Nora Strejilevich - Books / Stories - Single Numberless Death- Scene 7

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SCENE 7: DIARIES

(The MOTHERS and FATHERS appear one at a time to share
their diaries and journals with the audience. SOME read
what they've written, OTHERS speak their thoughts aloud.
After each has spoken, she or he joins the others Upstage
swaying to soft music. As the final diary is read, the
MOTHERS and FATHERS begin the formal Dance of the
Disappeared - in silence.)
MOTHER 1: I always wanted to keep a diary, but I've never done
it because I don't feel capable of writing down sensations,
thoughts, ideas, and the hardest thing of all- feelings. That
is a word much used and yet for each person it has a
different meaning. Some people call their emotions or
passions feelings, but I think feeling is higher than just
impulse, or those passions which make us wound even
those dearest to us. Why? That is the mystery. But I know at
those moments real feelings don't playa part - they would
not permit us to wound the people we love most.
MOTHER 2: Why did I choose today to sit down and pour out my
feelings in this unfinished notebook, half-filled with the
algebraic calculations that I've never understood and will
never understand? Simply because they were written by my
son whom I don't know if I will ever see again, who is today
entering the twenty-ninth year of his life, if he's still alive.
FATHER 1: I feel too much despair to go out or to talk about it;
I don't want to keep acting so aggressively towards my
wife who has suffered as much as I have but who has the
courage to overcome it and not to show it in front of me. I
don't want to complain because people avoid people who
complain, for whatever reasons they feel justification.
That's why I'm writing in this little notebook. It belongs to
my daughter and brings me closer to her.
MOTHER 3: If the day should come I'd like to tell her all this in
person. If that is not to be, I want her at least to know that
we've missed her. I don't want to dwell on our suffering,
she must have suffered much more. And, if at some point
she has been able to think about us, she must have
suffered thinking of our pain, since she knew we didn't
know what might have happened to her. I think that
whenever we dream of her it's because she's concentrating
her thoughts on us. I know she wouldn't want me hidden
away, crying. (Pause, fighting off tears) I hope she'll forgive
me for not doing what she'd want me to.
FATHER 2: Today is sunny and warm; I've closed the shutters
and turned on the lamp. Daylight bothers me. If only it
had been overcast. But we can't choose these things
either. Where are you, mi hijo? Do you know that today is
the day of your birth twenty years ago? Are you anywhere
that lets you know this? What thoughts, memories,
images, must be passing through your mind today? Have
you been able to find a balance since you ceased to belong
to the world of people who move to and fro without
thinking that it can all suddenly end, that something can
happen so casually and then we are no more? It's the not
knowing that's terrible.
MOTHER 2: Not knowing, yes, that's the worst possible thing,
worse than death. There you have certainty, here we have
permanent doubt, no rest, no peace.
MOTHER 1: We live, we speak, we eat, we walk, but we are not;
we are empty of the knowledge of what has happened, we
lack the presence of that one human being. His things are
here, his books, his writing, his clothes, but he is not.
MOTHER 3: Only those who've lived through this can know it.
Imagining it is not the same.
FATHER 1: At times, the emptiness is so great that I don't knoW
how I reach the end of the day having accomplished
things, walked along the streets, talked to people,
carrying on what would be called a normal life. All that is
an appearance, inside I am empty. How can I be cured?
Only with your return. When will that be?
MOTHER 1: There is no answer. It is terrible to realize that we
are anonymous numbers, that we don't count. We
disappear, our place is filled by someone else and life
goes on.
MOTHER 3: I hope this won't last very much longer. It would
kill too many parents. It's too cruel.
FATHER 2: I'll go on another day, if I have something more to
tell you.
MOTHER 2: Perhaps this will be useful in some way, otherwise
it serves as my confession. (One FATHER has struggled to
compose this letter/diary while the OTHERS have spoken
and danced.)
FATHER 3: Your mother and I miss you more than words can
say. (Long pause) That is all? One measly sentence?
Ahhhhh! What more? The rest is silence. (They dance, in
silence. Lights fade to black.)





© 2005 Nora Strejilevich