A
In the present, discourse on belonging. On leaving. In 1904, tribes from around the globe were abducted from their lands and put on display in the largest “anthropological exhibit” (ever, or since).
(In the following exchange, there should be no pauses in between each line. As soon as the last letter in each sentence is spoken, the next line should follow.)
D: I couldn’t speak.
E: Muteness sometimes becomes you.
D: Neither verse nor prose. No rhythm. No movement. No content, no rhyme.
E: More silences should filter often through you.
D: It’s been said at the time of my birth, a million leaf chafers inhaled at the same time and sucked the breath out of my father, who at the time was busy swatting at flies.
E: Stifling births produce raucous sounds and unbearable witnesses to life.
D: Flies that walked, but did not fly. Flies that intimidated by sheer numbers. A tintinnabulating ocean that rolled as echoes in frogs’ ears.
E: Such an exercise in utility, this gathering in sheer numbers.
D: So, I couldn’t speak.
E: The gatherings happened by the numbers…the harvesting happened by the numbers. Now, here we are in this alien land, surrounded by all this familiarity. But, if you were to trace the origins of this river, there’d be no mountain wind whispering through insect wings, no toads shivering on river rocks.
D: Softly, my father died under the weight of all those wingless flies; couldn’t even speak through his broken breathing.
(One turns clockwise, the other counterclockwise. They end up face to face.)
E: So, how did we get here?
D: Does it really matter? I don’t want to trace a mountain wind or a river’s song. I want to rage, tear down the sky, let azure flow as redemption.
(BLACK OUT)
Next scene: Hyper-(LINKS): flashing brilliantly/quickly on screens on monitors: Native American Mounds at the Mississippi Delta/Banaue Rice Terraces/Patagonian steppes/Southern African jungles).
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