THE PEDOPHILE: [stretching, eyes closed] I smelled that you were here. You are the best. You are unbearable. I love you. The only reason I am glad to be alive is that you are alive too, at the same time [leans face into tree] You will appreciate your life when you understand that the people alive at the same time are yours by chance. Do you know that? I love you so much. When your piss is in my body I want to rip you in half [he puts the garbagebag mask on and holds up his hands] I am glad you are back. When I am alone I think that my soul is gone. I’m worried that I never had a soul. That is a huge worry of mine. No actually I’m worried that I’m stupid enough to have had any thoughts like that. [smiles] But not when I see your pretty face.
The boy kneels and spreads the snow out, humming to himself.
THE PEDOPHILE: Your face is beautiful and I am going to build a box around it so if I want to look in once in a while I can, but no one else can. I guess I have to lock the box around your head so no one else can look [puts both hands palms towards the back of the boy’s head] If I rust the lock it will be more difficult to open [puts palms towards sky] And for me that is good. I hope I am not scaring you at all. I just want to keep your head in a box so it can be only mine. [more flies burst and leave the eyeholes of his mask, disappear into the black sphere]
THE BOY: [turns around, still sitting] Don’t forget where you put the key.
THE PEDOPHILE: [ignoring] I want you to be in a little safe. Everyone has a little safe and they keep things in it. The things that you keep in your safe are different when other people look at them. But when only you look at them, they are perfect [motherly, close] What do you keep in it? Huh?
THE BOY: [looking away] I’m not telling. I can’t tell you.
THE PEDOPHILE: Why not? Are you upset? Don’t you like me? Don’t you trust me at all? What if I shave my fingers long and thin and just reach through the keyhole? What would I feel? Would I feel something nice? Is your blood in there? Is your cute little head in there? I will make my arms and fingers thin enough to reach in. When you are thinner than the keyhole you don’t need the key.
THE BOY: [throwing snow into the air, watching it fall] Don’t touch me.
THE PEDOPHILE: When the flies first started being born from my head I was scared but now I feel good about it. I like that I’m their mommy. Hello. I am glad you found me. I was feeling unneeded. I was feeling far away from you. Don’t you like being my friend? Why don’t you visit me more? If you want to see me anymore, you will answer me. If you don’t [palms towards boy’s face] I will put my hand over your mouth until you hate me. Please answer me.
THE BOY: I don’t like the way you smell [backs away, face showing disgust] Your mouth is too warm. It’s hot on my face. I don’t like how you smell. I hate it.
THE PEDOPHILE: [walks towards the boy] No my mouth is clean. And you can have it. Come here and have it. Come here.
THE BOY: You didn’t say the magic word [sneezes] Say please. Please Louise.
The pedophile reaches out to touch the boy’s face. Overeager though. His fingers hit the boy in the eye. The boy closes his eye tight, and squirms backwards over the leaves. He backs against the tree. He scrapes his neck on a broken branch. Bleeds.
THE BOY: You are not my friend anymore. [one eye clenched, trying to smear the blood off his neck also] Not anymore.
THE PEDOPHILE: [face blackens] I missed you. I didn’t even know who I was. I missed you the whole time and didn’t stop missing you for even two seconds. No one will bury you but me. If I want no one to find you, then no one will find you. I don’t want you to call me your friend [stops, staring at the boy] I missed you so much. I thought about you all the time. I learned about my own face by staring at your pretty eyes. And I thought there was an eclipse. I prayed to God to help me find you. And God did. I found you. Do you want to [pauses] or wait — did you miss me?
The pedophile walks to the boy. He puts his fingers over the wound and wipes the blood into the snow. The boy groans and the pedophile stands, blocking the sunlight from the boy’s head.
THE PEDOPHILE: This will help [pointing and touching the wound] Let me help you. The eclipse means everything is fine.
THE BOY: It stings when your finger touches me [breathing deep] That hurts. That hurts like a bug is biting me. Stop biting me you bug.
THE PEDOPHILE: No, I am making you feel better. Don’t move.
THE BOY: [coughs] Is that why you missed me? Did you want to touch my neck?
THE PEDOPHILE: I wanted to touch your neck and put pretty cosmetics on your face. I wanted to make you presents and break your neck. Fucking crush your entire face and head into deflation. If I bathed my hands and face in the piss from your squirming and broken-necked body, I would never be sad again. Do you know that?
The pedophile kneels and puts his arm around the boy.
THE BOY: [resting his head on the pedophile’s belly] When you are old and dead I will not visit you. I will put the rake away and never get it out again.
The pedophile runs his fingernails over where the blood is cooling and hardening. He scrapes some off and blows it to the ground.
THE BOY: Be careful [seems to rest deeper, head on the pedophile’s stomach] Your nails are hurting me. You bug.
The boy lifts his arm up to the pedophile’s face and touches it. The pedophile scrapes lice off his head and blows it onto the boy’s face.
THE PEDOPHILE: Make a wish [puts hand over boy’s face] I have nails because I am a growing boy. When the nails get bigger I know that I am getting bigger too. And that I am safe. Do you feel safe with me? I am the eclipse.
THE BOY: [through the hand over his face] Not feeling anything.
The pedophile continues to scrape off lice and comb it into the boy’s hair with his fingers. They both fall asleep on the ground. They are not in love.
[Next Day. Snowing.]
In the tree there is a skeleton that still has a patch of hair and skin on its skull. The pedophile stares at it, holding the boy’s hand.
THE PEDOPHILE: That’s for you [pointing up with the rake] Look what I found for you. Do you want me to get it down? I will do that for you.
The boy nods. The pedophile retrieves the patch of hair, knocking it off with the rake-prongs. He secures the hair around the boy’s throat with an old rubberband.
THE PEDOPHILE: I don’t want anyone to touch your throat when I’m not there to see it or stop it.
The boy puts his fingers up to the rubberband and tries to loosen it. Then he runs away screaming. Gone from the clearing. The pedophile touches his face, standing underneath the tree. He eats segments off an icicle hanging from a skeleton. Then spits the segments at the trunk of the tree until he can’t reach the icicle with his mouth anymore.
[Next Day.]
Into the clearing trips the boy. The pedophile is hiding behind the tree. He is not wearing the garbagebag over his head. And he has thick yolky scabs in the shaven parts of his head. His eyes are irritated from crying. The pedophile covers his face and the scabs. He hides behind the tree.
THE PEDOPHILE: Don’t come by me, please.
The boy stands still. He breathes and watches the breaths. Holding the rake.
THE PEDOPHILE: Please don’t come, I am very ugly to look at. I sometimes had this thought but now I am convinced I’m the ugliest person or thing that has ever been around. Oh God [voice wavers, phlegmatic] There are so many people and things in the world it seems hard to be the ugliest of them all. But, that is what I am. And there is no way to make something else uglier than me without retaining my ugliness through plotting something like that [wavering again] Oh God.