Dialogue with the sea
***I wrote this over the winter break right after the tsunami disaster and just now found the time to type it up. Thoughts?***
A man walks into a bar wearing tattered clothes and carrying a paddle. He sits down and orders a rum and salt-water from the bartender, who looks at him strangely before pouring his drink.
A blue haired woman enters behind him.
WOMAN: Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs?
Where is your tribal memory? Sirs,
In that grey vault. The Sea. The Sea
Has locked them up. The Sea is History.
MAN: You’re a bitch.
WOMAN: That may be true, but I’m your bitch.
MAN: You can’t control me like this, you can’t keep asserting dominion over the world.
WOMAN: And yet I do.
MAN: Why? Why this? Why now?
WOMAN: It’s always the same question. Haven’t you grown tired of the answer yet? Haven’t you learned.
MAN: Remind me.
WOMAN: Don’t you remember the last time? No, of course not. Your memories are only as long as your lives. The last time, when you tried to rape me with that ship? ‘The biggest’, you said, ‘the greatest, unsinkable’.
MAN: And you sent her to the bottom.
WOMAN: I did, and thousands with it. And thousands of others as well, yet you keep sending more. You never learn. You act like you do. You spend a few years talking about humility, patience, weakness, but then you’re back. ‘I’ve learned my lesson’ you’ll say. ‘I’ll be smarter this time’. But you aren’t. You build more, you build bigger, and you never learn.
MAN: But this is different. Those people knew what they were doing. When they set foot on that ship they knew they were waging war. These people, they were innocents.
WOMAN: Do you think I care about innocence? Do you think I care about justice and fairness? These things, innocence, justice, they mean nothing to me. Their suffering means something. It means maybe this time you’ll learn.
MAN: Learn what? What can you possibly hope to teach with such indeterminate slaughter? How can we understand that which has no meaning?
WOMAN: Your grandfathers never treated me this way, you know. They understood what they were doing, the risks they were taking. When they went out, they went with caution, with fear, with respect. You never had that respect. Yours was always a challenge. ‘I defy you!’ you’d cry. Always a challenge, never a prayer. You trusted your hulls, your equipment, your crew, but you never trusted in me. Your grandfathers, they trusted in me.
MAN: And you sent them to their deaths.
WOMAN: I sent them to their deaths joyfully. They embraced their end as you will. What will your epitaph read?
MAN: You already know.
WOMAN: I am as forgetful of your wishes as you are of my wisdom. Remind me.
MAN: ‘His end, when it came, was a death by water’.
WOMAN: And why should you deserve a fate which others do not?
MAN: Because it is my choice.
WOMAN: You think you can choose the manner of your own death? You think choice has anything to do with when and where the cold water drags you down? Your end, when it comes, will be a death by Death. You don’t have a ‘choice’. Only he can make that decision.
MAN: And you made this one. You were the one that called him. You led him to these shores.
WOMAN: My favorite oarsman, but you knew that. I only led the horse to water, he was the one who drank.
MAN: Is that how you absolve yourself of guilt?
WOMAN: More words that mean nothing. Guilt. What do I care about guilt. Guilt is for men.
MAN: Spoken like a god who condemns those that do not follow him.
WOMAN: Spoken like one who knows more than man.
MAN: And would you have me worship you as a god? Should I bow in reverence or in fear? Your existence is no different then mine.
WOMAN: So which of us is lord over the other? Tell me then, who should pray to whom.
MAN: O thou man zero is an immpossible prayer.
Utter extinction a doubtful conciet.
WOMAN: Though I pray to nothing,
Nothing cannot be there.
MAN: You’re a bitch.
WOMAN: And you’re the dog that follows me.
She gets up and leaves.
The man orders another drink. The bartender pours it, then slides it across the bar. He looks at the man.
BARTENDER: Tell me something, why so much Walcott?
MAN: Feet, wounds, voices, roots, history, take you pick, but it all comes down to the conch.
BARTENDER: The conch?
MAN: I hear her summoning note.
He looks at his drink, stands up, leaving his drink untouched at the bar, and follows her.
***the original word.doc can be found on my homepage, www dot duke dot edu slash ~adt5***
A man walks into a bar wearing tattered clothes and carrying a paddle. He sits down and orders a rum and salt-water from the bartender, who looks at him strangely before pouring his drink.
A blue haired woman enters behind him.
WOMAN: Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs?
Where is your tribal memory? Sirs,
In that grey vault. The Sea. The Sea
Has locked them up. The Sea is History.
MAN: You’re a bitch.
WOMAN: That may be true, but I’m your bitch.
MAN: You can’t control me like this, you can’t keep asserting dominion over the world.
WOMAN: And yet I do.
MAN: Why? Why this? Why now?
WOMAN: It’s always the same question. Haven’t you grown tired of the answer yet? Haven’t you learned.
MAN: Remind me.
WOMAN: Don’t you remember the last time? No, of course not. Your memories are only as long as your lives. The last time, when you tried to rape me with that ship? ‘The biggest’, you said, ‘the greatest, unsinkable’.
MAN: And you sent her to the bottom.
WOMAN: I did, and thousands with it. And thousands of others as well, yet you keep sending more. You never learn. You act like you do. You spend a few years talking about humility, patience, weakness, but then you’re back. ‘I’ve learned my lesson’ you’ll say. ‘I’ll be smarter this time’. But you aren’t. You build more, you build bigger, and you never learn.
MAN: But this is different. Those people knew what they were doing. When they set foot on that ship they knew they were waging war. These people, they were innocents.
WOMAN: Do you think I care about innocence? Do you think I care about justice and fairness? These things, innocence, justice, they mean nothing to me. Their suffering means something. It means maybe this time you’ll learn.
MAN: Learn what? What can you possibly hope to teach with such indeterminate slaughter? How can we understand that which has no meaning?
WOMAN: Your grandfathers never treated me this way, you know. They understood what they were doing, the risks they were taking. When they went out, they went with caution, with fear, with respect. You never had that respect. Yours was always a challenge. ‘I defy you!’ you’d cry. Always a challenge, never a prayer. You trusted your hulls, your equipment, your crew, but you never trusted in me. Your grandfathers, they trusted in me.
MAN: And you sent them to their deaths.
WOMAN: I sent them to their deaths joyfully. They embraced their end as you will. What will your epitaph read?
MAN: You already know.
WOMAN: I am as forgetful of your wishes as you are of my wisdom. Remind me.
MAN: ‘His end, when it came, was a death by water’.
WOMAN: And why should you deserve a fate which others do not?
MAN: Because it is my choice.
WOMAN: You think you can choose the manner of your own death? You think choice has anything to do with when and where the cold water drags you down? Your end, when it comes, will be a death by Death. You don’t have a ‘choice’. Only he can make that decision.
MAN: And you made this one. You were the one that called him. You led him to these shores.
WOMAN: My favorite oarsman, but you knew that. I only led the horse to water, he was the one who drank.
MAN: Is that how you absolve yourself of guilt?
WOMAN: More words that mean nothing. Guilt. What do I care about guilt. Guilt is for men.
MAN: Spoken like a god who condemns those that do not follow him.
WOMAN: Spoken like one who knows more than man.
MAN: And would you have me worship you as a god? Should I bow in reverence or in fear? Your existence is no different then mine.
WOMAN: So which of us is lord over the other? Tell me then, who should pray to whom.
MAN: O thou man zero is an immpossible prayer.
Utter extinction a doubtful conciet.
WOMAN: Though I pray to nothing,
Nothing cannot be there.
MAN: You’re a bitch.
WOMAN: And you’re the dog that follows me.
She gets up and leaves.
The man orders another drink. The bartender pours it, then slides it across the bar. He looks at the man.
BARTENDER: Tell me something, why so much Walcott?
MAN: Feet, wounds, voices, roots, history, take you pick, but it all comes down to the conch.
BARTENDER: The conch?
MAN: I hear her summoning note.
He looks at his drink, stands up, leaving his drink untouched at the bar, and follows her.
***the original word.doc can be found on my homepage, www dot duke dot edu slash ~adt5***