Are You Terrified?
A conversation about owing a debt to yourself causes someone to seek it out in change.
A short play for one, two, or three people.
Image is 'Morning Sun' by Edward Hopper.
Are You Terrified?
Written by Sean Dance Fannin
There is nowhere to sit down. Begin as quickly as you can.
I always think that I'm alone in my most intimate moments. Even with other people. Maybe there's a tipping point. Like one or two people is different than... Something like this.
People recharge me. They energize me. I'm a complex mix of fuck you and I do what I want. It's so comfortable to slip into a place of confidence when you allow it to be blind. Unseen by any other part of your mind.
I'm long winded in my head. Going hours without talking can turn me upside down in a mess of ways. I like it. I'm familiar with these spaces.
There's no space that could make up for people though.
Do you know that?
Do you?
I don't like to argue with myself.
I got in a car crash once and only got away with it because the other guy was drunk. I was sober; fell asleep and drifted over the line.
Can you feel responsible for yourself when there are things in your way?
Not when I'm leaning on other people.
That's the only thing outside yourself. The only thing you can be sure is real. The only thing you couldn't have made up in your head.
Other people.
Carving a place out for other people will make you feel whole.
I tried that.
Doesn't mean it'll never work. Just means it didn't.
Didn't. Didn't didn't.
Didn't doesn't mean never.
Never how.
Because it could still.
No but you have no proof of that. You have no proof of that at all. For all you know we're a perfect case example.
Hard to tell with a sample size of one.
I'm not stupid enough to believe that. I'm not dumb enough to believe that there aren't other people like me. Like this problem isn't common, like I'm somehow so unique that I've stumbled onto some kind of new problem.
You could be it. Though. You could be the new.
New.
The thing that hasn't happened yet. The reason it isn't no more. I can keep trying, because that we, even me, is the turning point at which it might be new. Redone. Done right. I might be the reason that it is no longer. I might be the point at which it is intolerable to no longer change. The reason to keep living is because I am the one who is new.
,
And then I don't know if I am. I might not be yet - but really - it feels true - I might be. And that's enough for me to keep trying.
That's - oh.
What do you think?
That's a lot. I don't know if I like that. It makes me feel - some type of way. For sure.
Are you terrified?
Yeah I'm scared.
Like super scared?
Like what?
Like how scared are you?
It's terrific. What I'm dealing with. To be undone inside yourself. Terrific as in terrible. As in terrified. It's terrific. I'm haunted by the ghost of who I can't be. Something made up in my imagination of myself.
Can you tell me when you think I will be whole again? I want to know when to expect it. I don't know how to expect it. I turned a new kind of old today and got tired of novelty. I don't want to be new. I want to be whole. I want to be complete. I want to be - I want to be satiated? No. What's the word. There's a word for what I want. I want to be complacent. No. I want - I want the comfort of being able to drift into complacency. Content. I think. That's not quite right either, but I want to be content. I want to be - ... end of sentence. Because I'm not yet, I don't think. If I'm always trying. I think. I don't exist because I think. That's what the thinking is for.
End of play.