Characters:

Setting:

Simply a beach, but it is the last place before light pollution will have completely taken away the night sky.   

Time:

Hours deep into the night, nowhere near when the sun is set to rise, but it looks like the beginnings of sunset. 

Sounds:

The sound of water, ranging from quiet trickling to wild rushes of waves. 

Act I

Scene 1 

Slightly raised borders hold the black tarp covering the entire expanse of the stage. Sand has been sprinkled haphazardly all over. The projector at the very back is black—for now. 

The Teller: You! 

(He points his finger at the audience.) 

The Teller (cont’): YOU!

Scene 2

Lights. The Teller is sitting on the edge of the stage, looking as if deep in thought, or half-asleep. The projector shows a scene of a dark blues and orange of midnight, a single faint star can be seen. 

The soft sounds of waves can be heard. 

The Teller: I can see it, in my last grasps on life. The pipes burst; water drowning in itself, unrestrained wetness peeled from the dirt, from behind the leaves, mildew, condensation—I can no longer differentiate. Why, if at all, are you here? Are you the handyman? Are you here to fix the pipes? The drains? No? 

(A crack of lightning.) 

The Teller (cont’): It must be the hurricane. It has come back.  

(He lies down, staring at the ceiling.)

The Teller (cont’): Will it be enough? If the colors will be, can be, washed away; rivers running with dyes, ocean surface stained with the dirtied orange clouds, brown sky. Can I see it? Can I see a sight without footsteps of dirtied dust, where the skies run like clear streams? Can I? 

(The Teller sits up again and stares directly at the audience.)

The Teller (cont’): Or is this the retribution we deserve? As I look at my hands, grasping at tears that do not run clear, still murky, always murky, like the gated reservoirs locked behind artificial lines. We’ve dug into the earth and now it’s crying out. 

(The Teller sits up again and stares directly at the audience.)

The Teller (cont’): Ah, you’ve broken the world. 

(The stage begins to flood.)

Scene 3

Lights. The projector paints the wall in a mix of dark blues and oranges, the same is there, somehow even fainter. A pier and a lighthouse can be seen. The Lightkeeper and The Handyman converse while The Fisherman sits on a bucket, thoughts solely on his fishing rod. The spotlight is on them. 

The Lightkeeper: Can it be done?

The Handyman: Like I say, if my conditions can be met, anything. 

The Lightkeeper. Good. How much, exactly, would you estimate? 

The Handyman: Because of the magnitude of this request, it will be quite high. 

The Lightkeeper: I understand, handyman.

The Handyman: Then, of course—

(A crack of lightning, and the sound of heavy downpour.)

The Fisherman (to no one in particular): Oh, it’s raining again. 

The Lightkeeper: You can see it’s important. 

(The Handyman stands up from his chair.)

The Handyman (cont’): I’ll be on it, then. 

(The Handyman exits.)

The Fisherman: You think he’ll be able to do it?

(The Lightkeeper is silent.)

The Fisherman (cont’): It’s an impossible task, you and I both know. Afterall, to fix the world? 

(The Fisherman laughs, incredulous. The Lightkeeper stays silent.)

The Fisherman (cont’):  Our eyes are drawn to the sun, retinas burnt molten, but even so, the feel of singed calluses from handheld lights pull us with a gravitation too strong by too many folds. It is you who understand this best. There are things you will not give up. 

(Beat.)

The Lightkeeper: He’ll have to. 

The Fisherman: We all do. But it’s not easy to. 

Scene 4

Lights. The Teller paces around the flooded stage, splashes following every step he takes. Behind him, the projection of orange flickers in brightness. 

The sound of waves. 

The Teller: I am once again reminded of my despair; to witness the constellations burned straight off the skies, orange-yellow fireglows chasing me with the colors of night like rabid guard dogs do children. Why, if it is night, must I seek in order to find a simple place away from the light of artificial suns?  Instead, I am left here, a false serenity, where, if I dare turn around, I will be blinded once more. 

(The brightness of the projection pulses.)

The Teller: And I must not turn around. I know this. But if this to be my—

(He turns around to face the wall of light—it is blinding.)

The Teller (with intense anguish): Oh! 

Scene 5

Lights. Murkiness creeps into the orange background. The Fisherman stands alone in the center of the stage, facing the audience and feet-deep in light water. 

The washes of overlapping waves and the trickling of a leaking pipe that grows.

The Fisherman: The world weeps for her loss of light, and it is as devastating as the mourning of a sibling, yet the light from screens have become impossible to escape, ubiquitous in electricity and coal-smoke, and as I reach my hand out, the cold future seeps through the pores of my skin with permeating chill. But even as I falter in the mind, my hand’s actions do not change. My singularity is insignificant, and to simply stay is enough for me to say I am content. 

(The Fisherman thrusts his hands into the water, and takes out a small, sickly eel.)

The Fisherman: But deep in the abyss that reflects in my mind, the words of others leave ripples. And even if these ripples fade, they grow and expand until my thoughts are riddled with its ridges, and I can’t help but wonder. I can’t help but wonder…  

The Fisherman: Yet, I cannot fathom my wonderment because the cold my hand reaches out to is the only feeling I’ve ever known. The stinging of water beating into my eyes, mixing, is comforting in its familiarity, and I am an eel being pushed along the rapids. I am forced to stew in my contentment, until the soak-stains of waves consume me whole.

Scene 6

Lights. The orange background is murkier than ever. The Handyman sits on a chair at the center of the stage, head in his hands, defeated. 

A continuous wash of overlapping waves.

The Handyman: It can’t be done. 

The Handyman (cont’ with even more despair): Why can’t it be done? They said, if it is simply effort, if it is simply the right motivations, I would be sold a possibility to rival mother nature, because it is only the toiling of eels that trumps the inevitable, and here my understanding slips. A continuous rumble of ink splashes, the eels’ black skins circulate like a mill, I think I see stray thoughts written in the foam, like divination, with enough legibility to give the illusion of certainty, but as I watch the eels and see only myself, I know there is no certainty. I know better than to look at something else to understand my own mind. 

The Lightkeeper: What do you mean it can’t be done? I’ve paid you everything. The conditions have been met. Anything, you said. Anything… I was sold on a false promise! 

The Handyman: I’ve tried everything. It’s too late…it just can’t be done. 

Scene 7

Lights. The orange, starless sky. The Teller lays on the flooded stage, gazing at the bright ceiling.

The Teller: As I lay here, on the last beats of life, I can feel the sand, cold, granules that stick to the creases of my skin, ever present beneath my feet; each step taken with the intention to unstick only leaves room for more. I can see the people, figures, dotting the horizon, clumped together like clutter, phones glinting like moonlight, just as bright as stars—and I cannot take my eyes away. 

(A beat of reminiscing silence before he resumes.)

The Teller (cont’): Why, is the correct lament, if not smaller, are they not less brilliant than the moon? Why, is what should be said, do the gray expanses of pure sky, pure waves, fall short to the grandeur of artificiality? The waves, construed with madness: dark, unsaturated, washed-out ink, are the vengeance of an old truth, and I am left to watch them crash in their inevitability.  

(The sound of rain and waves grow louder and louder.)

The Teller (cont’): If I could wish for the skies to be covered in a colorless night once more, one time, with the brilliance of the moon and stars being nothing of the fantastical illusion now. If I could see the cold fire of the galaxies, the northernmost star, as bright as they once were. Then, I could say I am content. 

(He dies quietly, without a sound.)

End.  

Edited by Ella Wu

Artist Statement: This experimental play does not follow legitimate playwriting rules, and would most likely be more enjoyed if read like a poem due to its many playwriting inaccuracies and inconsistencies. But essentially, it is about a futuristic world where light pollution and reliance on technology has caused nature to implode, withering as light pollution takes away all the stars in the night sky. I’d like to say there are commentaries on human tendencies that exacerbated this withering of nature and humanity in the end, but it is what it is.