A. Prologue: Signs of Life
Tinny static from a tape deck.
Desk lamp on in total darkness on floor.
Unfold the silken cloth.
Under the lamp light examine a limb.
Observe.
Observe.
Observe.
Replace the limb with your face.
Drop static.
B. She’s So Good
One: Face to the floor
Objective: face to the floor, body sex-fixed, prayer-full, broke, dropped.
Come to language by gurgles.
Jaw hold, eye posture.
Text: “I’m so in love. She’s so nice.”
Objective: speak of her in parts.
“Hair.”
“Arm.”
“Nice.”
Objective: Text: “I compared myself to a can,
And I compared her to one, too:
And I asked myself,
‘Could I be inside her?”
Objective: Text: “A can within a can. Cans.”
“I’m so in love.”
Objective: The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft
Objective: A vision.
Objective: Go with the vision –
don’t return.
Objective: Text: “We were in bed together.
I was lying next to her.”
Objective: The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft
Objective: If tears come, through tears, the reasons.
If no tears, no reason.
*
Two: Hands and Knees
Objective: reposition lamp.
Hands and knees.
Lamp to face.
Face to face.
Text: Sex prep in syllables.
Tough guy sounds.
Sex.
Objective: Once break the pleasure and acknowledge
the possibility that someone is watching you.
Don’t be deterred.
Objective: Recognition.
*
Three: Stand, Apology, Kiss
Objective: Text: “And I was just like ‘oops.’”
Objective: Begin making your way to standing.
Objective: Text: Oops.
Ops.
Owouphs.
Opps.
Oorphs, etc.
Objective: bring lamp with you. Lamp as microphone. Spotlight.
Objective: Text: Os.
Osps.
And I was like Ops.
Aoos.
Aups, etc.
Objective: Light blind. Light kill. Light Erase.
Go blind.
Objective: Text: “and I was just like:
Oops.”
Objective: Kiss the light-bulb.
Exit.
Benjamin Hersey writes and performs in and around Northampton, MA. A chapbook of monologues culled from answer-machine messages his mom’s boyfriend left on her answering machine has recently been published by The Chuckwagon, a small press in Southampton, MA.