March 2 Play: NECROMANCE

61: NECROMANCE - by Ed Valentine
© March 2, 2010 * ed@edvalentine.com

LIGHTS UP: A WOMAN alone onstage.

WOMAN:
This is my body.

(She opens her body from the center. It opens like a church triptych. Inside, the woman is flayed open like an anatomical subject, like a dissected frog in biology class.

Her organs are visible. Perhaps in realistic texture and wet detail.

She regards her insides, almost scientifically. Almost. This cannot – and does not – hold.)

WOMAN (Continued):
This is my body, which will be given up for you.

This is my heart, which is still there, still beating,
A bird against a cage.

These are the ribs, which ache at the joints and heave, taking in, letting out, burning air. Taking in, letting out. Taking in, letting out. I took you in, I let you out. I took you in I let you out. Or perhaps, then, you took me.

-

This is my esophagus, working in tandem with my vocal cords to make such light sounds to woo you, and such guttural sounds to bed you – it might have been a barnyard! – and such broken sound to keep you. I should have saved my breath.

-

This is my spleen. If I could hold the bile in my hand, I would’ve flung the stinging mess at you.

-

This is my stomach, which seizes up like a fetus at the thought of you. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. Taking you in. Letting you out. Taking you in. Letting you out.

-

And this is my womb. Empty as the Hall of Mirrors now. You were there, or almost there once. And now you’re gone.

Taking you in. Letting you out.
Taking you in. Letting you out.
Taking you in. Letting you out.

This is my body, which was given up for you.

(She closes her body. Stands. Faces out, unblinking. Lights fade.)

END OF PLAY.