Having my way with Ulysses

A star I see. Venus?

Say them all but tell them apart, cadenzando coloratura! R is Rubretta and A is Arancia, Y is for Yilla and N for greeneriN. B is Boyblue with odalisque O while W waters the fleurettes of novembrance. Though they're all but merely a schoolgirl yet these way went they. I' th' view o' th'avignue dancing goes entrancing roundly. 8:53 pm

[Scene:  Rehearsal for Circe.  Venus dressed as a heliotrope in furs is practicing the Dance of the Hours with the  Roygbiv Vance dancers: Rose, Sevilla, Citronelle, Esmeralde, Pervinca, Indra, and Viola.  The director is perched in the upstage grid and the stage manager and asm are in the booth. The nobleman, McIntosh, the newsboys, a hag carrying a bottle and Grace Darling are waiting stage right to rehearse their number: “O by the by that Lotion”]

God [On the god mic.  Always on the damn god mic.  Does he really need the entire house to hear him?  Really?]  I know the sun sets in the west Venus, I was the one who put it there in the first place!

Venus:  The hell you were!

God:  Nevermind the direction, this is theatre!  Our business is illusion.  We are representing truth, not telling it.  Who bloody cares if the sun is setting in the Southeast?

Venus:  I do! I need to absorb all the reality I can so my instrument can feel the very atmosphere of the scene.  How can I do that if you move the sun to the wrong place?

God: Look, you think it’s easy to move the sun around?  My joints are on the rack!

Jesus:  Dad?  Those distant hills seem coming nigh.

God:  I know, they needed to be closer for this scene.  Ignore them, the’ll stop soon.

Venus:  Listen God, I need the light to set in the west: it is a kind of reassuring.  I can’t.  I can’t work like this.

[A feather falls slowly from the grid, lands on Venus’ head.  She bursts into tears.]

Venus:  [Addressing the bird in the grid]  Thanks.  You’ve always brought me such peace.  You really are a promise of hope to me.  The girls too.  Sorry I got your names mixed up Indra, Viola.

Viola:  Don’t worry about it love.  Shall we go again?

McIntosh:  Do already!  The corns on my kismet are killing me!

Venus:  Who is that guy?

God: Jesus?

Jesus: Nobody knows, he just showed up.  Wait.  Where did he go?  Doesn’t he know it’s damn frustrating when people appear and disappear just like that!

God:  Never mind him, he was probably just a mirage.  Now Venus, the director wants you to practice in front of a mirror, hold his feather while you do it if it helps you.

Venus:  There’s no way I can do that.  I don’t want to see myself, that would shatter the reality I’m creating.

God: It’s hard I know, but still you learn something.  We all could stand to see ourselves as other see us. That’s the way to find out.  See yourself, scowl or smile, then ask yourself, who am I now?  Will you try it?

Venus:  Can I do it naked?

God: So long as women don’t mock what matter?

Near her monthlies, I expect, makes them feel ticklish.

The Twofold form Hermaphroditic: and the Double-sexed; The Female-male & the Male-female, self-dividing stood Before him in their beauty, & in cruelties of holiness! Shining in darkness, glorious upon the deeps of Entuthon. 8:47 pm

Scene [Tranquilla convent, in the back garden.  The sisters are preparing to receive a novice for initiation into the order.  St. Agatha and Sister Mary Peter wait with ten fingers locked for her to arrive. ]

St. Agatha:  Sister Mary Peter, have you seen my breasts?

Sister Mary Peter:  You left them in the rectory Reverend Mother, shall I retrieve them for you?

St. Agatha:  No, no.  No.  Nuisance they are anyway, really, although I do feel like I lose a charm every time I take them off.  Still, we have a new novice coming and it would be a waste of this whitewashed face and cool coif not to long to appear, well, complete.

Sister Mary Peter: It is a natural craving, Reverend Mother, but you’re looking splendid.  Dressed up to the nines.

St. Agatha.  Never mind, no time.  I can see her coming with my dexter optic!  O look who it is for the love of God! I thought they were dumping Martha on us and instead it’s Lizzie Twigg!  How are you at all?  What have you been doing with yourself? [kiss] and delighted to [kiss] see you!

Lizzie Twigg:  Hello Agatha.  I would have been here sooner but there was all that barbed wire.

St. Agatha:  We do like to cloister ourselves here!  But never mind never mind.  No hurry, my dear sister soul.  I’m just so happy you’re not Martha!  So vindictive for what she can’t get.  Oh my child!  So, here you are, giving up your desire to aid gentlemen in literary work.

Lizzie Twigg:  Yes, I’m done with men.  I loved an Aeon and that ended badly.  Felt like I was drowning half the time.  Now I want to dedicate myself to somebody more, I don’t know, along the straight and narrow.  Linear minded.  Gets us from then to when.

St. Agatha:  Well as a fellow bride of Christ you will have that, even the calendar starts with him, to some end point.  So, let’s have a look at you.  Nice well-filled hose, though they are a bit down around the ankle.

Sister Mary Peter:  Voice like a pick axe, no good for the choir.  Are you lame?

Lizzie Twigg:  No.  My boots are a bit tight though.

St. Agatha:  You might have a high arched instep.

Lizzie Twigg: Um.  I have a question.  I’ve heard things about the sisters here.  That some of you get a bit, well, odd.  I’ve heard about some sisters licking pennies all the time, and wanting to smell rock oil, and all kinds of.  Is this, is this true?

St. Agatha: It’s only the virgins who go mad in the end.  I take it you’re?

Lizzie Twigg: Not. No.

St. Agatha.  I thought not.  You have that I’m all clean come dirty me look.  Now, when was the start of your last menstrual period?  Must have been within the past couple of days.

Lizzie Twigg:  Today.  And it’s awful.  Feels a ton weight.  How did you know?

St Agatha:  The plants are withering.  And the fiddle strings have all snapped.

Sister Mary Peter:  The milk is turning too.

St. Agatha:  Sister Mary Peter, go get St. Patricia, she can coagulate Miss Twigg’s blood.  Now Miss Twigg, we’ll stop your menstruation for now, but you’ll have to get into step with the rest of us.  We all bleed together according to the moon.

Lizzie Twigg:  I’m sorry.  I mean, I don’t mean to be rude or question is it all a fake or anything but, none of you look like, well, like the menstruating type.  No offense.  How many women?

St. Agatha:  Listen sister, we feel it ourselves too, ok, all of us together.  We can be a pack of devils when it’s coming on, I can tell you, especially Sister Mary Peter!

Lizzie Twigg:  She’s a hot little devil all the same.  We were girlfriends at school you know.

St. Agatha:  Oh were you?  And how do you find her now?

Lizzie Twigg:  Well back then she was yours for the asking!  And not to pick holes in her appearance or anything, but she does have fewer teeth than before.

St. Agatha:  Never you mind that now.  We all have bodies, we all have curves inside our deshabillé, but if you are to undertake a novitiate with us you’ll find within our walls sanctity and corporeality intermingle.  Bring your agenbite of inwit, but don’t forget your frillies for Raoul, honey, He likes them both.  Now come with me child, that’s a lovely shirt shining beneath your what? But we must get on with dressing each other for the sacrifice.

What the Great Saint Bernard Said

Filled, therefore, with confidence in thy goodness, I fly to thee, O Mother, Virgin of Virgins: to thee I come, before thee I fly a sorrowful sinner.8:29 pm

[Scene:  The Star and Garter Ballroom, Empyrean Building, Holy Mother Public Relations. Mary is irritated, a little drunk, and bathed gloriously in a radiant cloud of flies.  Martha stands defeated with a fly swatter and a can of bug spray.  Miss Bee Honeysuckle nervously buzzes just out of Martha’s reach.]

Mary:  Where the hell is he?

Miss Bee Honeysuckle:  He’s be here soon your virgin worshipfulness, we left at the same time but he had to go back to, well, to compose himself a little.

Mary:  Martha get him on the damn phone.  Compose himself?  I’ll decompose him myself if he doesn’t show up now.

Miss Bee Honeysuckle:  You know how he is, your heavenly motheringness, he doesn’t like crowds.

Mary:  What crowds?  There’s no crowds.  Show me crowds!  Who will come here with all these damn flies.  Martha!

Martha:  I can’t swat them all, Mary, there must be millions of them.  Oh Christ! There’s one on your eye.

[Jesus appears as if from nowhere while Martha swats Mary in the face]

Mary:  Jesus Fucking Christ when will you stop appearing as if from nowhere!

Jesus:  Hey mom, sorry.  Another fly plague?  And who’s that hiding under that table?

Miss Bee Honeysuckle:  [Bright with hope] Oh thank Jesus, you’re here!

Jesus:  No problem.

Mary:  Where?  Bernard, get out from under there you agoraphobic freak!

Miss Bee Honeysuckle:  It’s social anxiety disorder, he can’t help it.  But he’s a brilliant exterminator.

Bernard:  Bee?  is it safe?

Martha:  Bernard get your ass out from under that table and get to work!  None of us can do anything until these flies are cleared out.

Miss Bee Honeysuckle:  [Keeping a nervous distance from Martha] It’s safe enough.

[St Bernard crawls crablike from under the closest table to the door and on sight of Mary vomits on the floor.]

Mary:  Great.  Now we need carpet cleaners too.  Martha?

Martha:  [With a careworn heart, a toiler for her daily bread] I’m on it.

Bernard:  Sorry about that.  Weak stomach.  I’ll need incense.  Lots of it.

Mary:  Jesus?

Jesus:  I only do food, mom.  Wine, fish, bread.

Martha:  Jesus you useless dumbass.

Jesus:  Hey Martha, how’s your sister?

Martha:  She’s out back sucking balls.

Jesus:  Where?  Out back?  Mom, I’ll go look for incense.  Be back in a while.  Soon.  Be back soon.

Mary:  Oh here.  [Mary claps twice.  Incense smoke wafts from all directions.  The flies multiply]

Bernard:  [With a compelling voice and look] Flies, if ye will not hear the church let thee be to thee as the heathen and publican.  Whatsoever you shall bind upon heaven, shall be bound also in the Emperian building; and whatsoever you shall loose upon heaven, shall be loosed also in the Emperian building.  Flies, hear me now.  You shall be excommunicated at once statim, ipso facto.   Res sacræ, ritus, communio, crypta, potestas, prædia sacra, forum, civilia jura vetantur.

[The flies drop instantly to the floor, dead.  At least three inches deep of the bloody things.]

Miss Bee Honeysuckle [eyes wet with contrition]: Oh St. Bernard, you honey sweet teacher!

Mary:  Thanks, Bernard.  Martha, get a shovel.

Bernard:  No, No, Miss Honeysuckle will do clean up.  No extra charge.

A beacon ever to the stormtossed heart of man, Mary, star of the sea.

Qui donc, si ce n'est un homme, vous a mis dans cette fichue position? C'est le pigeon, Joseph.Holy Mother Public Relations
8:00 pm
 

Recording No. 1132.  The memoirs of Mary, Holy Virgin, Mother of God, Star of the Sea, Pillar of Ivory, Mystical Rose, Beloved among Joseph are you recording all that shit?  Holy Je, uh.  Shit!  Can’t say the bloody kid’s name or he shows up every damn time.  Chrackers!  It’s just not the same.  Get on with it for the love of before I forget what I want to say and CEO Holy Mother Public Relations.  Memoir notes.

Mary:  Can you hear me?  Start?  Right.  The rite of Onella, the torch-light.  So he’s ready but you’re not.  And then he thinks, better wait and now you’re in bed with a man holding back for all he’s worth.  Just what we’re looking for from a man, eh chicas?  There he is teetering and then 32 feet per second per second takes over and now he’s falling.  Or he’s in that kairotic sweet spot between potential and kinetic and hey look at me, I’m extending the moment.  Nooooooooooow.  But just for you buddy.  Give me rising, not falling.  So I push and out with him.  Girls, size them up before you let them in your bed, you listening?  Talk to each other, tell your sisters what he does and won’t do. Life is too short to let any cholo climb in your windows just because he looks good and has flowers. Telling you about the motion of the ocean. It’s the size of the wave, girls, and unless you talk to each other, you don’t know what you’re getting.

Joseph:  Mary?  Mary, can you hold off?  For just a minute?  Having some technical difficulties with the equipment.

Mary:  He think’s a minute is enough.

A visit to a house of mourning

Even if the whole universe did not recollapse, there would be singularities in any localized regions that collapsed to form black holes. These singularities would be an end of time for anyone who fell into the black hole. At the big bang and other singularities, all the laws would have broken down, so God would still have had complete freedom to choose what happened and how the universe began.6:07 pm

[Scene:  The lights in the house are down except for one single lit candle sitting comfortably on a stool in the center of the stage.  The candle gives off a darkness shining in brightness which brightness cannot comprehend.]

God [on the god mic]:  Let me ask you this: is there a difference between the world as known by ordinary mortals and what they think might be my world?  Well I’ll tell you, all the world’s a stage.  What’s different from here to then?  It depends on if you think mortality is about duration.  Linear duration.  And if you thus imagine my theatres exist in another kind of time entirely.  Do you think that?  Many have done before you.  Well who am I to say when’s when.  What’s the opposite of a line?  I don’t know.  I guess an all at once condition.  Plenitude of being.  That sort of thing.

Here, I’ll give you a piece of my mind.  Wait.  What?  Aw, Jesus Christ!  What did I say about headset chatter?  Come on.  What did you say?

Jesus [Appears on stage is if from nowhere and talks to the booth]: I said, maybe here is where we should put in that bit about number.  You know, the insertion between acts 1 and 2.

God [on the god mic]:  That?  Come on.  Even the director thinks it’s crap.

[Bird excrement falls from the grid, lands on the candle and puts it out.  A faint but increasing luminosity of ruby light becomes gradually visible].

Jesus:  I get it.  Can we at least try it?  For Bloom’s sake?

God [on the god mic]:  Bloowho?  Oh him!  Yes.  Yeah.  He’s in a bit of a black hole right now.  A dark period of time.  In his world it is between 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm.  He started the day at 8:00 am and went dark at 6:00 pm.

Jesus: Six to eight.  Eight to six.  6 is the number of creation, 8 the number of death.  Symmetry under a cemetery wall.

God [on the god mic]:  Yes.  So it was 10 hours from starting bang to dark period.

Jesus:  The number of unity and perfection.

God: [on the god mic]: This is a one man show, kid.  Yes, unity, perfection.  There’s the 1, the source number which adds to itself and makes all the other numbers, and Queen Zero, the female number, and if I may speak phallically and yonically, just look at them together:  10.  One goes through all the other numbers to join with 0 and she gives birth to the next set of ten.

Jesus:  Ten hours of wandering to get to 6:00, and then two hours go by: the blank period of time.  And then?  And then?

God: [on the god mic]  Don’t interrupt, we’re going here.  Line?

Jesus:  Onan.

God [on the god mic]:  And then he pulls out.  Like Onan.  And is stranded for a time.  For a time.  Line?

Jesus:  For a time starting at 8:00 pm.

God [on the god mic]: For a time starting at 8:00 and following a moving now through linear duration to an end point at line?

Jesus: 2:00 am

God [on the god mic]: 2:00 am.  6 hours.  6 is a revolving sphere so he goes from linearity to oblivion (wilderness) to circularity and then ends up in bed with eternity.  Do people still care about circular numbers?

Jesus:  Hell if I know.

God [on the god mic]: 6 squared is 36, 6 to the third power is 216, 6 to the 4th power is 1296, to the 5th power is 7776, to the 6th power is 46656 and so each and so on to no last term.  The last digit of every one of them is 6.

Jesus:  It circles back to itself.

God [on the god mic]: It circles back to itself.  Mortals get that, right?  This thing is getting too long.

Jesus:  Yeah, we can leave that out.  The six circles fit around one thing too.  Anybody with seven maneuverable circles knows that one.  Goes back to six is the number of creation too.  That whole 6 days thing and on the seventh you rested.

God [on the god mic]:  Yeah right.  I wish I had that much time off!  But there’s no rest for the wicked, eh boy.

Jesus:  You said it.  Should we take it from the top?

Beehives, soupladles, stars, snakes, anvils, boxes of vaseline,

We accept reality so readily -- perhaps because we sense that nothing is real. I asked Argos how much of the Odyssey he knew. He found using Greek difficult; I had to repeat the question. Very little, he replied. Less than the meagerest rhapsode. It has been eleven hundred years since last I wrote it. 5:54 pm

[Scene:  The Star and Garter Ballroom, Empyrean Building, Holy Mother Public Relations.  The party planning committee including Saints Martha, Agatha, Patricia, Augustine, Genevieve, Wenburgh, Cecilia, and the Holy Mother herself, Blessed Virgin, Queen of the Heavens, CEO Holy Mother Public Relations, etc. are preparing for the imminent arrival of what will be possibly most likely perhaps God willing a new saint: Saint (maybe) Ahasuerus.]

Mary [Frazzled] Jesus H Christ, where are Anne and Margaret?  They were supposed to be here a half hour ago with the welcome banners!

Jesus [Appearing suddenly as if from nowhere]:  Mom?

Mary: Holy Christ you scared the bejesus out of me!  What did I tell you about popping in unannounced like that?  I completely forgot what I was doing!  What do you want?

Jesus:  Sorry  Mom, I thought I heard you calling me.

Mary:  Well, you didn’t.  Go back to your father, it’s his week to have you.  Oh, but first, I need you to make some wine.  God I need a drink.  I tried to get some beer out of Amand, but it’s too late in the day to catch him sober.  Best I can hope is he doesn’t vomit on the guest of honor.

Jesus:  Who is it this time?

Mary:  Ahasuerus.

Jesus:  That guy?  I thought he was supposed to wander the earth until I returned.

Mary:  Well, there’s a chance he’s coming today, dead or not, unless it’s some sort of mistake.  He’s got some tunnel visioned meat head after him who’s getting ready to crack his head open with a biscuit tin, but that’s if he has the depth perception for it.  Personally I don’t want him here, I could do without yet another one of these enormous parties.  I’ve got Agatha and Patricia fighting over command of the kitchen and that sour bitch Martha complaining about both of them.  Look, here she comes.

Jesus:  Speak of the devil.

Martha:  Hey Jesus.  Mary, I could really use some help in there.  Why am I always the one stuck in the kitchen doing everything?  Patricia is beyond useless and I’d give my left breast to get Agatha to shut up about the Glencree dinner already.

Mary:  What are Margaret and Anne doing?  Aren’t they in there with you?

Martha:  Mina Purefoy went into labor and called on both of them.  They’ll be with her for days.

Mary:  Both?  Well get Aquinas then, where the hell is he?

Martha:  That fat ass?  He’s in the kitchen, but he’s eating everything in sight: loaves, hogs, stags’ horns, hawks, eyes on a dish, unicorns.  I have Wenburgh  in there resurrecting what she can, but I still have to cook it all over again.  And how do you resurrect a seed cake?

Jesus:  Yeah, that’s not easy.

Mary:  Well, Genevieve is working on the look of the room, I’ve got Fiacre on flowers and Cecilia is handling music.  You can have Amand, but he’s shitfaced drunk.

Martha:  Yeah, great.  Thanks.  Might as well give me a swarm of locusts or a rain of frogs for all the good he’ll do me.

Jesus:  Maybe we can delay Ahasaures’ arrival somehow?  You don’t want him here anyway, do you Mom?

Mary:  Oh Christ no.

Martha:  Really?  Oh that would be great.  I hear he’s bad news anyway.  Uses his wife to help him cheat at cards.  Son of a grifter too, who defrauded a bunch of people with unsecured loans before he killed himself.

Fiacre: [Carrying an enormous bunch of aconite]  Oooh, who are we talking about, Ahasuerus?  I heard that he won buckets of money on a horse race, and then refused to buy a round at the bar.  What a cheap ass.  Cute as a shit house rat too.

Mary:  All right, think.  What do we do to buy some time?

Jesus:  Who’s the one going to throw the biscuit tin?  We can mess with his aim.

Martha:  Good idea.  Maybe we can blind him?

Mary:  Well I can’t spare Genevieve, she’s up to her tits in work getting this place decorated.

Jesus:  What about Nicholas and Anthony?  Nick can steal his glasses and Anthony can hide them.

Mary:  That might do it.  Jesus, you find them and get them on it asap.  Martha, get your ass back into the kitchen.  I’ll see if your sister can help.

Martha:  Fat chance.

Jesus:  No. She doesn’t need to be here.

Martha:  See.

Mary:  And Jesus, get back to your father after you find Tony and Nick.  I can’t have him bitching to the lawyers again about me violating his visitation rights.  Costs me a fortune every time.

They didn’t want that kind of talk in a respectable licensed premises.

Poor Joseph, God is a hard act to follow.5:13 pm

[Scene: Just after hours at the offices of Holy Mother Public Relations, Empyrean Building, Conference room whatsits. You know the one. Near whatdoyoucallhim. Around the ideal form of a conference room table sit Cassandra, Lizzy Twigg, Māyā, Banba, Jupiter, Mars, and Paddy Dignam. Mary, known to the world as the Holy Mother of God, Holy Virgin of virgins, Mother of Christ, Mother of the Church, Mother of divine grace, Mother most pure, Mother most chaste, Mother inviolate, Mother undefiled, Mother most amiable, Mother most admirable, Mother of good counsel, Mother of our Creator, Mother of our Savior, Virgin most prudent, Virgin most venerable, Virgin most renowned, Virgin most powerful, Virgin most merciful, Virgin most faithful, Mirror of justice, Seat of wisdom, Cause of our joy, Spiritual vessel, Vessel of honor, Singular vessel of devotion, Mystical rose, Tower of David, Tower of ivory, House of gold, Ark of the covenant, Gate of heaven, Morning star, Health of the sick, Refuge of sinners, Comforter of the afflicted, Help of Christians, Queen of angels, Queen of patriarchs, Queen of prophets, Queen of apostles, Queen of martyrs, Queen of confessors, Queen of virgins, Queen of all saints, Queen conceived without original sin, Queen assumed into heaven, Queen of the most holy Rosary, Queen of families, Queen of peace, and CEO of Holy Mother Public Relations Inc., is standing at the door irritated as it is enough already with the honorifics so just shut up for the love of Christmas and let her call it a day already.]

Mary: Ok, so.

Lizzie Twigg: [Effusively] Holy Mary, Mother of God, Blessed art thou among

Mary: Yes, Yes. Well. If you have all that you need I’ll just be

Lizzie Twig: Yes I think so. Would be nice if the light was a bit more ruby in color, but can’t have

Mary: Oh please, there are bigger disappointments to contend with. Believe me, I know all too well. Lighting is nothing. Thy will be done.

[Increasing luminosity of ruby light becomes gradually visible]

Lizzie Twigg: Thanks! That’s wonderful, thank you so much, blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy

Mary: [Exiting] Yes, great. Leaving. If I have to hear again about my fruitful womb I’ll rip it out myself and slap somebody with it, I swear to God I will.

Cassandra: Thank Jupiter she’s gone!

Jupiter: You’re welcome.

Cassandra: I’ve been dying to vent about her idiot son, thank Jupiter you thought of borrowing this room Lizzie, I don’t think I could stand another séance with Jesus as Stage Manager.

Jupiter: You’re welcome. Assistant Stage Manager. Is that why we aren’t on God’s stage?

Lizzie Twigg: Amen Cassandra. And Jupiter, well, that whole issue is better left unsaid for now. So, let’s get on with it then. We might need to change our placement around the table. Mars, Jupiter, you are sitting on the wrong side of Māyā.

Cassandra: Agreed. They are making mischief with the vibrations.

Māyā: मय सोन इस अन एक्ष्केल्लेन्त स्तगे मनगेर.

Mars: [Combative] But Buddha’s not Equity.

Banba: Krak!

Cassandra: Banba, that’s really unhelpful. Not that it matters, this séance isn’t going to work. Can you please return to human form so we can get on with it.

Banba: [Shedding black feathers everywhere and reappearing as a hag in a red cloak with red eyebrows and wailing.] Fine. But when you need somebody to fly through mirrors or some other nonsense don’t come flapping to me.

Paddy Dignam: [Only partially aware of his surroundings] Who are you people? What the hell is this? Did that bloody bird just turn into a woman?

Cassandra: Relax honey, you’re dead. It will be ok.

Paddy Dignam: Who’s dead? I’m no more dead than you are.

Cassandra: Oh sweetheart, believe me, you’ve kicked the bucket. You’re dead. You have ceased to be. You have shuffled off this mortal coil. You’re gone. Bereft of life. Resting in peace. Defunct. Deceased. Belly up. Worm food. Pushing up daisies. History. Passed over, on, and away. Expired. Croaked. Departed. Snuffed it. Bit it. Met your maker. Crossed over. Bought the farm. Checked out. Perished. Cut off. Extinct. Lifeless. Liquidated. Honey, they took the liberty of burying your body about six feet under and it’s currently being eaten by rats.

Banba: Decomposing nicely, I gather.

Māyā: हे इस सुफ़्फ़ेरिन्ग उन्देर अन इल्लुसिओन्. मय्बे गिवे हिं सोमेथिन्ग तो द्रिन्क ?

Cassandra: Would you like something to drink?

Paddy Dignam: Buttermilk

Māyā: दिस्गुस्तिन्ग.

Cassandra: Jupiter?

Jupiter: Son?

Mars: [Producing buttermilk] Here you go, you pansy.

Lizzie Twigg: Ok, people, can we get on with it. Banba, you can be a raven if you want, I don’t think it will disrupt the séance.

Banba: Krak!

Lizzie Twigg: Right. So we are making another attempt to bring back AE. He resurrected himself too long ago now for anybody’s comfort and he must be decomposing badly by now. Also, knowing him, he has plans to disrupt the great divide between the living and, well, us.

Cassandra: The dead.

Paddy Dignam: [Flabbergasted] I beg your parsnips, I’m not dead.

Cassandra: Yes, you are dead.

Paddy Dignam: I’m not!

Cassandra: Fine, don’t believe me. Whatever. Om Mani Padme Hum.

Lizzie Twigg: So the idea is to develop a window to the other side, so we might see AE as if in a mirror dimly, and perhaps persuade him to come back. Mr. Dignam here being newly deceased

Paddy Dignam: I’m not dead!

Lizzie Twigg: Being newly deceased Mr. Dignam will have a particularly lifelike etheric double, so he might be able to speak most clearly to AE and relay a message from us. Ideally we would need the finest man, with the finest purest character, the noblest, the truest.

Cassandra: But Dignam will have to do.

Lizzie Twigg: Well, yes. So, Cassandra, are you ready?

Cassandra: [While fluttering her hands] Oh AE, returned falsely to mortal haunts, sun of our morning, fleet be your foot on the bracken: AE of the beamy brow. Wail Banba with the wind.

Banba: Krak!

Māyā: लूक, अ दिं मिर्रोर, इ सी हिं !

Lizzie Twigg: AE! Ok, Mr. Dignam, stick your head in there and tell him to come back!

Cassandra: We call upon the etheric double of Paddy Dignam to speak his message to the living.

Paddy Dignam: [Inserting his head into the mirror] Alf! Alf Bergan! If you see my son tell him my boots are behind the commode!

Cassandra: Oh Christ, haul him back in. I told you this wouldn’t work.

Decoy. Soft Word. But look: the bright stars fade.

No life on earth can be hid from our dreaming.3:45 pm

[Scene: Lidia Doce y Mina Kennedy are hiding behind their bar counter drinking maté]
 
Allegretto
 

Lidia Doce:  Carajo como jodes!  What the hell’d you do that for?

Mina Kennedy:  Is that really a sunburn?  You just look darker brown.

Lidia:  Yes it’s a goddamn sunburn, what do you think?

Mina:  I don’t know, you just don’t look very red.  Oh wait, those are blisters.

Lidia:  Estupida gringa.  Burns only look red on pink people.  Hands to yourself.  Now, let’s pick some music, lure them into our green mirror.  Maybe some old chicha or cumbia, or reggaeton?

Mina:  More of that Peruvian crap?  Maybe later.  How about this:

 

Lidia:  Why this?  Purple.  What does purple have to do with anything?

Mina:  Nothing.

Lidia:  Perfect.  Anything, nothing, doesn’t matter.  We’ll say what we’ll say.

Mina:  Right.  The material is immaterial.  Besides, if you want purple, look around.  Look out that window:  Ned Lambert, Maginni, Boylan, Molly’s garters.

Lidia:  You been looking up her dress?

Mina:  Of course.  I look everywhere.  So do you.

Lidia:  Fine.  Fair enough.  I don’t even know what the damn song is about but whatever, we’ll use it.  Ok.  So.  Yeah.  Ha.   4/4 time signature.  Simple, common, and imperfect.  Perfect.

Mina:  We’ll divide it into 16 parts, obviously.

Lidia:  Obviously.  La la la la la lah.

Mina:  Then we stretch it, say 16 days.  Symmetry.  See what that gets us.

Lidia:  How does that get us anything?  Your helmet blocking your brain?

Mina:  It’s a matter of time.

Lidia:  That’s better.  Tempo.  Let’s tell some time.  And Mina, try to look human this time.  We don’t want them knowing we’re.

Mina: Yeah, no we don’t.

Lidia:  Ready?  Cleave!

A star, a daystar, a firedrake, rose at his birth.

O, there be players that I have seen play -- and heard others praise, and that highly -- not to speak it profanely, that neither having th' accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made man, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. 2:40 pm

[Scene:  Empty theatre.  The stage manager is sitting in the house seats next to the director, who is eating seeds from a broad silver and gilt bowl.]

God:  List.  You hear that?  Must be seventy people out there.  Jesus!  Jesus Christ!  Where the hell is he?  [on the god mic] Jesus!

Jesus: [Materializes suddenly behind God, startling the director who flies up into the grid, landing on a downstage line set.] God damn it, it’s a mess out there.  Actors are showing up before their check in times, and without their sides.  We ran out of extras and I’m

God:  Can’t you just make more?

Jesus:  I’m not a miracle worker!

God:  Well, how did you do that water into wine thing?

Jesus:  Never mind that.  What’s going on in here?  Whose bright idea was it to hire a bird to be the director?

God: Oh please let’s not get into that.  The whole Arian thing and the meetings in Nicaea and Constantinople, the Nestorian business.  It’s in our contract.  We’re stuck with him, and he likes to be a dove so what can we do?  Anyway, I’m not entirely sure, but I think he’s ready to see the Bella Cohens.  Anybody promising?

Jesus:  Let’s see.  A  bunch of girls who had decent to middling parts in The Tempest, Pericles, Winter’s Tale.

God:  Too young.

Jesus:  Well, Cleopatra is out there.

God: Who?

Jesus:  Fleshpot of Egypt.  Also Cressida and Venus.

God:  Venus might work, but she’s a big star.  Can we afford her?  And is she willing to do drag?

Jesus:  Probably not.  Will do nudity though, she’s naked now.  And she’s not really a star.  She’s flaming out.  Also, we have a crowd of people out there claiming to be Shakespeare’s relations. Brothers, mother.

God:  Mother?  Mary Arden?  Can she act?  Would she be a good Bella?

[Bird droppings fall from above.]

God:  Fine, we’ll tell Mary we’re going another way.  Jesus, send in Venus.  And warn her she might want to put some clothes on, the director is in a temper.

A maid of honour with a scandalous girlhood.

Do you know what you are talking about? Love, yes. Word known to all men. Amor vero aliquid alicui bonum vult unde et ea quae concupiscimus ...2:20 pm

Scene: [Hallway.  On the way to gym class just after second period.]

Miranda:  What a bitch!  I hope she get preeclampsia.

Marina:  And stretch marks!  Well it’s her fault.  Now she can’t party anymore; has to sit at home waiting for her baby.  Stupid.  Dumb.  I was untied yet still my virgin knot I kept.

Miranda:  Yeah right.

Perdita:  Flash!  That which was lost can’t be given back.  Just sayin.  Where did you have it done?

Marina:  Planned Parenthood.  I saw Ophelia there too!  Crying her head off over Hamlet.  It was so awkward and weird.

Perdita:  No way, did she say anything to you?

Marina:  Naw.  She was so trippin’, singing to herself about let in a maid then out a maid never departed more.  Craazee!

Miranda:  So anyway, Imogen knows we’ve been talking about her.  I heard her say to Ophelia she heard we called her a strumpet.

Marina:  That’s so random.  I didn’t think they were friends.  Don’t they hate each other?

Miranda:  Frenemies.

Perdita:  Well, we’ll be living the high life and Imogen won’t be able to fit into her prom dress.  Ha!

Miranda: All the more she seeks to hide herself the bigger bulk she shows!

Marina:  Epic fail!

Perdita: Totally.  So here’s the note I’m giving to Florizel.  I need to know what he thinks about the word known to all men.  When should I give it to him?