Marat and Charlotte 4
Act 4.
Marat
Where do these tears come from? My makeup
is melting in the spotlight. She has gone.
Oh, how I wished to tell her… I did not.
I wished to tell but I forgot the words
to say according to my role. The closer
the morning, the more yellowish the light.
It must be this play coming to an end.
I hear the prompter breath:
“It means I’m dead.”
It means I’m dead. But now I know exactly
what kind of dreams you dream in sleeping death.
It means I’m dead… I used to dream about
oblivion, non-existence, nothingness.
Oh, shattered dreams and myriads of me
reflected in their shatters! Look at you,
my miserable dead man. Nothing’s changed.
You’re stuffed full of yourself as if you were
alive: perplexity, dismay, frustration,
resentment, malice, rage and jealousy.
I hoped to forget you, Charlotte, but
my memory of you seems to take roots
into my skin, my bones, my heart, my spleen;
into this scary dream…
It means I’m dead.
But where are heavens, angels? Where is
the light, the tunnel wherein the souls
like trains, screeching and sparkling on the curve,
fly to the light? There’s nothing of this kind.
Only the utter darkness of the stall
breathes. A quick whisper, an embarrassed crunch
of foil. Only the chuckle flares up
here and there like a glowworm
that flies through woods at night.
But you don't fool me!
I know it’s you, you that look pale and tremble,
that are but mutes or audience to this act.
Just tell me what you want. Glorifications?
Hand-wringing, praying, tears? Then so be it.
I wring my hands, I pray, I tear out,
I kiss your feet, I writhe, I ask you, God,
no, I don’t ask you, I demand to shatter
the empty vessel which is called Marat.
Smash me to bits so your external space
and mine, internal, could become a single,
inseparable entity again.
Unite me to myself!
Alas, he doesn’t.
The forth wall stands between us as before.
I heard that the imagination went
to building it, that it is made of dreams
but there are no walls, no hurdles stronger
than a mirage. No way to crash, to climb,
to infiltrate, to get across, to pay
off two gatekeepers, Life and Death, that stand
guard nonexistence. They are deaf to curses
and pleas of likes of me. They chase the tramp
away and, stung by both, he hits the road
less travelled to exist...
Same set like in Act 1. Two philosophers sit at one table, talking;
a senselike nonsense
in an unmeaning world. Guess, how agnostics
call consciousness? An epi, a phi, a no -
a mouthful – epiphenomenon.
or even worse…
(end)
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