With the Weight of her Fate on her Shoulders
A PLAY
by: Matt Schutz
Matt Schutz
281.414.4412
[email protected]
with the weight of her fate on her shoulders – matt schutz
Characters:
ATLAS: (f)
CHIRON: (m), a soldier
TITHON: (m), a soldier
NOTES: “Chiron” should be pronounced with a hard “ch” and emphasis on the first
syllable (KYE-ron). “Tithon” should be pronounced with a short “i” (as in the word “with”)
and emphasis on the first syllable.
SET: ATLAS’ small home. Perhaps a blank stage. For one scene, a battlefield. Also
perhaps a blank stage.
SOUND: The “rat-a-tats” are meant to be spoken words imitating rapid gunfire. There
should be no poetry in their delivery.
with the weight of her fate on her shoulders – matt schutz
AT RISE:
ATLAS on stage. The sounds of vocalized “rat-a-tat” sound offstage, but
distant.
ATLAS
(reacting to the rat-a-tat)
Sounds hit hard here.
Sounds hit the ears and hit the heart.
Sounds hit the vein that bleeds
Hit the vein that lives.
Sounds hit hard like knives,
Or the rat-a-tat of a bullet.
Sounds are the bullets are the knives
Sounds take the lives.
We’re in a war of worlds
A war of words.
If only Emeria hadn’t raidedIf only the Queendom hadn’t invadedThe rat-a-tat-a-tat then might not
Cut sting wound kill
Slice gouge shear tear
Sounds hit hard here.
(Enter CHIRON, running and crying.)
ATLAS
Chiron! Safe, safe Chiron!
CHIRON
Safe? Safe… safe what is safe
ATLAS
Here. Here is safe. I am safe.
CHIRON
No such thing, Atlas. Safe is nowhere.
It’s them, them is everywhere
The rat-a-tat is everywhere
The war is everywhere.
ATLAS
Not here.
CHIRON
Yes, even here! The rat-a-tat is here!
ATLAS
with the weight of her fate on her shoulders – matt schutz
No, don’tCHIRON
The rat-a-tat is here! The rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat-aATLAS
No! Chiron, no not here!
CHIRON
Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tatATLAS
Chiron, stop! You’ll hurt me! Chiron!
CHIRON
I didn’t mean to I’m sorry
I don’t want
ATLAS
You know not to
Repeat
Resay
Reword
CHIRON
Didn’t want
Never want you hurt to hurt you.
ATLAS
Twice
You can sound twice
To name the sound
Rat-a-tat
Twice
That is all
Any more and
CHIRON
I know
ATLAS
Do you?
Any more than twice
And the sound
The sound transforms
The sound becomes
with the weight of her fate on her shoulders – matt schutz
The weapon.
Any more than twice and you can
Cut sting wound kill
Slice gouge shear tear
Sounds hit hard here, Chiron.
CHIRON
But the rat-a–
ATLAS
Don’t
CHIRON
The that is in my head and it comes out my mouth.
I can’t fight it
I can’t fight with it
It is everywhere.
(He sobs.)
ATLAS
No, shh, you’re safe, you don’t need – that
you don’t need that – rat-a-tat.
You need you want the soft rain
the soft pitter-patter of rain on stone walkways
The pitter-patter of a young cat
The pitter-pat of a kitty
You want you need the sea:
The sound of the ebb and the sound of the swell
the sound of a mermaid’s tail
And the beat of a heart
a heartbeat held in the hand
the palm of the hand held heart beating
The sound of life.
You don’t need that… that rat-a-tat.
you don’t need that at all.
CHIRON
It plagues. It stays.
ATLAS
The pitter-patter of rain.
CHIRON
Rat-a-tat in my drums in the waves.
with the weight of her fate on her shoulders – matt schutz
ATLAS
The sound of the swell.
CHIRON
In the bones that break in the bones that don’t that won’t break.
ATLAS
Of a mermaid’s tail.
CHIRON
Of a mermaid’s tale? Tell me. Tell me the tale of the mermaid and tell me of the sound of her
tail.
ATLAS
The mermaid? The mermaid, the temptress
Well she, you see,
She left the sea.
She left her tail and the sea behind
To find herself a male.
And he was perfection and she was his.
Until he left
He wandered he journeyed
He promised to return
But her mind couldn’t see
So she, you see,
She cursed him.
Ensnared, bewitched and doomed him
“Sleep and die!” she cried she hexed
“For your every waking breath is mine!”
And she cried she bawled she sobbed
For he was gone.
He was gone until he returned
He said he would and he was good to his word
He returned and said
“I’m home my lovely, my perfection,”
And she saw him and cried
And bawled and sobbed
And he was tired from returning
From returning and journeying
And she, she wanted him to stay with her
Stay awake with her stay alive with her
But he couldn’t. he wouldn’t. he fell he fell
Asleep and then he and then heCHIRON
And then the rat-a-tatters had their way. Them took him away and took him down.
with the weight of her fate on her shoulders – matt schutz
But the sound of her tail?
ATLAS
She, you see, she returned to the sea
Returned to her tail
And you can hear it when she sees sailors
It’s the soft lapping of waves of foam on ships
It’s the gentle roll of the tides
It’s the breeze through the trees and the sands
It’s the sound of the sea, and the sound of her tail.
CHIRON
And she doesn’t need theATLAS
She doesn’t need that.
She doesn’t need that at all.
(The vocal rat-a-tats sound, closer than before.)
ATLAS
They’re coming down the street
Down town, around
Coming closer.
CHIRON
They are always close, they are always around.
You always will hear the sound.
ATLAS
Any news on my brother?
CHIRON
Our brother.
ATLAS
Well, yes. Your brother.
But he was my brother first.
He is my brother foremost.
Your brother in arms.
But my brother by blood.
CHIRON
Here and now, there are three.
There are three sorts of peoples.
There are brothers, there are sisters,
with the weight of her fate on her shoulders – matt schutz
And them.
He is my brother just as much as they are them.
ATLAS
I know. I know they are them.
CHIRON
Them! There are them and there is us.
And them is everywhere.
ATLAS
Not here. Not here with the sound of the mermaid tail.
CHIRON
The rat-a-tat is here.
ATLAS
No, it is there. Here is the sound of the swell.
CHIRON
Here, in my ear.
ATLAS
The pitter-patter of a cat.
CHIRON
Of a kitty?
ATLAS
Of a kitty.
CHIRON
The tale of a mermaid.
ATLAS
A mermaid’s tail.
News?
CHIRON
I hear themATLAS
They are not here.
News?
CHIRON
with the weight of her fate on her shoulders – matt schutz
In my ears, the sound ofATLAS
Not here. News?
CHIRON
I can’tATLAS
News, Chiron.
CHIRON
(struggling to form words)
TheyATLAS
Oh noCHIRON
They took himATLAS
No! My Tithon?
CHIRON
Yes, him. They took himATLAS
… Down?
CHIRON
No.
ATLAS
Oh?!
CHIRON
No, not down
Just took.
ATLAS
Oh!
CHIRON
The battalion was out
We had our gaka-gakas
with the weight of her fate on her shoulders – matt schutz
And our boom-pows
And our swick-tzings
We had our bullets and bombs and swords
And Tithon was there with us
And I was there with us
And we moved forward
Sideways and a little backwards
But forwards
And we advanced into where they were
Readied our weapons readied our sounds
And we attacked.
The sounds were horrible
The sounds were everywhere
The gaka-gakas went first
Gaka-gaka-gaka-gaka
Sorry
And then the swick-tzings
Threw themselves in
Hacking swishing stabbing
With their sounds
But they fell quickly to the rat-a-tats
The boom-pows stood back waiting
Waiting for our gaka-gakas and our swick-tzings
To come back
To return
I was one of them
One of the boom-pows waiting
Waiting with my devastating sounds.
Tithon, Tithon was a –
ATLAS
A gaka-gaka
I know, he told me
CHIRON
Right of course he did
But
I don’t
We heard the screams before we saw our brothers and sisters
Terrible horrid mortifying screams
Like the worst kind of fish drowning
Or a swan that takes too much air in and bursts
We saw our brothers and our sisters running towards us
We saw them flee we saw them fall
As the rat-a-tats chased them
Shot them down
with the weight of her fate on her shoulders – matt schutz
Only a few made it back to us
And us, the boom-pows
We fired and unleashed and drove them back
They hadn’t been expecting us
Hadn’t been prepared for
Us, the boom-pows
And then we fled we ran we all
Us brothers and sisters alike ran
To regroup
To recuperate
To re.
The Battle of the Bursting Swans
We called it
And then we tallied
Tallied the dead and those still living
And Hermes, a young gaka-gaka
Told us of the platoon
An entire group of brothers and sisters
Who had been captured
Not killed not rat-a-tatted not taken down
Just taken
The 5th Division
Tithon’s division Tithon’s platoon.
ATLAS
NoCHIRON
Taken not taken down
So he’s still
ATLAS
GoneCHIRON
Alive.
ATLAS
But the Battle of the Bursting Swans?
I heard tale of that fight
That battle that skirmish
CHIRON
How?
ATLAS
with the weight of her fate on her shoulders – matt schutz
The neighbors
They fly the flag of them
But they have the hearts of us
It lets them walk explore live
And bring me news.
News like the Battle of the Bursting Swans.
A month and a half ago it happened.
Since then
The Battle of Chalkboard Thunder
The Battle of the Shrieking Lion
The Battle of the Banshee’s Birth
Since then there have been fights
Battles skirmishes
And where have you been Chiron?
Where have you been since then?
CHIRON
I’ve been coming back to you
Returning journeying
And surviving.
Because you don’t know, Atlas
You don’t know the sounds the screams
The grating machinery
The long nights long walks
Hiding dodging avoiding evading
Them
Because they are everywhere Atlas
They are under the bridges
Around the corners
Behind the trees
And you can’t imagine how many
Of them
There are.
Atlas they almost caught me and do
You know what they do to us
When the catch us
When they find us
Do you know, Atlas?
ATLAS
They take you down?
CHIRON
They take us down.
ATLAS
with the weight of her fate on her shoulders – matt schutz
They caught Tithon.
CHIRON
They did
They caught Tithon
But they caught him in battle
In valor
He is a prisoner
Not another us just to be taken down
ATLAS
There are brothers
There are sisters
And them.
They must certainly feel the same
They have their brothers
Their sisters
And their them.
We are their them, Chiron.
We take them down.
Why wouldn’t they take us down?
Why wouldn’t they take the division down?
Why wouldn’t they take Tithon down?
CHIRON
Because we have a ransom.
We have captured one of them.
An important one of them.
ATLAS
But they have an entire division of us.
We have one of them?
What good
What great good could that hold
Could that have
What sway?
What one of them could give us say
When they have so many of us?
One of them for so many of us?
CHIRON
We will wait
We will see
We will meet with them
Tonight
with the weight of her fate on her shoulders – matt schutz
ATLAS
Tonight.
Tonight…
Tonight?
Chiron
Chiron, the neighbors
The neighbors bring news
That tonightCHIRON
Tonight we will see them
Face to face
See our faces in their eyes
The whites and the blacks of their eyes.
ATLAS
Not that.
The neighbors didn’t bring news of that.
The neighbors they
They brought news
Of an attack.
Tonight.
And you must go tonight?
(CHIRON takes her into his arms.)
CHIRON
I must.
You are good to tell me of the attack.
But don’t fret
The neighbor’s flag
The one that flies next door
The flag that flies the flag of them
Will protect you too.
ATLAS
But you will go despite the advance
Despite the attack?
CHIRON
I will. Brave and steadfast.
For you.
ATLAS
For Tithon.
with the weight of her fate on her shoulders – matt schutz