The Game

Hey guys, guess what?

I invented a game.

It's fun and you should play it. It's really easy, too. All you need to play it are two writers with cellphones and paper and pens, or laptops or whatever floats your boat, I guess. Like if you wanted to use papyrus, power to you (freak).

Anyway, the writers can't be in the same place. It would be cool if they weren't the same city. It would be even cooler if they weren't the same country. If they could be on different planets, actually, that would be perfect. But that might be asking for a bit much.

So.

Each of the writers looks around them and picks something from their immediate environment. A hat. A person. Graffiti. A pile of trash. The color of the sky. You get the idea. Then they use that thing as an inspiration to write a sentence or a question or anything, really. They txt what they write to the other person. Keep it short. Keep it simple. Keep it rad. Next, the writers use the sentence/question/whatever they received as a prompt for a free-write. Fifteen, twenty, minutes, or shorter, or longer, whatever the writers are feeling. When they're done, they can send each other what they wrote. They can even go on to continue one another's pieces, if they so desire.

There. Boom. Metaphorical space travel through writing. The secret connected nature of all things. A war against wanderlust and writer's block. Try it. I dare you.

Okay, fine. Only seems fair that I share with you how my first attempt at playing The Game went. Below is the piece that I wrote. My friend Sarah Neilson, who lives in Chicago, gave me the sentence: "I wonder what I should put in this box?" The time limit we set was fifteen minutes. Here ya go:

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I wonder what I should put in this box

Negative space: the triangle between her elbow and her waist. The small vase-shaped gap between her thighs and the cleft of her vulva. She is standing knees together hands on her hips. Naked like that. The thing is, she's strong. You always see naked women made to look weak, like intrinsic in exposure is vulnerability. But that's wrong. She's stronger than I've ever seen her, stronger than standing at the front of the room in a power suit giving orders.

Negative space: the ellipses between what you think and what you say. The space between desire and fulfillment.

Or, this. Negative space: the place between her legs that I push my fingers into. How the deeper I press, the more there is to press into. It's like the fucking universe, constantly expanding and all that.

Negative space: dark matter.

Negative space: what you fall into when you fall in love. What catches you. Incorporeal hands on your insufficient heart.

Negative space: a box, just a cardboard one, open in the corner of her room, and empty. And I have my mouth on her now, and my fingers pressing to the weird tender skin on the back if her knees and I know I should close my eyes because let's face it, everyone likes it better that way. Or at least if I could look at her face. But I can't stop looking at that box. I imagine something growing in it. A baby or a squash or a culture of bacteria, or just a feeling, a feeling that will swell to take over the world. A revolution being born.

And then it hits me.

The box, I saw her open it. I know what is inside. And that means...

Oh fuck.

I pull back abruptly, just as I start to feel a shudder go through her spine like the impossible ripple of a Jacob's ladder. She touches my head and says, "James?" When I don't answer: "Is something wrong?"

Negative Space. What you see when, just for a second, you let your eyes slip out of focus and the whole world reverses itself.

Not a revolution after all. But: revelation.

#whyI'mnotapoet

That drug-lust dream-space

you reach when you’ve been writing

like running to the point of zen

To the point that the vanishing point

isn’t where the horizon ends--

but the place in your lungs where all horizons blend.

There.

When you’ve been worn fingers to bone

bone to stone stone to sand

and sand? Some primordial ampersand.

Ink under your skin, beeswax in your brain

and all your bones are bone folders aching

to smooth the binding

Stop the unwinding rewinding insiding outsiding.

One mile is the same as one hundred

You could run forever and never surrender

You could fuck up the sun and still not cum

Gun trigger muscles smoke tight means:

GO.

Eyebrow Management

EYEBROW MANAGEMENT:

(A love story. Or something like it.)

SUE and JAMIE are outside SUE’s work’s Christmas party.

SUE is dressed in a strawberry costume. She looks pretty cute.

JAMIE, on the other hand, looks insane.

He is dressed in an egg beater costume that includes

two giant wire beaters sticking up from each of his shoulder.

Both beaters are dripping with a mucussy substance.

God knows what it is. It might actually BE mucus, for that matter.

But it does look a lot like egg yolk, so kudos to JAMIE for that, I guess.

SUE

Good god, Jamie, what have you done to yourself?

JAMIE

You told me to come in costume.

SUE

I meant, like, a chocolate bar. Or a charming phallic banana. Even a dead turkey would be better than this.

JAMIE

You said it was a “food-themed masquerade”. I honestly had no idea what that meant. I thought I was being creative.

SUE

You’re dripping.

JAMIE sticks his hand in the “egg yolk” and flings

it at SUE’s arm. This might be a horribly botched attempt at flirting.

Or it could just be malicious. You never know.

SUE squeals, and jumps back from Jamie.

Jamie!

A few of SUE’s coworkers, dressed as toast and butter, walk past.

SUE, clearly humiliated, pretends not to have seen them.

JAMIE

Oh look, it’s your friends! Action time, then? You should have warned me they were coming so I could get in character.

JAMIE waves enthusiastically to SUE’s coworkers.

It is clear that these people have no idea who JAMIE is.

JAMIE then grabs SUE recklessly and pulls her to him,

kissing her dramatically on the mouth. It looks staged

and insincere and is painfully awkward to watch.

SUE wiggles free of his grip and wipes her mouth off on her sleeve.

SUE

Ew, what was that?

JAMIE

A kiss. I kissed you. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?

SUE

Not like that.

JAMIE tries to hold SUE’s hand.

Stop it.

JAMIE

You told me to pretend to be your boyfriend. I’m doing what you told me.

SUE

You’re doing it wrong.

JAMIE

JAMIE lets go of SUE’s hand.

What do you mean, I’m doing it wrong? That’s insulting. You’re insulting me. I’m not going to be your little trophy wife if you’re going to insult me the whole time.

SUE

Pleading.

You’re embarrassing me. You’re not supposed to embarrass me. You’re supposed to be here to save me from embarrassment. You’re just supposed to sit by me and be nice to me and laugh at my jokes and tell me if I start doing that thing that I do. Okay?

JAMIE

Sorry. I’ll be good.

He winks. He tries to hold her hand again. SUE sighs, but lets him.

SUE

What’s with you?

JAMIE

I just want to know what’s with you. I’m a little confused about this situation that I’m in right now. That’s all. Honestly. And, I might have pregamed a little. But just a little, I promise. Really. I’ll be good.

SUE

Jamie!

JAMIE

I’m sorry. Look, why don’t you tell me why you needed me to do this? That might clear things up a bit. Might help me, you know, get in character. Method acting.

SUE

I don’t think that’s a correct use of that term.

JAMIE

Whatever. Tell me.

SUE

The other day, while I was working, a man came up to me. Old dude. I mean, real old. Like I knew right away that he was going to ask me for one of two things: oatmeal or Crisco. Before he even started talking to me, I was planning out what I would say if he said Crisco. Cause you can’t actually do that, just use whatever random oils as lube. If there’s any sugar content at all, it can increase the chance of a yeast infection, and—

JAMIE

Jesus, Sue.

SUE

Sorry. You get a lot of weirdoes in my field. You have to know how to handle them.

JAMIE

You work in a grocery store.

SUE

A lot of weirdoes buy food.

JAMIE

Everyone buys food. I buy food.

SUE

Exactly.

JAMIE

What’s that supposed to mean?

SUE

Look at yourself.

JAMIE glances down, then up, at his homemade egg beater costume.

There, see?

JAMIE only looks bewildered.

Whatever. Look, you’ve derailed me. I wasn’t trying to call you a weirdo, I was trying to tell you about the old dude. So he comes up to me, and I’m waiting for him to ask for some gross old dude thing, oatmeal or Crisco or moth balls or whatever. But then—and here’s the plot twist—he says to me, “Excuse me, miss. You’re a lovely looking girl, but I really think you need to manage your eyebrows.”

JAMIE

Dumbfounded.

Your eyebrows?

SUE

Has anyone ever told you to manage your eyebrows, Jamie?

JAMIE

My eyebrows are fine.

SUE scoffs.

My eyebrows aren’t fine?

SUE

Your eyebrows are okay. Got character. I like them. But has anyone ever told you to manage them?

JAMIE

No, of course not. That would be weird. Inappropriate.

SUE

What about me?

JAMIE

Well, yeah. That was weird, too. Inappropriate.

Beat.

I think your eyebrows are okay.

SUE glares.

Nice. I think your eyebrows are nice. There’s nothing wrong with your eyebrows.

SUE

Thanks.

JAMIE

Should have told him to fuck off.

SUE

I did.

JAMIE

No shit?

SUE

I mean, I think my exact words were, Well, I really think you need to buy some fucking Crisco. But it amounts to the same thing.

JAMIE

I’m sure he knew what you meant.

SUE

It’s stupid. I know that. But it was somehow the last straw. Being a girl is funny. Complete strangers think they have a right to come up to you and tell you to manage your eyebrows. He didn’t even seem like a bad guy, really. He had a good coat. And he had a box of cookies in his shopping cart, the kind with the little dollop of strawberry jam in the middle? I bet they were for his grandchildren. You know?

JAMIE

Uh, no.

SUE

I’m just saying. He was alright, probably. And I think he thought he was doing me a favor. If it wasn’t for the cookies I could have just thought he was a total dickhead and left it at that, but an old dude with strawberry jam cookies is different from an old dude buying Crisco, and—

JAMIE

Shyly.

Sue?

SUE

What?

JAMIE

You’re doing that thing that you do. Where you start rambling like a crazy person?

SUE

Oh. Thanks.

JAMIE

Sorry. You just told me to tell you if started doing that thing. And you were doing it.

A moment of silence. They fidget.

SUE

It’s just, even though you know it’s not okay for someone to do that, there’s a little part of you that starts wondering if maybe you’re the weirdo, not him. If maybe you should go home and shave your renegade eyebrows all the way off and draw them back on with a makeup pen, or something. If that’s the only reason you’re so lonely right now. Your god damn eyebrows.

JAMIE

Don’t do that. You’ll look a clown. Clowns aren’t really that attractive.

SUE

Laughing, a little hysterically.

Well, I haven’t yet, have I? So, there’s that. I’m not that crazy yet. I’m only crazy enough to go to extravagant lengths to at least look less lonely than I am, even if I can’t feel it. Only crazy enough to bring a friend I don’t even get along with that well most of the time to the most unimaginably embarrassing event in the history of all embarrassing events. The Christmas party for my place of work, which, as you were kind enough to mention, is a fucking grocery store. And this party is a fucking food-themed masquerade party. Who even comes up with this shit? I guess I know the answer to that. The same manager who is inevitably going to try to grope my ass when he greets us at the door in a few minutes. Which is where you step in, by the way, Jamie. Please.

Suddenly the humor of the situation sinks in. She starts to giggle.

A YOUNG MAN, dressed as grapes, enters, sees SUE and smiles wide.

He tries, but fails to get her attention. Then hesitates, watching her and JAMIE for the rest of the scene.

And I’m dressed as a strawberry. This is where I am in my life right now.

JAMIE

Could be worse. You could be dressed as an egg beater.

SUE

I’m pathetic.

JAMIE

Just a little. But you make a really cute strawberry.

SUE

Even with the eyebrows?

JAMIE

Especially with the eyebrows.

JAMIE takes a step toward SUE.

SUE

So, um. That’s why I asked you to do this. Since you were curious. Now can we do it right this time? Once more with feeling?

JAMIE

I can try.

JAMIE puts a hand in SUE’s hair on either side of her head.

Beat. SUE closes her eyes. Breaths deep.

SUE

Good. Thank you. Good. You’re a good friend, Jamie.

JAMIE

I try.

SUE

From the top.

JAMIE kisses SUE. It looks genuine this time.

Some of the egg yolk drips onto SUE’s head, but she

either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. The YOUG MAN’s shoulders
slump in disappointment. He stops watching, turns and

walks away from the pair into the Christmas party.

SUE presses farther into JAMIE’s now passionate embrace.

Lights fall.

Thick as Thieves (Part One)

THICK AS THIEVES

HAJNAL: A Roma woman.

AKOS: A Hungarian hunter.

Night.

Snowfall in a dense forest.

AKOS with a rifle, back flat against a tree.

HAJNAL enters, running.

Then gun-shot shatters the silence of the stage.

HAJNAL screams. AKOS cries out.

HAJNAL is untouched. She searches for the source of the fire.

AKOS conceals himself behind the tree.

HAJNAL

Hello? Is there someone--

Turns in a full circle. Still panicked.

Anyone?

To self:

There must be someone. There’s someone here. There’s--

Urgent, now. Shouting.

Hello?

Her voice echos, then fades.

Silence.

HAJNAL stands still, listening. Nothing in the forest breaths. At length, a slight breeze, and the smallest stirring of the leaves. HAJNAL begins to walk quiet as a wolf between the trees.

At AKOS’s tree, she stops and leans her back against the bark. She has not yet seen-- or not betrayed having seen-- AKOS.

You have to be still. Still as death, they say. But I don’t think that’s it. It’s more... a river in the winter. When the water turns from vein to bone. Still. As. Ice.

Tilts her cheek ever so slightly in AKOS’s direction.

Isn’t that right?

No answer.

You’re a hunter. Don’t you know?

She rolls against the trunk towards AKOS. AKOS rolls away.

HAJNAL laughs.

Oh, I see. You want to dance? You flatter me.

Suddenly, HAJNAL leaps around the tree and grabs AKOS. She pins him against the trunk and locks her forearm under his chin.

AKOS

Choking.

I’ll shoot.

HAJNAL

So I’ve seen.

AKOS

Let me go.

HAJNAL

Drop it.

AKOS lets the rifle fall to the ground. HAJNAL holds him a moment longer, then nods and releases him. They both lunge for the rifle, but HAJNAL is quicker.

Ah ah ah, that’s not playing fair.

AKOS

Not in the mood to play.

He holds a hand to his throat.

You attacked me.

HAJNAL

You tried to shoot me!

AKOS

You’re pointing a rifle in my face! My rifle. In my face.

HAJNAL

You. Tried. To. Shoot. Me.

AKOS

I didn’t! I never!

HAJNAL

What was that, then? Thunder? Where’s the storm?

She touches the muzzle of the rifle.

Hot.

Brings her fingers to her lips.

Like skin.

Beat.

You shot.

AKOS

But not you.

HAJNAL

You missed.

AKOS

I startled. I’m sorry. I thought you were--

HAJNAL

What?

AKOS

A wolf. I thought you were a wolf.

HAJNAL

You hid.

AKOS

I--

I did. But--

HAJNAL

Do I look like a wolf to you now?

AKOS

No. A girl.

HAJNAL

A girl?

AKOS

A woman. Look--

HAJNAL

Don’t make a lick of sense. Hunter shoots. Says he’s trying for a wolf. But there isn’t any wolf, there’s just this...

A note of disdain.

Girl.

Hunter sees and what does hunter do? Does he run to her? Check her skin for blooming blood? No. Hunter hides. Don’t add up.

AKOS

I’m sorry.

HAJNAL

What are you afraid of?

AKOS

...You’re pointing my rifle in my face.

HAJNAL

I mean before.

AKOS

You’re not hurt.

HAJNAL

No. So?

AKOS

So you didn’t need me to run to you.

HAJNAL

It’s a matter of common courtesy, hunter. Your mother never teach you your manners?

AKOS

I’m sorry. I thought you’d think I’d shot you.

HAJNAL

Would of felt it. Would of known.

AKOS

That I’d meant to shoot you, I mean.

HAJNAL

That’s why you hid? You thought I’d think you’d tried to shoot me?

AKOS

Yes.

HAJNAL

Well guess what?

Beat.

I think you did.

She peers through the sight.

AKOS stiffens in alarm.

HAJNAL laughs. Steps away from AKOS and lays the rifle on the ground. She sees AKOS’s eyes cling to his weapon.

Don’t touch it. I mean it. I’m still your wolf, you hear?

AKOS

I won’t.

HAJNAL

Good. Now tell me again. From the top.

AKOS

Wolf stole our chickens. Stole our eggs. Made a rag doll of my sister’s son. Wolf’s somewhere here; I have a gun. I’m waiting. Want this done.

HAJNAL

You’re not allowed.

AKOS

Don’t care. Fucker has it coming.

HAJNAL

How do you know it was the wolf?

AKOS

Seen ‘im.

Big brute of a thing. Eyes that make a man’s heart go still as your river of bone. Girl like you should know better than to run through the forest at night. Hunter like me is the least of your concerns.

HAJNAL

I’m not scared of any wolf.

AKOS

Doesn’t matter if you’re scared. He’ll rend you just the same.

HAJNAL

You’re wrong. They smell it. The fear. Me, I don’t have that fear. I smell clean as one of their own. They howl and I just howl right back. I can run wherever I like.

AKOS

You sound like they raised you.

HAJNAL

No. We only grew up side by side. They’re from my home, if you like.

AKOS

Thought your kind didn’t have a home.

HAJNAL

Just cause we roam don’t mean we don’t know home. All the world is our country. Just like all forests are the wolves'.

AKOS

Something mean in his voice.

Liken yourself to the wolves, then?

HAJNAL

What’s that supposed to mean?

AKOS

You tell me.

HAJNAL

Our muscles should be honed and horrible. Our bodies lithe and lustful. Our minds relentless and restless and rash. In all these ways we should be wolves. Should be lucky to be wolves.

AKOS

In muscle, body, mind?

HAJNAL

In all of those.

AKOS

And somewhere else.

AKOS lightly touches HAJNAL’s breast.

Your heart.

HAJNAL

My heart?

AKOS

With vile bile.

A wolf’s.

HAJNAL

No. Not there. A woman’s, there.

AKOS

She-wolf.

HAJNAL

And why?

AKOS

Out stealing chickens. Out stealing eggs. Out--

HAJNAL

Not this again.

AKOS

Again?

HAJNAL

Say it.

AKOS

What?

HAJNAL

Call me by my name.

AKOS

We’ve hardly met. I haven’t asked your name.

HAJNAL

The name you know me by, I mean.

AKOS

Oh.

Beat.

This?

He steps near.

HAJNAL closes her eyes.

AKOS’s next word is a lover’s whisper in her ear.

Gypsy.

HAJNAL

Yes, that.

AKOS

You’re a gypsy girl. A swarthy thief. You roam like the wolves and you steal like them too.

HAJNAL

Again. Say it again.

AKOS

Savoring and slow. It is both slander and seduction.

Gyppsssyyy.

HAJNAL

HAJNAL opens her eyes. Turns to face AKOS.

There is a dangerous wolf-wild in her stare.

And you we call Gadjo. But you wouldn’t know that word. So you... I call a fool.

HAJNAL spits. AKOS startles backward. Then tries for the rifle. HAJNAL bars his way. They entangle; they fall to the ground. HAJNAL on top. She leans in very close to say:

I said don’t touch it.

AKOS

Hey!

Beat. AKOS stops struggling.

I know you!

HAJNAL

You don’t. I never forget a face.

AKOS

Never?

HAJNAL

I wouldn’t forget yours.

AKOS

It was years ago.

HAJNAL

Years ago was in Turkey. Or Romania. Not Hungary. Not here.

AKOS

Well then it was a different years ago then you’re thinking of, but I know you. I do. You were tiny a little thing. No room in your skull to hold your pleading eyes. Nothing to you but sinew. All your threads about to come undone. You came up to me and told a story, something sad. About your mother, who was dying. Or so you said. Meanwhile your mother, who wasn’t dying, came up behind and took my bags. I lost everything. It was you. I know you.

HAJNAL

You’re wrong.

AKOS

I’m not. Your big brown eyes, the hunger there. Your dark skin. Long hair. I know you.

HAJNAL

You’d describe us all that way.

AKOS

I know you.

HAJNAL

You only think you do. It was someone else.

AKOS

No.

HAJNAL

Another girl. A thief.

AKOS

Laughing. (Which isn’t necessarily the brightest idea, considering his predicament.)

Don’t try to tell me you’re not a thief.

HAJNAL

You don’t know.

AKOS

You see a hunter by his muzzle, no?

He indicates the muzzle of his rifle.

Well I see a gypsy by her flank.

HAJNAL slams AKOS’s head back down into the dirt. Flattens her weight over him.

HAJNAL

I didn’t say you could say it then.

AKOS

What else am I to call you?

HAJNAL

I have a name.

AKOS

Which is?

HAJNAL

Won’t give it away for free.

AKOS

Then a trade? I’m Akos.

HAJNAL

Huh.

AKOS

What?

HAJNAL

White falcon. That’s a hunter-bird. It fits.

AKOS

I didn’t give you that for free.

Beat. HAJNAL studies AKOS intently. At length, climbs off of him and sits nearby in the snow, still watching. AKOS pushes himself onto his elbows, moves a hand almost imperceptibly toward the rifle. Immediately, HAJNAL stomps down on this errant hand. AKOS screams.

HAJNAL

Don’t touch it. I said don’t touch it.

AKOS

I said tell me your name.

HAJNAL

Don’t trust you. How will I know that I can trust you?

AKOS

You’re a gypsy. No one trusts you. Isn’t that enough?

HAJNAL

I don’t follow you.

AKOS

I gave you my name anyway.

HAJNAL

I’m not a thief.

AKOS

But you’re as good as one. If you don’t keep your end of the deal.

HAJNAL

I never agreed.

AKOS

It’s just a name.

Beat.

Or should I call you gypsy then?

HAJNAL

Hajnal. It’s Hajnal.

AKOS

Dawn.

HAJNAL

Yes.

AKOS

Not sure it fits.

HAJNAL grinds her heel into his hand. AKOS flinches.

It’s perfect.

HAJNAL

Yes.

And then.

The wolf.

Enters the same way HAJNAL did.

Once again, the forest hold its breath...