real. was it you, early this morning, practicing your own "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" against a recording; was that real? or was real when they once again chased me through rooms up staircases...? I'll turn where I wouldn't turn; that will confuse them... no, I'm not thinking; I haven't been myself. I've run right into them. then here. here, I will leap into the shape of Calcutta; we all know Calcutta's belly is stretching past its boundaries with people, and they won't be able to follow me, even if I'm visible above the masses. then real is Calcutta, blank color form below, people who aren't visible, me swimming through the air above? and everyone I love so angry, mostly, even though ten minutes later it will all have been a joke. maybe that's why I wake up so hurt by my nightmares. why? - because they don't even strive to be reality. they rip themselves away at the edges; they're lucid and on top of it, they joke. I cry my skin off not having been cast a part, and twenty minutes later, the whole dream was my audition. telling the big time newscaster I'm sorry, she's quite good, but her prestigous presence does nothing to counter my bad day. accidentally knocking a kid's concentration off center, so he plays poorly in the game. making sure that's understood, so that he likes me, laughs with me, tells the others who are asking who he means, that girl who came from there and went there-over and there-up. "and who," I add, "if anyone asks did none of those things." and upstairs I escape into a bathroom, and there are girls to be with there. I will lock the door against the mob that's after me, except, they'll come too soon, and the girl who some part of me logs a note on - oh, she looks like Abby - will sell me out to see children who've been cast as hers. I don't know yet that I've won the best part. who? they ask. and I don't say. every name I think of they guess, and it can't be any they guess.
"Nora," I say finally, and to their blank stares, smile. "She wasn't in your version of the script." I go after one or two of them, here and there of them, when they disperse. "I hate this. I love this sort of thing when I know, but I hate not knowing. I hate that you couldn't know." as if I knew when I saw that list of names and cried because I wasn't cast. can't be cast if you don't audition. but now I'm Nora, I'm the star again.
when I wake up and feel how hard my heart has been pounding this whole time, feel the blood heating my stiff arms and twisted legs, I'll wonder how real that is. should I worry about all that stress every night on my heart? should I take it personally that a music teacher and a principal have taken new positions as head-horrors in my nighttime cabaret?
but the boys laughed with me when my voice was low and I trusted them with the information that I was a wanted woman. and the two or three girls in the bathroom would have made good company. in the end, I got the best part; all the sympathy goes away. no one's saying, "but you always get cast!" at this point; no one's saying, "but you're so good!" now, they're angry. secret roles to go after that they didn't know, didn't have a fair shot at. auditions they play into as real life, not knowing.
the doctor says it's lonely being too unique.
and now all the pain of running and twisting and being on fire from the inside is supposed to give up for a smile, pleased smile. I did it, whee, now the pain wasn't real. real? I did it. I walked off the beaten path, walked off the script, found my own character and my own way to be her. and it's lonely. they see my surprise as my secret, and they walk away. the only constant characters are villains. I think about that, too. they call her Red because it's her signature color; she allows it because where she comes from, that's how they call home. she marches into the woods, and the path is clear, and she knows where it goes. at the end is Granny's house, and maybe you can have some bread, having walked so far... and maybe since she's from a different time, a small glass of the wine as well. that's where you will end up if you follow the path. the path will not lead you astray. if you ended up in a flowerbed or a patch of poison ivy, you must have left the road. if you find your way through the woods from that, you must have found your way back. there is no other path. there is no walking through the wilderness. and between Mother's "off you go" and Granny's house, the only constant character's The Wolf.
off the path. there are invisible parts of the script. I didn't know we were pretending, so I'll pretend and make things real. it's an improv; you have to follow what I give you. Nora. (Don't recognize her name, please; tell me she didn't exist until this.) I'm Nora, she wasn't in your script.
~me