Sergio De La Pava - Personae

ADAM: You’re going to explain now?

CLARISSA: Explain what?

ADAM: If I knew wouldn’t need you to explain would I?

CLARISSA: Now you’re catching on, well done Adam.

ADAM: Where are we?

CLARISSA: Ah you guys are all the same. Where are we boo hoo.

ADAM: Ludwig asked you to explain what he meant by that whole we’re reluctantly playing a role thing and you said you would.

CLARISSA: I can explain.

ADAM: Good! Please do. What did he mean by roles?

CLARISSA: Oh no, I meant that I could explain why I told him I would explain.

ADAM: Oh god.

CLARISSA: You said it.

ADAM: Fine, explain that at least.

CLARISSA: Huh?

ADAM: Why did you say you would explain when you had no intention of doing so?

CLARISSA: Well I’d explain but it’s highly complicated and you wouldn’t understand in a million years.

ADAM: Try me.

CLARISSA: I lied. Tell me Adam what’s the long and short of it? Do you feel you’ve been here an extended or brief time?

ADAM: I…

CLARISSA: See? That’s the problem, at least part of it. Another part is the sense you have that endemic to your presence here is an expectation that you will perform.

ADAM: How did you…

CLARISSA: And it’s a mistaken impression on your part but it also pains me to inform you that your performance to this point has been anemic so you’re not really living up to this expectation that doesn’t even exist and surely you see how problematic that is.

( Pause during which it appears Adam is considering Clarissa’s statement but in reality is just the kind of silence that often emerges when two people who’ve been part of a group suddenly find themselves alone with little basis for speech.)

ADAM: So… where you from?

CLARISSA: How would I know?

( silence )

ADAM: I’m from… ( can’t remember )

CLARISSA: Never been.

( silence )

ADAM: You’re right after all.

CLARISSA: Told you.

ADAM: All of you, right as rain. The where in where are we truly doesn’t matter it’s the how that counts. That’s why we ask how are you on first encounter, the where is mere backdrop. I sometimes feel like a base animal where the only thing that matters is the immediate state of my senses. Hungry, full. Empty, sated.

CLARISSA: Deluded, alert.

ADAM: Pain, pleasure.

CLARISSA: So, Adam, are you pained or pleased?

ADAM: That’s just it, as usual fully neither.

CLARISSA: And yet time doesn’t wait for you to decide.

ADAM: No.

CLARISSA: It flows with merciless acceleration.

ADAM: But maybe let it is what I’m saying. I’m not in pain, physical or otherwise. Truth is this place is quite comfortable.

( Adam looks around in satisfaction as Clarissa shakes her head no until his eyes land on Charles and he quickly averts them. )

CLARISSA: Humans adapt, and that’s not a compliment. Unlike my older siblings I was born into beauty. An elegantly constructed home in the shade of one of those trees that seems to argue for the existence of God. As a child I was prone to behaving childlike and would earnestly say things like I will never live anywhere else .

But the tree grew sick and began to die, slowly. A century of prosperous life would have to ebb to an end in our presence. First one limb removed then another and now the house is too much in the sun to be warm and we notice that its owners don’t smile in each other’s presence and everyone’s secluded in their own being, shedding limbs to protect the core.

That was the root of it, I remain sure of it to this day. Because the tree, like all that lives and grows, did die, and nothing grew thereafter. In the end you grind up the stump and move away. A compartment shaded only by power lines. The girlish words have been emptied and you realize you’ll live wherever the world damn well places you. That’s where I’m from.

ADAM: That’s not this, my circumstances before weren’t any better.

CLARISSA: Through repetition loss begins to feel like a transient curve.

ADAM: Maybe Nestor and Ludwig will discover something.

CLARISSA: That may be, maybe, but what if they only discover there’s nothing to discover?

ADAM: Still be better than this… uncertainty. No?

CLARISSA: I’m not certain. Stop worrying will you? I promised you I’d get you out of here…

ADAM: When was that?

CLARISSA: And I will.

ADAM: Wait a second, I’m the man here.

CLARISSA: If you say so.

ADAM: I should be the one promising everything’s going to be okay.

CLARISSA: Go ahead.

ADAM: Everything’s going to be okay. ( Clarissa cups her hand to her ear in expectation until Adam gets the message. ) I promise.

CLARISSA: Don’t believe you. ( Adam deflates ) Understand, I’m not impugning your integrity I just don’t believe everything’s going to be okay and you happen to be the one declaring the contrary.

ADAM: Just trying to stay positive.

CLARISSA: Positive?

ADAM: Yes, trying.

CLARISSA: No I mean you positive that’s what you were doing?

ADAM: Of course. If there’s one thing I remain certain of…

CLARISSA: Let me stop you right there because if there’s one thing I’m certain of it’s that human beings don’t often know what truly motivates their actions. Agreed?

ADAM: I don’t know.

CLARISSA: Exactly, you don’t.

ADAM: No heaven or hell we don’t ourselves construct is my overriding point Clarissa.

CLARISSA: Ah, there it is, right on schedule.

ADAM: You doubt it? Receive some tragic news and note how instantly the very environs you’d just drawn comfort from will transform into instruments of the vilest torture. Note contrarily how a joyous enough development will free a man to kiss his severest enemy.

Are we to believe that all this. Life. Is a mere question of geography? Locate yourself on the map so you know what to feel? I think rather we move through our world as if entering coloring book pages with only the barest outlines then start coloring.

CLARISSA: So now you’ve gone from base animal to supercilious artist freely creating his world? No wonder you’re in no rush to leave this cocoon, little longer and it’ll be a metamorphosed demigod filling this room with undergraduate-level musings instead of just you.

ADAM: I’m not hesitant to leave this room. I want to stay because I’m curious what will happen next.

CLARISSA: It’s all very curious all right. Your every move beginning with that laughable pretense to disability. Very curious indeed.

ADAM: What, the wheelchair? I had no say in that.

CLARISSA: Did you say anything?

ADAM: No.

CLARISSA: Then you as good as essayed it. See what I’m saying?

ADAM: No.

CLARISSA: And don’t think we haven’t noticed what a turn for the worse Charles has taken since you arrived. Why should we forgive you for that?

ADAM: Forgive?

CLARISSA: No. Why should we?

ADAM: I’m not asking for forgiveness.

CLARISSA: Good, cause you can forget it. We never forget, what for? Or give.

( Charles moans. )

ADAM: I’m not responsible for that.

CLARISSA: If you’re not able to respond who is? You’re not suggesting…

ADAM: No one’s responsible .

( They look at Charles. )

That there’s the way of the world, he’s ancient.

CLARISSA: Perhaps you’re right. But O’ how the ways of the world do seem to weigh on him now.

ADAM: As if the shell of his corpse can no longer contain the ghosts of everything he’s seen and done.

CLARISSA: Do you feel guilty?

ADAM: I told you, I have nothing to do with…