SUSAN: There were Christmas presents still waiting to be unwrapped and the strewn strips of green and red paper laying around the carpet because we did not have the motivation to clean. Enjoying the company was far more appealing. There is something about Christmas morning and the few to follow it that is pure. It is virgin snow untainted by yellow piss or muddy tires. The white we wear on wedding days to symbolize our purity, the 18, 19, 20 years we waited with legs shut tight. (Bullshit. You're lying, Susan. But there is no regret.) But he enters like the yellow piss and the muddy tire-tracks. In the black that pulls you away from those twinkle-lights. And you'd think the contrast between day and night - black and white - in the color of his shirt and denim would turn your head to focus your eyes on his own. But no. And it is only his breath that remains in the room when you realize that you didn't hold tight enough. You didn't unwrap the Christmas presents fast enough. Because the moment is gone. The vulture has swooped down and taken, talons bringing him too high to reach and releasing him like the icicles hanging from the outside window-sills that eventually fall and shatter. Or the picture you burn of the dead because you'd rather see their face crinkle, fade than have to live with seeing it day after day after day after night because night time is the hardest when you actually have to think about it. There aren't distractions in night. Just the nakedness of the open sky and the silence so quiet you can hear the dead walking even though they've forgotten how. But I'm still standing here, watching the doctor some ten, fifteen, twenty feet away talking to a nurse. Shaking his clipboard as he speaks. There is this prior knowledge. Call me clairevoyant. There is this prior knowledge I have that he will be headed here soon, running his fingers through his hair and shuffling his feet like a child and asking me to take a seat. It will be easier to discuss it if we sit. Do you want coffee? I want answers. Coffee answers no questions. And no, I do not want to sit. The wall is support enough. I've sat enough in 18, 19, 20, I don't remember, years. And he will come, fingers running through hair and feet shuffling like a little boy, with the slightest shake from side to side with his textbook head until the words come pouring out following that sigh. Funny how a sigh, a groan, a low, emitted noise from the bowels of our being, can be the exposition to a play, novel, film. That sigh is the one we dread but we all have prior knowledge in these moments: against the wall and standing under icicles waiting to fall and shatter upon impact with your skull, body, being.
(She finally moves, sorting through her purse, pulling out a book, placing the pocketbook between her feet, guarding it with them, and opens to where she has left off, beginning to read. After a minute,) The lust in these romance novels off the mass market paperback shelves in the library is a guilty pleasure. So many other women have read it. The pages are like rose petals a week after you give them to your other half. Until he runs his fingers through his hair and shuffles his feet with the slightest shake of his head from side to side, I will read the rose petals. Call it avoidance or denial. I call it Christmastime. I'm meant to enjoy, not grieve. (She begins to read. The lights slowly go down save one soul spot above SUSAN. After a moment, a projection appears on the wall she is standing on: a poorly-filmed home video. A family unwrapping Christmas presents. There is no sound, just the images we see. A long while then the silent image of static. The projection ends after a brief moment. SUSAN waits, then finally and frantically...)
I left my glass of wine on the kitchen table. Fuck. I just remembered. Fuck. Certainly someone has poured it down the drain by now. I was enjoying the flavor. I will have to make another attempt at finishing a glass when I get home tonight. Or tomorrow. Or is it already tomorrow? I lack the eyes to see the clock on the far wall. I should rest them. Just for a minute. Not sleep, just close them, rest them. Yes. (Closing her eyes.) Much better. Soothing. And I must stop talking so that I hear the shuffle of his feet and the fingers going through his hair getting closer. (The single light that has been on SUSAN changes. She listens. She is attentive. A beat. A change. She is alone again. The light changes back.)
It's being here again that scares me the most. In this same building. This same, sterile hospital. After you lose someone, you're tempted to take the umbilical chord and strangle the child you give birth to. But you take one look at his eyes and his nose and the baby fat filling his cheeks, all red as crimson after coming out of you. It's amazing how another human being can come out of you. (Smirking.) Painful, too. After all the work, how could you strangle it? But you consider it. Because you think it deserves some sort of chance to avoid the life of home-videos that lead up until the day of their death. (The lights change as she steps closer to the audience, coming forward and stopping downstage center.) Since my first day here, that day when my brother... when Carl expired... I have discovered the secret of life: when we are born, it is only so that we may die. I have yet to discover the reason.(The lights change again as does her posture. She is in an elevator.) I decided to take an elevator up two floors while the baby was napping in the nursery on day two in the hospital. I got out of it and took a walk. (She exits the "elevator" and turns, her back to the audience, and heads upstage, suddenly being stopped dead in her tracks. The wall.) There are memories here. (Indicating.) And here. (Indicating again.) And here. I stood here. Right here. And waited. Clutching my pocketbook, waiting, waiting, waiting. Watching the doctor run his fingers through his hair and shuffle his feet with the slightest shake in his head. Preparing himself like an actor before a performance. (Walking over a little and stopping to indicate.) And here, I drank stale coffee. (Walking again before indicating.) Here, my mother cried. (Walking again and indicating.) And here, I watched them pull the sheet up. And over. And he... (Stopping. Thinking.) They should have fed him by now. I should go back to the nursery. (Beginning to head back to the "elevator" but taking one last look at the white wall, her back to the audience.) You should be able to say it before you can move on and experience happiness. You need to be able to admit to it ever happening. Garage sales will not work. You can't dispose of the evidence that someone ever actually exisisted. (She turns, getting in the elevator. As she speaks, a projection on the back wall appears and the lights begin to fade. The projection is of a baby taking its first steps.) You can't walk around waiting for the day of your death to come. Carl died three days after Christmas in 1982. I had doubts about life, expecting it to be nothing but a road to death. Sadness. Grief. You can't go through it like that. I can't go through it like that. I gave birth about 29 hours ago. 6 and a half pounds. 1:33 in the morning. My child will know life and love life. He will not expect death. There might have been Christmas presents still waiting to be unwrapped and the strewn strips of green and red paper laying around the carpet because we did not have the motivation to clean. Enjoying the company was far more appealing. But it's time to unwrap them and stop shaking them to see what's inside. (The lights fade and we are left with the projection on the back wall. Eventually, it stops and the stage is in darkness.)
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