Finny-stitch & Ed : an all-purpose text  

             A banal oak table stands stark and sharply anachronistic in the perfect center of empty space : represented by a featureless flattened landscape of coarse grey gravel. Three enormous suns scorch the landscape.
             No movement of air.
             All sense of time - suspended; the atmosphere itself is ethereal fermeldayhde.
             Hunched over the table, under multiple layers of shapeless black wool, is Ed. His face is mime white, inscribed with Harlequin lines and diamonds.
             Arranged before him are three platters : coal, steel wool, & broken glass.
             A fork hovers before Ed`s mouth; chrystaline shards spill from the edges and onto his robes. The insertion and retraction is enacted between red lips. Jaws go about their work: ( the sound of glass shattering ). A mixture of spittle and blood trickles from the corner of his mouth, down the chin, and drips in slow motion to the tabletop.
             A piece of coal stuffed into the mouth : ( sounds of breaking porceline ). A fork full of steel wool hovers before broken teeth , tongue snakes hungrily over quivering lips. Pause, and then bitten : ( the sound of grinding stee l).
             Ed stares at nothing in particular.

Ed : Filing the edges from my teeth whats best. Yes. Mash peas yet but nothing torn. Nice, Nice, no more vulgar cutting things, but sharpen my tongue maybe. A spear tip or maybe silence whats better. Yes, nice, no more words now but whats been said. No ears either to pick up on quiet. Ah, that`s wrong : bigger ears maybe, to listen to sea shell oceans from fifty feet or the little sound of eyelash brushing. What`s best?

             Another mouthful of glass : Ed glazed and ponderous
             Bits of gravel before the table roll away.

             A female figure dressed in a blue ball gown sprouts from the gorund, spinning, arms crossed across her chest, blonde braids jutting out from the force of the turning. Fully revealed, the spinning ceases, braids cascade over pale shoulders, and Columbina's mask faces Ed.

FS : Are you the one they called?
Ed : No, no, I`m the one they call Ed.

             Crimson puddle congeals silently on the table.

FS : Oh, of course . (she curtseys and belches - a white gloved hand moves swiftly to her red lips. A chair suddenly appears. She sits. Ed swallows another mouthful of steel wool.) Ed: And you?
FS : Finny-Stitch, they tell me, but one can never be sure. Do you mind if I sit down?
Ed : Oh no, of course not.

Silent expectation.
Ed chews coal as bloody spittle streams.

FS : You must be careful with your health Ed. Don`t forget oranges, vitamins, and eight glasses of water. You can`t live forever on steel wool and glass : it`s all texture and no nutrition.
Ed : You must admit : I look so very noble mashing iron filings between silver fillings.
FS : But. how does it taste?
Ed : Like shrapnel dusted with powdered sugar.
FS : Is that good?
Ed : (shrugs ) Doesn`t matter, as long as I look courageous clutching my guts during the hemmorage.
FS  : Oh, yes! Like christ-on-the-cross! Only. sitting down, and wearing a much more amusing expression.
Ed : Clowns and corpses have much in common : crossed eyes, tongues lolling out.
FS : Faces powder white!
Ed : An expression preserved in formaldahyde.

             Both figures are suddenly naked - excepting painted faces and Finny-Stitch`s white gloves. Time elape of grass erecting its cells thru the gravel landscape. Blood puddle evaporates into steam; the three suns move into one another, amalgamating into a single orb. The distant landscape rises like a breath-filled breast, freezing into rolling hills.
              The table vanishes : opposing chairs draw closer together : a pull focus shift of setting. Finny-stitch reaches out and caresses Ed`s cheek.

FS : How do I know you?
Ed : You are my mother, maybe?
FS : Sister, perhaps .
Ed : Could you be my daughter?
FS : Your wife seems more likely.

Leaping to their feet in unison, they embrace, covering one another in desperate kisses.

FSEd : YES!
FS : I love you, Ed .
Ed : And I you, Finny-Stitch .

The desert fades into an average kitchen : refrigerator, sink, a vase of wilted daisies. Finny-Stitch wears a summer dress; Ed wears a simple black tshirt and jeans.

FS : Why do you think that is?
Ed : You`ve got me.
FS : Do you doubt that I do?
Ed : It`s easier if I don`t.
FS : Ed?
Ed : Yes?
FS : What is love?
Ed : A spice of strongly aromatic and very intenseve fragrance, with a fiery and burning taste. often used in sweet goods, sauces, and casseroles.
FS : Those are cloves, Ed .
Ed : Oh, Then I have no idea. But I am certain I love cloves.
FS : Shhhhhhhh..
Ed : What?
Fs : Do you smell that?
Ed : Rank!
FS : No, not at all.
Ed : Oh.
FS : I recognize the scent.

             Finny-Stitch and Ed now stand at the base of a thundering emerald waterfall. All is the earthy texture of cliff, and the vibrant greens of rich vegetation. They are dressed in animal skins and floral garlands.

FS : Its uncertainty .
Ed : (sniffs the air) Sickly sweet, a mixture of carrion and cranberries. My mouth waters, even as my stomach wretches. Do you hear that?
FS : What is it?
Ed : It's the unknown, lurking in our perifrial!
FS : I think I saw it!
Ed : What did It look like?
FS : Well, it was big.
Ed : Yes, Yes!
FS : It didn`t have any eyes..
Ed : Maybe you just saw the ass end.
FS : O, wait.
Ed : What?
FS : Maybe it wasn`t the unkown.
Ed : What was it?
FS : A whatchyamacallit. oh. Cardboard box.
Ed : How can you confuse the two?
FS : Well, have you ever seen the unkown?
Ed : Well, no.
FS : Then for all we know it does look like a cardboard box. Or a 1968 Caddilac convertible. Or a lemur in heat. Maybe it's a smell even - like gunsmoke lingering over a battlefield. Or the sound of eardrums bursting. Maybe it looks like a shadow at night.
Ed : I`m sure its shape will suggest a smirking.
FS : Well, don`t go running after it like last time .
Ed : I was sure I captured it!
FS : And, alas, it turned out to be me.
Ed : Who woulda thought it?

             The cliffs have been bleached of all color, slow fade into blank monolithic builduing faces of urban decay. Patches of moss become unlit windows, the waterfall fades into empty space between two buildings.
              Finny-Stitch and Ed are seated on a wellworn bench, marked with carved-initials and half torn band stickers.
             Both are dressed in bland winter outerwear - toques, mittens, and heavy winter jackets.

FS  : What do you see when you look at that tree?
Ed : The streetlights shining behind it. You?
FS : The raw red skin of a scraped knee, age nine; my grandfathers funeral, apple pie, the lynching of an innocent black man in South Dakota 1842, 10,000 heads bowed in prayer, a plastic skeleton in a med school classroom, the brain stem, the leather skin pulled across the think skull of an elderly bedoin woman.
Ed : And when you look at one leaf?
FS : Streetlights turning from green to yellow to red.and you ?
ED : Overthrown light from the windows beyond it.
FS : Hmmm. (pause)
ED : Leaves certainly are beautiful.
FS : Why do you say that?
ED : Because I had to say something.
FS : Oh Ed, you`re so terribly clever!
Ed  : Thank you.
FS : It`s repulsive.
Ed : Oh.
FS : Why can`t you be more tragic?
Ed : Repulsive cleverness is rather tragic - especially if it refers to me.

             Finny-stitch shrinks slowly. Ed now stands eight inches taller than she. They wear dazzling vegas magician stagewear.

FS  : I must admit something.
Ed : Is it - (touches his temples as though reading her mind) that you are not my idea of you?
FS : Yes, exactly! But no, not at all.
Ed : Is it (repeats the action) that you are not your idea of you?
FS : Yes, exactly! But no, not at all.
Ed : Is it. the ace of spades?
FS : (reaching into her cleavage, withdrwing a playing card) Yes, exactly! But no, not at all.
Ed  : Is it an oblong organ, larger than my heart but smaller than my brain?
FS  : Your liver? No, no, not at all, but yes! Exactly! I must admit that I cannot always follow the trail your words break once the blizzard of your thinking`s passed.
Ed : Is that a problem?
FS : No, not at all, but absolutely, yes. My toes are so numb that my dancing is clumsy .

             Ed is now dressed in dapper nineteenth century gentleman`s wear, complete with bowler cap and cane. Finny is dressed in the street urchin rags haunting the pen of Victor Hugo..
              The monacle drops from Ed`s eye
Ed  : So it's a problem then.
FS : I must go and find myself a technicolor sunset. this city is an arabesque of broken images, and my mind becomes as such the longer I remain within it. I can no longer look in a styraight line, much less walk or think one. I must go. smoke and vermin have filled all my crevices. I need to feel empty again.
Ed  : This is exciting! When does our ship sail?

             Ed fades from the scene, and is transposed on the cityscape - he appears as the entire background. Two office buildings are the lines of his shirt sleeves. his eyes are two lit-up 32 nd floor skyscraper windows, eight blocks apart, a line of illuminated christmas lights strung across the top of a stout building define the teeth of his mouth.
              Finny-stitch is a sillhouette, surrounded in light spilling from a doorway.

FS : Ed.the ponds and parks and slants of rooftops are not the city.neither the blab of the pavement or the scratched lottery tickets that blow throught the streets. These are but things, and things are nothing but things, do you understand?

Ed`s voice is a distant train whistle.

Ed : No.
FS : The smell of hand in hand fresh bread in a light Sunday morning drizzle outside of Alberto`s deli, 6am. The ledge around the 9 th street abandoned reformatory where you first slickened my thighs with lust. do you understand? Things are nothing, it's the history of things that adhere and sting.

             Ed is seated in the bland gravel desert again, with flecks of dried blood on his chin, slouched beneath the weight of his heavy black robes.
              Finny stitch is dressed again in the blue ballgown. She stares at him expectantly. He smashes glass between his teeth.

Ed : I understand.
FS : Understand what, Ed?
Ed : Our story has been a well constructed sentence; a period, a page turned, another chapter beginning.
FS : No exclamations, wuestions, or continuations.
Ed : All we`ve done is contained with parentheses.
FS : Is this goodbye then?
Ed : Yes.

             Two suitcases have appeared behind Finny-Stitch.. Undergarments arnd silk linen burst form the line where the two halves meet. She takes two steps.
              They stand in a sparsely decorated room - a few wooden chairs, a portrait, empty wine bottles tipped over on the floor.
             Finny-stitch is moving towards the door.

Ed : Finny, I love you .
FS : What is love, Ed?
Ed : Eighteen beers, six whiskeys, a pack of cigarettes, a piss stain on your leg, a black eye, teardrops.
FS : That`s loss, Ed.
Ed : Oh.
FS  : Or unemployment .
Ed : Good point.
FS : Or winning the lottery.
Ed : I see what you`re saying. No, I don`t know what it is.
FS  : Goodbye.
Ed : Wait!
FS : What?
Ed : I tried to hang myself last night.
FS : And?
Ed  : And.then I threw myself from a mile high bridge.

             Finny-Stitch sets her bags down.

FS : That`s sweet!
Ed : Finny. I`m tired of buttoning and unbottoning. sick of breathing in, because the btreath out always follows.

             Ed now stands alone in a crowd of two dimensional cut out figures - all expressions caught in gross merriment, dressed in hawaiian shirts. Ed wears an eighteenth century straight jacket, arms latched to his side.

Ed  : I`m tired of sleeping, because I always wake up, and I`m tired of waking because sleep always follows. I`m exhausted with loving , because loneliness follows, sick of loneliness because love comes on its heels, nauseated by beginnings that end and begin again.

             One cardboard figure animates : It is Finny-stitch.

FS : But this is the pulse! Our arteries, stories, all history, seasons, blossoms, the beatitudes, the swallow and belch.
Ed : Then I`ll never do anything again. No more opposites. No unbreathing, no more sleep. Even if I must shoot arrows into the sun to pin it to the sky, I`ll keep it from setting. If I must stand at the ocean`s edge with a bucket, scooping, I`ll keep the tide from ever coming in! I will throw my bones into the universal clockwork and cause the cosmos to grind to a stop! I refuse to let us wind down Finny-stitch! I will freeze us in this frame.

             Finny stitch flickers into static, like a half received television transmission.

FS : Ed, its already happened. I`m over the horizon. you`re making love to my echo. an after image. the scent of perfume lingering in an empty room. if you stop time, even the echo will vanish.
Ed : This is too much. I need something to balance out the seriousness of everything.
FS : How about I describe to you the color red?

             Ed and Finny-Stitch lay on a four-post bed. Ed is a child, Finny is stretched maternally beside him.

Ed : Ok.
FS : Well, it can be bright or not .
Ed : What does it taste like?
FS : Strawberies, teeth freshly fallen out, licorice - the taste of the mouth itself.
Ed : What does sound like?
FS : Firetruck sirens, orgasmic gasps, rusty tricycle squeals, the quiet brush of rose petal -on-petal unfolding, the smack of a hand on a toddler`s ass, exploding stars singing subatomic lovesongs.
Ed : Is it pleasant?
FS : Well, it`s not unpleasant.
Ed : mmmmm.
FS : Are you sleepy yet?
Ed : Mmmhmmm.

             Back in the desert, Ed is sleeping face down in the platter of broken glass. Finny-stitch is in the flattened distance growing ever smaller.

FS  : Wherever I stop I`ll leave your weight in the salt of dried teardrops.
Ed; (mumbling in his sleep) Poke out the eyes may be what`s best. Map the memories, master them, no more nothing news. Be done with undoesn`ts, quit the blackened mathmatic. Grow more eyes on the inside, maybe, that`s what`s best. or not. It`s hard to tell.
FS : Don`t take anything too seriously except for good humour.
Ed : No more of the blackened mathematics of add and subtract, yes that's what`s best.
FS : And don`t forget - eight glasses of water a day!
Ed : Like measles and money in the bank, it`s always like that. Always like that, measles and money in the bank.

             Unfocus and pull back until the desert appears as a liver spot on an old man`s forehead. He pulls out his false teeth, and turns out the light.

 

© 2006 c t staples