CAST

IDIOT GIRL

MOON

DOGS

SCENE: A vast wasteland.

MOON: Idiot Girl, you have fallen from the sky.

(IDIOT GIRL stands from where she lay on the dirt. Hearing the MOON’s voice, she looks at her surroundings: a desert speckled with strange plants, which cast fingered shadows in the moonlight. Far off, the impression of abandoned buildings on the horizon.)

IDIOT GIRL: Dear Moon! I am somewhere far, hot, the smell of dying.

MOON: Blown away from the grasp of your father, the weight of you so light a breeze could lift you, discard you so far away.

IDIOT GIRL: I search, I search for my memories, but cannot find them. How did I come to this place?

(She pulls at her dark hair, trying to think, but her mind is empty. Her white dress is too big and torn.)

MOON: A swarm of dogs approaches, dust and fur.

(DOGS appear in the distance, but IDIOT GIRL cannot see them yet.)

DOGS: Where did she come from, that nasty? Falls from the sky like a rat. Want to eat her, won’t be enough.

MOON: (remembering other nights) Girls in their bones hold a history of escape.

IDIOT GIRL: In my bones, I knew I had to run away. But now I cannot remember from what.

(The DOGS’ paws tread on garbage and desert dirt and rotting wood and feces as they approach her.)

DOGS: Fell into our desert, that nasty. No food here, no wine, no people to give us their houses. Gone now, the taste of their stories stale on our teeth.

(IDIOT GIRL sees the DOGS now. They are getting closer. They are unlike any dogs she’s seen before, tufts of hair missing on their faces, clefted noses, disgusting. The world grown strange, she turns away from them, straining to think.)

IDIOT GIRL: This cannot be a dream, since in my dreams I know who I am...

(Now that the DOGS are so close to her, they see her like this: a young woman in a white dress standing alone in the moonlight, soft skinned, mouth open with an expression that they don’t try to understand. She could be anything they’ve always wanted. Their desire reminds them of all their woes.)

DOGS: When we sleep, we stir our paws in the leaves, always dreaming the same dreams.

IDIOT GIRL: ...And yet, this howling is so familiar.

DOGS: (still lamenting) Nothing to eat but each other, we know nothing but ourselves.

MOON: Idiot Girl, the dogs hunger to know anything but each other.

DOGS: We’ll rip her apart. She could be a bed not dirt, a brush not ticks, a caress not a car smashing our heads. 

(IDIOT GIRL parts her way through the DOGS, who are frozen in a reverie of desire. She approaches a shadowy mass in the landscape, obscured in the moonlight. Maybe it’s a house. When she reaches it, it’s just a giant shrub. She’s confused. She grows increasingly distressed.)

IDIOT GIRL: Wherever I run, my memories disappear. Like a plastic bag, discarded on the ocean roadway.

MOON: (warning her) Idiot Girl, perhaps you wish not to remember.

(Hearing the MOON, the DOGS fall out of their reverie. They spot her near the shrubs and run toward her with new energy.)

IDIOT GIRL: I hear them howling, wanting, longing. Who can I possibly be to their hunger?

MOON: (gently) Your whole life you have never looked like so many possibilities.

(IDIOT GIRL sees them coming and turns to run. In the moonlight, she is a white speck moving alone in the darkness. Perhaps over there, far on the horizon, there might be a house, a beach, a beautiful view. But what hope is there in a place like this? She’s trapped. The DOGS have her surrounded. They move in with open mouths.)

IDIOT GIRL: They pounce upon me, like wet kisses on a hand that pulls away.

DOGS: Opening up your body, our world gets bigger. We remember your past.

MOON: Idiot Girl, do you hear your memories now? Listen.

(All begin to recount IDIOT GIRL’s memories.)

IDIOT GIRL & MOON: The pull past the desert mountain ocean cloud, far back, to the old feeling…

DOGS: Delicious!

IDIOT GIRL & MOON: …of having a mother.

DOGS: The thickness of you, wrapped bones, not much meat.

IDIOT GIRL & MOON: (IDIOT GIRL closes her eyes, the feel of this memory so sweet in her chest) The love of her belly, the curve of her love.

IDIOT GIRL: (the memory darkens and she deflates) From white to gray to dying.

DOGS: The bones of girls tell a history.

IDIOT GIRL: Wherever I run…

IDIOT GIRL & MOON: No choice but to escape.

DOGS: Delicious, the feeling…

IDIOT GIRL: …of having a friend.

MOON: The two of you walking alone at night.

IDIOT GIRL: (lighting up again with joy) Just a few nights ago, we danced at a party full of strangers in costume. Not a care in the dark, we left that place, went for a linked-arm stroll. How nice to walk free beneath city lights. We said our goodbyes, I went home, and my father proved that this feeling could not last.

DOGS: Delicious, a father…

IDIOT GIRL: …saying he loves me.

MOON: (worried) Idiot Girl…

IDIOT GIRL: (angry now) Saying he wants me!

DOGS & MOON: “You are more beautiful than your mother,” he said.

IDIOT GIRL: He pulled me out of my party dress, and into this white one. I can see now, the view from the window where he stood me in plain sight.

DOGS & MOON: To show you to the world.

IDIOT GIRL: Empty houses and driveways, no one to look inside my home and help me.

MOON: When he went for champagne, you ran, you flew…

IDIOT GIRL & MOON: (both recall this memory with amazement) …Took the ocean cloud roadway…

IDIOT GIRL: Up there, I could see everything.

DOGS: (continuing to eat her) Continents moving beneath you, mountains ridging all the way towards us.

IDIOT GIRL: People down there looking up, disbelieving.

DOGS & MOON: Idiot Girl, floating in the sky.

(IDIOT GIRL, feeling that flight, holds this memory until she remembers the sudden drop, falling, landing in this desert. Gasping, she opens her eyes again and takes stock of her surroundings as the dogs continue eating her.)

IDIOT GIRL: The moon is so bright tonight, and I long for a friend.

DOGS: Delicious!

IDIOT GIRL: We would run through this desert, laughing about every hand far below that reached up for us, and found nothing but air.

DOGS: (Taking delight in every bite) The curve of her belly, the love of her throat.

MOON: Idiot Girl, your bones tell a history I do not wish to remember again, again.

(The MOON lowers itself onto the horizon, turning away from the scene below as it has always done.)

Music stops. Light on IDIOT GIRL. We can no longer see the DOGS.

IDIOT GIRL: They are inside me, Father, sniffing my bones, pawing at my lungs. You must still be looking for me, calling me a fool for leaving you. And it’s true! I am an idiot girl, unrecognizable in this animal skin, this moonlight, these bones. Is this what it takes, Father, is this what it takes to be known?