Negative Space
“If one’s different, one’s bound to be lonely”
The curtain rises.
Apart from a spotlight that is centered on the middle of the stage, everything is dark. The spotlight is focused on an empty wooden chair. Enter from the right THE ORATOR, a middle-aged man with glasses and a worn-out look on his face, who walks with a bent back, almost too afraid to show his presence. He doesn’t look at THE AUDIENCE until he sits down on the chair. He folds his hands on his lap and squints his eyes as if he wants to see if there are people present in THE AUDIENCE. His knees are folded around the edge of the seat and his legs are placed between the legs of the chair. When he opens his mouth to speak, he comes to life as though he is a machine that only starts moving once it has swallowed a coin from its spectator.
THE ORATOR (puts his hands on his knees and speaks in a serious tone): It is, of course, a question about identity and identifying. Who am I? Who are you? I am not what I seem. You can, or maybe you even should, identify me as an actor, but I have to be honest with myself at all times. I am only an orator. No, I am not even a writer in disguise. Maybe you would call me dishonest for pretending to be a so-called master of the act of storytelling, while I am not actually the one who writes these stories in the first place. It is a fact that practically every human being is gifted with the power to speak. Perhaps this talent has everything to do with the people who come to me to tell me their stories. My talent is to be useless in a world where uselessness seems to be so very rare, but, believe me when I tell you that the people who are cursed with this talent have ways to hide this from everyone else. Only the lonely have their ways of finding others who are cursed with this same sickness that plagues their own minds. (short pause) So, I would like to ask you not to judge these works of art that I am about to perform too strongly. Whenever you feel disgusted or disappointed in the lack of beauty, be aware that they are human beings who opened their fragile hearts in return for a little sympathy. If, however, you have any reason to criticize these works, I take the blame for every bit of sacrilege of the spoken word you accuse me of, because I, and I alone, am to blame for a dissatisfying end result.
THE AUDIENCE (silence): –
THE ORATOR (shifts uneasily on the chair): Now, if you are still willing to let me speak, I shall begin.
Family Life – Unknown
There once was a day that I decided to make myself a new family. My old one had worn out and I was desperately alone again.
My first family was created when I cut them out of my fairy tale book in the shape of a paper people chain. They couldn’t speak, but they contained the wisdom of thousands of words. Even though they were many, and I could comfort myself with the silent words on their skin, I never felt a part of their happy family. They were always together, holding hands, and I would watch them from a distance. I must have looked like a giant from their perspective, an angry one, and from my perspective they looked little larger than a set of nicely arranged finger puppets. Of course it wasn’t my intention to, and I loved them in my own way, but I destroyed them. I could have ripped their arms off and killed that little family I could never be a part of. Instead I started crying. Teardrops the size of pearls fell with the speed of a waterfall down on my family. Their skin rippled and, before I understood what was happening, they were all torn apart. I discovered that I longed for a better family than the one I had, but this longing, specifically, had separated me from them.
I decided that I should build a ‘real’ family, who could be there for me when I needed them. The paper family had always been unfit to be my family. Not one of those frozen figures fulfilled the job of ‘Mom,’ ‘Dad,’ or ‘Brother/Sister.’ How could they take care of me when they didn’t even know who they were and who they were supposed to represent? So, that’s why I made my new family. This one was made out of wood, which was much stronger than what I first had to work with. I found several of my old children’s toys scattered around the house, like body parts in an abandoned graveyard. A rocking horse covered in dust, a xylophone badly out of tune, and a ruin that was once a doll house. I selected all the parts I wanted to use and labeled them: Mother, Father, and Little Brother.
They were completely functional; they could move their arms, legs, mouths. I tried to make the best out of it. I really did. I imagined how my mother and father would talk to each other and laugh, and how my brother and I would play hide and seek. Eventually I would find him, hidden under my mother’s skirts, and my mother and father would bring us to our beds and read us a bedtime story. That was, unfortunately, not the real world. Instead, they only sat and stared into nothingness. When I wanted to sit on my mother’s lap, I would feel her cold, stiff arms folding around my body. There was no love in her embrace, and my little brother never wanted to play with me. He stood there, next to my father, without changing the expression on his face. They were both like toy soldiers, and maybe that’s what they were: toys for me to play with. While I only gave everything that I had, they only took without giving anything in return. I would wake up alone, make breakfast by myself, play by myself, go to bed all by myself, while my ‘family’ was staring at me with their hollow eyes.
This time my tears couldn’t destroy my creation, so I left them there, where I had first assembled them. They stared straight ahead as if they were waiting for their family photograph to be taken, which would never happen. They were the family that I had always dreamed of, but they were never real. They looked like me, they were even created by my own hand, but they could never be mine. Maybe it was time for me to accept that what I truly wanted was something more real, and that, in reality, I tried to force something that could never be re-created. I could always love them, but I couldn’t force them to love me.
–
THE ORATOR looks away from the crowd, to the floor.
THE ORATOR (with a sad smile): The stories of others can hit us in such an unexpected and unpleasant manner. It is with great sadness that I think back on my own days of being a child. Our expectations never quite seem to fit with the reality that the world presents to us. And, as you might know, this feeling of hope that has always been left unfulfilled can muddy the waters of the future.
THE AUDIENCE (silence): –
THE ORATOR: I hope—for you, and for myself as well—that your moment of silence is a reflective one. Maybe I have already failed in this. You are then excused in leaving this very room before I waste any more of your time, but I hope you will stay with me until the very end.
A New Home – Unknown
Somewhere on the river floated a little boat. What exactly was inside of it couldn’t be described. No one had ever seen anything like it. The Thing, as it was called, had suddenly appeared.
At the beginning of this story, its little boat was not yet introduced and the Thing was just floating in the water. Not one of the humans present was willing to help it get to land. Children stopped playing, adults stopped talking to each other, all watched how it was carried to the riverside with the flow of the water. Finally stranded, it lay on a piece of dry grass. Its eyes were enormous. It sputtered, and made a noise that, according to some accounts, might have resembled their own human language, while especially the children agreed that it was indescribable. Some of the humans wondered if they should help the poor thing, others were deciding if they had to throw it back into the water, back to where it had come from. Eventually, one of the children picked up a small rock and threw it at the Thing. At first it didn’t understand what was happening, but that soon changed. More children believed it was a good idea to scare the Thing away, and they all started throwing whatever they could find lying on the ground. It tried to hide and protect itself from the children’s ammunition, but nothing helped. The parents didn’t do anything to stop their children. They just watched as it tried to crawl away while making a squeaking sound. “Go back to where you came from,” one child shouted. “Monster,” shouted others. “You don’t belong here.” The large eyes of the creature were filled with confusion and fear. It was trying to get away, but some of the children ran after it until it jumped back in the river to get away from the uncontrollable violence.
Again, it was floating in the waves. Nothing to hold on to. Chased by a species it had thought to be friendly, which—when it was already too late to turn back—was revealed to be only a façade. They only seemed to be unwelcoming and aggressive towards anyone who didn’t belong there. It kept drifting, and, finally, it reached a part of land that seemed to not be as inhabited as the part where it first had come into contact with those, still unknown, other living creatures. It found a place to call home, a pile of leaves, which it was happy with for the time being. During the night, it kept crying because it was constantly reminded of how its vehicle crashed into that dark wet surface, later discovered to be the river, to be buried forever with the sea creatures. That had been a terrifying experience and there was no way to come into contact with other members of its tribe.
The next day, it discovered a small boat lying by the side of the river. The Thing pushed the boat into the water and jumped into it. Slowly, the boat moved across the water. The Thing was looking at the small waves that formed around the surface of the boat, and it saw the fish swimming underneath. It was still alone, with no one to help it to get back home to its family. And this was what it was supposed to be. The ones who had hunted it down when it needed help were all aware that they had banished it far away from their own homes, and they were pleased with themselves. The only place for the Thing to find a home was this little boat, that kept carrying it away to other parts where it would be just as misunderstood.
–
THE ORATOR (with a hoarse voice): Of course, I have always had a real home of my own. But, when you are all alone in the world, the feeling of not belonging can become so strong that it seems there is not a place in the world where you truly feel at home, or where you can feel safe. You keep trying to find a place that can fill that strange void inside of you, but you know it can never be filled. How many are walking around with a void inside of them that will always remain empty?
THE AUDIENCE (silence): –
THE ORATOR (with a sigh): We all have our own story to tell, do we not? I know that in suggesting this, it seems that I have given in to that weakness of wanting to receive the attention we all hope we deserve, while at the same time being exposed to the danger of misunderstanding. Nonetheless, I still hope you are willing to listen to what I have to say.
The Orator
I am afraid to breathe. Every breath I take is a violation of the rules of nature. Of course, I should not be able to breathe, because my last breath should have been taken years ago.
Every day I would wake up on the same mattress in the same little attic that I rented from the shabby theatre that I recited my stories in. There was nothing for me to do except for sitting on the floor, leaning with my back against the yellow stained wall, and my boney hands folded around my face. Everything was silent and I would be alone with absolutely nothing to comfort me.
I want to ask you something.
Have you ever noticed a subtle change inside of yourself immediately after you go through a life changing event? You know that something is different, but you cannot put your finger on it until it is too late. It feels as if you are in a room filled with a barely visible light, and you are pushed into another, which is completely dark. Before you notice the subtle change, they have already closed the door. You can hear the key being turned into its lock and you are stuck in the darkness. It is not much darker compared to the other room, but the little bit of light that was still left for you to cling on to has disappeared forever.
I do not recall the specific event that led me to my own self-destruction. Does it matter? I only know that the moment it happened, a black hole appeared inside of my stomach. At first, it was barely noticeable, but it became increasingly difficult to ignore, as it kept growing like a tumor. It left me confused and alone. It left me even more secluded from the outside world than I already was.
I scratched the worn wooden floor that covered the entirety of my room and a splinter dug itself into one of my fingers. I was too distracted to feel the stinging sensation of a foreign object stuck in my flesh, and so I kept rubbing the floor.
I decided that it was time to go outside because I had to collect the stories of others. It was safe for me to stay in the same street I resided, because I did not dare to lose the only support I had in life. The cold crawled its way into my skin and found a home there, where it made me feel as if it were breaking my bones and burning my eyes, which caused them to tear up. No one would come to tell me their story. The past few years I had been constantly using the same old material. I did not have any other choice. When your story is not worth telling, you have to steal the stories of others.
When I walked back to the theater, I could not feel my feet touching the cobbles on the street and I had to make myself aware that I was not floating into nothingness by pushing my feet further into the ground with every step I took.
After my ‘performance’ that night, the lights would be turned on and I would, again, be confronted with the sight of emptiness. I stared into the barely lit room that was almost collapsing under the pressure of absolutely nothing, and I would force myself to put one foot in front of the other, which would lead me to the unwelcoming darkness of a room that was even more familiar to me than my own body.
I would lie on my mattress at night, unable to sleep. When the darkness came, my black hole filled my entire body and it would take my air away. I was fighting for every new breath, but my body denied me the only comfort that was left. It curled itself up and it left me shaking. My cheeks remained dry and my eyes still contained that same pain that could always be seen in them.
Tomorrow, everything would be the same as it had been before. This would be repeated in a vicious cycle until there would come a day that my eyes would never open again, and I would be finally released from that painful sensation of breathing.
–
THE AUDIENCE (silence): –
THE ORATOR (coughs, then silence): stands up and leaves the stage at right.
The lights are turned on, an empty room is filled with chairs that are unoccupied.