Jade

The relationship between Estragon and Vladimir parallels that of Lucky and Pozzo. Lucky and Estragon are submissive, but the relationships they have with their companions are symbiotic. This dependence creates false meaning. Pozzo becomes Lucky’s life meaning and Pozzo’s life meaning is finding meaning for Lucky. This relationship frees Lucky from responsibility and gives Pozzo something to do. In Waiting for Godot, Pozzo and Lucky’s relationship is a mature version of that of Estragon and Vladimir. Therefore, “Act 0.” represents Pozzo and Lucky before they evolved into the mature version that is conveyed in Waiting for Godot. So I modelled the relationship Lucky and Pozzo have after the relationship between Estragon and Vladimir in Act II.

Act 0 is intended to precede Acts one and two of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. As it is written, I believe it can stand alone. The day before. Same time. Same Place. Lucky’s hat front center. The tree is extensively colored in gray-yellow leaves. Enter Pozzo uncomfortably. He halts in front of the hat. Picks it up, puts it back down, picks it up again, hits it as if to knock settled dust off of it, and peers into the depths of the hat. Puts the hat down where he found it. Comes and goes. Halts in the center and looks just above the audiences’ heads. Comes and goes. Halts extreme right and coughs emphatically before beginning to talk about the night. POZZO: The night. (He looks pointedly at the ceiling and then back at the audience.) It is pale and luminous like any sky at this hour of the day. (He thinks.) But it will probably get paler. That would be my estimation. Pppfff! We’re finished! He remains a moment silent and motionless, then begins to move feverishly about the stage. He halts before the tree, and yanks buoyantly on a lower branch. He stops. He looks at the tree. He gazes off, into the audience. Enter Lucky left, hatless, head bowed. He slowly crosses the stage. Pozzo turns and sees him. POZZO: You again! (Lucky stands just short of his hat looking pained.) Come here till I embrace you. LUCKY: No! Pozzo looks mildly annoyed. POZZO: Lucky! Did they beat you? (Pulls at the rope he is using as a belt.) Lucky! Where did you spend the night? LUCKY: Get away from me! Don’t touch me! Don’t hug me! Don’t come near me! Never leave me again! (Sits down, puts on hat, begins to weep.) Pozzo moves far right and picks up a series of bags and moves towards Lucky. As Pozzo carries the bags, a fine trickle of sand leeks from the corner of one of the bags. Lucky crawls to the trail of sand, licks his finger, touches the sand, and puts the same finger in his mouth. Pozzo sets the bags down front center. Lucky abruptly stops weeping and stands up. He walks to the bags, picks up one bag in his left hand. POZZO: Do you remember how to think, Lucky? (He looks mildly dejected after carrying the bags.) Do you remember how to dance? Do you remember when we used to dance together? That was a long time ago. (Pozzo trails off and falls silent. Lucky begins to cry again.) Does it hurt? Is that why you don’t dance? (Lucky looks scornfully at the other bags as Pozzo removes the rope from his waist.) Here, try this. I need some air. (Pozzo hands the rope to Lucky, Lucky loops it loosely around his neck. He contemplates, and then wraps it more tightly.) LUCKY: It wouldn’t take much. It might not even hurt. POZZO: It would probably hurt less. LUCKY: Do you think? POZZO: Why wouldn’t it? (Pozzo adjusts himself and scratches. He takes his hand out of his pants and looks at the back of it.) LUCKY: Can we practice tomorrow? POZZO: Hanging ourselves? (Lucky nods.) Of course, if I see you then. LUCKY: Wouldn’t you? POZZO: Why would I? LUCKY: Well, aren’t we waiting to find someone? POZZO: Two people. I believe. If I remember correctly. But I might not. When things go (glances down and pauses before re-starting.) When things go…other things go. Like when the sky grows paler. Because that’s just how it is on this bitch of an earth. LUCKY: Do you remember who we’re waiting to find? POZZO: Vladimir and Estragon. LUCKY: Do we know them? (Lucky picks up another bag in his left hand. With his right hand he allows part of the rope to trail down his back, while tightening the noose around his throat.) POZZO: Not yet, that’s why we must find them. LUCKY: And then what? POZZO: We will have found them? LUCKY: But what then? POZZO: Then we’re free. LUCKY: But aren’t we now? Lucky and Pozzo stop all motion and look at the audience to consider their freedom. Pozzo begins to pace and Lucky shifts his weight before picking up a bag in his right hand. Pozzo clears his throat. Pozzo clears his throat again. POZZO: FIRE!! FIRE!! FIRE!! (Lucky looks confounded. He turns to face Pozzo.) LUCKY: What are you doing? Where’s the fire? POZZO: I’m proving that we’re not free. (Lucky nods and looks back at the audience.) Let’s go. LUCKY: Go where? POZZO: It doesn’t matter. (Lucky has picked up all of the bags. He appears to be under considerable strain.) Pozzo begins to pace from extreme left to extreme right. Lucky follows a step or two behind. Lucky’s steps get slower until Pozzo is at extreme left while Lucky is at extreme right. Pozzo stops. Lucky stops. POZZO: Well are you coming? Lucky moves across the stage to Pozzo. Pozzo takes the rope from around Lucky’s neck, tightens it, and takes a step off stage. A leaf falls from above the tree. Lucky watches it land before bowing his head. POZZO: Lucky! Are you coming now? LUCKY: Will we be free? POZZO: Well? Shall we go? LUCKY: Yes, let’s go. They do not move. Curtain

“Corrie started Macintosh Construction when Chris was born and it wasn’t long before it became a family business.” Sarah May rocked back on her heels and continued her story, because it was her story as Corrie was her husband and Chris was her son. “Chris was never tha far behind Corrie and it was sad because Corrie was never good on his feet. Which is why it’s ironic that they both went into construction.” “I remember a time when they when picking apples at Old Donald’s farm and the birds sang from the trees: ‘E-I-E-I-O.’ And Chris spat the apple seeds across the road as Corrie started across the crick. Chris couldn’t have been that old and he certainly wasn’t none to be left behind and so just as Corrie was knee-deep in cold crick water, Chris was floundering about. The mud started whirling about like a small-crick hurricane and them boys, excuse me, them men…they were separated. Corrie followed Chris’s apple-seed trail up and out of that crick. When they came home covered in mud I said I told you so and tucked my boys in bed.” Sarah May measured the sugar for her famous apple pie. She brushed the extra sugar into her hand and caught sight of and old photograph of just the three of them. Her eyes glistened before she looked down and away. She continued her story rather gruffly: “Corrie promised our money problems were over. He got a commission at a job site to finish the frame of the biggest house in town. Granted, this town ain’t grown much since then, but the apples grow nicely. Rooms grew in that house like grass grows in the yard . And a day late in August when the apples were red as pain, Corrie and Chris were on the frame of the roof. Chris was spitting apple seeds and Corrie was never good on his feet. Corrie followed the apple seeds and landed with a cold think that was echoed by Chris’s fall. Corrie was bruised, and Chris was turning red.” Sarah May glanced over at her shelf. Two apples, red and slightly bruised, blinked and shimmered in the kitchen light. “It wasn’t long before I was called to see them. They hadn’t been moved, but they sure weren’t what they once were. Corrie was bruised, Chris was red, Corrie was red, Chris was bruiesd.” She held her boys like she held this story, closely and with love. Sarah May would never say it, but once her men were manageable, she carried home two apples and put them on her shelf. Both red, both bruised, both a part of Sarah May’s story.

With a playful tick-tock or a little blip-blop, When the rain fell like dew would… if it hailed. You stepped out from under the tree, and the leaves shook and quivered. Because they missed the wind when the air was so stale that they’d forgotten. They’d forgotten because memory isn’t real when you’re a tree. Unless you count the countless engravings Of lovers and children. But what are lovers really, If not children? Tick-tock.

She was jerked out of the memory of the night before by the quick click of the Payless heels on the tile. The woman pushes the heavily laden stroller closer to the counter, and the painted lips had just left the cell-phone. Her hand replaces a lock of hair. “Can you look up a book for me?” Mild irritation flickers across the cashier’s face. With a quick tap on the keys the temporary lapse into honesty is gone, and the cashier asks pleasantly, “Do you know the title of the book?” The woman taps her nails on the counter and looks away. The toddler sat with a thump beneath the counter, beyond the view of the cashier. He presently starts pulling the contents from the stroller onto the floor. Louder, the cashier asks, “Do you know the title of the book.” “Oh. No. I don’t. It’s got a green cover. It’s about a fisherman. He gets lost on a boat with his son. I saw it on TV.” She backs away from the counter and pulls a book off of a nearby table and flips through the pages looking for pictures. Replaces the book, upside down. The boy yawns and drifts away from the counter. The cashier looks down, and then back up. Her eyes move from the woman’s chin to her forehead. “Do you know on which television program you saw it?” The woman looks irritated. “Oprah.” The cashier looks back at her screen, clicks through a series of pages. “Was it an Oprah book club book?” The woman squints at the back of the computer: “Just call a manager. I don’t have time for this.” The cashier slides her copy of the Tempest under a pile of sacks and picks up the phone. The cashier has not keyed into the phone when the music cuts out. The cashier replaces the phone and waits for her turn to call a manager. The storewide intercom crackles. “Code Adam. Code Adam.” The cashier’s eyes dart to customer service, to the woman’s face, to the children’s section, to the phone. The woman was ambivalent. The woman did not know that the announcement was named for a child—Adam Walsh. The woman did not know that Adam Walsh disappeared from a department store, and his body was positively identified through dental records—sixteen days later. The woman did not know that her toddler was no longer pulling bags off of the stroller. The woman did not know that her husband had gone to customer service, panic-stricken, looking for a three-year old boy: brown hair, hazel eyes, 45 pounds, dressed in Bob-the-Builder pajamas. The cashier looks back up at the woman, and looks her in the eyes, steadily. The cashier says, "I’m sorry, I won’t be able to call a manager for you.” The cashier picks up the phone, asks if the front door should be locked, moves from behind the register to the door, and turns the lock from black—unlocked, red—locked. The woman stands at the counter, mouth slightly open, breathing audibly. The man, the husband, pages the woman. The woman picks up her bags with a huff and sets them in the stroller. Her body jerks, slightly: “Danny? Danny, come here, now. Daniel Michael. Answer me, now.” Her voice strains, slightly. “Where’s customer service?” The cashier looks at the woman, gently: “Head towards the mall entrance, it’s in the center of the store, under the…” The woman did not know where her little boy was. Neither did her husband. Neither did the store. The woman’s pace quickens until her shoes mark the tile with a cadence of panic. The gates to the mall entrance closed with a final clink. The woman didn’t know.

When he comes home late one night before the sun has broke he mutters softly about Working late, and Everyone knows how retail gets So just close your eyes and before the children wake, Hush. And when he sits on the mattress with a hush, the heaviness and the weight of the night settle in over the air and deafen my eyes. And he says You know, we're broke, but I don't think he understands, gets how I feel when he comes home late. Sometimes they ask Where's daddy I just say He's late. They know well enough to stop asking and hush. When he comes home, and they ignore him, well, that's what he gets. I wonder if he's out tipping women at night. I imagine him telling some girl It broke and the slow realization in her eyes. Just like the look in his eyes in high school, when I told him I was Late, and I wished that my mother had broke my back when I shut the door with a hush, and she knew I'd been with him all night. Her look said You'll get what you gets. Hope that young lady gets paid well when he covers her eyes, and follows her into the night and the children whimper and wonder why daddy is late. All I can do is tell them to Wait, and hush. Maybe his car is broke. When I balance the checkbook, I know we're not broke His job pays him well, I know what he gets. So this time when he opens the door, I say Hush. I see the reflection of him to me to her in his eyes and I say, You're late. But it's barely night. I ask him where he's been all night and he tells me to hush. I ask what he gets for his overtime and tell him we aren't broke. He looks me dead in the eyes and tells me, "she's late."

I see the color of your skin, so let's not pretend it isn't there: the deep rich, darkness of it will cause others to hate you for their own tragic flaws and the way their daddys raised them; you'll step out onto the street and someone averts their eyes, the signs on the drinking fountains have left their shadows. And race isn't just a sprint on home. But I know the history stacked in your ethnicity. The traditions and the names left by grandmothers, and daughters wed in endless saris. Mourn in white for the white race that lost its life when it stopped valueing its identity and yours. I see the color of your skin, and I know that there are men that kill, kill to purify a people, a creed. And I know these men are mine and yours and we both pray that they come home before the holidays. And we both know they won't. because there's an endless struggle in which my brother believes that when he massacres one man he lives to kill another day. But I know that if tomorrow, my brother does die on the fields or in the streets every man weeps the same. And I know that when our brothers and our sons come home everyone laughs in the same dialect. I see the color of your skin. And I see mine. And I know that when something fades when I kill myself a little-- but only on the inside, you won't be able to see it through the color of my skin.

Libraries tend to be that way, quiet. Like the uncomfortable awkward silences that no one really likes to listen to. Just pretend it isn't there. Sit quietly and someone else will break the silence, surely they will. Because they always do. People love to hear their own voices. To remind them that they're not alone. Because that darkness, that like of light lack of life, is so empty. Such a huge void that human life can not fill. And even when it does, when the bodies and the mirth and the scent of it all Fill the room and destroy the space, it's still empty. People still feel a void. Even with all of those bodies pressed in around them. So the man in the back row talks loudly to Impress upon the people around him that he really does exist. And that's okay, I guess. Because that's how libraries tend to be. Quiet.

Frustration Wells up and Spills Over. Because you Just are not listening to me. Smoke seeps around the edges and ages of water bubbling over and frothing at the bit. Because if you could hear me screaming from underwater smoke curling up you would see the fire, That I see. Tearing at me. Devouring. me.

Tie my hands behind me. I'll square my shoulders. Force me to stand. I'll stand tall. Gag my mouth. Silent repose. Cover my face. Eyes pleading. Light the fire at my feet. I'll hear the flames devour my skin. I'll smell the acrid scent of flesh. I'll taste the revulsion. I'll feel the pain. I'll see the darkness.

Have you ever been so caught up in the Christmas spirit that you made a Christmas tree out of rocks and painted it green? How about hangers? Have you ever wanted to save your picnic table and decide that the best course of action would be to disable it as a table? Have you ever played croquet in the dark? Have you ever skipped at random? With people around? Have you ever tried to cure hiccups by drinking water upside down and have it come out of your nose? Have you ever had toe wedgies? Have you ever started talking to yourself and ended the conversation with: "Stop talking to me!"

The woven pattern of my crocheted blanket Falls over my thighs and under my tears As the 900thman dies in Iraq Each loop planned by a crafted hand

I tried to keep a diary once. I really don't have the discipline. So congratulations on that, especially. Onto the poem: it has a nice running theme that fits well into your ending. The examples you use to show change are effective. Overall: good job. In the banquet room, when you click post, a "mail error" flashes. You do not need to go back and re-post. The Pen has caught it. Welcome to the Pen.

Thoughts of unfinished meals flit through my brain As I remember that I can't even toast pop-tarts Without the fear of flames licking the smoke as the alarm announces that I Have failed miserably and now my breakfast is smoldering. But at least before I dumped water on the appliance I remembered to yank the slighly damp, cloth cord lacing along the edge of the counter With metal fangs gouged in the wall waiting for water to ignite cool venom.

Thank you for your comments, evaluations, and advice. "Hush" is largely self-talk and I did like the idea of variations on the first line, but still maintaining the repitition. I will eventually begin to revise, but not for a while. Thanks again.