by Eric Goudie

Created on: August 17, 2009

Scene: Between no and where and now and here.

The curtain rises into the cloud. The sounds of the storm still rumble in the distance. Nadia is sitting on the riser with her back to the audience. She turns her head over her shoulder.

NADIA: The beast awakes.

The storm gradually subsides, replaced with the quiet ambiance of a warm spring evening.

NADIA: The beast is furious. It rages day and night, raining down torture and destruction. Nothing can stand in the way of the hellfire of frustrated lust. All sense, reason, civility and hope have vanished. Far beyond the punch lines of Hollywood "teen" products it is a rage that long ago surpassed the ridiculous, now dwelling somewhere in the nether region between utter despair and prosecutable madness. It has rendered him immobile, a paraplegic athlete watching his former teammates from the sidelines, and it has rendered me, for the time being at least, bereft of modesty.

Nadia turns, gets off the riser, and comes to centre.

NADIA: A bit of background. The beast was awoken on a warm spring night, when a few tears, a couple of mild drinks and a full moon came together to produce an image (which later proved to be false) of solace, rescue and comfort in the soft arms of companionship. Thus was born an idea, planted legitimately in millions of others, but planted as a decoy here, an idea that yes, this was the way it was meant to be.

She was a feisty one, with a rugged, unrefined attractiveness. It was strange, I thought at the time, to have to compete with this, the antithesis of all that had been predicted or expected. And though the encounter was brief, measured in weeks rather than months, and though it was torturous for him, it nonetheless left an indelible stain upon the both of us, and from that day forth the beast has walked by our side.

The beast is merciless in the summertime. His clothes are of the Yeti - as feared as the Sasquatch, but more adapted to the Himalayan cold. Surrounded by sun, sand and sin, his rage swells. But the beast is at his worst on warm spring nights, when under the same full moon that shone on the night of his birth he forces the both of us to look beyond the passing pleasures of the flesh, and examine the fabric of our souls. He mockingly asks if we believe we can be saved, if the mistakes of one night will ever be forgiven in this life or after. We lash back at him, but he only laughs.

From the moment the beast came into our lives it has destroyed all attempts at pith and ethos, picaresque and mis-en-scene. Every tender thought, every flash of genuine inspiration has succumbed to its horrible agenda. Every advance in learning, from the classroom to the dorm room to the senior year projects has been hijacked and destroyed. Even the victories have been made to feel like defeats, always tinged with impurity, a ball of burning memories catapulting back in time to the moment all was lost one warm moonlit April night.

Nadia looks up. Fade to black.

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