Photo by Eva Bronzini from Pexels
The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.
– William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
TIME AND PLACE
Present. A park.
Stage right or stage left: Kai’s story of the wood fairy and the dragon can be pantomimed concurrently using actors in all black or all white, and puppets.
CHARACTERS
JACK DAWKINS, a child.
SIR, Jack’s father.
KAI, a story-teller.
SCENE – SUNDAY AFTERNOON
SIR and JACK are walking through the park together, when they see KAI sitting on his usual park bench. He appears to be nodding. They approach him.
JACK
Good afternoon, Mister Kai. How are you today?
KAI
Opening his eyes.
Oh, dreaming, my friend, Jack, just dreaming.
JACK
Dreaming of Japan?
KAI
Dreaming of a wood fairy…. Our word for them is Yōsei. [“Yo Say”]
JACK
Are they nice? Or are they mostly naughty in Japan?
KAI
Sit. With me. Both of you.
And I’ll tell you a story of one of them.
SIR
Gladly. Thank you, Sir. So good to see you again.
JACK and SIR sit down on the bench next to KAI.
KAI
My pleasure. I hope the two of you are well.
SIR
We are, thank you. And you?
KAI
Pensive.
The world’s a strange world, John. It captures one’s spirit in a bottle, sometimes.
And won’t let it out no matter how much you squirm trying to get it free.
But … a story I promised….
One evening as the sun was going down for a night’s rest Koko-Chan ….
Do you remember her?
JACK
Yes, Sir. The girl with the kittens, who lived in Nagasaki after the war.
And nearly got drowned.
KAI
Ah yes, you remember.
So, one evening, when the sun was going down, Koko-Chan was walking by herself in the hills and woods, not far from her home outside Nagasaki,
when she heard a fairy singing to the trees, thinking no one could see him:
Five windows light a life we feel and see:
At one, called Reverence, we stand and breathe.
Another brings us music of the spheres.
A third lends touch of rain like heaven’s tears.
A fourth is nature looking through the glass.
The last lets spirits, when they’re ready, pass.
But Man resists, for stolen joys are sweet,
and life seems incomplete when it’s complete.
Koko crept close, softly as a cat, and caught the mocking wood fairy in the scarf she was wearing around her neck, like a butterfly.
“How do you know all this, Sir?” she asked him, wriggling at first inside her scarf.
“And where did you learn that song?”
Click here for complete script.