel of the pistol and then at the geese. "Does that satisfy, meet your expectations? Shall I describe to you what cause she had in leaving? Because I'd simply repeat myself again. Yes?"
He pointed the gun at the geese.
"Yes!?" He yelled, standing still.
They began to drift slowly away, carelessly and without haste.
"Ah, that's right, very fucking clever! More so than previously accredited, and no less, you being a fucking bird!" He fired the pistol into the water. The shot was tremendously loud in the early hours of the morning and it sent the geese splashing out of the pond in a jolt and flying away, honking wildly.
"If you're going to go away then you're going to fly away screaming you sons of bitches!"
He wheeled around and walked over to his hanging pants. He reached into the pocket and found the cigarette but the lighter was gone. He found it on the ground and snatched it up, nearly falling over, then went and sat back down against the tree, sitting cross legged. He laid the gun at his side on the grass. The lighter was still damp and would not strike. He threw the cigarette and lighter aside and picked up the gun again. He pointed it toward the sky, closed one eye, and followed the birds as they became smaller and smaller against the brooding morning sky.
He spoke quieter now, "Fly away, fly the fuck away and leave me alone." Again he flicked the air with a limp wrist and the gun.
The breeze became warmer still as the sun rose higher in the morning sky, he sitting upright against the trunk of the tree. Bright white clouds moved in sporadically. Looking at the sky he thought that it felt like fall was coming. He was pleased by this, not necessarily fall, but simply his noticing. He hadn't thought about the changing seasons, it seemed, in a long time. He felt something strange inside himself, something he could not think to explain.
"She was too young to marry anyway, at least to marry me." He turned his head sharply, almost looking over his shoulder as if someone had walked up. He nudged the tree with his elbow, as if confirming with whom he spoke. "Married on a whim that one, and my guts knew it," he put the tips of his fingers together as if cradling something small on them and pressed them into his belly, "right in here, knew it the whole time, both years. And I loved her. I did. Don't think I didn't. I loved her. She was too young. Just a spontaneous grasp at a comfort and stability until then absent in her life, with no genuine thought, no honesty with herself as to the actuality of the breadth of time and life. It was no more than a quick fix. She didn't want to work or do anything or be productive, or give anything to the relationship. And who would really? To what end is our productivity anyway?"
He stood and followed a low hanging branch, running a hand along it, the pistol in his other.
"And we had great times together. Great times." He pulled off a leaf and spun it by the stem between his fingers. "But she didn't want to make it work. She wasn't ready to be a married person. To give the kind of time and effort it requires; to clamour over the rocky cliffs, hold tight the reigns (he imitated both gestures as he spoke). She wasn't ready for that, and I let her get herself into it. And how could I blame her for getting bored? What could I offer her at my age and her at hers?"
He turned back to the tree, now standing a few yards away from the trunk.
"Some chatterbox you turned out to be. You think I give you credit, for merely listening? I suppose I do. Most would do less. Though ignorance is clearly well suited in you, being that you are yet to fucking uproot yourself and cast shadows elsewhere along the pond here, away from my mania. You spineless rube. I wouldn't follow you, your shade is not so welcoming, or your limbs so necessary. Here let me remove my garments from your delicate boughs, so as not to upset you too."
He walked quickly over to his hanging clothes and yanked them down. Leaving them on the ground.
"And let me tell you, it's not a real comfort to sleep under you either."
He lifted his shoulders and squeezed his back together, then bent at the waist and let his arms dangle to the grass.
Taking a deep breath he unbent and stood straight, "Jesus Christ." He looked sharply at the tree and stared for a moment.
"And you ask what else? Well what do you expect!? She looses the comfort that was her sole reason to stay. What do you think is going to happen? Based solely on the needs of her situation, she did right by herself."
He moved around under the branches of the tree and began to pick up the clothing he had pulled down off the branch. He hung them back up. He laughed but stopped himself.
"And who is to blame for that, is what you're really asking, the loss of the one thing that kept her in my bed at night?" He smiled. "Well who else? That's what I do."
He held a single leaf in his palm, still attached to the tree.
"And why would I, who has had such success in his job - who has carved out a place for himself in a company, drawn up a future, who had built something there, why would I be so careless, and appear, you might even say, to be the very author of the sudden destruction of all that was built? The doer responsible for the entire ruination? Well I wouldn't expect you to know, being your trifles deal merely in weather and bird shit. But is it not so obvious that I need explain?"
He moved about under the tree again. The geese had returned with a splash but stayed clear of the shore. He stopped and began talking to another set of leaves on a different low hung branch.
"Because what pleasure could I draw now from it? Because it is my nature. That I had such success in constructing something I care so little for, despise even, repudiate the very nature of! What pleasure was left there except what I knew lay in seeing it's destruction? What pleasure could I still expect to draw from this well save for that which I got when I razed the son of a bitch to the ground?"
He walked over to his previous place and picked up the pistol. He played with the weight in his hand, lifting it and letting it sink back down. He ran the barrel along a branch of the tree. He laughed in a short burst, not loud.
"Why you ask am I then surprised at my being terminated from the position," he gestured with the gun, waving it around, "oughten I had known that to pursue such a destructive end would be nothing less than a guarantee of my separation? Might even you say I brought the end on myself given the means? If that is what you say by your rustling and your dumb flapping of leaves, the yes, you are correct. But I would argue less surprised, I am, and more shocked. Why shock? Does shock not set in after all destruction regardless of intent? Regardless of whether it was myself initiating the full means of descent? And it was my fault. But am I not allowed the surprise of shock even at my own actions? Because what the fuck else are we if not a collection of vices?"
He began to raise his voice and move quickly around, his thin pale knee-knot legs bending around the uneven ground.
"That is all we are. All of us, just a collection of vices retrograde to whatever intention the 'one in charge' set as a design, and fuck-all good that design has done for us; sentience is a curse as far as I'm concerned, left to curdle and writhe in the mud like pigs, and we cover ourselves on hands and knees, lie and fucking ruin everything!" He began to trail off. He moved quicker now and accidentally stepped in a puddle that had formed after the storm.
"Shit, god-damnit!" He yelled and shook his foot, "left to shake my leg like a mangy dog."
He turned and looked at the tree.
"That's man's nature!" Holding out his arms, the pistol still in hand.
"To fuck up whatever design has been set for him, benevolent or otherwise, by whoever it is that does the setting, to the point that we are merely clumps of shit for nothing better than to prod at and toss away in fulsome disgust! There is no such thing as fate, we ruined fate! Do you argue otherwise? Rustling your leaves... what is that supposed to mean anyway?"
He became loud again, "And why, you stuck fool, would one carry on, through this, why would one crawl like a beetle through the mud and excrement? For what? Just to live? How foolish are we to remain among the shit and pretend the wading through does nothing to our spirit, paddling along in our little boats with all our things, passing ourselves off as some sort of verity in life! Well I'm not fucking doing it anymore! And if you have anything to say about that!"
He slid down against the trunk of the tree and put the pistol against his temple, he was quieter now but the intensity blazed through his eyes, "Then you can just shut the fu..." He began to breathe heavily, his nose ran and his eyes teared up, his chest moving in and out rapidly. He calmed himself after a moment, the gun remained at his temple.
"Why then let it take me when I can take myself? To spend time? Doing what? Drinking into an unrecognizable dementia? Should I live to become like my father? Swallow gallons of booze and watch my life become confusion and darkness. Wander aimless through the streets, shirtless with one shoe on, leaving those who know me to set aside their secret wish of my demise to track me down in my aimless jaunt, put their life on the line and have to try and convince me I know them, that I should trust them to remove me from the myriad of cars veering and darting out of the way, my confusion creating only dissension and them fighting the urge to let me alone and watch from the curb, stand aside so one of the speeding brutes might do what they really, what they really want to do, what I should have done years before, what I should do now? Shall I remain alive so I can forget the use of a spoon, or a wad of fucking toilet paper, and only after watching my brother walk into the dark and confusion first, learning nothing? 'Cause that's what I've got now to look forward to!"
He spoke with an intensity but he was not yelling, "So you shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck up! You shut..."
He pressed the pistol firmly against his head, his finger shook wildly on the trigger. His nose ran onto his lips and his eyes filled again. He breathed heavier still, and more rapidly, his chest heaving like the sea on the hull of a great ship. Then he took one deep breath and closed his eyes and very calmly spoke, "forget me, I am gone."
The geese circled around the small pond, floating on their large breasts with an almost brash air. They sped after mallards, chasing them from the pond and making small streaks on the otherwise glassy water. The birds sang in full now, the sun rising still; he heard them, he heard all of them, and this pleased him.
He opened his eyes and stared ahead for a long moment before he dropped the pistol, watching the world about him come alive. He heard a woodpecker tapping along, the leaves on the great maple behind him, prophesying the great unheard secret. He spoke calmly now.
"And yet... Maybe it is in the recognition of our vices, the realization that we are not more than simply that which we can not control, that we become human; or at least more than clumps of shit."
He glanced over his shoulder at the tree.
"Might that be our willed existence? To simply recognize that which makes us clumps of shit, and in doing so find exactly that which makes us human? In order that we may rise above? So that any hope of dealing amicably with those around us isn't merely a forlorn hope, and that we are let to live as we are?"
He spun around on his hands and looked at the tree.
"You sly son of a bitch."
He stood quickly, knot-kneed and thin, pale, his thin legs sticking out of his stretched out dirty white underwear, giving the effect that they were disconnected somehow from his body; one foot muddy from the puddle. He walked over to the branch on which he had left his drying clothes. They were warm on his skin when he put them on. He walked down to the edge of the pond and put his foot in, rubbing the mud off with this hands. He splashed water on his face and walked back toward the tree. The sun was warm on his back and this pleased him. He was dry now.
He looked out over the pond and took a deep breath. He did not smile, he walked away.
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