Photo by Egor Kamelev from Pexels
You have to protect yourself from sadness. Sadness is very close to hate.
– Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient
TIME and PLACE
The present.
Northern British Columbia, Canada.
A forest has grown from upstage right to center stage.
As scenes regress in time, so does the forest recede upstage.
The forest is comprised of darkness – dark trees and underbrush with scrims or screens interspersed (indirectly illuminated) upon which are affixed lifelike papier-mâché carcasses of still birds and animals.
CHARACTERS
BYRON, twenty-two in Scenes 1 and 2, back to age twelve by Scene 7.
ALEXANDER, Byron’s father.
MOTHER, Byron’s mother.
OFFICER CAMERON, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
OFFICER GRANT, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
CLAIRE, eighteen.
DR. STEVENS, a country doctor.
MOLLY, female, drinking companion in Scenes 6 and 8.
BUCK, male, drinking companion in Scenes 6 and 8.
BILLY GOAT, male, drinking companion in Scene 8.
VOICE (from the audience), called Ed.
SCENE 1
BYRON, covered in splotches of blood and agitated, is being questioned by two officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
OFFICER CAMERON
I’m Officer Cameron. This is Officer Grant.
Just calm down, Son, and tell us what happened.
BYRON
Claws like hatchets it had.
And teeth like knives, best I could see.
It’s Hellish dark in there and everything. And frightful.
Eyes as red as Goddamn demons.
As big as a bear.
I cut the thing, I think.
OFFICER CAMERON
A bear, you say?
BYRON
No. As big as a grizzly, but not a bear. I don’t know what it is.
I’m telling you: It’s a MONSTER.
OFFICER GRANT
In there?
BYRON
Yes, in there.
Two men bring a body out of the forest on a stretcher, a sheet pulled over her head. Both feet, severed from the body, are noticeably being carried on top of the sheet.
OFFICER CAMERON
It severed her feet?…
Let me see the knife you cut the thing with.
BYRON
I …. It’s lost in there.
I dropped it when I ran.
OFFICER GRANT
You ran?
BYRON
I ran.
OFFICER GRANT
And left her in there, by herself?
What’s your name again?
BYRON
My name is Byron, and there wasn’t much I could do was there?
I told her to run. I told Claire to run.
And I ran.
And didn’t look back, did I?