Prelude to a step

By: Luiz Canedo (I love you brother.)

Translation by: Dinorah Echegoyen

T.G.T.G.

The stage is in total darkness, except for a single light over ONESELF. He is uncertain and thoughtful but never leaves the light perimeter. A series of digital red numbers, the type of a countdown bomb, are proyected behind ONESELF, but they are still.

ONESELF: If I step on my left foot… maybe I wont lose concentration, and everything stays the way I wish, right? (he prepares to take the step but stops)… no no no, that’s what I said last time… It has to be on my right foot, because with my left foot I’ve already tried… ( he prepares to take the step but stops) Was my last step with my left foot?… well, maybe this time things chance… time is relative Everything is relative! things always change: thoughts change, trends change, people change, values change… Everything is relative! (he gets a passionate intelectual tone) therefore I’m always right and I’m always wrong, as absurd as it may sound, that is the only certain truth… but of course… if everything is relative there is no absolute: therefore also in that I am absolutely wrong and relatively correct!
(he stays thougtful and confused by what he just said).

Well, the thing is that Time is relative, therefore if I take the step now, maybe things will happen just as I want… right?

He takes the step hessitating, but as soon as he lays his foot on the ground, the digital counter begins its hectic countdown. Scared, ONESELF immediately goes back to its original position

SELF: NO NO NO NO NO! (frightened and hurried, he sits, rise his hands as if wanting to calm down the counter) Look! Look! I’m standing still now! (the countdown stops. ONESELF Exhales in relief, then in silence, looks around and in an optimistic tone)… I think I can get used to this. Yeah! who wouldn’t like such comfort? (making and add’s impression): I just have to vall for takeout, and I get it in 30 minutes or else is for free! (picking up the TV remote control) with 500 channels of satelite TV it will be imposible to get bored of such a bunch silliness, I can even exercise my thumb with endless zapping up and down! As hygene concerns I only need someone that takes care of my cleaning: a three-days-a-week-town-girl that will clean my mess. The Virtual world is amazing: I can work from my laptopo, buy online and have online virtual friends on facebook! Living this way is even a bargain! No unecesary spending on shoes to go fast somewhere, anywhere as long as it’s fast! This is what progress is all about, right? It’s about moving fast, moving forward, no matter where, just keep moving on… poor people must move on, our country must move on… (he stands up in a jump)… EVERYBODY WANTS TO MOVE ON!… ( he shuts up and fearful looks the countdown behind him, it keeps static)

(Pause. He exhales as if he is about to confess something long kept) There was a time, when I loved wrtiting in the middle of the night. Twelve o’clock exactly. I don’t know why, but just before I went to sleep, I wanted to leave a record of the agonizing day… or maybe be there for the birth of the next day.

It was wonderful for me to witness the metamorphosis of a dead day into a new day: watching how that day was transformed in an imperceptibly small instant: a moment in which the future stops being a sole posibility and becomes something real.

We humans are not like days: there is no transformation into something new after we die… there is just this life and then worms and dust. Any other theory is just ridiculous ideas of those who are so afraid of dying, that they made up heavens and hells. C`mon! All that is left for us, is to accept with some resignation death, and enjoy as much as we can our time in this life…

But what do you do when you don’t want to leave the life that you like so much? What happens if I could stay there at midnight… in that infinitely small place, that place that is not yesterday nor tomorrow becoming today? It was a fact that it existed! It was another time dimension in which were are not refered to here or now, nor to a horrible countdown counter! (the countdown goes back a little more) HEY! (the countdown stops) How suceptible (the counterdown answers with a beep)


I decided to cover my bedroom with all kinds of clocks, all of them nailed at 12:00 o’clock ringing once and again, and again and again (increasing sound from different clock sounds: tic tacs, ringing alarms, bells, coo coos) I would meditate and focus on staying in that temporary place. I was naced, burning incience from midnight december 12 to midnight january 1st, rotating against the Earth’s natural movement, at a constant speed of 360 degrees in 24 hours. In the end it was done… I got control of my biological clock. If I move forward, it moves forward, if I stand still, it stands still. Wonderful isn’t it?! Eternity done my way, no risk of growing old and die of a senil disease with a wrinkled old woman for a wife, no worrying about my life ending and with it what I like. I could finally live for myself uninterrupted! My life for myself! … but of course… there is always that tiny thing that scapes from us when we finally get what we want.

All the time it’s been like this… no matter which way we think we are going: what is true at a certain moment only lives for a certain moment, and as soon as I get what I want POOM! turns out to be a mistake, turns out to be something that doesn’t work.

For an ironic reason, nobody can live like this, without moving, without contributing. It is truly ironic! I can live forever, but I can’t live the way I want! (whinning) This is ridiculous! Things never turn out the way I want. What kind of freedom is this?! Why isn’t it possible for us to do exactly what we want?: say what we want to say and when we want to say it! Eat everything we like without getting fat! Sleep with who you want and when you want! Fly without gravity! Automobiles with triangled wheels! Why can’t we set our own rules?! Why we have to submit to His rules?! His rules of time and space, His rules of right and wrong! Why can’t we be like Him? Why on earth can’t we all be god?! (silence, he laughs for himself) … seems that there are no atheists in the war threnchs… right?

…(thoughtful but with breaking pride) now, if I choose to take that step… if I chose give my self… then I’m free: ironicly, I am free if I choose to submit to the rules, and I can live if I choose to give my life. (Silence)

Just take the step… what’s stopping you?… you just have to take the step… just take the step. (he gets ready to take the step… he stops, looks at the audience) There is a thin line, where sound judgement becomes pure cowardliness… the problem is that I feel as if I were in the custom house…

Just take the step… what’s stopping you? … you just have to take the step… just take the step…Maybe with my left foot… or with my right foot… just take the step…

As he says this last lines, the light begins to fade. Some seconds pass by without anything happening… the timer starts fading.

Prelude to a step by Luiz Canedo is licensed under a Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-SinObraDerivada 3.0 Unported License.

Great looking stories.

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Tree of Codes, Jonathan Safran Foer

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Laurence Sterne