a bit more of this current project...
The following is from the same project, 'intersignes', as the passage which can be found below. This comes several pages after Frank's monologue, which is right at the beginning of the play. This conversation takes place right on the edge of Jackson Square.
Chorus: The true picture of the past flits by.
Frank: The Old Man, disconsolate, tired of life and his fellow man, trudges away from Jackson Square toward the river. Out of the corner of his eye he sees someone watching him from a doorway. Before he can turn to look, a boy passes by on his bicycle and smiles, a strange smile, sweet but playful, and The Old Man can’t help but smile back. But the smile is feeble, or so he thinks. The boy continues on his way, with no seeming destination: he rides his bike just to ride his bike. The Old Man turns and watches him go. Suddenly, a voice comes out of nowhere.
The Angel: He’s nothing like us, is he? No destination, no reason to hurry, no reason to worry.
Frank: The Old Man turns, and the figure in the doorway whom he had caught brief sight of a moment earlier is looking at him: a penetrating look, one he has come to accept, and even, secretly, depend on, in the three months he and this elusive woman have been communicating.
The Old Man: Oh, it’s you. I should’ve known you’d show up. I’m tired now and I’m goin’ home. No time to talk.
Frank: As expected, though, she does not go---at times, he has imagined she is as ever-present as the shades whose voices echo with his every footfall. But in truth, he knows she comes and goes at will, appearing and disappearing like fog on the river, and he wonders when she may disappear and never appear again. At times, he has even longed that she would. The Angel is here, though, and she speaks to his condition.
The Angel: I heard your conversation back there, don’t you think you were a bit tough on that young man? Do you not remember that I told you before that one was coming who would need your guidance and sympathy?
The Old Man: Yeah, I remember, but you can’t possibly mean him, he’s ignorant, and he don’t even try to see or understand anything. You heard what he said. I’m tired of ignorant, arrogant people; I need a rest from humanity. Why won’t you let me rest?
The Angel: It is the remnants of what once was that will allow us no rest. You know this only too well. For him, caught between a past he does not know and a future that promises only a repetition of today---10,000 tomorrows without hope---all that exist are the ruins of time and the decaying myth of progress. He has nothing in which to believe. That "image of the past" that must be siezed in the moment of danger is totally unknown to him, he does not recognize it, and it may as well be an hallucination. You recognize it, but no longer have the strength or faith to act; he has the strength, and could have the faith, if he were guided. The two of you can help each other, but you must be patient with him, there is much he does not know. It is time for you to emerge from your cave, Old Man, and shine your lantern upon the world. The one I told you to seek has come.