Trickster

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TRICKSTER

A mini opera

SUMMARY:

A fading widow has been exchanging love letters with a stranger – letters laced with poison. Slowly the paper romance takes over her body, causing strange dreams and hallucinations. Yet with each exchange she feels herself becoming younger and more alive, even as she marches toward death.

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Prologue

The scene is completely dark. We hear only voices – a youngish man, and a woman of about sixty.

WOMAN:

“So it's you.

MAN:

“Yes.”

WOMAN:

The one she claims wrote those letters to her.”

MAN:
(perplexed) “I’ve met her only once. Never even knew her name.”

WOMAN:

“Never?”

MAN:

“She said I wrote her letters.

She said that I’ve been writing to her for three years.”

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1: Dancing

The darkness parts from the scene to reveal a dusty street, and a fifty-year-old lady walking down it. Her lush wavy hair is slightly askew from neglect, her pale lips smiling dreamily. Her fingernails are painted blue.

WIDOW:

Who knows which one of our thoughts are true?

Who knows who writes which words to whom?

Love and life is a tangled loom

When I catch myself dancing with you.

Her hands are fiddling and caressing an envelope. It is made of good paper – thick, textured, and sensual to the touch. She holds it to her nose and sniffs the last of its scent with half-mast eyes.

WIDOW:

Why walk to your fate when you can leap

Why talk to those who cannot understand?

Why reach for reality with eager hands

When the price is much too steep?

I’d rather swim in the endless blue;

I’d rather dance to your words and your wit.

Each word between us is candle-lit

As I catch myself dancing with you.

As she continues into the next stanza, a melodious male voice joins in.

TOGETHER:

I’d rather exist through me and you

And play with words like they’re raindrops and paste

And post each exchange with delicious haste

Till I catch myself dancing with you…

Till I catch myself dancing with you.

Despite the gloom, the scene seems to end on a light and cheerful note. She disappears into the mist with a spring in her step.

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2: Counting Days

The lady reappears, this time in a rather cluttered bedroom. Her back is turned to the viewer. At the wall corners are streaks of colours like dried spilt paint.

WIDOW:

My misfortune must seem strangely intriguing.

The rather-too-polite will say “How very interesting;

What a tragic malady is this so terribly unlucky

Careless yet so plucky poor twice-widowed lady!”

She turns around. The edges of her eyes are streaked with smeared bluish makeup, and it appears she has been scrawling sentences on her arms.

WIDOW:

Will another one come

Before eight thirty-one?

Will his ink touch my lips

Or my dreams be undone?

From a moth-eaten discarded mattress in the corner, a figure emerges. It is vaguely feminine and its skin that appears to be of the same pattern as the mattress.

MATTRESS FIGURE:

Has he written today?

Has he been as persistent?

WIDOW:

No, not then nor today.

Why can’t he be more consistent?

MATTRESS FIGURE:

Be patient my love.

She goes to the walls and absently brushes the streaks of crusted colour with her fingers. The paint begins to peel in strips of its own volition. The effect is that of the walls crumbling down.

WIDOW:

He colours the edges,

The lifeless grey edges.

He spins life into me

Paints light into me

But now it’s been two days

Yesterday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Greyday…

TOGETHER:

…Neither Thursday nor Friday will be

Appropriate for this completely

Clandestine affair that we must

Live through paper laced with lust

And scented with our hopeless breath

And carried forward until death!

She throws herself back on her sagging bed and sighs, closing her eyes. The mattress figure disappears into dust.

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3: Paper Lover

When she wakes, she is in an empty field. Tendrils of fog surround her. As she rubs her eyes, an eight-legged horse runs past her and mysteriously disappears into the fog.

The blue of her fingernail polish seem to have crept up her fingers, so it looks as if half her hands have been dipped in blue ink. She holds a letter and a crumpled envelope in her hand. A male voice (the same as heard in the first scene) is heard:

MAN:

Your fingers are well-shaped, but bitten

They’re painted blue with my ink

Your nose makes me think of a kitten

I once had when I was sixteen

Finally, we get to see him. Her lover emerges from the fog. He looks about thirty, thirty-five; there is something indefinably ageless about him. He has finely made bones and strong, graceful hands.

MAN:

You’re lonely, but not anymore.

Touch me with paper and pen.

That perfume you wear is distracting

And you wear it for no other men.

Breathe me in,

Breathe me in

Let me into your skin

Let me touch you where you touch me

Where no one can see

The glow of what looks like aurora borealis casts them in a lovely multi-hued glow as they embrace.

TOGETHER:

Let me in,

Let me in

Let me breathe into you

Lick you shut, tear you open

I love you; it’s true.

MAN:

Till the end of our time together

I’ll be your faithful paper lover.

He holds her, then seems to melt away into the fog, out of sight and out of reach of her grasping hands.

Sighing, she drops as if to sit on the ground – but instead hits a bed; the same worn bed in her own cluttered room. The surreal misty landscape has disappeared.

WIDOW:

Your words could be lies,

and I would never know

Piercing me with satin envelopes.

I await your reply;

Goodbye.

She sprawls on the bed, holding the letter close to her.

 

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4: I Will If I Want To

The lady is walking through the same street in the first scene – but it is not the same. The road appears to pulsate. The walls throb and grow lips, all of them singing a haunting song in perfect harmony.

LIPS:

Don’t go where you can’t see

Don’t swim where you can’t wade

The water’s getting deeper

And you’re a little bit afraid

WIDOW:

Stop!

You’re holding me back now

Stop!

Don’t you dare tell me how

I should live and breathe.

My life has been lived beneath

Those who ruled me.

Now I start to see

You were only ever here

To feed off me and my fear.

I will kneel to whom I want

Don’t tell me if I can, or can’t.

The lips on the wall sink back into the brick surface. The bricks turn into slips of paper that flake off, flying all over, some landing at her feet. She catches a few intermittently as she strides on.

WIDOW:

I will talk to strangers, so don’t tell me not to

I will dance with danger if I bloody want to.

Living means dying with every breath

So let me live. I do not fear death.

From afar the echoes of her mystery man’s voice beckon to her. As this happens, the eight-legged horse from the misty landscape gallops past.

MAN:

I’m cold.

I feel you burn

Lend me your fire.

As the world and its roots

grow deeper,

You and I will remain

Together.

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5: Liberation

The street and its walls are drowned in murky dimness. The man’s voice cuts through the dark, full of longing and conviction.

We see the lady sitting in the pool of blackness; around her are ever-moving tendrils of pink and electric-blue. More blue runs down her eyes, her lips are stained green, and her arms bear bruise-like shades.

MAN:

Let the fire run through your veins

Let the ink run and colour your dreams

You will return. You will wait for me

In the end you will see

All I can be.

Overtones of contempt infuse his voice. She is confused, but no less attracted to him. She seems to acknowledge the truth of his words, her desire for abandon and loss of control.

MAN:

It's a natural state.

You chase degradation

It's not weakness, just want

You crave subjugation.

It's freedom from fear and from trembling joy

It's the liberation of being someone else's toy.

In the background, figures in multi-hued prismatic clothing dance and writhe as if trapped by invisible bonds.

MAN:

The terror and tears you left behind

The hidden box of cats in your mind

They’re in you. They’re in me.

They’re mine now, your secrets,

Mine to see.

This is the price you pay for release.

The vivid escape that would set you free.

In the midst of his harsh words, he bends down to clasp her hands in his tightly.

MAN:

I did not force you to be here

You came on your own;

Now we are wedded

Never alone.

Now he sinks to his knees and cradles her close to him. His previously cold, fierce face softens in a blink as his voice becomes low and tender.

MAN:

My ink, my words

They turn your lips blue

My form of love, I give to you.

How sad that you must fade so fast;

But paper lovers aren’t meant to last.

He lets her go. Her body sinks to the ground as the poison finally overcomes her. The blue-lidded eyes close. Slowly, the pink and electric-blue tendrils of light darken into grey lightning.

He watches her for a long moment. Then he bends to kiss her lips.  As he stands, sheets of paper fall from the folds of his coat to rain over her.


She is alone now.

We hear her fading voice – her final thoughts – as the scene gradually fades to black. She looks at her fingers, her blue-green veins.

WIDOW:

Living means dying with every breath

Living is but one long-drawn-out ending

I chose you to bring my end to me.

It’s too late, but I finally see

I see what you did to me.

I love you.

Her blue-tinted face appears as a ghostly apparition in the air. It smiles, and sinks into the dark.

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Epilogue

A funeral home. The lady lies on the slab with a sprig of mistletoe in her hands at her wake, as a few close friends and family members gather for goodbyes.

A few feet away, we see the nameless lover. But he does not appear to be intimate with the dead lady, keeping his distance in polite mournfulness.

An elderly woman – a doctor – approaches him as he stands pale and still.

DOCTOR:

“So it’s you. The one she claims wrote those letters to her.”

MAN:

“Yes. Yes I am. It’s unfortunate.” (he sticks his hands in his pockets, then digs them out again) “She really believed all of it.”

DOCTOR:

“Whole-heartedly. I have reports that state she is in a loving relationship. With you.”

MAN:
(frowns) “I’ve met her only once. Never even knew her name.

DOCTOR:

“Never?”

MAN:

“She said I wrote her letters. She said that I’ve been writing to her for three years.”

DOCTOR:

“They were laced with several deadly substances. Do you think she did this herself?”

MAN:

“I don’t know; perhaps. Why she’d want to die slowly of poisoning, is beyond me.”

DOCTOR:

“Maybe she liked the hallucinations. Maybe they made the romance – everything – real. Maybe she didn’t care for living anymore.”

MAN:

“Yes. Perhaps. Nothing to lose, eh.”

The doctor gives him a long look.

DOCTOR:

“They found her personal articles at the scene of the death. There were drawings of a man who looks like you.”

MAN:

“Well, her memory must be sharp. Made vivid by the visions, the poison, no doubt. Like I said, we met but once. (lifts shoulders sympathetically) I’m sorry that she chose me as the subject of her fantasies. I never intended to… .”

DOCTOR:

“Well then. (Sighs) Sorry. I’ll leave you in peace.”

MAN:

“No, no. Not a problem.”

DOCTOR:

“What a strange case. Full of…tangles.

Really. Who knows what tricks the mind can play on us?”

She leaves. The friends and family members say their farewells and slink away. The scene goes dark save for a shaft of light on the dead lady’s body.

The man walks up to the body and lays a kiss on her forehead.

MAN:

“Goodnight, Madam Sigyn.

I’ll see you in Hel.”

His delicate mouth curves in a knife-like smile.

The scene goes dark.

~