Christian0 and Juanita
A Single Act: Three scene script by Chris Chance- April/May 2010
Prologue:
There love took place over a decades time on the island east of Manhattan and in the valleys between the northern tip of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Tuscarora Ridge of the Southern Pennsylvania Appalachians.
He- no saint at all, felt in his heart a hero but ultimately hid behind svelte armor that protected him from a fickle and judgmental world.
She- a creature worthy of the lead lady in a classy novel- pure and once so very innocent. Statuesque and of absolute sense- commanding her world but building high walls around her red heart as she went.
The fields spoken of in this tale were accurately planted and lovingly nourished long ago and they still grow, multiplying their essence year to year. What great hope the author holds in his blue heart for their harvest. What great hopes he has for us all.
It is understood that the sins of the original garden have heft upon us, as a civilization a life of confusion, doubt and pain. It is with faith that one carries on believing in the goodness of a divine creator and master of all that you know.
Said in this story, it’s believed that he or she, the divine that is lives in two places simultaneously.
First; among the stars painted in the style of Rembrandt meeting Picasso, laughing the way Chaplin must daily at the absurd nonsesilogicalness of it all, crying like the poor ******* who’s let his whole future slip through his foolish little fingers.
And the Divine, the great source of energy in the universe also lives in a certain part- or nook - or cranny- of all things that breathe and/or return with the spring.
It is the voice you hear right now in your boney skull. It's the feeling you get when you forgive. It is the obligation you have to reach up and hold steady your fellow man.
As the author of this tale drops to his knees seeking guidance from that hidden, divine and breathy spiritualness he silently cries out in his pain.
A pain he never knew existed. He’ll silently ask to be prayed for now
and at the hour of his death.
Act I Scene I:
She could snare me in a trap by my ***** and hang me to the cherry tree. Yet my love for her wild flower remains – growing stronger- gathering and harboring the strength of welded tycoon steel.
This love you see- is no ordinary love.
It’s a love of passion and flame but one that culminates with no possible conclusion.
This love does not merely flow - but in actuality rages deep and wide- flowing so deep and so wide that the queen herself could traverse it in comfort.
And now alas, her love.
The love of ours- alone, no longer vast enough in its capacity: to carry on.
And it shall be furthermore, that I now- and I alone: will carry the weight of our time spent as one.
Our time spent as one such as the sand and the sea- Spent as one just as the mountain and valley.
Spent as one the way the very soul itself: on its own palate- feels and tastes true, sweet-sweet love.
This love I feel built around me like a velvet dream, a love now burning footsteps in my ears and setting fire to the nether regions of my soul has been banished and broken. But against better judgment still beats in my senseless and tortured eyes.
And in my anguish, I berate myself with guilt and deeply scour avenues of the past- for better directions we might have chosen.
Alas and in the end- amidst tears of fallen dreams: all roads lead to you and where your heart began and where- your heart ended.
So I ask you, all of you that bear witness before me. Whose heart is it- that still beats true and free? And whose heart is it that beats dark as the stormy cloud.
Whose heart I ask?
Or better yet- a different conundrum of a similar variety.
Can any heart be free?
Free to consume its desire- whether the sun shines or not? Free to love and never to be forgotten. Free to breathe without the threat of mortality?
I challenge you my friends to define this- and to thoroughly answer my questions.
To see into my future: regardless of what must be seen and help me- please make me believe again. Make me in all my shattered and tired bones and aging skin truly, truly believe again.
To teach my sons that it is safe to love in this hard and ruthless world.
To see my love as better, more pure- unscathed by the devilish nature of the standard human ego.
To once and for all see love and all life- as hopeful and not bereft of commonality and truth. To see her again- my fair love. Smiling the notion of a better tomorrow.
Act I: Scene II
Our sins derail us its true. Over time and a plethora of vanishing precepts we wash along the rocks liked laundry.
Shall we neatly and quietly burro underground in the neighbor’s green space, with fleeting air- void of light and color?
Should we swing by our necks from the orange groves it would be in vain as life is so precious and out there lays undeniable hope that there is more of life’s holiness to drink in with each passing storm?
Impossible. That is not who I am. This is not who I was. That is not who I will be.
So vanquished cries muffle in the night against vicious and angry winds and the low weeping moan is constant as I look ahead while looking backwards.
Wondering how from my grasp it ever slipped so far?
It all, each and every golden ounce slipped from my tongue in sorrow in truth I must say. Unfiltered neurosis and faltering fear are guides that will fail to bring you home safely.
Nefarious tides of anxiety and reflection blinded me- blinded me from the sun.
But yet still she knows or understands that the bird song of redemption is an actual place where hearts once emptied , now gather to refill that same heart with love again and again.
It is the wound of her life open, crying out and bleeding through her lonely eyes and ears. It is with shame that I admit my long standing ignorance and tardiness to the cause of her heart.
Now with the backing of angels I see the landscape and all its divine nature but yet I am unable to enter. Unable to rejoin the garden and fight a snake who speaks my unholy name off split tongue and evil notions.
Where, where my love is it that I should go from here after having come from there? Where shall I drink my clean water, where shall I rest my weary head?
And oh, the head of a sleepless and love sick man. Heavy with burden brought on by his own lack of mastery regarding the most important issue and god given task of them all, but as once ailed Mercutio in his quest for and of allegiance to Romeo. Time is of the essence.
When I lay my head it is in sorrow and the pain of real passion. Passion for remaining one as a quarter that makes up a whole- such as the corners of the cross and the earth, air, water and fire itself in a single beating heart.
For one hundred and eighty ****** and arrogant days and their resident risings of the sun I've been reborn- sworn to never let evil destroy good in my heart.
As you must do- you will do.
But the tides that flow in my veins do not flow from you they flow from the divine, a divine that will protect me and forgive my trespasses as he’s surely forgiven me of mine on others.
It’s only the growing fields of our past love that concern me now. How will we harvest the wheat which together we’ve sewn? How will we slaughter and eat the meat of the heard. When will any of us drink the wine from the grapes we have grown?
The entities I’ve stated are my future and will remain my future until arc angels guide me from this earthly tomb. The blood of our fields will reign supreme.
The harvest of our youth will produce. Standing together or behind our backs- as we run from it. The bloom of our responsibilities as care taker of these lands will be upon us in time.
So as your heart sails to foreign shores I awake from my rage and see the sun, feel the air, breathe and seek guidance for my purpose. To continue to plow the field and fish the harbor while I settle for meager tastes.
May the work I’ve done. May the work we’ve done be a strong enough foundation for both fields to nurture, endure and produce.
And as you for my fleeting love: may the beans of your coffee be rich and plentiful, may your heart find its way back to where it once was- where ever that may be.
Between here and now, let the days shine upon you like spring light. Bathing you until your soul feels safe and fresh. Keeping you where you need to be to feel free.
But alas leave knowing that the flame I still hold- as I have from day one. For the mystic and mysterious love brought upon us by the three so many, many years ago.
How long that can burn, I know not: but as the skies bolster the heaven- my heart once black, has returned to life. To love you is all that there is. I will share my heart and tormented soul and every last breath I breathe until graying and dying days. For you and only you exist.
Act I Scene III:
The sun came out after a snowy and emotional winter but the air never seemed to warm through the long days of April.
And so in the absence of all that is left , we set off. You, in the direction that I lived in for years and me in the direction that you lived for years.
Two lovers, one point, two stories. Proverbial ships in the night is what we are- and the passing simply destiny.
Oh but for how I will remember thee. The raven hair and olive skin, deep eyes batting only in such a way as to swell my heart, that equisite eyebrow raised in point, the witty acronyms of our secret family language.
The warmth of your parent’s hearth and the surrounding family. A safe and wonderful place to even a man such as I, who took it sorely for granted along with the other neighboring fields planted and stamped with our communication, our love, our example.
Time is a tempting and vicious confidant, one that will surely lead you astray and bring mischief and havoc to your very door step.
Tread lightly if you dare to tread at all in love. Hear the heart you rest against, listen to the subtle tick tock of its rhythm. Hold a stone as it were a diamond, train the mutt as a pure bred champion, shape your mud as if it were the finest of all clays from the earth.
The whistling train only passes through the station once. Get on get off, make up your mind – change your mind – ignore your mind. Look into your heart and soul then move forth.
To where it is you should be.
Where it is you’ll be forgiven and nurtured even more revered than ever before. A place so familiar you might even call it home. A bed so all knowing that it could only be ours. A life so new it could never be as it was.
Know this before you part my love, know that I am true: as I say- is as I pray. But your choice is your choice and yours alone: to rise or recede.
My heart pines like the losing persona in an old film. For I see the sun rising. Shining and setting in your eyes.
I see the fields as they grow under watchful eyes, I hear the wind begging us to move but I stand grounded upon all that is pure and sanctimoniously holy. Definitively tattered- but braced firmly at the center of the storm.
Waiting for the love we loved, Once. The love that we may squander if we have yet to do so already. A love that can be repaired and grow larger and more consuming then ever imagined.
A love never to slip from my grasp again.
Narrative Ending:
So the fella in this case is condemned to be a shepherd without his flock. Sending signals by smoke along the telephone wire to complete the rendering of the fields. With mercy on his side- may he succeed in the light of the world relentlessly embittered in the dark?
Or will all in life just as after a close death, quietly move on?
Completing revolutions of the sun: that fiery ball of light, wider than the distance from here to Mars and back, with us random like ebbing and flowing on the tides lengthy pull of the moon?
Or is the strength to muster what one wants, really possible?
Can he climb the highest mountain? Could his faith be tested in lava like pits of hell? Can his heart be branded clean after so much life?
And what of her beating heart?
What of her search to dissolve the fears of her own making? How has her beauty helped or failed her. How will she look herself in the eye?
How long must I day dream of meandering through a sweet and enjoyable song with her one last time.
Unknown answers-
More unknown then I, as the player in this drama, would care or dare to admit, but hopeful ever more like the humming bird buzzing summer honeysuckle in rainy times- I shall remain.
I shall see the sparkle of her soul rent the eyes- if only for a time.
Taking both yonder to another space and time, where she’d admit she lied in vain fear and exasperation when she said: surely she could find no love true and could simply offer no more.
When my flesh gives way to bone cover me in roses. Walk me out in the morning of your mind as a man who loved without knowing how to love.
A male clearly guilty to the highest degree, in any court, of any land: of being careless with a precious gift.
And sadly for the ones who have loved and lost- in the end life offers only so many windows into the soul of a lover.
Christiano and Juanita a one act: three scene script by Chris Chance- April/May 2010