hedgehog

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LIGHTS UP

The set is sparse- an armchair sits alone stage right and a park bench is stage left. On the back wall is pinned a large school photo, on the wall stage right is a mirror. A young woman, Tatiana, dressed in a well-tailored black coat and black trousers stands centre stage, holding a dart in both hands, its flight to her lips. Tat stands for a few moments, head bowed, taking deep breaths. Without warning, she spins on her heel and pitches the dart at the photograph. She strides over to the picture and looks closely at the face the dart has landed in, runs her finger down to the list of names below.

Keeley Dowsing. Good lord. That I fail to remember her face is shocking, that I cannot recognise the name should be unforgivable. Yet somehow it seems perfectly natural to forget. To allow these thing to slip one by. Forgivable to forget. It has been so long, and there is now such a terrible sparse chance of a reunion. Unless, one day, we all, the survivors, drag ourselves, ulcerous and moaning, to an area we all knew and pass our lives on, chapped lips pressed to dulled ears. And will we listen? Will we even be able to speak? Might our capacity for speech be impeded by the progress of isolation? I remember the difficulty I experienced in checkout queues, barely able to croak out "Hello"s to the chirpy part-timers waving my food over burbling scanners. My voice box had become atrophied in the wait. And now there is no-one left to talk to, no-one left to even phone.

Should there be? By this time in my life, and I'm not too old yet, still young enough to be counted as viable, I probably would have retreated anyway, would have entered the hermit's life. Just escaping the ghastly meat-market one passes through. It is not enough just to lock oneself away, one must cut off the lines of communication. I destroyed my telephone one day in what would have been considered at the time a fit of pique, but now would probably be looked upon as the sensible work of a forward-thinking young lady. Tatiana Finch, harbinger of doom, foreseer of apocalypse.

She thinks about this for a moment, walks back to the armchair and sits down.

But to Keeley. An interesting case study. I really should dig out my memories, but I fear they will come to me as I sit. Creep up behind me like a child with a slug, full of mischief and innocent violence.

She lights a cigarette.

Don't get up.

She lowers her head and closes her eyes. The lights fade a little, leaving her in a gloomy, sleepy atmosphere, languorously smoking her cigarette.

I have suffered all my life from mild confidence, a state of physical well-being. When experiencing mild confidence, one is able to approach people one finds attractive or interesting and be comfortable within a fairly intimate physical proximity. Well, within a couple of feet, at least. However, actually engaging the person in conversation of an acceptable level of coherence proves a little more challenging. For reasons not yet, nor ever to be, known, mild confidence constricts the vocal chords and tongue to such an extreme that the sufferer, as they must surely now be termed, is able only to squeak out a garbled sentence which causes them great mental anguish, especially when replayed in one's head at a later, more leisurely painful, time.

Isn't it funny how things return? I once used mild confidence as an excuse to avoid someone. But that period of my life has been erased to around twenty-five percent intelligibility. What I mean by this is that, according to some nonsense fool I once had the misfortune to engage in conversation a long time ago, fifty percent of memory is imagined, but that time of my life has gone further. I can now only confidently state that twenty-five percent of it is fact. I may, actually, have to make up what this damn woman was like. I must only honestly remember..

She turns to the school photograph and rapidly counts the faces, then turns back to the audience.

.. about sixty of the people I went to school with. Maybe Keeley Dowsing is one of the other sixty. The imagined sixty. The half of my school which, in my memory, is pure invention. All these people I have created. I must have an overactive imagination.

It is appalling, a curse. It seriously impairs my ability to be alone, which I have to deal with more and more now. We all do, though, do we not? Those of us lucky enough, at least, to have the luxury of solitude and the false blessing of extended life. But spare a thought for the dead, and for the living, clustered together in their shelters, too afraid to leave, too stupid to die now. And me here, alone, in...

I remember her now. Always was going to be the first to be married. As soon as sixteen loomed, she was there, pacing up and down the aisle impatiently. Figuratively, I mean.

Tat stands up and goes over to the park bench. The lights change a little, perhaps to indicate that this is outdoors.

And it's another beautiful day in the city, in the arrested heart of the dead city. The winter sky, dark and mysterious but lit with an inner glow of hidden sunlight one knows to exist. Somewhere. I forget the last time I slept beneath the stars, though, really, one must do it every night. You could say we all do, that it links us. It is a romantic notion, is it not? That we all look up to the same set of stars, something lovers would whisper on parting. Goodbye, my dear.

I miss you now, my love with the shopping trolley. I leave your rattle and scrape to the memory of the world and forge on ahead with the procreation of a universal ideal - myself as genus originator, as Eve and Adam in one. But first I must refresh my memory. What is humanity? The Devil is in the details.

I suppose it is my own fault. If I had spent longer in the company of humanity, I might not have this difficulty summoning the past to inhabit my present. The randomness of my choice is working against me, why could I not have picked someone I was more familiar with? Damn this woman.

She reaches down to two shopping bags by her feet and pulls out a half-bottle of Scotch.

I would drink to my health, but I think it would not appreciate the irony. I have been making myself comfortable in the aftermath, and one should never despair, but there is so little hope for anyone or anything that I cannot find a celebratory reason for this. But, even in the darkest hours of the soul, humanity always found a reason for getting slaughtered, and reason to slaughter.

She unscrews the top and takes a huge slug of the whisky. She looks uncomfortable, but does not wince, is too controlled.

If one is going to go away, to slide away, it is better to burn out than fade away. So one is told. I have never fully appreciated the logic of this, but then I am not one to subscribe to the theory that one loses one's mind as age advances. It is never true that talent disappears, though some have the innate, uncontrollable ability to suppress it. And, as time wears on, the appearance of loss is as inexorable as the appearance of wrinkles. However, in all the time humanity had, it never invented a cream, enriched with, perhaps, hydroxy-ceramides, to combat this premature aging. We simply have to believe that, as we age, we become greater, that we fulfil our biological destiny. What, if the opposite were true, would be the point in ageing? There must be a greater plan, some sense in the process. If one's peak is reached when one is young, why do we then continue?

She drinks some more of the Scotch. She takes on the persona of Keeley Dowsing, for a short while. I think. Just go with this one, we'll see how it pans out.

I never got my chance, never had my day in court, my day in church. I would'nt've bothered catching the bouquet so many times if I'd known. What have I to show for it? Repetitive strain injury and an engagement ring scorched into my finger. Do you know who I am? I'm nobody's good lady! And I'm nobody herself! I'm not my own good lady. Quite a coup, you might say.

She has another drink.

You're never going to hook him, they told me, I mean- when I was sixteen it seemed like there was no chance, I was... ah, fuck it, I was a dog. And, yeah, I'll admit that. But.. I think I grew into my face. And there were always some blokes waiting round, some still had the scent. By the time I was twenty one..! Well! Beating them off with a stick. Fucking stuck. And I hooked him. Stuck him. Writhing on the end of the stick. And as I was there, as I stood by him on the happiest day of my life... The wailing came.

She drains the bottle, resumes her own persona.

And the gnashing of teeth, no doubt. Oh. Asleep, drunk, on the park bench? Worry not. I am well used to this by now. It's like a trip back to before civilization ended.

She lies on the bench and curls up. FADE DOWN
FADE UP.
Tatiana is still asleep on the bench. Something startles her awake and she instinctively reaches into her shopping bag and pulls out a gun, waving it about defensively, randomly. She realizes she is alone and relaxes.

I panicked. I thought there was someone here. Though why I should immediately leap to the offensive is a reaction I shall leave unanalysed. It seems ungrateful to destroy company, but I really would not know how to cope with it anyway. I fear my reserves of smalltalk have been erased. Good lord, how would I ever converse? No. Kill, or be killed. Avoid chit-chat. You know?

She winks at the audience.

Well, at least I now have that woman out of my system. Memories are as painful as love, though without the repercussions. I can remember and remember all I like, though no-one will return the compliment. Nobody will remember me.

She stands and moves to the front of the stage. From her pocket she removes another dart.

With weapons of war we came from the East. With death in mind we came from the West. From the North we came, pestilent and plaguing. And from the South we came, bringing the famine. In the middle stood one, alone. An ineffectual barrier. I may possess only this, but its power is greater in opposition than the destruction of the world.

She drops it, point-first, to the ground in front of her.

From this point, we stand against Armageddon.

She moves back to lounge in the armchair, lighting another cigarette as she does so.

I can always return to a happier time. All I have to do is sleep. Though what you are thinking is wrong; it has nothing to do with dreaming. Oblivion is more what it is about. My happiest days were spent without realizing I was alive. Sleep is good- sleep is nice, the relaxing form of oblivion. The dreams are the agony there, but they can not compare to the end of the void which is brought on by self-destruction. When one drinks to forget, one rarely goes far enough. Personally, I drank to destroy mind and memory. And I think, though this may sound immodest, I did an excellent job.

At the risk of repeating myself, it is not the memory which is the important part, rather it is the process of remembering. Who amongst us now really remembers what they were doing two years ago? For that matter, two hours ago? So we invent, or we concentrate, or, if we are particularly diligent, we make notes at the time for reference to later. How I must now regret not thinking of that. I believe I do regret it, but I am not prone to analysing every emotional response I have, so it goes unnoticed amid the swirl of everyday regrets and heartbreak.

There is a murmur of disbelief at that last statement, I believe. Not aloud, but somewhere. My heart can break too, as easily as anyone else's. I merely choose to shut its pathetic, needy whine out of my head. I shouldn't have to listen to that sort of thing.

She looks at the cigarette.

I really should give these up. They can kill a person in a hundred inventive little ways. Cigarettes even contain arsenic. Still, there is little nowadays which does not contain something potentially lethal in sufficient doses. Even the fresh water from the river. In fact, just breathing in doses one to the eyeballs with toxic substances. In this context, the smoking of cigarettes seems positively healthy.

Nevertheless, she takes a final drag and flicks it away, towards the dart. As she does so, panic crosses her face and, almost as if it were her last cigarette, she dives after the butt. Scrabbling, she instead plucks the dart out of the stage. With it in her hand, she stands and throws it at the photograph, shrieking the name of the person who is picked.

Ian Seaton! Narcissist!

On this, she grabs the mirror off the wall and takes it in her arms, whirling round with it as if dancing with her own reflection, cooing at herself.

If it wasn't for all these other people, I'd have given it all up and gone and lived with you. You're the only one who understands me, aren't you? Yes, yes, baby, I know how you feel about people, about how you feel about me, but we're made for each other, can't you feel it, in my arms, woman, or is it in my kiss?

She leans forwards, trying to kiss the mirror, but it leans away from her. She strains forward again, but, of course, she is keeping herself at arm's length. This goes on until she has the mirror pinned to the ground. She becomes animalistic, scrabbling at the glass, until she finally stops, sees sense, and lies down by the mirror, propping herself up on her elbow to look down at her reflection.

But Ian, what about us? You, and me, and everybody? Ah, maybe I should just get two mirrors, and play out my life with the infinite. Your life, Ian.

She rolls away, affecting the voice of Ian Seaton.

Yeah, yeah, it's a bind, alright. But when you're blessed, you're blessed, am I right? Somebody has to be me, don't they? And is it my fault that "me" happens to be so beautiful? So I give people what they want- soccer hero and nervous love god. Actually, I'm more of a one-woman kind of guy, but when you're pushed, you're pushed, am I right? And I was pushed. Not exactly serial monogamy, but I was never exactly with more than one woman at a time. Oh, it's too complicated to try and explain, but there you go. That's your basic problem, I mean, the complexities of human relationships. I never ask, don't need to, never needed to. But I did always... I was pulled away, pushed towards someone else, all the time. Perhaps I should have asked. Just that one time, eh? But when you're hot, you're hot.

Am I right?

I'm probably wrong this time. When you're hot, you're on heat, and when you're on heat you're pushed, and you're never blessed when there's no-one worth blessing you. And you're never at your best when you enter a room with someone's palm at the base of your spine. Hey, though, you have to make do. Adulation, it's what you make of it, I think. I always thought. This is not an insight.

Tatiana sits up, smoothes her hair back and re-hangs the mirror. Clearly exhausted, she returns to the armchair, sits down for a second, then lolls her head back in sleep. It snaps forward abruptly.

Ah, sleep. To sleep, hopefully without dreaming. Apologies to Shakespeare.

She stands and walks, unsteadily, to the bench, which she lies down on.

It is almost as if this bench has moulded itself to me. Almost, but not quite. Some people find their beds uncomfortable after a decade or so. The mattress is twisted into the shape of their sleeping form. I think I shall never grow weary of this bench. Its visible knotholes and flaked paint have a reassuringly permanent feel to them. It will never warp to the shape of my body, no matter how long I lie here.

I think I would like to lie here forever. I cannot help but feel my experiment has failed. The human race is gone, destroyed by its propensity to bite its own tail. The tail grew too long, piercing its brain. How utterly, utterly stupid. And I am far too weak to bring it back. How wrong the Gods were to preserve me, how cruel a sense of humour they displayed in their choice for the new Eve.

The funny thing, the really hilarious thing, is that the Gods would choose such a wretched specimen in the first place. Never an achiever in life, in real life, in life before the end, here I struggled with a puzzle far beyond my ability. And lost. Of course. Maybe I am just the final reminder, a coda which points out, once and for all, that we were never supposed to survive. You see, they will say. You see what humanity was reduced to? You see what they left?

With this, she lights a final cigarette.
LIGHTS DOWN.