Monologues

Hey, you. Could you at least have the decency to look at me while I talk to your stupid face! Yeah, Henry, it's me talking. The Christmas tree. What, you think you have a shot at getting into her pants, but you don't think a Christmas tree can speak? Check your belief system, pal.

So let's be clear: you're going to stay away from Susie. She doesn't want you for Christmas. And if she does, it's because she doesn't really know what she wants. Not like I do.

And before you go on some principled tirade about respecting a woman's choice, let's get something else straight: I know these things, okay? Call it the magic of Christmas. And what's Christmas about, if not wishing for what we really want? Which, to be clear, isn't you.

Seriously, can't you show a little respect? Her husband just died! Ten years ago! DON'T YOU MAKE THAT FACE, HENRY. It takes thirty years for a beaut like me to sprout to its full height!

Well, it would've been thirty years if I hadn't been chopped down before my prime to become a precious decorative symbol for a few weeks and then get tossed into the dumpsters. Humans are gross sometimes, aren't you? Claiming to love something, then tossing it away.

Oh, you wouldn't do that to Susie, hmm? Please. People take their love out weekly with the trash.

What do I know about it? A not even full grown tree like me?

Okay, Mr. Macho Guy with the Supposedly Feminist Streak. Here's the real deal: you were kinda right to be surprised earlier. Believe it or not, most Christmas trees don't talk to people.

But I'm not just a Christmas tree. I'm him.

See? The man in all the pictures on the mantel? Yeah. It's me. Susie's husband. The ghost of Christmas past right here in your present, and if you don't get the hell out of our house, I will fuck up your every possible future.

You know how most adults think they're lying when they sell their kids on the whole Santa Clause mythology? Let me be the first to tell it to you like it is: they're not lying. Santa's real. No, of course he's not that weird guy who peeps on kids when they're sleeping because, ugh, why do we mythologize pedophilia like that, anyway?

No, see, Henry, what Santa really is — well, it's hard to put it into terms that crisp-suited, calculator-minded guys like you could understand.

Let's put it like this: you know how ants have this collective consciousness, hivemind thing going on? That's kinda what us ghosts of Christmases past have. We believe in the magic of Christmas that others deny, or that they forget once they grow older, and our belief sustains us. Our belief is us.

So when you hear about those Christmas miracles — the poor child getting all the presents on their wishlist, or the guy waking up from a coma — don't smile and then dismiss it as bullshit. It's not. It's belief made real.

But belief isn't just some sparkly thing to catch in your palms. Sometimes, belief stings. Sometimes, it kills. Sometimes, we kill.

Only for a good cause. Like taking out a pedophile. Or wedging my prickliest branch down some guy's throat the way he wanted to wedge his dick down my wife's throat. No spitting allowed. Just a hypothetical.

Well, Henry? You a believer now?

(Iphigenia has just learned that some citizens in her nation want to murder her. She is now hiding from everyone. As she talks, she arranges a dummy from one of GreciPark's rides into different poses.)

IPHIGENIA
I dreamed about being the ruler of GreciPark. From a very young age.

I know: I probably don't need to tell you that. But I think I need to tell myself.

You see, I didn't want to rule simply as a matter of birthright. I wanted to rule because I deserved it. Because the people thought me worthy.

I had other dreams, too. The usual things children dream about. Going to college. Flying. Falling in love. Being tall enough to ride Extermination Extravaganza. It all seemed equally possible, though far away. And now . . .

It would be really nice if I had someone to talk to about all this other than a dummy.

No offense. You're a good listener. But, well, what makes slapping or killing or disemboweling you so fun is not just our action, but your reaction. The way you grunt and groan and scream at the ideal moments. You have no learned responses for this.

That should be our next ride. Tilt-A-Therapy. Take a spin while spilling your guts to an animatron that doesn't give a shit about your problems, but at least it says nice things at the right time, like, "Oh, that sounds tough," and, "It might help to take up a new hobby, like yoga or manslaughter."

My aunt Helen — yes, that Helen — went to therapy. I never asked her about it. She fled to Troyland when I was very small.

Selfish. That's the word everyone uses about her. I knew I never wanted to be called that. Be like her.

But maybe Helen didn't have enough of a self to understand whether she was selfish or selfless. Or enough of a self to care either way.

'Just bring yourself,' Father used to tell me. My child self would get so excited each time I was included in his political dealings, even if just to stand in the background while he unveiled a new ride. I'd be frantic beforehand, trying to figure out how to act or what to wear. 'Just bring yourself,' he'd say, and I didn't know what that meant, but it relaxed me. Bring myself. I could do that.

(Iphigenia slaps the dummy. It obediently makes a noise of pain.)

Oh. That . . . Gods. It's so odd to do that without . . . On the rides, it's quite controlled. The types of violence. And when. I feel almost as if I owe you an apology.

(She stares at the dummy, as if she might deliver an apology. Then she slaps it again. Repeatedly.)

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Myself. The self. A self is the worst thing to bring anywhere. You're so lucky you don't have to bother with one. And you're all the luckier that you'll never need to know how lucky you are.

(The Big Bad Wolf enters and acts as if the audience is giving him a boisterous round of applause, cheers, etc.)

THE BIG BAD WOLF
Thank you. No, really, thank YOU all. You are the reason that I was invited to this beautiful gathering in the first place. I've been an attendee at the Convention for Misunderstood Misanthropes and Miscreants for years, and am floored to be this year's keynote speaker. Especially because this year's theme spoke to me so.

'Resiliency.' Now, let's be honest: how many of you, when you first heard that theme, wondered, "What is this? The conference of Harebrained Hyperbolic Heroes?!"

(Waits for an audience response. Can ad lib some dialogue if no reply, like, "No need to be a Nervous Nellie.")

I don't blame you. Those idiots love to throw around phrases like 'inner strength' and 'gird your heart.'

But what do they know about resiliency? Those simps always get what they want. It's preordained because they're the heroes.

But do you know what true resiliency is? Yes. Do not doubt yourself. Any of you. Nobody knows resiliency better than you, Rumpelstiltskin. Or you, The Witch. Or you, Evil Stepmothers 1, 2, and 84.

I understand the temptation to give in all too well. Believe you me. Giving in was on my mind when that brick house wouldn't give 'way, no matter how I huffed and puffed and salivated over those three little piggies inside. It was on my mind when that old woman I ate sliced my belly open and I had to get so many stitches along my abdomen that I could only have puree for a month. And giving up was, of course, on my mind when that clodpoll Peter trapped me in a zoo all because I ate a duck that HE left unsupervised.

But I did not give in. I held on. By the skin of my teeth, yes, but I held on. Waiting for the chance when I could bite back. Not waiting, as those hapless heroes do, for some divine narrative intervention. No. We who have been mistreated — we who have never received anything but scorn and cruelty — we know perseverance.

And that's when it happened. Do you remember that little boy who was supposed to be a hero, yet failed? Who claimed there was a wolf in his village, though there was none, and then not a single person believed him when I did appear?

(as if answering audience member)

Yes. He was delicious.

But that wasn't the sweetest part. No, the most scrumptious bit of this narrative is that, for a flickering in time, I was not misunderstood.

Oh, I was still feared, of course. As I deserve to be. The humans still quaked at the slightest of my howls in the distance, or the sight of my fur shed upon their hearth.

But when I ate that little boy, the villagers did not hold it against me. They saw it as a fitting punishment for that boy's lies. They saw me as a deliverer of justice. A righter of wrongs. An ethical little bleating sheep who'd simply been wearing a wolf's clothes this whole time.

(a pause before he bursts out laughing)

I know! Isn't that just the darnedest thing you've ever heard!

But this is not merely a humorous anecdote, my dear compadres. A lesson lies within. I call it: The Wisdom of So-Called Moral Relativism. I finally succeeded not just thanks to my own ingenuity and persistence, but because I found a flaw in the logic of those blockheads — and knew how to exploit it without them being any the wiser.

And so, if I leave you with one message today, dear friends, it is precisely that. To win in this world that is inherently against our kind, you need resiliency against the enemy. But you also need to understand your enemy. Understand all their hypocrisies and pseudo-beliefs they love to espouse and prop up with empty words. And then . . .

(The Big Bad Wolf mimes taking a big bite out of someone in the audience, bows, and exits.)

ARTHUR
He can't be named Eugene.

That's what I wanted to name him, before he was born. To honor the playwright who'd helped with my own plays. How better to honor him than the birth of my greatest work yet?

A new child enters the galaxy like a shooting star: where will it go? It doesn't matter. All that matters is the luminescent streak across the sky, full of infinite, unknowable potentials.

But sometimes a shooting star is merely a rock on fire that burns itself up. Then it's nothing. Less than.

I was wrong. He isn't a shooting star, but the sun itself.

And as the sun, he'll control when we're too hot, which direction we pivot, how fast we spin. If we're sucked into his orbit, we'll have nothing left of ourselves.

(Ashley has been Beaumont's zombie partner-in-crime for years. So when Beaumont asks her not to hurt the human he's fallen in love with or their friend, Ashley is outraged.)

ASHLEY
Please? Did you just say please don't hurt them? What the hell is wrong with you?! What 'more' to life is there than this? Than reveling in the smell of scared-shitless-human blood and the taste of sweet, sweet brain water? But here you are obsessed with all this abstract crap. 'Oh, I'm going to be all alone forever, nobody understands my inner truth!' Who cares?!

(Iphigenia, unaware of the mob's desire for her death, does not understand why her father refuses to spend any time with her.)

IPHIGENIA
Why doesn't he love me anymore?

We were so close, once. Father used to sit me on his shoulders whenever I asked. He'd hold his arms sideways — like this — with his index fingers raised. I'd grab hold, even though it strained my little arms. And then we'd be off: soaring through the air, swooping past trees and gliding across the ground and weaving between other birds.

We weren't really flying. Humans don't possess the ability of flight. I'm grown up — I know that.

But with my arms outstretched, and my tiny body so much taller when sitting on his shoulders — and if I closed my eyes . . .

(John Watson addresses Sherlock Holmes through a closed door. Perhaps from off-stage we can occasionally hear Sherlock playing a romantic piece of classical music on his violin.)

JOHN WATSON
Sherlock? . . . Yes, good morrow, chap, although you know it's closer to afternoon, which I suppose means you both — yes well, by the by, I don't want to interrupt your reflection, but I did wish to inquire if you'd had any new insights about the case of the reversed footprints . . . Oh, you resolved it already, did you? Of course you did, very clever, my friend, though I would have hoped I . . .

Well! Bravo! I'm chuffed as usual. You'll have to describe it for me later so I can record your manner of deduction accurately in the next highly anticipated publication from John Watson . . . And perhaps then you've also resolved the mystery surrounding the misplaced pheasant . . . Oh. I see. That's wonderful that he's helping you — I'm not being snide . . . !

'Insinuating?' Well that's rich, I mean how the hell could I 'insinuate' anything when you've both been mafficking around together like besotted trollops! — No, I didn't . . .

Oh no, don't stop your practicing, please, it was so . . . I'm sure Moriarty will love it . . . I did not say his name in any such way! Oh, so would you rather I trill out 'James, oh James!' as you do?

. . . I'm sorry, that was not . . . Truly, nothing would delight me more than for you to find your own glorious light to bask in with someone you adore greater than . . .

Well. Et cetera, et cetera. Words trivialize it all. But. For you to have that. As I have with. My wife. Mary. It would be . . . An exquisite joy to see you warmed by such a glow.

Only — not that I have ever doubted you — or well, I have sometimes doubted you, but you see, never in a serious way — simply because, well, sometimes what's so clear to you still seems so mysterious to the rest of us mere mortals —

But please, if you'll allow it, may I just . . . ?

Because you see, I know Moriarty's — yes all right fine, James — he's a bright sort, and if not for your ability to always outshine him eventually, he'd be too bright — but now that you are, shall we say, slightly blinded by his light — not necessarily in that way of the inner light of love and all that bollocks, but nonetheless blinded by his wit and banter and — other innumerable charms, I'm sure —

And I just don't want you to be caught unawares. Taken advantage of. Be so distracted by what's offered through your rose-tinted glasses that you end up with all the shards in your eyes . . .

Yes, I know that I lost the thread of the original metaphor, man! Will you cease to get hung up on all the smudges on the panes and finally smash the damned glass so you can see the truth of the forest! YES I KNOW THAT METAPHOR WAS EVEN WORSE!

. . . no, please, keep playing your violin . . . Was that a ballade? Sonata? Neither? Whichever . . . it's lovely . . .

Sherlock, truly, I only . . . You know so much. More than I — or anyone — can ever hope to. But in this one — arena of life, as it were — meaning no disrespect — I would hazard that I know more than you.

And it's so difficult to know, even when you do know — that is to say, when you did know — when you're not on uncharted terrain, but you still find yourself fumbling every step — even then, in the moment, in the rush of heady fascination and the adoration and the heat of — it's intoxicating. All-consuming. But fleeting. Like a chemical reaction, you see? — a sudden flare or explosion — but then bang. Gone. Dead.

. . . Yes — the chemical reaction precedes the transformation — but that further proves what I hope to convey, you see? — because the transformation leaves both chemicals inescapably altered, but you cannot predict the exact . . .

YES I UNDERSTAND YOU CAN PREDICT IT IN THE SCIENTIFIC SENSE BUT WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT THE SCIENTIFIC SENSE! I was trying to use a chemistry analogy to help you understand! But of course you're too bloody smart to understand anything. Your brain must be too large for your skull, constantly bulging against your eardrums and the backs of your eyeballs, for what else could explain how such a brilliant man's incapable of noticing a single fucking thing!

So no more of this metaphorical bullshit, Sherlock. This time, I'll speak as plain as one possibly can when discussing a thing as elusive and knotted and shitty as love. Real love isn't chaos and destruction and the delicious thrill of toeing that line between fury and lust. It isn't the thing that's liable to combust at any moment. Real love's dependable. Stable. It endures. It's there for the moments of beauty and the moments of pain and the moments of the in-between that compose most of a life. It's there for the joy and the gloom and the loud and the quiet and the afternoon tea and the knocked-over umbrella stand and the tirades about poisonous plants and the incessant pipe-smoking and the late rent payments and the eyes radiant with discovery and the doors that stay closed . . .

Well. But that's neither here nor there. You shall do as you please. As you should. And always do. I'm sure that James will have far more insights to offer than I would regarding the case of the misplaced pheasant. I'm too misplaced myself to be of any use to you.

(Spencer has just returned home. While saying hello to Piper, he knocks over some of her toys. To help calm her down, he tells a story.)

SPENCER
Once upon a time, Spencer came home from the army for Christmas and wanted to say hello to Piper. But Spencer is a silly guy and he knocked over one of Piper's toys. He didn't mean to, but accidents just happen sometimes — like when Alice made the Queen of Hearts angry, right? Remember how the Queen's face got red and she started yelling? She was angry like you are now. But Alice didn't mean to upset the queen, just like Spencer didn't mean to upset Piper — and everything worked out fine in the end. So then Spencer fixed the toy and Piper was all better. The end?

I should have told you years ago why I didn’t like it when you pushed my hair behind my ears or smoothed down my frizzball that you’d affectionately call a fuzzy halo. That’s how it’d usually start with him, even though I’d usually forget that’s how it started until it was happening again, because I’d let myself forget what I couldn’t understand. Hoping it could be forgotten.

But memories are immortal. Skeletal, sometimes, but deathless. And unlike humans, much easier to bring back to life without the help of Frankenstein or Jesus. Sometimes I wish my hair was like a Frankenstein monster. Then I could scalp myself and then the new skin, someone else’s skin, wouldn’t remember his fingers. Tender, at first, like asking for permission, but then taking that permission anyway when it wasn’t given.

I couldn’t tell you because I couldn’t keep bringing back that monster that was too much me but also everything I couldn’t be anymore.

That’s what I should have tried to tell you, rather than going on about how you smoothing down my frizzball made me remember the way my mother used to spend close to an hour straightening my hair, trying to make it silky and smooth, will the strands into submission, make me as normal-passing as possible. My mom didn’t do that. Well, she did straighten my hair, but the pressure to conform and shit, that all came from me. I would’ve done it myself, the way I insisted on doing everything, but my hands got fumbly and then I’d burn my neck. So only my mom could do it.

She didn’t know, either. I didn’t tell her, just like I didn’t tell you. But since I can’t tell her anymore, can’t reanimate someone else as well as I can reanimate these memories, I’m telling you. As much as I can. Which still might not be enough for you or me to understand them.

And I know things aren’t the same now. We’re not the same. That’s okay. You shouldn’t have to put up with someone flipping out just ‘cause you’re doing something nice like pushing her hair out of her face, without expectation, without asking permission you don’t intend to receive. I know that’s not you. I knew it then, too. But my non-Frankenstein skin didn't. And you deserve skin that does.

Well, yeah, I deserve that too, but we can’t just get what we don’t have when it's not, like, a buyable thing.

His fingers would find the burn marks on my neck, sometimes. When he’d start petting the wispy hairs around the nape. He’d cluck his tongue and make pitying sounds and put vaseline on the burns. It’d still be on his fingers, greasy and smelling like oil, later.

My mom used vaseline in the evenings to take off her mascera. Sometimes I wanted to ask about that, because it’s so much easier with makeup wipes or that magic eraser thing, or any number of buyable things, right? I mean vaseline is so sticky, sometimes it just plucks your eyelashes straight out. Did she not notice or was she just better at knowing how to handle all that stickiness? Or did she notice plucking out her own eyelashes, and the pain, and that was part of it, some sort of penance for . . . herself? Me?

But that’s why I couldn’t tell her, because I thought, well, maybe she hadn’t told me. Maybe we both needed to keep those skeletons buried even though the bones kept jabbing us in the eyeballs.

No. Don't. Seriously. You shouldn't have to have those bones in your eyes, too.

(Hansel just took a bite out of The Witch's gingerbread house. The Witch then emerged and took a bite out of Hansel. The Witch continues to periodically munch on Hansel during the following while she fends off attacks from Gretel.)

THE WITCH
oh the flesh of a lad tender and young
here falls a hero unsung
it's a little sad but mostly
delicious

and oh
how the tender flesh delights the stagnant stale taste buds on my tongue
too long deprived of this heady splendor
warming me as it travels down my lungs

wait
upon further reflection
i do not believe that food travels down the lungs
well
what is there to say, really
my knowledge of human anatomy is
far from perfect
i'm an addict
i need a hit
gimme

you ate my home
where i live alone
because i'm an old crone
so it's only fair i eat your home too

and
as i am an old crone
my only choices
are the choices that all old crones face
which are either to go live in a shoe and be very poor and have lots of children and deprive them of food and also whip them
or
well
this

you see
with this choice
i still get some joy from life, now and then
and so do the children, in these final moments

because isn't it better for them
for you
to die doing what you love?

that's what i'd want.
for when i die.
to still be feeling alive
right until the very end.
sometimes my situation makes me sad
the alone part i mean
although not right now
how can i be sad with my mouth frothing with delighted foam
my stomach feeling like it's on a throne
but
sometimes
usually
just alone
now you'll know what that's like

oh

but i did not mean to imply
that i'm ready to die
just yet.
you see
my addiction
is a constriction
but it's also my
benediction
because even when i'm alone and sad
i know there's more fun to be had
just as soon as some wide-eyed daughter or grandson
tries to drive me from my home
perform an eviction
and then i know i shall find
waiting for me
a new
delicious
crucifixion

(Inge was born in Austria and lived in Germany during WWII. For part of that time, because she would not join the Nazi party, she was forced to work at a factory with female prisoners of war.)

INGE
Sometimes I dream of the photographs I'll never take:

Of the Berlin factory walls trembling as bombs hailed down.

Of women stumbling through obliterated doorways, cradling to their empty breasts babies who have already gone cold.

Of men dead in the street, back then in war-ravaged Berlin, and then now in Russia, catatonic and picked over by flies.

Of all these humans branded as expendable.

I dream of the photos I'll never take:

Of Rebecca cradling her doll with its head in the crook of her elbow, the way I'd taught her to cradle her brother.

Of Arthur packing up in boxes the clothes meant for Daniel.

Of Arthur's spine bowed in mourning for our living child.

Southbury institute provides communal clothes, so everyone is equal.

I dream of the photos I'll never take:

The photos I'll never take of Southbury.

Over 2000 people crammed into a space meant for 200.

Restraints tied to doorknobs. Wrapped around stomachs.

Bodies lying catatonic on the ground like warm corpses.

Branded as expendable.

We parents tell ourselves the alternative is worse.

Far worse than this Hieronymus Bosch painting come to life.

Daniel smiling up at me despite it all.

Daniel in the faded, communal garments.

Proudly teaching me how to use his sole possession: a tiny transistor radio from a five-and-dime shop.

Gladly sitting on my lap or kissing my cheek, but when his mouth forms mom, it's a sound applied to a shape.

Signifier absent of the signified.

If I took these photos of others, I'd only expose myself.

The negatives of photos untaken remain burned on my retinas.

What happened to the woman who survived the Third Reich?

Who saved a drowning man with her fucking bra strap?

It comes down to this: I don't think Arthur is right, but I'm terrified he is.

And if those fears came true, then I'd become a negative of a negative.

(Mel is on a first date with Branson. They are both looking for a mutually beneficial relationship, more commonly referred to as a Sugar Daddy/Baby relationship.)

MEL

Anyway. You wanted to know what I'm looking for in a — eughhhh, I still feel strange saying Sugar Daddy. It's also gross how that word suggests I'm a high-end prostitute. Not that there's anything wrong with that when it's, like, voluntary. But uhm. I'm sick of being forcefed this mass-packaged idea of love that conceals misogyny and sly abuse and all that shit. I need a relationship that's real, and on my terms.

(Achilles has just been asked how he can be in love with Iphigenia if he doesn't know her.)

ACHILLES
Do you need to know someone to love them?

But I do love her. Because, see — I believe I know her.

It's like — you know the way you feel in a dream? You wake up, and you realize nothing made sense — but while you're in the dream, you know immediately where you are, who everyone is, what you should do . . . That's how it is with her. And, okay, you can scoff at that — but look, whether or not you define it as real, my emotions for Iphigenia remain real. Are real. And if that isn't real love — well, fuck — then what is real, if not what I know I feel?

(The Evil Queen has just put Snow White to sleep with her poisoned apple, but does not feel as happy as she expected to. When The Magic Mirror suggests it's because she's in love with Snow White, The Evil Queen is at first outraged, but then gives the matter some thought.)

THE EVIL QUEEN
Snow tried to tell me not to pay attention to the tabloids. She would tell me about how societal obsession with unrealistic beauty too often turns women against one another rather than allowing them to bond against the patriarchs that forcefed that obsession . . .

I had trouble listening, because I was usually distracted practicing the cat-eyeliner look, or ignoring my hunger pangs from eating only celery that day, or fighting against the warmth that would suffuse me when she'd stop my hands from fidgeting with my flyaway hairs . . .

Oh.

I.

Fuck.

CLYTEMNESTRA
'A woman's place is in the kitchen.' Did you know my dear friend Aeschylus came up with the original version of that phrase? In one of his plays that did not feature me as the villain. He wrote — loosely translated from the original Greek — 'Let the women stay at home and hold their peace.'

The phrase evolved to reduce the domestic sphere of the home to the kitchen. Why? What happened to exclude all the other rooms of the house? Why only the room that provides the food, the sustenance of the family — and not the room that helps the dear family empty themselves of that sustenance, then repeat the whole process of begging their rooted mother for food all over again? Why not, at the very least, give us the humble bathtub in addition to the stove?

That's why I plan to do it here. In the bathroom. It's the space that's rightfully mine, after all, as a helpless woman. Where could be a more fitting place to kill my husband?

I want to remember the moment I murder him forever.

I want to remember my ax sliding into his stomach. Soft and easy. Like a piece of moist cake.

I want to remember my eyelids raining red with his blood.

I want to remember the babbling brook of his lungs as they gasp, choke, sputter. Drown.

I want to remember the warm dew of the blood, how it sprinkles my face with the drizzle-storm of my ax.

I remember . . .

RACHEL
The first time I saw it, it was 'cause my friend Sam sent me one of those BuzzFeed articles — you know, like, "31 Products On Amazon That Just Make You Go, 'Why?'" And Sam doesn't know. About Mom. I don't think anyone else does.

And I mean. I didn't always know know. Like, I was pretty little when I first started noticing things, but I didn't know what it all meant.

Like the time when I was four and so excited about sneaking into the kitchen while Mom showered and Dad was at work so I could eat a whole thing of ice cream. I had it all planned out: using all the strength in my arms to carry over one of the kitchen chairs to the fridge, so that it wouldn't drag on the tiles and make noise. Standing on it to reach the freezer and grab a container. The ones waaaaaay in the back, because that's where Mom and Dad kept the really good ice cream they didn't want us to have, like Ben and Jerry's. I wasn't gonna be content with Blue Bunny anymore.

So I dug my spoon in. Too ecstatic to step down from the chair or close the freezer.

And then it — eurghhhh! For years I'd still feel like I was scrubbing out frozen dirt every time I brushed my teeth!!

And there were other things, too. Like how Mom always made me and Jimmy play in the front when she gardened in the back, even though Dad would get upset about us running in the street to get our balls or frisbees back. Or how weird she'd get when we'd track dirt in the house. Not weird the way Sam's mom gets, like beating the doormats and going all Swiffer-crazy. Weird like, holding our dirty sneakers to her face and . . .

(sniffs really deeply)

To make sure we weren't smoking, Mom always said — but like, wouldn't it've made more sense to smell our clothes?

And then. A year ago. In addition to all the usual fun of puberty. Something else started. The cravings. The urge to stop scrubbing the remnants of that frozen dirt from my teeth and instead coat my mouth with that sweet, soft . . .

Every daughter fears becoming their mother. Mom used to say that, when we fought and made up. But I'm pretty sure most daughters don't fear inheriting their mother's taste for cramming their face full of dirt.

And it made me — gahhh! Like, I get genetics. You can't control 'em. But she won't talk to me about it! Even when I tried to just ask a few questions and yes I used my fucking "I feeling statements" instead of "you accusatory language" and Mom still was in full-on denial!

I mean, Sam's mom is always soooooo eager to talk to us about periods and sex. Which, like, gross, but. And then my mom can't talk about the one thing I can only go to her for.

So Sam sent me that BuzzFeed article. And I'm just scrolling, you know. But then I scroll past item 25 and I have to go back to stare at it:

'4 oz. Cologne for Men and Women: Eau de Dirt.'

So then it's Christmas. I wrap it up all nice. Put it under the tree. 'To my one and only Mom. Love Rachel.'

And Mom does that Mom-cooing thing while she's opening it, so happy I thought of her. I'm not really listening. My mouth feels soft and warm and full with anticipation and it feels amazing. Even better than the dirt I've started hiding under my mattress in Ziplocs and sneaking every night before bed.

I know: it's gross. That's why this was so exciting. Better than dreams of Ben and Jerry's.

So. She opens it, still blah-blah-blah-ing and smiling. And she takes out the Eau de Dirt. And her face just.

(imitates a frozen smile)

Dad kinda laughs and is all, "Aww?" Like it's a question. And Jimmy's like, "What the hell?" and Dad says, "Don't say that," and then they're doing their father-son thing, which gives Mom time to put herself together, sort of. Enough to pat my cheek and say thank you.

But that's not good enough. The warm soft full feeling is in my ears now, too, like when you put your head underwater, but better. And I want more. So I say, "You're so welcome, Mom. Are you going to try it on?"

And she mutters something about how she's already wearing Chanel, but Dad and Jimmy chime in, telling her to give it a go! Why not!

"Even if it's, uhm, a bit different than your usual perfume," Dad says, with a careful glance at me, "it's Christmas. It's just us today."

So Mom unboxes the Eau de Dirt and sprays a dab on one wrist and — oh! For a moment I forget about making her pay because the smell is so, so good. Like overturned dirt right after it rains.

But the way Mom's face gets all scrunchy — it brings me back. To what's important. She's clearly, like, blissed out. But trying to hide it.

"Well," says Dad, kissing me on the top of my head, "that's sure a memorable gift!" Then he looks at Mom and gives her a wink. Like it's them two in on the joke here.

Mom tries to wink back, but it's more like a twitch. She can't look at me. She knows the truth. And she knows we're not in on the joke together. She knows she's the butt of it. And that she way more than deserves it.

INGE
1963. Three years before Daniel is born.

I take a picture of Rebecca gazing with mystified pleasure at her own reflection.

The sharp angles of the doorway and mirror contrast with Rebecca's full cheeks and wide eyes.

Motherhood held a lot of surprises for me, so I only took a few photos when Rebecca was a baby.

When my contractions started with Rebecca, I was photographing New York City rooftops from inside a crane.

I took more care, when pregnant with Daniel, now that I knew more about being a mother. Thought I was more.

1965. One year before. I take a photograph at the Ballet School in Leningrad of two ballerinas executing arabesques.

The girls looked poised at the moment before flight.

I don't know much about dance, aside from what I've learned through photographing different styles.

Like in 1956: the smiling Bedouin women, their hair a whirlwind of joy.

Or 1960: Marilyn dancing with Eli Wallach, her face relaxed but her elbows and knees too stiff.

Afraid of something neither she or I can capture.

If I couldn't take photos, I think I'd like to dance.

Like photography, with dance I could be astonished again and again at the possibilities of seeing and being while. Simultaneously. Avoiding seeing or being what I couldn't. Can't.

(Heidi is grieving the death of her husband. She's also frustrated with her daughter, Minna, who has recently moved in with Heidi because Minna is worried about Heidi's dementia. Heidi says this to Minna.)

HEIDI
Grieving for 'too long' doesn't make me insane.

I hate this dish towel.

I tried to give it to Goodwill, but . . . It was the last thing he bought for me, so as hateful and stupid as it is . . .

It's poorly made — gaudy pattern, threads loose after not even a year. And it doesn't match anything in here . . . Except for your just-as-non-matching green pillow . . .

(A pregnant woman, Eileen, is undergoing amniocentesis, which is a type of prenatal testing, to determine the likelihood of her child being born with Down Syndrome.)

(Rose Williams has just manifested before Eileen.)

ROSE
Don't you know me? Well, I guess I'm missing my trademark feature. Here: a tiny glass animal. Does that help?

Ahh. What a treat to live in this scripted immortality.

God, could my brother have chosen a more transparent metaphor? Pun intended.

No, I'm not that wistful chick from Glass Menagerie. Not exactly. I'm her less charming muse. But I am like Frankenstein — my dear creation overshadows me! Well, not mine, but made in my likeness. But why does my Frankenstein monster have to be so bleurgh?!

Yeah yeah yeah, of course you like Glass Menagerie, everyone does, but c'mon — lives in her own world of super fragile, non-human things? Like, we get it already, Tom. The real me couldn't be broken so neatly. Instead I was ground into translucent dust. My brother —

(English accent)

— Poor Tom —

(normal voice)

he knew that as well as I did and it broke him, too. He ground and ground and ground my shards deeply into his own flesh. Like our pain was a math equation, and by adding to his own, he could subtract from mine. Which is just really shitty math on his part.

Why are you even doing this test? You're not actually open to either outcome. If your child is like me, you're going to do fuckall to fix it.

You're just like my mom. I was naturally broken in my brain, and to make me unbroken, she let them break me even more.

The theory behind lobotomies is all very meta, don't you think? Breaking things apart to make them complete? I was scared of the operation, but hopeful, too. For I did want to be complete. I said to Tom once that he must never make fun of insanity, for insanity is worse than death. And I meant it.

I did not understand people who were not like me, who were complete. And yet I did want those complete-people to like me.

But I was also furious at the complete-people for their people-rules, rules that disintegrated as soon as I memorized them: Look people in the eye when you're talking to them — unless you're flirting, because you'll need to look away periodically for modesty's sake. Ask questions to express interest, but don't ask anything that matters, like what they're most afraid of or if they've fucked anyone before.

How are you supposed to make a friend if you can only talk about the fucking weather? Or find a gentleman when you can't ask if he sleeps around?

They called me schizo because I seemed to have two minds. Sometimes I was too bold and crass. And sometimes I was the part of me that Tom used to create my too perfect double.

But I wasn't a real life Jekyll 'n' Hyde. I was just trying to obey the people-rules. 'Cept it was too exhausting keeping up with which rules were relevant when and why, so they said I was retarded, so I tried to not be retarded, so that made me more retarded.

Ohhh. You don't like me using that word, huh? Suck it up. It's my word to use.

And why should you get up all on your highhorse about that word anyhow? 'Cause let's cut the bullshit, sweetheart: you'd lobotomize your kid if you thought that'd make 'em into your vision of what a kid should be and you'd do it gladly. You'd do it to me. Slap me on the table. Convince me it couldn't be worse.

And then it was worse, but so what? You can't glue a brain back together again. You can't repair the doubly broken. And then. Then I knew real broken. When ice cream tasted like chilled cardboard. When sunshine held inside my palm turned stale.

(Snow White has awakened from The Evil Queen's curse and snuck back into the castle. The Magic Mirror questions Snow why she doesn't want The Evil Queen to know she's awake and suggests that The Evil Queen may not be purely wicked.)

SNOW WHITE
Please. I used to think it was important to look beyond someone's surface. Find their inner beauty and truth.

But all that 'looking beyond the surface' did was get me cursed by a woman who can't see anything past the clumps of mascera glomming her eyelids together! And so what if that's because of what all the world's misogynistic asshats have taught her? I'm not going to roll over and let her steal my life from me just because I'm supposed to be 'the good one.'

So I'm done trying to see beyond the surface of someone who is all surface. Going on being nice to her is just going to get my head mounted on the wall next to you.

Fallen snow might be all white and pure. On the surface. But pile it high enough and it can conceal dangers below. Poky nettles. Mice traps. Sinkholes.

Translation: I want revenge.

(Cassandra speaks this monologue as an attempt to distract herself while The Toilet forces Clytemnestra and Penelope to re-enact Cassandra's memory of being raped.)

CASSANDRA
Too often, I find words in the small spaces between my molars.

Words like grains of sand inside my molars that I keep tonguing, tonguing, tonguing, trying to remove.

If I don't try and get rid of the sand-words, they crunch and distract me from the pleasure of my food each time I take a bite.

I'd like to extract all the word-sand from my teeth and pile them in front of me, one grain on top of another.

Then I'd like to bury myself inside those grains of words.

I don't want to die in that pile of sand. Or even to hide, not really.

I'd just rather have all the sand-words outside me rather than within.

Then maybe, with my mouth free of those grains of unsaid words, I could cut out my own tongue and keep it as a pet.

Free from my mouth, my tongue would be smooth when I pet it, not coarse.

I dream a lot about my teeth falling out of my mouth, but I wouldn't want to keep those as pets.

If my teeth were free from my mouth, I think they'd run away and break my heart. If that hadn't run away, too.

(In an attempt at getting Clytemnestra to talk with him about a plan to save Iphigenia, Achilles throws some biting comments at her.)

CLYTEMNESTRA
Do you actually have a plan to keep her safe? Or are you simply enjoying practicing cruelty upon an actual human for the first time in your life?

It's fine if you are. Cruelty is as natural to humanity as breathing.

It's true that, sometimes, we forget to breathe. Or become so conscious of this natural process that it loses authenticity.

But we always remember eventually. You can't forget an instinct.

Inhale the stupidity of humanity. Exhale cruelty. Exhale the easiest way to forget our own stupidity for even a second.

(Her composure slips.)

I think that's what I'm doing now. But you're not the one I'm trying to . . . exhale.

A TOILET
Oh, for the love of Clorox. Again? Seriously? Come on, Marcie. How many times can one person possibly have diarrhea in a day? I mean, I know you've got IBS, but you've got to run out of the runs at some point, right? Heh. That was kind of funny. I'm clever sometimes. No, but Marcie, really —

Did you seriously just crap into my bowl while I'm trying to have a serious conversation with you?! It's not enough for you to foul up my gorgeous porcelain hour after hour — and now you don't even have the decency to look into my toilet water while I talk to you?

No, Marcie, I'm not going to put up with this anymore. You're going to have to figure out another way to deal with your IBS. I'm not trying to be ableist! It's just too much for any mere toilet to deal with!

Oh, is that so? Well, you're a shitty excuse for a friend, too!!

(The toilet slams its lid shut as if slamming a door in someone's face.)

And good riddance. Now I won't have to feel guilty each time I'm too weak to digest whatever horribleness you've most recently dumped inside me.

In fact . . . maybe my digestion shall grow ever weaker, now. Maybe my poor drain line will get confused after hours of laboring too hard — in underpaid conditions, mind you — and get confused about which way lies the sewers, and which way lies your kitchen tap. Your washing machine. The water dispenser upon your refrigerator. Maybe you'll be less quick to abuse my toilet trap, after a bout or two of cholera.

(The toilet reopens its lid.)

Oh, what's that now, Marcie? You're worried there's some rust in your kitchen tap because it's taken on a brownish tint? Don't worry, dear. That used to happen all the time to my cousin — Stacey Stormdrain — down in New Orleans. Just boil the water and that'll remove any potential toxins or parasites or other icky things. You're so welcome, dear. What are toilets for if not giving out excellent advice and flushing the rest away?

(Jessica speaks this monologue after her father has been systematically stripped of his possessions and forced to convert. Jessica ran away, eloped, and became a Christian earlier in the show, so she and Shylock are in different places despite occupying the same stage.)

JESSICA
When I was younger, I always wished for a tree outside my window. I asked Father once why there were no trees in Venice. He told me Venice is devoid of nourishment and meaning for all living things, both people and trees.

But then he added that I didn't need a tree outside my window. He said, you have a tree inside you. The Torah's words, he said, root in our bones. Its teachings water our marrow.

I didn't like that. I wanted a real tree. Not a metaphorical substitute.

Father told me it was more than metaphor. That we could dwell in the shade of our ancestors and live off the fruit of their vines for eternity.

Then. During the next Sukkot. The Harvest Festival. Usually Father would leave me at home. But that year, he allowed me to come.

The men didn't like having me there. They said things to Father about how the Torah prohibits women from entering the sukkah.

Father told the men that I was not a woman, but a girl. Furthermore, he said to them, the Torah did not prohibit women from entering the sukkah, but rather stated that women are exempt from it. Which means that women can choose to enter or not.

Father always was quite fastiduous about things like that. Words and phrases. Nuances that others overlooked. Or refused to see.

Then the men were quiet. And Father looked down at me and asked what I wanted to choose. I replied that I wanted to be here. And I did.

I was mesmerized by the sukkah. I carefully ran my hands along the walls of slanted wood, the ceiling of braided leaves. I inhaled the scent of pine and laurel and olives and other wonderous smells that I asked Father the names of and then forgot.

It was not exactly what I'd wanted. It was not a tree outside my window. But, in that moment, it was better.

I thought that repeatedly as Father and I enjoyed our meal. But I did not tell him.

Only later did I worry if trees had to be cut down to build that sukkah. Only later did I ask him if my enjoyment had led to the death of those beautiful living things.

Father assured me, no. If you're careful to leave it with enough roots, the tree will live. Grow new branches and leaves. A tree is like the Torah, he said. As long as we continue to absorb and embody its teachings, give back just a bit of what it has given to us, then it will survive longer than we can imagine.

I believed him. Or thought I did.

But for weeks afterward, I would have nightmares about trees. Dying or dead already. Their roots withered. Their leaves rotting. And on the trunk of each, the jagged bark looked like Father's face.

But I could never get my tree-Father to speak to me before I woke up.

(Penelope explains to Clytemnestra why she continually unweaves her progress on her loom each night to keep her suitors away, rather than simply rejecting the men.)

PENELOPE
God or mortal — doesn't matter. When he's angry . . .

I can't get angry, too. Not with all the cold. Wet. All around. Drowning me.

Helpless.

In the sea.

Our only power is our ability to make them happy.

And when that fails . . .

Then there's only bursting pressure on our ears.

Darkness shoving our eyeballs back into our skulls.

Fear. Solid and liquid and gas all at once in our throats.

Shifting. Overfilling every empty space.

And above the water — his silhouette.

Above the water, a mirage you don't want to be real because then it means this is real, you're drowning, because Father wants you to drown.

I was three days old. Maybe four. We don't see well, at that age.

We don't process information the same way at that age, either. We can remember things, like the shape of our favorite toy.

We can remember the warm bubble of our mother's voice.

Remember the storm in your father's eyes.

Remember the piercing clamp of Father's hands upon what you don't yet recognize as your arms.

But we can't remember specific events.

I remember this event.

I shouldn't be able to remember.

The shape of Father remains above.

His outline murkier and murkier as I sink to the depths of the sea.

Murkier and murkier as I sink and sink and sink.

Then — a disturbance: Everything shifting around me shifting even more.

Clamping upon my arms again.

Pain that would make me cry if there were room for more tears in the sea, or room for more of the sea in my eyes.

And the creatures that I'm too young to recognize as ducks lift me out of the water.

Then, there is more pain. But there is breath, too.

ARTHUR
Sometimes I dream of the play I'll never write:

Of a play about a once-renowned, now failing, playwright.

Whose one redemption is saving his wife's art from ruin.

Of a playwright who exposes how wayward fathers fuck up their sons yet can't visit the institute where his son sleeps thirty to a room and sits around in oversized soiled diapers and.

I dream of the play I'll never write:

Of a protagonist who, to escape his son Eugene — his burnt out star, his best creation unmade — travels the globe.

But across the world isn't far enough.

So he must travel further. Ascend into the clouds.

He sleeps upon a downy cumulus. Dines upon tender stratus.

He's comfortable among the clouds because, he realizes with horror, he has never stood upon solid ground.

But our protagonist doesn't believe he deserves comfort.

I dream of an unwritten character who must travel further: to the moon.

The moon is cold, and though he doesn't enjoy cold, he enjoys how his endurance of cold makes him appear: noble.

Rather than what he truly is: a bad paraphrase of his own weak-willed characters.

So he must travel further.

Somewhere hot.

Burn his lies away.

To a star.

To the sun itself.

Yes. He travels to the sun to avoid his son. He's aware it's poor word play. But words are all he has. How long can he play before the signified become absent of their signifiers?

Signifier absent of their absent signified of significant the sign sing absent of mine absent sign.

(Clytemnestra, having recently learned that her husband Agamemnon plans to murder their daughter, has just cut off his finger as a warning not to harm her.)

CLYTEMNESTRA
It's just his finger. Easily fixed. Extract the dead tissues. Trim the edges of the bones. Sew together the tendons and stabilize the skeleton with screws. You can even get a whole new prosthetic finger with minimal trouble.

And why not? You are, after all, the ruler of simulacra.

Now a life, on the other hand. How do you fix a broken life? And I don't mean in the metaphorical sense. Or in the sense of prettying up the body. I don't doubt we're all experts at that. At adorning throats with necklaces of bruises. Sprinkling glossy eyes with burst blood vessels. Orchestrating limbs at angles that would have been impossible while trapped in the land of the living.

I mean fix in the sense of reanimation. Death turned to life instead of the other way around. That's one that even my miracle worker of a husband hasn't mastered.

(Sherlock, distressed over both his current lack of cases and his accidental love-quadrangle, recently self-medicated with cocaine. When John Watson discovered this, he brought Sherlock to his home, where he lives with his wife Mary.)

(John has left the room to prepare a stomach pump for Sherlock, despite Sherlock's objections. While he's gone, Sherlock deduces that Mary is being dishonest about why she married John, and gets frustrated when she pretends not to understand him.)

SHERLOCK

(rapidly)

There are approximately 5 million people in London. For simplicity's sake, let's assume that half of those are men. Approximately 17.3% of those men would likely meet marriageable criteria for you, i.e. bachelors, members of the apparently dear bourgeoisie class, no more than twenty-seven years your senior. This offers, give or take, 432,500 men from which you could cherry-pick a husband.

Of course, it's highly unlikely that you'd be able to meet all those men before arriving at the necessity of choosing one for a mate, due to the vagaries of human behaviors and the time-sensitivity of marital ages for women. But if you underwent those inane societal debut rituals that I've 98% deleted from my mind palace, you could easily meet at least .3%, or 1,298 of those men.

And then, as you astutely point out, not all of these men are 'very good,' but I take objection to your idea that these not very good men are in higher percentage than those who are good. Men who abuse their wives often cannot contain their aggression to their hearths and burgeon into criminals, or at the very least, drunken nuisances.

If this were true for more than .02596% of London's total population — which I realize sounds minuscule in percentage form, but that's actually still a sizeable amount of both marriageable men and prospective criminals — then I would hardly ever lack for interesting cases, meaning I would never have inactive periods, such as I find myself in now, that necessitate my usage of the substances that John hates to soothe the endlessly spinning gears of my mind as they dwell upon the trivialities and inequities of emotions.

Therefore your assertion that you married John simply because he's a good man is patently false because such criteria could apply to far many more. In conclusion, you urge me to let him coddle me and put up with him feeling too much for me because you love him.

(He abruptly grips his head in acute pain.)

Goddammit! Now you've gotten the gears whirling again. They want to cleave my skull apart.

(As he delivers the following, Trevor tries to open a pickle jar.)

TREVOR
They made me sound like an idiot. They humiliated me in front of all their 5.6 million-on-average podcast listeners. Those True Crime Ladies. More like True Meanie-Head Ladies!

You heard it too, right? Of course you did. So you must think I'm a bozo too, right? It's so unfair. I mean, would a bozo have been able to think up a way to murder all those people with a pickle jar? It wasn't stupid — it was creative! I mean, these things are impossible to open, right?

It's the perfect distraction to give someone. This pickle jar. Because, see, we all have trouble opening these damn things, but we don't want people to think that we've got arthritis or no biceps or whatever. We want to look strong. Capable. Especially in front of our would-be, to-be murderer.

Not that any of them saw their murder coming until the moment when I smashed the pickle jar in their face. That's the other genius part of it. The element of true surprise. These days, you can't surprise someone with a knife or gun or even a flaming torch. People are too suspicious. No thanks to meanie-heads like those True Crime Ladies. These days, it's hard work being a creative murderer who can outsmart all these true crime listeners. Not every would-be killer is up to overcoming that creative challenge. Instead of insulting me, those ladies should be singing my praises.

Well. No matter. After tonight, they won't be singing at all. If you get my drift. I'm not going to stand for them or any of these other smartypants podcasters ruining my reputation.

How am I going to do it? How can I possibly outsmart two women who make a living out of analyzing crimes to death?

Yeah. You can laugh at that. I'm not a joke, but I do have a killer sense of humor.

Well . . . no, I won't answer your question. That would completely spoil my creative genius! And then you'll have no reason to download the next episode of my podcast, True Crime Confessions, which will be released as soon as I kill those two and hide their bodies.

So for now . . . let's just say that those True Crime Ladies have bitten off more than they can chew.

(Trevor finally opens the pickle jar. He takes a bite of the pickle, smiling at the audience as he chews.)

(Iphigenia is upset at recent injuries Agamemon sustained while giving a demo of a new ride. Agamemnon tries to explain to her why he provided this risky demonstration while concealing from her the fact that the ride malfunctioned because of her mother.)

AGAMEMNON
It's . . . about the bigger picture. Long before you were born — long before GreciPark was born, either — rulers prized themselves far more than the nations they oversaw. They would send off thousands of their people to get slaughtered in wars while they remained cozied in their armchairs. Or they'd play mini-golf while just beyond their windows, dozens were assaulted or killed.

But I wanted to be a different kind of leader. One who doesn't see violence as being inevitable as clockwork. And to be that leader, I have to show that my words aren't empty of action.

So no. One ride, in the grand scheme of things, isn't worth my life. But it's about what that ride represents. It's about demonstrating that I value my life no more or less than any patron's. It's about proving that, although I'm their leader, we're all equal.