“And as the snow fell he felt little more freedom than the buried blades of grass above him.
He shone green in a world of white.”
by M. R. Brown
ACT 1
Scene 1:
Two twenty-something year old men lay in the snow, side by side. Clad in black jackets and scarves with red hats. Both men place their hands beside themselves. They stare at the sky and witness the branches of the trees surrounding them tear across the screen. The world opens up and everything once stopped begins to move around them. Each boy is missing one thing. And there they lay. Still. Searching. Green lights are flashing.Man 1: “All the world is a quiet place and no one seems to listen.
Man 2: If it’s any consolation, I don’t think I can either.
Man 1: We’ve grown attune to feeling safe in sounds around us.
Man 2: The “white noise” it’s called.
Man 1: Sounds are
Man 2: -without answer. It provides the same solace.
Man 1: Every night is passed in every household with a continuously reverberating hum.
Man 2: The world is endless without social interaction. I see it there, where the lines are bent.
Man 1: Imagine a city bereft of sound.
[One second passes between them. Man 1 can not stop it and Man 2 neglects to try]
Man 2: A tingle should spark your finger.
[The two men turn their heads left]
Man 1: I can find sounds in a flashing streetlight as though they were proclamations of an old bible. The cover is tattered, though.
Man 2: The light flashes red in intermittent sessions.
Man 1: I have found silence. I have found it between flakes of snow, in a frozen breath. I have found it in the bed covers of loved ones and the gazing eyes of enemies.
Man 2: The only sound unique enough to never be reproduced
Man 1: -is silence”
[One second passes between them. Man 2 stops it]
Man 1: "Never wake me.
Man2: I’ll wake you when we reach the end.
Man 1: When there is a skyline left burning and the wind to blow it our way?
Man 2: I’ll wake you when there is a last train, empty and burned black. I’ll wake you when the spirit leaves our bodies. I’ll wake you in lucid dreams, my friend.
Man 1: All the world
Man 2: -is a much colored green"
[And as the
snow fell he felt little more freedom than the buried blades of grass above him. He shone green in a world of
white.]
