Young Writers Society

ACT I.

The setting is a small apartment in the city, the hustle and bustle outside (isn't it always so noisy?), and a man with his thoughts, watching it all like a well-loved ring-master gazing out over his circus (my domain, he thinks). He is slight in stature, and beautifully thin in the way only birds have mastered, and framed like a painting by the window of the second story. The backdrop is the man's living room (aptly named), looking just as familiar and lived in as one might imagine (it is lived in, he can not leave). Sun filters into the scene like a spotlight, casting a glow over the man and his room and the people below, dashing about like ants. It is late afternoon.

The man twines his fingers through the curtains and the golden light between them, reaching through the fabric to touch the shining beams. Slowly he curls his fingers around the glow, and like a maestro readying his orchestra, he begins. Hands lifted, arms outstretched, head up and expression blissful, he slides into motion like a well-oiled clock. Steady and precise, a gentle wave of an out-stretched finger and the show starts (let us begin).

The man dances, and reality as the world knows it shatters in his wake. Light bends and twists to follow his movements, spins and wraps itself into spirals of brilliance and noise and music. Every wave of a hand beckons a radiant beam forth to change and shift at his command, and with every motion, music blossoms forth into being. Cellos and flutes rise to his call as the living room (my stage) fills with a golden glow, violas singing out as if by magic (of course it is magic, this is my gift, my curse) in tune with his gestures.The glow slips between his fingers like silk, steady and comforting in the way only afternoon sun can be. Somehow, though, it remains as strange and magical as the light of the moon. Sound crescendos as the man twirls and glides to the beat of time itself, every beam of light resounding across the living room like a thousand violins. The curtains, unable to take the strain, blow back against the weight of light and noise and eternal afternoon glow.

What a show it would be, if people were to gaze up at the window just then. To look up, just for a moment to see what shines so brightly from the dull little apartment. Alas, though, they are too caught up in their little lives to do so (why can't I be like them, hush, the magic demands it so). Running helter-skelter from one place to the next, their eyes never glance up to the man in his dance of light. And the man? What of him? No cares to be found, except maybe a small one or two he shoves down into the depth of his being. No one sees, no one cares, not even he. His show, his gift, his dance of light and sound in the noon sun, so what if there is no one to share it with? So what if his audience is none but himself? A graceful whirl pulls the glowing beams together into the very center of the sitting room as the man steps back from the window. (Away from their foolishly blind, unseeing gaze), his thoughts whisper, (hush), he thinks. Another motion and they twine around him, brushing up against his face and hands, eager for his direction. (A hurricane of light, of life that you shall never have), then (quiet, I live well enough!).

"Faster", the man tries not to cry out too loudly, "Faster!" (pay attention to me). And so the light whirls (like your thoughts,QUIET, trying to drown out the loneliness, SILENCE!) dancing around and around the man in ever smaller circles, music rushing up like a tidal wave thundering in the man's ears, (Why so alone? Alone Alone ALONE) louder, drowning him in the blaze, faster, glowing so brightly, blinding in noise and not so much music now as screaming (in loneliness? Pain?) louder, even faster (why did I ever ask for this? When will someone see? So very, very alone) louder, faster, blinding, brighter, faster, louder!

And then silence. The man collapses from his frantic dancing, exhausted from his efforts. The light disappears, the glow fades, leaving the apartment's living room devoid of that former golden hue. A grayness returns to the room, and a horrible stillness reminiscent of a tomb. The cost of light is darkness after all, to have a stage means performing there. The curtains flutter shut, the show is over, the scene has closed.

ACT I, Alone in Agony, is over. ACT II to come? Only sanity may tell.