Ripe and Falling

Ripe and Falling

A One Woman Show
By: Mila Grandes
2008



















Setting:
The set ambience is fairly simple. The audience should not be distracted with the stage but rather follow her train of thought intensely.
There are four pieces of furniture through out the whole play. A large plain mirror upstage center, it should resemble the common oval, whole-body mirror. Downstage left there is a pink cradle symbolizing here immaturity and her past life. Downstage right there is a bed with golden covers; her bed symbolizes her maturity and her ultimate goal. The final piece is a tall black stool where she is going to be sitting.
The backdrop is of an apple tree. The colors of the tree our odd colors of heavy contrast. The tree should be divided in two stages like her life. The first side, the one that is nearest to the cradle has opening leaves and no apples. The side that is closest to the bed is in full bloom and filled with plenty visible apples, though only one is falling to the floor. 

Costume:
Her costume is very simple; she has no traits that would label her under a stereotype. She is wearing black pants and a white shirt, though nothing formal, merely casual. The reason of this is to not focus in how she is but rather how can she relate to the audience. Because people tend to judge others with their outfits, its best if she her costume is simple, even plain. Also in this manner the audience would focus in the truth of her words. She has her hair tied in a ponytail and her makeup is very simple, nothing outrageous. Her lips are not red but slightly pink, her eyeliner is brown as well as her mascara, and she is wearing no eye shadow. The purpose of her costume is to portray her as real as possible, a palpable, honest human being.

Music:
One of this play’s themes is how universal problems are; therefore its music has to transcend to every possible individual. Because of this the main type of genre used for this play is instrumental music. However, at the beginning of the play the song is English and it is something that represents her period before maturation. The song that is playing is “Destination Unknown” by Alex Gaudino. It represents how she is still deeply influenced by her society and how she is so lost as to where she needs to go. However this is even before the lights turn on, when the lights are on the song changes drastically to an angrier song. The song is “The Reckoning (Don’t Thread on Me” by Iced Earth, this song dims as she begins to speak by her third sentence the music has stop. song for the intermission is the Russian classical song “Bruxa,” to represent how disturbed her household is. The final song is What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong. Which is the appropriate song to represent all that she has learned. CD is included in the back, with all of these songs.

SONG ARTIST
Destination Unknown Alex Gaudino
The Reckoning Iced Earth
Path Apocalyptica
Minuette for L’Arsienne Suite Bizet
Le Quattro Stagioni Op. 8, RV 269 Antonio Lucio Vivaldi
Bruxa Great Russian Classics
Op 6, Nr 8, 2, Allegro Corelli
O Fortuna Carl Orff
Praeledium and Fudge Boris Cepeda
Blue Danube Waltz Strauss
I’ll Be Home for Christmas Bing Crosby
Mr. Lonely Akon
Nothing Else Matters Apocalyptica
Theme of Laura (Reprise) Akira Yamaoka
La Vie en Rose Edith Piaf
Rhapsody in Blue George Gershwin
Quutamo Apocalytica
Ruska Apocalyptica
Farewell Apocalyptica
Fatal Error Apocalyptica
Shakedown Spyro Gyra
Doubletake Spyro Gyra
What a Wonderful World Louis Armstrong
Everything’s Gonna be Allright Bob Marley






















RIPE AND FALLING
(Black Out)
Song Destination Unknown by Alex Gaudino plays.

Audience is seated.

(Lights slowly rise)
Song Don’t Thread on Me by Iced Earth begins.

(Center Light on Eve, and Light from above her to outline her face. This type of light will come when she is angry. Another light is on her but much more dim. This light represents her feelings, therefore, at this instance it is, but through out the play it changes colors. Again, this light is very soft, only a faint glow.)

(Song decreases slowly until it disappears.)

EVE:
(She is sitting down on her stool, her head hunched down between her shoulder, and a few angry tears fall from her eyes. When she is about to speak she raises her head with fast movements. The following line is said in an angry broken whisper, but later her voice rises.)
What the fuck has gone wrong? Is it that my feelings are so bottled within me that I have to burst at the whimsies shit that appears before my eyes. Hell yeah I’m mad! More than the raising fires of hell can tell you, as they scorch the living flesh off you. As they burn the sockets right out off your eyes! As they drive flaming nails through your bones! It wouldn’t be enough to describe the anger, the frustration, and the deception inside of me…
Mother-fuckers! Who do the think they are to inflict so much pain within me for nothing? Are they blind? Do they not see the pain that I’m going through? I can’t bare it! It is as if steaming acid is pouring from my eyes, diving into my flesh and burning my heart away.
I even didn’t have time to mourn my late grandmother, not even my faithful cat! Maybe for you such allegations mean nothing. But for someone who has been in the scene of every possible fight, that has witnessed chaos from within, it is so much more. My dear lady or sir, you might not feel. But I fucking promise you that I fucking do! There has been so much I’ve gone through; that it only seems necessary to place it all down in white and black.
Mother-fuckers, scorching imps drawn from the flaming fires of hell! They have no sympathy, no feelings! And all I can I do is mix this pathetic tears with a maniacal laugh. I laugh at all this fucking black comedy!
I should really lay off the language by now. My tears have stopped though obviously my fears have not. Why dear god, why? Why? What am I saying I don’t even believe in God! Oh well. I guess I should get to the bottom of this, bottom of what? Well, my sadness, my traumas, my utter deception at their frivolity, and how my heart has frozen.
There is a memory at the back of my mind, jumping up and down like a freaking ballerina. Though it’s nothing pretty or beautiful as that. It might as well be the breaking point for all the feces that will rain upon us.
(She laughs) At least I’m trying! See! I didn’t even say crap, (chuckles) or shit, whichever you prefer. Who the fuck am I talking too anyways? Freaking squizofrenic! What do you think that this is a freaking diary or something? Ha! You have a diary, and belief me the dreams and shit you write there has nothing to do with this stuff. Sadly this is real. If I had to call it something, I’ll call it a memoir…. a Memoir… a memoir for what? Well… for who? For… you, who said that? Shut up and listen! For you, you, my freaking conscious that one who is guiding this stupid stream of thought! Or is it flow of thought and stream of consciousness?
Who cares? Anyways, as I was saying, this probably begun way back,
(Song: Path by Apocalyptica. The volume, as background music the main focus is her.)
I was about seven. It was dark. I lay on my parents’ bed with my left shoulder pressed against the wall. I was curled up like a baby… I was a baby. And I was crying, crying my eyes out. I turn around. I see mom and dad there screaming. Screaming! On the floor was my brother. He is crying and screaming too. My mom is clutching her heart screaming to the skies. Great catholic she is, not, just when she is desperate. And there, my brother crying with fury, more that crying, he is bawling in anguish. He ran away tonight too. He went to a discotheque, without my parents’ permission. Its not the first time he’s done it but it is the first time it’s gotten so ugly. There is a baseball bat in the floor I see it. Seems like he hit dad with it, but daddy hit him back, that’s why he is on the floor. Momma stop crying, he doesn’t deserve your tears. Momma stop crying, daddy why you hit my brother? Why are you fighting, I don’t get it. Stop it. Momma stop crying! Daddy, don’t hit him again!! Why! Why?!… Why… he…. He.
(Song ends in a small fade out.)
Yeah a mighty memory to see when you are seven, but guess what? Why did it matter? I was curled up and cried. I cried until my other brother came. Then I told him. I want to kill myself, I must admit he looked at my loathingly but with a bit of fear. He said seriously frightened… "Shut up. You’ll go to hell anyways if you do.”
So there you go people, a snapshot of my family at their worse, or one of their worse. Boy I can tell you it has been so ugly, so ugly that to some point I am impervious to others’ suffering, only a little anyways… It begins here.
What can I say? My brother has always had the older-brother complex, “I’m superior I know things I am more mature.” “I best!” Ha! The best at screwing things up! Anyways, where was I? See I don’t know whether my family is actually driving me crazy.
But lets concentrate in this year. The year I turned sixteen I bet there a few things there that’ll interest you. I’m still a virgin for your information so don’t be getting any ideas if you wanted to see some XXX garbage, take a hike. But it isn’t all like that. Where? When? We’ll let’s see. I’m straight A student, I don’t smoke, I don’t drink. Bit of a liar actually. I do drink, I have gotten drunk, and I have two B’s. I have played stupid games like spin the bottle while I’ve been “happy.” But big deal! That isn’t the point.
Anyways. I was going to some God-forsaken country for some Model UN bullshit; when on the eve of my departure my cat dies. Let me introduce to you my cat. He is a saint, he is, was, a saint… practically human. He would follow me anywhere, he loved me, when I was sick he would lie next to me and lick my arms, for me to get better. He was a devil as well mind you. He would hunt down pigeons and bring them as offerings to my room.
Once he clawed my mother in the leg. Wait you should probably know why. Well, my parents where having monetary issues at the beginning of this year. Basically my dad invested some money we didn’t have and my mom bought an apartment at the beach we couldn’t afford. She had had to sell her jewelry because she tried to sell the house and nobody wanted to buy it… sell our house to buy an apartment at the beach… We are so stupid. My dad had to find a second job to work at. They had to put a mortgage on the house, and “blah, blah, blah” I’ve heard this so freaking much I’ve memorized it, and frankly… I’m tired.
Well getting back to the clawing.
(Song: Minuette from L’Arsienne Suite by Bizet)
My mom got so drunk one day, because she was freaking pissed at my father for all the monetary issues, that she was about to hit him in the head with a crystal-small-replica of a pine. This decoration would’ve certainly driven through his skull and my mother would’ve gone to prison, certainly. Well then here comes my loving cat and he jumps towards my mother’s leg, he claws it, punctures it, and scratches it. It is bloody, it is nasty, it is painful… it is humiliating... Lucky for my mom she was so intoxicated she barely felt it. But she felt it enough to let go of the glass pine. She was devastated! She fell down in broken tears! My scared father instead of trying to console her, just looks at her, tells the maid to help her, and leaves to go to work! Either he is coward or he is mentally disturbed. Or maybe he was just scared… But who could have ever done that to their wife?
Well the truth is they never loved each other very much… to tell you the truth. My father is my mother’s second husband and she married him not out of “true love” but as a consequence of loneliness. She wanted a baby, a home, and my father did too. My father did want to marry her, but not so much. He knew my mother had a bad temper. And lets face it, my mom almost killed my father with that glass pine, even I would’ve had second doubts about staying. But I like to think that I would have the courage inside of me to stay. Maybe I would have been that brave.
(Song ends)
So lets go back to my cat. Well this loving innocent creature of nature loved me, and paid attention to me. Believe me, being the only daughter with six year older brothers, suck. Why was this cat so important to me? Well to tell you the truth, he was the only pet I managed to keep for more than a year.
(Song: Le Quattro Stagioni (Op. 8, RV 289) La Primavera by Antonio Lucio Vivaldi)
When I was littler I used to have lots of dogs I guess I had one for each of my birthdays, so lets make that around fourteen. Make the math, if I said I’m sixteen and I had one for each of my birthdays, AND that my cat lasted more than a year, it can’t bloody well be sixteen dogs, now can it?
So anyways, each year my mother got fed up with each dog. She would take them to the vet and have them take a little nap, if you get my meaning. The first few years she would come home and say she gave them away to “another family.” Then as time passed she would come home and say, “they are sleeping,” that they where “tired.” Then when I was twelve she came home and said, “I killed it ok! Now stop crying and finish your meal!”…  The most of it was hell… just hell.
I’ll tell you something sweet... or pathetic. Remember that TV show, The Thornberrys? Well, I wanted to be like Eliza, you know the girl who could talk to animals? Well I wanted to be like her so that I could tell my pets that they should pee outside or that mommy would kill them. Wow that’s twisted…. Well, I bought a dog when I twelve and half, he was a Shar-Pei, and guess what? He suffered from urinary incontinence… so the angelic sweet innocent bloody dog was peeing everywhere. Not that it was his fault. But it didn’t go too well with mom. Lucky for him he didn’t die, he managed to go live in a farm of my brother’s girlfriend.
Now this is a girl he has been with for years, she is from Colombia and very nice. I mean they where together for like six to eight years. Even though she was a little soft in the head. I’m saying this because she was extremely jealous of my brother, I mean like deep shit. Also I thought sometimes she was a pathological liar. Anyways she was so nice. She was lovely she treated me like a sweet older sister, which I never had so I loved her because she was nice to me, and I thought they where going to be together forever.
Then guess what… guess what? This woman who had been my brother’s first. This girl that was the sweetest but slightly angry of them all… was hiding something serious. It was something that we found out a few years later… when it was in the news. Anyways… her father was involved in narco-traffic… the father was a huge drug dealer, and he was arrested. But long before that, my brother had broken up with her because he met someone else. Anyways that was like five years after we first sent the Shar-Pei away to her house.  But I wanted another pet…. I was so selfish.
(Song fades out)
Well… I heard that German Shepherds where pretty smart dogs, that you could train them for a bunch of stuff. So I said, “I would train it to pee outside,” great. I was thirteen and a half maybe. Anyways I had my German shepherd. But guess what? No, no good either. She was wild. Anyways, we sent her away to my brother’s girlfriend farm.
So here I went through my period of isolation, I didn’t want to know about any pets. Until my brother suggested I could have a cat. I wasn’t too happy with the idea at first but then I grew into it. I saw they had their litter box, so no peeing inside. I also learned that they where really smart, maybe they can dodge a knife? I tried to convince my mom and the first thing she said was “They are from the devil.” Much like that mother in that movie, “Water Boy”, you know, “that’s the devil” and shi... stuff.
Crap looks like there fighting upstairs… I’ll go check. It’s not like I can do much good. But sitting here on my lazy ass is just as bad…  (Intermission the classical song Bruxa plays). Damn it! It was nothing. Oh, well… wait, this is absurd, have I’ve gotten annoyed at the fact that they are not fighting, because it would be a waste of my time? What is wrong with me? I beg to whatever mighty powers there are that it is not to late for me, and that all of this quarrels have not made me such a mutation of violence. I would detest myself if this were so… lets just wait…
Oh well, where was I? Oh yeah so finally I manage to convince her and bam, I have my cat my adoringly beautiful cat. Who I loved, who stayed with me for three years…
(Song: Op 6, Number 8, 2, Allegro by Corelli)
Who… could sometimes, look into my eyes, and be innocent and beautiful enough to drive me away from all that mess. Three years I’ve had him, he was born on the twenty-fifth of May, and I even celebrated his birthday. His was my son, and I cared for him as such... I love him still.
Well in the eve before my grand MUN trip, my cat dies. He dies in the most atrocious disgusting way possible. That afternoon I was doing something so frivolous as shopping for that freaking damn trip. Throughout the whole day I was shopping and I hadn’t seen my cat once since I got home. Which was weird cause he would wait in front of the door where he could hear my feet coming out of the elevator. So throughout the whole day I’ve been so busy that I didn’t even stop to think that I hadn’t even seen him all day. My mom said that she saw him throwing up this morning. But it wasn’t the first time he’d done something like that. He had thrown up hairballs before so I didn’t take it so much into consideration.
But around nine at night, my maid calls my mom crying. She says that she found my cat and that he is not moving. That he is hiding in my mom’s closet. And that he is not moving. My mother, who had never loved any pets, loved my cat. So she begins to cry in the middle of the store. But it was the cry of a woman who had seen too much. The tears just fell left from her eyes as she avoided my eyes. And I knew… I knew that something happened to him, that something terrible happened to him. But my mom said, “No nothing happened. They just don’t know… they think he is sleeping.”
(Song is changed to: O Fortuna by Carl Orff. As the other slowly fades out)
He’s sleeping? Sleeping? Sleeping! He died! And my mother didn’t tell me anything! She wouldn’t even let me go home to see my cat, I wanted to hold him take him to the vet! Anything! It still burns me that if she would have had let me go, I could of had saved him!!! That … I loved him! And then what, and then what… nothing I had to wait. She wouldn’t let me go. So as I was screaming my head of my brother turns to me and says, “You have no right to make such a big deal. WE don’t have to endure it. Besides its not so bad, many people have people who die, people not animals. And they get over it. There are worse things in this earth than your pet dying. So don’t yell!” But my mother she just had me there, buying crap for that freaking trip when my cat was dying. Actually I wished he would be dying because I knew he was dead.
I found out days later that my father and my brother came, to take care of my dead cat. My brother the youngest one, you know the one said, “you’ll go to hell if you kill yourself…” Well he told me that my cat looked terrible, all frigid and his hands…paws, crawled up like a hook; with his nails driven out... How…. How can that happen? How can something so good die so badly…? And then guess what they did with the body… They put it in a garbage bag and placed his tiny little body on the garbage truck… Not even a burial!
Nothing, in a garbage bag like if he was a pile of rotten eggs. And their excuse was that, “it’s just a cat.” But it was my cat! The only pet I should have had, the only one that lived. The only pet I really loved! I loved him… he died and his body was thrown to the trashcan. Well I never mourned his death…
(Song ends)
But it was not the only death I couldn’t mourn. My grandfather died three years ago. I heard my father yell, “No!” And my mother told me, “don’t cry, its ok, he was old,” like if it was an excuse.
But this brings me to the beginning of this week. I was leaving to another country for a Model UN. And because finals are during the week I am away, I need to take them earlier, the weekend before I leave. So I said to myself, “Great I can study the weekend before and get all my subjects nailed to the bone.” My father told me that my Grandmother wasn’t feeling all-right. That she was really sick, that she wouldn’t live for another week. She was going to be ninety-three next Tuesday, but she wouldn’t live to see that day.
Clich&#; right? Not true. When something is real, all the lame mediocre crap you see on TV falls short, for reality is all. As much as you wish to make it a portrayal of reality, it would always be what others view of it. Because lets face it, reality does not have clichés! What the fuck is a cliché anyways?
She was going to die, and my time with her was shortening. There was no more time. I planned to go see her that Sunday with my brother because I knew there might not be another day to be with her.  But on Saturday night, my aunt calls. My father yells the usual, “No!” Only it’s more silent this time, almost like he had already given up. And then he says something along the lines of, “calm down I’ll be right there don’t worry sister.” I took it much more calmly than before. When I found out, I cried and I held my hand to my mouth in deep surprise… A few tears fell from my eyes, but it wasn’t like my grandfather when I went to take a shower and I screamed in pain as the water fell through my body. Washing away my pain.
(Song: Praeledium and Fudge interpreted by Boris Cepeda.)
But that was problematic and traumatic as well, he suffered from Alzheimer’s and it was so depressing to see how he gradually lost his memory. My uncle would walk up to him and say, “Father do you remember me it’s me your son!” And he would look at them with a terrified face filled of confusion… Imagine that, a stranger walking up to you saying, you are my father, with tears streaming from his eyes that emanate nothing but true suffering. Someone, claiming full heartily that he is your son and you can’t remember. It must have been awful for him, he must of thought that either him or the stranger where mad. And then you begin to doubt yourself, maybe he had a fleeting grasp of a previous memory of that stranger and a fatherly sentiment maybe invaded his heart for fleeting moment.
Lets say this happens; then what would go through his mind? Maybe he recognized something but the minute he did, that something might have had escaped his grasp before he could’ve caught it. And wouldn’t that be frustrating, to realize you are losing something. That maybe this is not that first thing you have forgotten. Perhaps, you can’t even recognize where your sitting, but you know they do, those around you. You know that the only one that doesn’t fit there is you, because you can’t remember a thing. Then you begin to question and to look around you. You see an old lady sitting beside you. Is this supposed to be your wife? Why on earth is she smiling at you? And that stranger is still crying... What on earth is happening?
That must of really sucked. But I guess it must have been something resembling that Star Wars episode, I think it is the very last one, The Return of the Jedi, or something. Anyways, Darth Vader turns to you and says, “I’m your father!” Man that would be scary, especially if it’s the other way around, him being my son… ew (Her face is in deep disgust).
(Song changes to The Blue Danube by Strauss plays through out her remembrance of her grandfathers.)
Oh I remember when my grandfather and my grandmother where celebrating their seventieth weeding anniversary, they remarried them. Well, when it was my grandfather’s turn to say, “I do.” He wouldn’t. He just looked the other way, avoiding the priest and his wife’s eyes. Finally he says no, and my grandmother yells at him, “say yes!”
They where a cute couple, although my grandfather used to beat my grandmother up as he tied her to a chair. Crude… I shouldn’t say it… but it was true, she was with him to protect her children and to be sure that they had a future. She worried so much for their education… her love was unflagging. She suffered so much and gave her soul to God; to protect her loved ones with her faith, to find solace in religion. My grandfather wasn’t that bad either I mean he made the road that connected his farm with the town completely alone. He was a major entrepreneur. He might not have believed in education because he didn’t have any. But he was smart all right, and was sure that his children could have anything they needed, except maybe a proper education.
(Song fades out slowly at first and then fast.)
They had a daughter. My aunt. The truth is she is not well. The truth is she never married and she is 68. The truth is she is miserable... The truth is they say I look like her… I’ve been always worried that this would be my future that I would grow up to cry at parties because I would see my brothers and sisters with families… but I would be all alone. The real truth is that I was petrified of becoming her. Working for a semi-minimal wage, coming to a home that consists of nothing else but my tears. I would’ve been devastated.
Truth be told, I was scared. I don’t blame her for what happened to her, it is sad enough that she had to care for her siblings. But this was my side of the story told by others. However at Christmas, I had the opportunity to see something else and to do something about it. 
(Song: I’ll Be Home for Christmas by Bong Crosby. At the beginning of the song she begins to hum to it. When she hears the second bell she stands out of her chair and begins to dance for a minute to the song, pretending somebody is holding her. After the one minute, the song begins to fade out and she sits down again.)
My perspective shifted, I was sitting alone in a couch, sort of crying. Nothing too important, just that I felt I couldn’t dance. A stupid fear, because I can. I was crying because every time I dance with my older brother he looks at me and says, your not doing it right, and he always corrects me. And at Christmas, he turns to me and says, “you never gonna learn are you.” That fucker, I couldn’t stand it anymore, he always thought less of me. I left him there dancing, and I sat down feeling devastated. Because I can dance ok, its just that… when I am around him, he feels like his John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, and that I can’t match up to him. But I am a good dancer, only that when I am near him. I can’t dance, because he acts like an idiot. Like if I was three again and I was dancing by twirling around…
Well, I was sitting down in the couch, and my aunt sits next to me. She looks at me with a happy glee in her face and says. “Do you have a boyfriend?” Really, people… do I have a boyfriend? What is with all this pressure? Who really cares? It’s like I am in on msn and some John Doe types, “Hey, so… do you have a boyfriend? Really? Eh, why not? Hmmm, is something wrong? Are you abnormal? Why are you not wanted?” Well go fuck yourself, pedophiliac-castrated-ignorant-perverted-dick-head! Why are you in msn looking for a girlfriend you sad-ass-whole!
I mean its not like I don’t go out. Ok it is true I haven’t had a real boyfriend you know, the one you can call it your boyfriend and introduce him to your family. But I want one. And sometimes I just freaking don’t know what is wrong. But it’s not like I’m going to go stud hunting really...
(Song plays: Mr. Lonely by Akon; but not the whole song. The verses that are played are “I’m so lonely / I am Mr. Lonely / I have nobody / for my own” She looks out at first as if she is connecting with the song but as it progresses she begins to become annoyed by it. Then she interrupts it and the song is stopped.)
SHUT UP!
(At first she is flustered, but then she stops looks blankly at the audiences and moves on as if nothing happened.)
So I sank into my depression a bit deeper when she said it. But I said, “It’s ok you know really, I mean he will come when he comes.” And she says, “I’m only asking because I was just talking to your cousin you know the one who is fourteen and she was all on about telling me of her fight with her boyfriend…” What the fuck… Who gives a shit! It ain’t that big of deal! Ok? I don’t have a boyfriend!
Don’t you think it overwhelms my mind to think that one day I’m gonna end up like you. It’s enough already that my family, specially my mother, insults me by calling me by your name, Don’t you think I see the resemblance, the same eyes, I used to play the victim like you when I was little. But it has been the fear of becoming you, of becoming a bitter spinster that has forced me to grow up and change. To want to be loved you have to try to be loved. And I have tried. But so far I am lost in a vast sea of singleness. “Yeah for independence!” My feminist side cries out while I churn within, drowned on my own pitiful loneliness.
(Song: Nothing Else Matters by Apocalyptica.)
What’s is worse is that its not like I haven’t been kissed… Oh I’ve been kissed all right, I’ve even dated. Lets say that I’ve been wanted. But the thing is that I haven’t found my match and before I used to think, don’t worry it’ll come, but now I’m have my doubts. And they swivel inside, crunching my heart and feeding blood to my fears. I am scared, but I know that if I rush into things I can as well screw it over and give up. So with these thoughts overwhelming my mind I look into her eyes and I see the end of a possible path.
I realized, that instead of gazing into her with fear… I could help her. I should help her. I must. I also must admit that this is a bit rusty in mind, those words came from the heart, and I’ll do my best to convey them once again...
Aunt I don’t think I need a boyfriend right now and I certainly don’t think that I need to rush into things… I understand that if I am patient it will come… How about you…
To this she told me her sad life… “Well I saw someone this weekend but I couldn’t go out you see, he was to bad tempered…” Really, well a lot of people are bad tempered…
(Song switches to the Theme of Laura (Reprise) of the motion picture Silent Hill 4 by Akira Yameoko.)
“Well the thing is darling that your grandfather was very mean to me. Very mean. You see I was the prettiest of my sisters and he was very jealous. My oldest sister also has my eyes, she must have been sixteen… she was taking sewing lessons. Her malicious teacher raped her and kidnapped her one foul day… You know your cousin, yes him; well he is the fruit of that crime. My father was scared so scared that he promised himself that the same would not happen to me so he followed me everywhere. To school and… everywhere, sometimes I wanted him dead. He used to tell me that he would walk behind so that if he whistled and I turned to look, I would get the beating of my life when I came home. So I was terrified I grew up afraid of every man that would send me a love letter, sing a song to me, or even talked to me in public.
One day I was walking down a lane and I hear someone whistle, I was so scared so scared, that I ran with all my strength, I kept running feeling the wind in my hair as it licked my tears. I was blind with sadness and fear that I did not see the stone ahead of me. I tripped most foully. I was bleeding in my arms, my legs, and on my face. When I got home I did not tell my father but I cleaned my wounds.
When night came I went down to pray to the Virgin Mary. Tears would fall down my cheeks as guilt inflamed my heart. I begged her to make me ugly, to make me abnormal. I begged her forgiveness for a crime I never knew. I cried pleading to her to stab me with the same swords that stabbed her heart. Your grandfather was very mean to me… “
I could see tears yearning to fall down her eyes, and I knew that this would be the right moment to tell her…
(Song: La Vie en Rose by Edith Piaf, it is very dim since it is song and to avoid any inconveniences.)
“Aunt you know love is not easy but I know that you could have a boyfriend. You are not old and love does not have an age. I know that even though I haven’t had a boyfriend right now I know it is because fortune has not smiled on me yet, but I know that such a moment will come. Love is not a thing of looking for the hottest guy or the one that is most popular. Love does not fall for prince charming. Love is real, and for to have it one has to be real as well. Accept that person as they are and hope that they would do the same for me.
To be in love you have to love yourself first. Only then could you love someone else. It is the moment that you love yourself with all your defects and flaws, that can you give this love to someone else. And if you don’t love yourself, you must ask yourself what is it that you hate.
Within in me I found that I hated myself. I was getting anxiety attacks and being awful to my family. I asked myself what was this? I found out that I was too afraid to let people see me. I was afraid to make myself vulnerable. I was scared shitless that I would be harmed. So I put on this façade of power and strength of character, when in truth I was weak, I was a coward.
I did not find this out by myself. My brother someone I deeply love, helped me. He told me and he asked me to say “would you forgive me” I was so damn proud that I couldn’t even ask forgiveness to my brother. And this is something that happens to everyone. It is this fear of getting hurt that overwhelms your heart and makes its paranoid and cold.
Don’t worry aunt my grandfather harmed you most foully. He made you afraid of what men could do to you. But you need to trust again if you ever want to be in love… This is the beauty of love and life! One has to experience it to its fullest so that you can say I am ALIVE!
People can change, and if somebody hurts you even though they know how pure your feelings are then this person does not deserve your time. You will be hurt but only if you’re hurt you can grow up. Mr. Perfect does not exist! Love is to accept, it is found in a couple that accepts each other mutually. Love is not to being with the sexiest man as a possession or as a toy. Love is complicated, love does not have a face just a heart.
The next time you meet a man that is interested in you make sure that you reject him because of his heart and not because of his face. Be sure that you are confident in your personality, your mind, your heart, rather than your beauty, because beauty goes away and it is also in the eye of the beholder.
So have faith, love will come if you are ready to welcome it with open arms. Be vulnerable, allow yourself to fall and expect to be grasped. Allow your heart to be open with sincerity, because life and love are both fragile and strong. And only if you have confidence and faith could you be successful in both… Love will come, we love you aunt… we love you most deeply….”
(Song ends)
To his she was crying, because she is not necessarily the best aunt ever, she treats everyone with contempt so I know that she doubts our love towards her. She has good reason to doubt it, very few people love her, my mother included, so I knew that I had to give her strength… “Promise me you’ll try to change, promise me…”
Guess what the fuck happened next she looks at me earnestly until my uncle comes and asks her to dance, and she stands up immediately! Leaving me there! Sitting like and idiot. Damn I couldn’t get a response off of her. And I know that if I asked later, the moment would be ruined. Therefore I kept quiet hoping she had gotten the message.
When I got home guess what happened… my whole family starts questioning me saying, “Are you ok? What seed did your aunt plant on your head? Is she whole? No I think she is missing an ear she must be so disturbed talking to that spinster. Oh my god do you think she is turning into one…”
What… the… fuck! I mean seriously! Then guess what my older brother said? I think he was jealous. Well the plot is not so simple. See last Christmas he made a fool out of himself he promised the whole family that he was going to take my aunt out for dinner and heal all of her problems. The issue is my brother is the most immature person I have ever known.
I know ironic, I’m saying his immature when I’m younger but he is truly an idiot! All those false promises he told! He thought himself as going there like the freaking messiah and healing a lady who has been traumatized for sixty long years of pure cold loneliness! Of course he never took her out for dinner, he forgot and would ignore anyone who would mention it.
The thing is that I knew what she was going through. I too had to be exorcised in order to trust people again.
Well guess what? I love again right? I trust again, I get into a fling with this guy and guess what we end in? Nothing... That was a heavy blow, and the fact that I’m still single is a burden in itself. Though I am currently hoping to catch this other guy’s eye. The thing is that in matters of love I am plain stupid. Sure I can advise my friends in how to catch a guy, but how to keep it? I might as well become a nun. At this rate I’ll either be married to God or end as my aunt.
Well let me get back to what I was saying. See my brother was offended that I, his little idiotic sister, managed to talk to the witch of my aunt and try to get so sense into her mind. So guess what he says?
“I HATE that bitch! She is going to get ideas into her head! Dad you know how she is! She is going to start calling my little sister up to infest her with ideas! You know how she is! You know how evil she is! Sister don’t get any ideas in you head, you obviously know that this was worthless…”
Of course, of course this was worthless! Of course brother, I understand how could I possibly do anything well. Yes we all know her so well, how evil she is... Excuse me but is he stupid? I think so, calling an elderly woman evil, guess what you idiot she is lonely! And lonely people do stupid things to get attention. There is no good or evil in this world, just love and hate, and I’m sure that the only thing that woman hates is herself…
“Dad I won’t allow this! You know how she is…” To this he starts pathetically crying… “Anything! Anything but my sister! Anything but that…” So know he wants to protect me... Protect me from what? He really has to be the center of the world otherwise everything is unbalanced. It’s like the world lacks harmony if he is not the one who is running the concert.
Though he is not an idiot, he is just immature… gravely immature. I should probably talk about the beach. Yes the beach.
(Song: Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin)
You see I went to the beach with my family. And my bigger brother wanted to bring the Wii to the beach. Take into account we are already bringing the Xbox, and this is the BEACH! Sun, beach, water, tanning lotion, music, alcohol, and sexy opposite specimens on surf boards!
So anyways I am ready at ten in the morning while my brother slept till eleven. You know what his lame excuse was? “Nobody woke me up…” Well guess what nobody woke me up and I’m six years younger than you, but I still managed to move my fat ass of my bed to make matters easier for my family! So I kept telling him “would you hurry up! Would you hurry up! Would you hurry up?” All he would he said was, “in five minutes, in ten minutes, in fifteen minutes…”
Fuck! I am more responsible than him and all that he says all the time is “Sister, when you live alone, you’ll know the meaning of life.  Sister when you live alone you will grow up, just wait… just wait” Did my parents drop you on your head when you where a babe? Honestly are you retarded? I mean… why are you like this?
Finally I go downstairs and see him talking in the phone with his girlfriend from a foreign country. Amazing… Amazing! So I didn’t ask him anymore I got up and packed it for myself. The issue was that my brother had disconnected it already so when I got a hold of it I didn’t know what goes where. It was like being blindfolded and putting the tail on a freaking jackass and the jackass is my brother! I just packed the whole thing and gave it to him.
When we got to the beach and they are unpacking the Wii, oh surprise! The cable that connects it to the wall is missing! Ha, ha, ha, ha, HA! He turns to me and says! “Wow, you really can’t do anything right, now can you.” That fucker…
(Song changes to Quutamo by Apocalyptica.)
Well you know what? People make mistakes and if you would’ve wanted it to have it packed right; you should’ve made it yourself! Besides you where the one who was taking forever to get ready and to do you a favor I packed it for you! And you where the one who disconnected it in the beginning! Why didn’t you pack it when you could? And now I am to blame for something you should’ve done!
“How useful are you, really, I mean how stupid can you be to not notice that the most important part of the game is not there.” My other brother, on the other hand tells me with a reassuring voice “Everyone makes mistakes, don’t worry its ok.” While this idiot turns to me and says. “But you really cross the line.”
By now I was tired. “Well you know what if you wouldn’t have been talking to you girlfriend for thirty minutes and taking a nap every five, you would of have packed the Wii and we wouldn’t have to worry about it right now!” To this he looks at me as furious steam is being exerted from his ears and fire is dropping from his gaze. “Don’t you dare talk about my girlfriend! You have no right!”
He starts crying like the immature psychopath egocentric ass that he is! Then he says, “You are no longer my sister!” While he laughs tears fall from his eyes. All the while I inquire, what on earth did I do to provoke such anger? It is without consequence that he acts like a moron! Tears begin to fall from my eyes at the absurdity of this situation, at his temper, and at my broken feelings!
(Song changes to Ruska by Apocalyptica.)
My other brother pulls me aside and says, “Sister I finally understand the problems to our situation. You see its quite simple… You know how we discussed that my mother is always turning a blind eye to our older brother? How they are always taking his side, indulging him in whatever he wants? Never telling him of our economic problems. While he gets a thousand and more a month when we rarely get an allowance and have to coup up with generic? How they don’t tell him of our social problems? While we cry when we witness our parents fighting and our family falling apart, he remains in a utopian bubble looking at the sky with his girlfriend, without dark day upon his skies.
But is all makes sense! It’s perfectly thoughtful and understandable that my parents have acted this way. I would’ve acted in the same way if I where them! And now that I know, I will, and you should too. Sister, our brother is an idiot…
He is emotionally retarded and because of this he would never grow up! That is why he is so immature! This is why we can’t get along because he views himself as the older brother who is “the supreme being of heaven and earth. While us poor minions shall rule over some fiery leftovers!” Hence, it is understandable that we view him as the benignant, generous, wise leader that is supposed to be comprehensive, an ideal example to follow. And this is why we where so disappointed with him!
This is why we couldn’t understand his reaction of idiotic immaturity, because we hoped for something better. And because of this our parents took their way against us to protect him, because he does need protection! He is so emotionally unstable that it is our duty to look after him and behave accordingly. Sister we need to do this, it would be our only route to happiness. I promise you. We need to try, whenever one of us tries to reason with him we just need to say “sure, sure!” and the other would understand that he is fighting a lost case, a lost battle. Do you understand me? This is the only thing we can do in order to ensure this family’s happiness. Otherwise it will break apart and we will be left in the middle while it tear us apart.”
I understand. I really do! It’s just that this would be so hard that I dread what it is to come. But I understand that there is nothing else I can do. And it makes perfect sense. Now I can move on, but it would not be easy, I know this… I must try, in the very least try…
(Song fades out)
“Hi brother! How are you?” Things from here on end became easier to handle. Of course, his occasional pathetic lame comments where still there but I ignored them. Because now I understand that it’s not his fault. And that it would be so hard for him to change, to adapt, that why try? He has not mature but who am I to make him so? I’m no one, and to his eyes I am less than no one. I am his younger sister.
But this idiot! Did not take into consideration that I am suffering! The stress level is too great for me to sympathize with his idiotic comments, worse of all, when he says them purposefully to hurt me!
(Song: Farewell by Apocalyptica.)
I climb up the stairs towards my father and brother. And I see them laughing, but I’m just to torn apart to think. I just can’t think anymore. I miss cat, I grieve my grandmother, I yell at my mother for screaming at my father for having no money. I cry at my father for making my mother cry. I cry at my brothers for making my parents fight. I cry at myself for not having the might within me to make this right.
I feel my world collapse as things fall apart. My brother is making me cry. It doesn’t matter why it doesn’t matter when; all I know is that he caused the tears that drench my skin.
Fiercely I turn to face him. I ask him why? I ask him, whether he loves me? He turns to my father and they laugh. They laugh at me; they crack up, mocking me, hilarity streaming from their eyes… My heart turns cold. One and only one single tear fall at their indifference, I look upon them with a loathing disgust, and very slowly I say… I hate you both…
I run so fast to my mother’s room, my father runs behind me while my idiotic brother’s rippling laugh is heard as they vibrate off the cold walls. I close the door hard before he reaches me and I let out a shivering cry.
(Song slowly fades out)
You have found me here. But weeks have past since… Times passes fast when you’re having fun. But there is more still. Not much just enough... to drive you insane.
(Song Fatal Error by Apocalyptica)
I hear screams, blood curling screams I creep upstairs and see my mother screaming at my father … “VERMIN, WORM, LEAVE, I HATE YOU!”
Scenes, time and reality, flash in front in me; I’m drowned in the essence of injustice located at my mother’s tears. But my father, my father is crying as well. I go up to him with my other brother and he hugs me, and deep within this embrace he says. “Baby I’ve been waiting for you to turn eighteen to ask your mother for divorce.” I’m speechless and as a response I have comprehensive tears for him…
(Song fades out)
Finally, the final words in the beginning of a new life “I want a divorce.” Things have been falling apart from some time now, but this is how the end. But there’s a possibility of a new life…. Maybe…
“Baby are you ok, me and your mother… you understand.” “Dad after the death of my grandmother I understood one thing, there are things in life you can change, and there are things in life you can’t. The wisdom you gain is the ability to tell the difference, I understand. I know I can’t change this.”
But my mother didn’t she was so hurt; it was as if everybody now felt sorry for her. Society frowned upon her now and she didn’t like it. There was a change within me too.
(Song: Shakedown by Spyro Gyra.)
I became angry. I couldn’t even stand myself. Alone in my room I would find myself deep in anguish. But there had to be a solution! I was screaming at my mother! Yelling in contempt at my father, blaming them for their divorce, for my tears…
I was loosing myself, loosing myself in my anger and hatred, but where did it come from. Why was I mad, at what?
Then I realized… I was taking a midnight shower after I was done with my homework. As the water fell down my neck, it felt like a baptism. It was rebirth. I gaze up to my ceiling as tears washed away my fears. It was the idea that I shouldn’t be able to feel! This suggestion that my brother gave me when my cat died and I took it as a guide. BUT IT WAS RUINING ME! How could I go through my parents divorce from not learning anything about it! What a waste! What chaos!!
(Song fades out slowly.)
But life was made to feel, to live, to breathe, to suffer! One learns from pain, and it was this no-tear life that was breaking me. My mother now misses my father, my father misses his children, I miss my father and I hug my mother. My father misses my mother, and I’m lost within the widening gyre.
But I smile… things may fall apart but I know now that life wont hurt me without a good lesson and some re-compensation. With wide-open arms I let the wind guide me through life’s path, let it come.
(Song: Doubletake by Spyro Gyra.)
Lights softly dim.
Offstage deep voice.

“The personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself.” Anais Nin


A sudden blacks out.
In the dark she whispers.

It was all true.
(Song fades out and changes to: What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong. For the end of the curtain call the song that plays is Everything’s Gonna be Allright by Bob Marley and extends until the audience leaves the theatre.)