ADAM: I’m not relying on superstition.
NESTOR: Oh I know you don’t think you are, I’m just seeking to put a more accurate gloss on things.
CLARISSA: I wonder, Nestor, what we have to do to get you to go?
LINDA: Not with Adam but in his stead.
NESTOR: Ladies, please. Such murderous thoughts.
(Drums resume)
Although I suppose they’re fitting.
ADAM: Well this has been great fun but I suspect that whatever’s coming will not pause for us to debate. And it won’t be spoken to, words will fall harmlessly aside. Now the pointed ends of spears? That might be a different matter so I’m going. And please don’t misinterpret. That statement is not intended as a solicitation of company or advice and definitely not of permission. Treat it for what it is, a mere courtesy borne out of affection which is itself most likely a product of mere presence.
LINDA: I’m coming with you.
ADAM: No.
LINDA: My place is by your side, alienated affections or not.
ADAM: No, I have to do this alone.
(He nears the exit.)
I won’t say goodbye because I am definitely returning.
Goodbye.
(He leaves, the three are silent.)
NESTOR: Let the record reflect that he did not go at anything remotely resembling my urging and if anything I could be said to have counseled against it.
(silence)
Truth is I didn’t think he had it in him or maybe I thought it was in him but never thought it would come out. I didn’t think it would come to term and he would give birth to it is what I’m saying. At most I thought a stillborn-type of…
LINDA: Enough! Please.
(Nestor takes the hint without offense and terminates the thread. He wanders away and begins a safety inspection, examining his gun and the sandbags until finally resting on what appears to be a telescope of sorts that affords him distant views. Clarissa approaches Linda and places her hand on her shoulder.)
CLARISSA: It’s not impossible he’ll return.
LINDA: That the best you could muster?
CLARISSA: (laughs morbidly)
What do you think’ll happen?
LINDA: Don’t really care much anymore Clarissa. It’s what’s already happened haunts me. And the real tragedy is things never unhappen, know what I mean?
CLARISSA: Think so, yeah.
LINDA: We go through here once if at all and this is what I leave? Thought you could pick a moment in time and become a different person from that point forward. I don’t know what exactly I thought that would accomplish, but it seemed it might somehow render what happened before that moment prefatory in a way and therefore less relevant.
What I found of course is that the person attempting that is the same person from the preface. If it weren’t there’d be none of the hurt and no reason for the attempt in the first place. Link yourself to someone all you want. Yes, it will of necessity make you more selfless but it will not change who you are and even if it did it will not change what you’ve done. If what I’ve done will always remain, if I can’t undo what I’ve done, then I don’t want to do anymore.
CLARISSA: It only remains because you’re giving it life now with your thoughts. Every time you animate it in that manner it grows stronger. Be grateful for this matter of the highest urgency that now confronts us. Revel in the intensity of a moment like this. Not because intensity is salutary in and of itself but for the way it forecloses the kind of idle rumination regret thrives on.
LINDA: I can’t.
CLARISSA: You must. You have a potential other lifetime or two to live. Forfeit that potentiality and the one you’ve lived hardens into stone.
LINDA: Who’s forfeiting?
CLARISSA: Inaction here is a forfeiture. Right now we need to forge steel out of our wills. You say the cruelty that approaches is great? Then I say only greatness can oppose it.
LINDA: Opposition on behalf of whom? If you say my own I’ll respond that I choose to enter only a vocal demurrer. That a lifetime of opposing has worn me down to the nub and left me incapable of more. I’d further respond that acting as the sole stakeholder in the matter I’d be acting in a manner that’s unassailably proper.
CLARISSA: No, I assail it! I startle at your attempt to confine the matter to your likes and wishes. Can you similarly choose not to pedal on a two-person bike or fail to dip your oars as the clock ticks on you and your crewmates?
Do you deny we’re bound together if only by the fact that we’ve breathed this same air lo these many years? We are one now, even Nestor, and I can no more watch you concede than I can dispassionately watch my arm wither and die with confidence that it will not affect the rest of my body. I command you then, as I would that arm, to clench your hand into a fist that we might better fulfill the obligation of every living thing that draws breath and fight.
(silence)
LINDA: Okay.
CLARISSA: Nestor? What do you see?
NESTOR: I see him, he’s doing fine.
LINDA: You see him?
NESTOR: I see him. Well, I see the image that’s formed on my retinas when the relevant light encounters his body’s mass, if you want to call that him.
LINDA: Yeah I’m going to go ahead and do that.
NESTOR: Then that’s him all right. Come see.
LINDA: No, but he’s safe?
NESTOR: So far.
CLARISSA: And you’re sure it’s him?
NESTOR: Yup that’s good old Adam. (pauses) The man who created and operates this room.
LINDA: I’m sorry, the what?
NESTOR: No actually I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken with such certitude. I forget sometimes to account for the uncommon way my mind works and I realize to you two it will seem like a theory only.
LINDA: Let’s hear it.
CLARISSA: Let’s not.
NESTOR: Which then?
LINDA: I insist.
NESTOR: In that case, Clarissa, I apologize in advance for any incidental overhearing. Addressing myself only to you Linda, I had my suspicions from the outset. I fault myself, however, because it appears I let my affections for the man dull my sensitivities to his wanton machinations.
CLARISSA: What in hell are you talking about?
NESTOR: In hell I’m talking about many things that standing alone would fail to budge an eyebrow but that taken together form an ironclad indictment.
LINDA: Enough preamble then. Let’s, pray tell, hear the charges as you see them. The bill of particulars please.
NESTOR: Fair enough. Who of us was the last to arrive? And at a time when what seemed to be the ceaseless agony of this place had actually subsided and our surroundings were threatening to become habitable.
LINDA: So what?
NESTOR: So what did he do on arrival but start posing all sorts of unanswerable questions the indulging of which has led us to this woeful place?
CLARISSA: No. Questioning is good.
NESTOR: Really? Is violence good too? Because, I ask, who’s the only person here to have demonstrated any violence toward another?
(Linda and Clarissa look at each other.)
CLARISSA: We were all freaked out, Ludwig was suddenly Linda.
NESTOR: Where did the sword come from then?
LINDA: That was strange.
CLARISSA: So what it was strange? That was a long time ago and I’d say you two more than made up.
NESTOR: That’s for sure, he certainly threw everything he had into mending that fence. That is, until it no longer suited him.