Please keep in mind that this is a very rough draft, without any blocking or thought as to how it will be performed yet. It is to be delivered to an audience of about 30 people in about eight weeks, so I have plenty of time to rework anything that reads awkwardly or detracts from the feeling I'm trying to create. What that feeling is, I'm not sure exactly, but I'll know when it has all been scripted out. I apologize for the abrupt ending, but posting the whole thing would result in an overload and I just want initial reactions at the moment. Any comments will be greatly appreciated and taken into account.
Enjoy.
Prose-ac.
[I am sitting in front of a typewriter, looking like writer's block has taken over]
I cannot deny what I am, for in being this I am the greatest and most beautiful monstrosity in all of history. I suffer from multiple personalities, each of them evolving to become less like me and more free of my control as time goes on. At last count, I think there are about 37 of them. Luckily, I have a simultaneous condition of multiple realities, which means none of them will ever meet. Except for the one I was born with; this one - which talks to you now - knows them all intimately and watches each of them as they slowly ruin me. All will be clear to you soon enough.
I first began showing signs of the condition in Highschool. I lived mainly in solitude, too interpersonally inept to fit in with those who ran in social circles like wanderers in the desert, and too dissatisfied with my situation to find friendship with others like me. All of my time was spent planning my escape. I had daydreams about nighttime in Paris, spending all my time in jazz clubs and drinking fine coffee, or in St Petersburg, where I'd meld into a rich history of revolution and social philosophy. I'd be home in these places, unlike having to spend innumerable hours at the front of a classroom, pretending to learn at the same rate as everyone else. While they were studying mathematics or biology, I nurtured a connection with the outside world that was the only one open to me: I read, voraciously. It was that literary gateway that inspired to abandon academics and seek knowledge instead. I stayed at school, since there was little else to do, but rebelled against history assignments and instead devoted my time to reading the works of Karl Marx, Freidrich Engels and even Hitler. Instead of seeking greatness in English - which came naturally to me - I silently protested the study of discourse, ideology, socio-cultural values – all that crap - and instead was reading Kafka, Vonnegut, Orwell and Dostoyevsky. The beauty of language should not be something written about, but alluded to, in everything we say and write. This is the sole realization that led me to where I am today. Successful in the life they never dreamed of, and fundamentally disturbed as I dwell in realities I have invented. Someone once said that there are two types of people obsessed with the stars: astronomers and astronauts. In those years, I ventured out from behind a telescope and floated effortlessly up toward the heavens. I hope you understand what I mean.
Now that you are familiar with the personality that stands before you, I think I should introduce you to some of the other extensions of myself. There is Henry, a friendly bus driver from Massachusetts. Henry has a wife, three kids and about twenty corpses buried underneath the garden behind his house. The kids aren't allowed to walk over the 'vegetable patch' which conceals his secret with pumpkins, herbs and the finest tomatoes in the county. If I were able to summon him at will, I'm sure he would say how much of a pleasure it is talking to you. His neighbours will say he is the nicest man they have ever met, but Jim Daniels who used to live over on Main Street will not talk about him. Why? You ask. Jim is dead. Henry killed him with a shovel after finding out that Jim had been seeing another woman behind his wife's back. Henry sees his murders as social services, for the most part.
Hmmm... Ah yes, there is Prime Minister Winston Wintergreen. The Honorable Mr. Wintergreen is head of a nation I created that is almost identical to the England of your world, with one key difference: the nation is especially fond of him. Public opinion polls say that 98% of Britain is very happy with his performance. Winston, however, is disgusted by this. After he took over from the previous administration, he inherited a country in the grips of social unrest. Years previously, he had turned away from the idea of democracy and found that it was riddled with corruption, and began to find faith in a system of government that promised freedom and liberty for all: anarchy. The best government is not that which governs least, but that which does not exist. Though he was a member of the Labor party, and had never spoken about his radical beliefs, he was fully devoted to seeing the collapse of British democracy. However, as announcing his plans would see him immediately dismissed, he had another idea; he was going to strangle the nation with unacceptable policies until one day, the people decided it was time for something to be done and overthrow him. He could not lead a revolution against the ruling class (since he was the ruling class) but he could inspire social upheaval and put revolution into their hearts. After watching his actions for a while, I have decided that he is the first Prime Minister to ever adopt reverse psychology as his main policy.
There are many others, 35 to be exact, and while I would like to introduce them all to you, I have not the time. Some others of note include: Juan, the rather large Puerto Rican jockey who decided that his weight was holding his horse back and jettisoned himself in order for the horse to win. Linus, a one-eyed stargazer who, because of his lack of depth perception, is unable to judge how far away the moon. The Scarlet Illusionist, an incompetent magician who, after years of having people leave his shows halfway through, has decided that the exciting parts of the tricks should be performed first, ignoring the build-up and suspense. After failing to perform a trick properly, he made himself disappear in the first minute of a two-hour show and was unable to reappear again. One reviewer wrote that the introduction was good but it became a major anti-climax. And of course, Major – a rhinoceros; though I don’t speak to him much. So you see, where once I had trouble living one life I am now able to deal with the problems of thirty seven lives. However, I am grateful for every presence that resides within me. For, you see, I have lost some of my friends along the journey.
Just so there is no confusion, pieces of me can die just as easily as me, you, or one of Henry’s victims. There was Doctor Waters, a heart surgeon, who had saved hundreds of lives in his forty years of operating, but could not stop his own heart being punctured by a stray bullet from a petrol station robbery. I was very fond of Dr. Waters, and sometimes I have trouble sleeping when I see him propped up against a refrigerator full of Red Bull, blood leaking from the left side of his chest. It was a cold night, and he was wearing the jacket one of his patients had gotten him after the surgery. I don’t know why I remember that detail, I just try to remember the small things about my friends. I call them friends, because just like Dr Waters did for so many, they saved my life too. They got me through hard times, which is why at this point I must mention that in my story, as there always is in these stories, there is a girl.
I have sworn never to speak her name again, because that makes it seem all too real. She was the only part of me that wasn’t imaginary. She was a musician that could sum up feelings with a few minutes of music that I had tried to in endless pages of writing. Where my extensions of the self took physical form, hers were ethereal, untouchable. I remember one night, after she had finished playing at a club somewhere in the city, we sat down on a curb by the side of the road and talked about leaving our homes to become wanderers of the streets, nocturnal denizens of a city and place and a feeling. We did it, that night. We walked alleyways, climbed fire escapes and claimed rooftops as our thrones. She wore a bright blue raincoat and I an old tweed jacket I found at the op-shop. We were eighteen, maybe nineteen, at the time and just finding out ways to attain tiny victories over the real world. Why go home? Why sleep at night? Why be afraid to walk the streets? Why live like everyone else? Why do anything? The dream ended the next day, just like any sort of high does. We came down off our delusion and went back home. I picked up a book and she went out to get some food for dinner. It was in that exact moment that I knew we’d never be as happy as we had been just hours earlier. She knew it too, and she left town for a place in some orchestra in a city I don’t even want to talk about. That was after about a month of living with mediocrity, and I was left alone to live with it ever since. Parts of me traveled to exotic locations and did wonderful things, but I was stuck at home with nothing but my typewriter, five photos of her, three photos us the two of us and an endless supply of reminiscence to keep me numb.
Hugo was born the day after she left. Hugo is a musician too – a cellist – and he’s my favourite character of mine. In case you haven’t figure it out yet, I’m not insane, I’m a novelist. When you’re alienated from real people you tend to get really attached to your characters. In my case, so much so that they became parts of myself. Hugo is the part of me that was perfect for her, in ways that I never was. He is debonair, cultured, and incredibly handsome: everything I’m not. In his story he meets a girl who plays the violin and they collaborate to make sublime music. There is no real plot, and his story was never shown to anyone, but I keep writing it to feel all the things I wish I had. I wish I’d been enough to keep her here, and I wish my expressions were let out into the air, instead of printed on lonely bits of paper, so we could share them together. Writing is the loneliest art form. I wish reality weren’t so mundane that I had to make my own to do the things I want.
