Beeb and Carl in a Cafe. {Beeb’s artwork is strewn about the walls}
B – Hello.
C – Is this seat taken?
B – Feel Free.
C – Thank you, don’t mind if I do.
B – {looking up} What don’t you mind?
C – (pause, then says slowly) I don’t mind that I am here and that there is war on the planet and starving people.
B – You what?!!!! (Beberly puts her sketch pad down).
C – You heard what I said.
B – I did. I did hear you. (pause) Can I ponder a guess at why you said that?
C – Please, “feel Free”
B – Theory is generally a guess. And a guess is not necessarily theory. And Grace is a function and form within all of Creation.
C – (raises eyebrows above the rim of his glasses). Just what Are you getting at my dear?
B – (does a look over of Carl and of the Cafe and comes back to stare directly at Carl in the face) You many not mind that you don’t really remember where you come from, why you are here and where you might be going?
C – (does another raising of eyebrows)
B – (continues) ….that many things seem hidden from you? And you dream you can fly? That circumstances around you, no matter how bizarre have a way of pertaining to exactly what you are dealing with in your life?
c. how presumptuous.
b. maybe. it is true for mostly everyone.
c. go on.
b. I hold no pretenses. what seems true is what I work with for the most part.
c. ok. where are you from exactly?
b. somewhere other than ‘here’. maybe from the future. many places all at once. across the timeline.
c. where do you get your information. and for that matter, your presumptions?
b. from the “cloister dora plates” and from my many selves.
c. the what?
b. history plates that hold information that was deleted from most of the worlds’ texts.
c. the world texts?
b. like the bible, the koran, …..those books.
c. oh. (Long pause) What are you sketching?
b. drivel mostly. then sometimes, other things come through. then i paint them.
c. well, i was born here. in cleveland to be exact. i think i evolved from you know, the cave man. just like every one else.
b , looks up questioning. oh, you mean the hybrid races?
c. the what?
b. i was born in the cleveland clinic. when i was 7 years old i asked for a book. the one i got was a story about a girl that moved to the new england coast and eventually became a painter and learned to play the fiddle.
c. go back to the cave man.
b. well, there were more than one kind. one was the neanderthal. that is the only one , oh and the croation? was that one? maybe not. anyway. they were part of a regenisis operation…the kind that you are when some of your parts are missing. the parts that make us remember that we are god. and that we have a history and a future.
c. you may have lost me there. please go on. i have the afternoon off.
b. they mated with the angelic humans as a way to get the dna on track. in order so to speak.
C. what about their dna?
b. it had been altered.
c.how?
b. i forget.
pause.
b. tonight is my drinking night.
c. what?
b. i drink to quiet the pain of remembering.
c. what?
b. its hard to explain.
c. go ahead.
b. a lot of my other selves…probable realities, are coming home to roost.
c. why now?
b. its time.
c. why?
b. because this body is the only way out.
c. ok, now i really feel lost.
b. join the club.
c. (moves his chair back a few feet. breathes. remembers something.) i remember a dream i had.
b. (looks up from her sketching). a dream?
c. yes. well i think it was a dream. i was young when i had it. i remember someone whispering something in my ear and then i jumped into the swimming pool where my mother was swimming.
b. funny.
c. funny?
b. i had a similar dream.
c. how similar?
b. well, someone was talking me about not remembering why i had come and eventually i would remember…and then i saw.y a woman with a white bathing cap down to my bottom right, ready to dive into a pool. and then everything went blank.
they order a pot of tea to share.
c. so who is your friend?
b. (Looks to the tea bearer who is dressed in a long white garment with sparkles all around her). That is Grace.
the tea bearer brings the tea then steps back in stillness with an aura of strength around her
b. smiles at grace. grace smiles back.
c. ok, lost again. explain?
b. grace has many faces. we all carry grace. grace is what saves us.
c. saves us how?
b. grace is part of the eternal now and connected to the All.
c. The all?
b. the oneness in all things. nothing is ever separated from it.
c. nothing?
b. nothing, not even the rapists, the killers, the lost.
c. well, i know i said i felt lost please dont include ME in that list.
b. what if there is no judgement. no critique, no condemnation of anything?
c. well, now. you are stretching things a bit don’t you think?
b. grace doesn’t differentiate.
c. explain yourself.
b. at the risk of continuing to sound like i know it all Grace is a consciousness of energy that permits everything to be exactly what it is and how it is. grace saves me in each moment by allowing me to be my godself a midst all of my choices, my lives and my decisions across time and space. by pretending to be grace, i am in this moment clean and free. similar to confession in the catholic church. only without the dogma.
c. you mean ‘the smogma’
b. exactly!! the smoke screen.
c. the smokescreen or the smoke scream? (both laughing)
b. yes the screen that makes us want to scream. and we do scream. at least i do. often, inside.
c. me too.
they both sit for a moment screaming inside.
(break)
b. (is hunching over massaging her left hip) my sciatica is acting up again..its the stress.
c. the stress?
b. yes. the stress of my so called life. the life where everything almost seems up in the air.
c. the air?
b. yes, the invisible. the yet to be seen. the great potential. the great kindness and love. the joy ever-present yet at the moment feeling out of touch. what i mean is, joy is always there, and sometimes entirely not felt.
c. what is going on?
b. everything in my life that seemed in place now seems out of place with the exception of my two dogs and three birds, thank you.
c. thank you?
b. the key is to continue being grateful.
c. yes, i get that. i count my blessings everyday. well, not literally count them, you know what i mean.
b. yes, be them. be the gratefulness at every turn.
c. yes, be that. i am this. i am gratefulness.
b. yes, i am gratefulness.
(a great beam of light showers over the cafe)
c. if you dont mind me asking, what happened or what is happening?
b. i dont mind at all, although speaking about it does bring up the pain level i was keeping at bay.
c. you seem so beautiful and composed, aside from you rubbing your thigh.
b. (smiles) thank you. i will move through this also.
c. go ahead. tell me.
b. ok. (deep breath). my boyfriend and i of 12 years always planned to live together. now the time has come and nothing seems to be working out.
c. working out how?
b. I have been traveling from nh to nbpt for 10 years. i have a studio in both places. my sons are now both away in college so to speak. i was raising them on the farm in nh. i thought by now we, my bf and i would have all our eggs in our basket. we dont. the rents seem to high to be able to find a new place. i no longer can come to my studio in nbpt without feeling like i am displacing myself, interjecting into his house. i deserve to live the life that i desire. which means, no more driving back and forth. instead, i have withdrawn to the farm. i am in too much pain to paint, so i am writing a screenplay instead. it hurts to play my fiddle. it hurts when i move too much.
c. oh, is that why you have those crutches?
b. maybe. i thought they were there to slow me down.
c. slow you down?
b. yes, if i didnt have them, i might be climbing mountains, playing tennis and riding horses.
c. what is wrong with that?
b. nothing. except distraction. with all the second guessing and undermining I do to myself it is a wonder I get anything done.
b. what do you do?
c. i write commercials.
(long pause)
b. commercials about what?
c. whatever will sell, thats what.
b. you sound defensive.
c. i am.
b. i would be too.
c. why?
b. because most commercialism distorts things. it puts our young in compromising ideologies
c. i know.. i coming up with new ideas. you play the fiddle?
b. yes at the port tavern on wednesdays. i started to study with eamon coyne at his house merrimac. there was a movie made about his family called ‘the boys and girl of county claire.’ a movie about his father mostly.
c. that sounds impressive.
b. it is.
Moral of the story script:
we are always home. even when it doesnt feel like it. maybe by the time this screen play gets read i will be in a new house.
Written by e tobin eckian. 2011
