Role

Chapter 8

The theater is dark and quiet. It smells smoky.

The curtains are already parted and the stage is completely black.

The Playbill on your seat is a simple piece of bark which has the words
"For Bethanny" burned into it in a neat script. You sit.

The drums come first, it is a beat you recognize, or you think you do,
a love song from some years ago, or was it a song about heartbreak?
You can't quite remember. Now that you think of it, the beat is a bit
off.

Here it comes, the strings are about to begin, but that is not any
instrument you've ever heard. Is it a bird screeching? You still almost
recognize the song. It is not a love song, it is a song of loss.

The stage lights come up. There is no front-light, no foot-lights, it is,
only a curtain of flame against the back wall.

A single figure is silhouetted against the fire at extreme stage-right,
barely visible, in the fetal position, as the music intensifies he raises
his head and you see that he is reduced.

The music is clearly a song you know, but the words and instruments are
all the cawing and growling of animals, either a menagerie or some
sorcery is present.

He rises and as the music grows louder he is assaulted by unseen
assailants, he dances away from them, reeling from the blows, his form
thickens and you see a shell form around him, his feet grow large and he
leaps around the stage, his tiny form fighting.

He is on his knees now, pushing something away from his face, but he is
too small to fight it off, for an instant horns burst from his forehead,
but they are gone in a flash, did you imagine them? His tiny form accepts
what is happening in a rhythmic spasm. Are the flames brighter? You
squint.

Moments later when you can see more clearly, the shadowed form on stage
is bigger, the size of an adult, its invisible assailants continue their
indignations. A crab shell, now a turtle shell, the dancer is on his
back, writhing, writhing, then still.

The music continues, this is an uncomfortable scene.