Alaina HAMMOND

MARA ROSE, 30s

JOSHUA, her husband, 30s

CHORUS 1 and CHORUS 2: Any age or gender. 

Setting: An empty stage, populated only by the actors. 

The dialogue takes place in MARA ROSE’s mind.  When writing to JOSHUA, she speaks directly to the audience. The shifts in time can be depicted by changes in light, or just the actors’ body language. The CHORUS can speak from a distance or more closely interact with MARA ROSE and JOSHUA, to the director’s discretion. The pace should be quick, the dialogue at times overlapping with only a few significant pauses.

MARA ROSE: To my nearby darling: Today is the first Valentine’s Day since we met…wherein we’ll not be in each other’s arms. 

JOSHUA: When you’re away, please write to me. Letters from my Valentine will speed my heart, and warm me.

MARA ROSE: Words drawn on paper are too remote, not real the way your touch is. I need your body beside mine!

JOSHUA: Wrong. You need nothing, outside yourself.

MARA ROSE: Perhaps, maybe not. I’ll miss you till I ache.

JOSHUA: I feel the same, my love. Aches heal. You’ll heal.

CHORUS 1: Heal.

CHORUS 2: Ache.

MARA ROSE: This place—

CHORUS 1 and CHORUS 2: St. Vincent’s Rehabilitation Facility.

MARA ROSE: This place is so pretty.  On the outside, at least. But still I grind my teeth with my fellow inmates.

CHORUS 1: What a miserable vacation this is!

CHORUS 2: I need a drink!

CHORUS 1: Miserable!

CHORUS 2: Drink!

JOSHUA: It’s not so bad, my Darling Mara Rose. You’ll see. The days will fly by.

CHORUS 1 and CHORUS 2: Ha!

CHORUS 1: Does he not know how long a dry day lasts?

CHORUS 2: Tick. Eternity. Tock.

JOSHUA: There must be at least three heated pools here.

MARA ROSE: Good. Maybe if I drink enough chlorinated water, I’ll black out till my time is done.

JOSHUA: Don’t joke about that!

MARA ROSE: At least my humor’s dry.

CHORUS 1: Black humor. 

CHORUS 2: Bitter ale.

JOSHUA: Yes, Honey. That’s the “spirit.”

MARA ROSE: Sorry, I don’t mean to “wine.”

JOSHUA: I could trade sober barbs with you all day.

MARA ROSE: I could try, I mean I could give it a “shot.”

JOSHUA: Which brings us here.

MARA ROSE: Which brings ME here. You’re free to go, no addiction binds you to this place.  Or anywhere. You’re truly free.

JOSHUA: But I’m here with you, even as I leave.

CHORUS 1: Leave.

CHORUS 2: Here.

MARA ROSE: Oh god. Will you become possessive of my illness? Will you smell my breath with eyebrow raised, disguise it as a kiss? Will you measure how much juice I drink, worried it’s whetting my appetite, a chaser to something stiff? Will it become “our” alcoholism?

JOSHUA: Don’t be absurd. Although of course what’s yours is also mine. Sickness. Health.

MARA ROSE: I would have spared you…this. All this.

JOSHUA: You’re getting the help that you need. As such, you’re helping me.

CHORUS 1: Help.

CHORUS 2: Me.

MARA ROSE: I promise to no longer mistreat your wife.

JOSHUA: My lovely wife. My perpetual Valentine.

CHORUS 2: To pour much liquor down her throat, and numb her till she feels nothing, rapidly approaching nothing herself.

CHORUS 1: (Moving hands together until a dramatic clap) Closer closer closer closer CLOSER CLOSER (CLAP)!

CHORUS 2: In time we go from live to dead, no abstract between the two. You know this, you can’t blur it, and so you close your eyes.

MARA ROSE: Eyes closed, I move—gratefully—toward that which I fear. And to the abyss beyond it.

CHORUS 1: Death hardly frightens you then.

CHORUS 2: Not quite. It just seems less real.

MARA ROSE: With every drink, I’m closer to forgetting irrefutable, depressing facts. For a moment, I feel less mortal, less made of meat that’s doomed to decay, when my mind is enhanced by chemical madness. Immortal truths of light and air unravel in my consciousness…at cost to my liver. The false disconnect between brain and body kills me slowly.

JOSHUA: Last week, it damn near killed you fast. Live awhile yet, my love. The future’s bland without you in it.

MARA ROSE: Well…For you, I suppose I could be swayed. To stay—in this constructive castle.

CHORUS 1: Bland. No booze.

CHORUS 2: My teeth grind.

JOSHUA: (Hugging her) They’ll let me visit you soon. We’ll walk the hospital grounds together, grounds that soon may feel hospitable. If your teeth still grind, I’ll kiss you anyway.

CHORUS 2: Did you imagine this would come to pass—

CHORUS 1:  —when you placed gold upon her hand?

CHORUS 2: Remember what you said that day.

CHORUS 1: Recall your wedding vow!

JOSHUA: (Reciting his wedding vows) The future cannot be seen, nor determined, by any fixed point of the present. I am humble regarding that which I cannot know. And yet, I know myself, and you, well enough to face no doubt: I’ll always love you, Mara Rose. Whoever you become.

MARA ROSE: What did I say, then? I forget, though for once I hadn’t dulled my sense with drink. 

CHORUS 2: Drink. Drink. Drink!

CHORUS 1: The external toxin that’s practically part of you. 

MARA ROSE: I was drunk off a different chemical, though. That which comes from nature, unmade my man.

CHORUS 1 and CHORUS 2: (confused) …Weed?

MARA ROSE: Adrenaline! 

JOSHUA: And you know you’ll get more of that natural high, starting now. Alcohol does not exist outside regular physics: Whatever we suppress comes back in kind. All displacement eventually compensates itself. Your mind, my love, will do for you what you have done for it: Intoxicate to ecstasy. Soon you’ll have moments of euphoria…and be able to relive each one. 

MARA ROSE: Relive moments. Yes. My wedding. I must have vowed before man and god: All of me is in love with you. On a subatomic level, that which can’t be broken down—I AM my love for you. My Joshua.

JOSHUA:  Yup. That’s what you said, to effect. I’m still not sure about that metaphor, but I like the sentiment. 

MARA ROSE: (Back to her letter) It’s that emotion, that intellectual knowledge of emotion, I’ll use to stay well. My bones are dry, and they love you.

JOSHUA: I can imagine you without a glass in your hand. 

(flashback to the time they met. MARA ROSE is drinking. JOSHUA is not.)

MARA ROSE: Hi!

JOSHUA: Oh, hey!

MARA ROSE: You’re not drinking.

JOSHUA: I don’t drink. It’s not my thing.

MARA ROSE: Then how do you make a fool of yourself?

JOSHUA: With surprising ease.

MARA ROSE: How will I convince you to dance if you’re not drinking?

JOSHUA: …You want to dance with me?

MARA ROSE: Sure. Or I could just have you dance for my amusement, judging all smug from the sides. “Faster puppet! More rhythmic!”

CHORUS 1: Hey Mara Rose! You look stupid!

CHORUS 2: You should drink more! 

CHORUS 1: That’ll make her look even stupider.

CHORUS 2: Yes, but she won’t care as much. Faster, puppet!

CHORUS 1: More rhythmic!

MARA ROSE: I’d never do that to you. I’m not a bossy, nasty drunk.

JOSHUA: Well you definitely don’t seem nasty. Or drunk.

MARA ROSE: Give me an hour.

JOSHUA: An hour?

CHORUS 1 and CHORUS 2: Yeah right!

MARA ROSE: I hold my liquor well.

CHORUS 2: For now.

JOSHUA: Lucky liquor. I’m Joshua.

MARA ROSE: Mara Rose. And don’t worry, I’m really not going to insist that you dance.

JOSHUA: (Disappointed) Oh.

MARA ROSE: I’d rather just sit with you and engage in conversation.

JOSHUA: (excited) Sounds great!

(Time shift, to the present)

MARA ROSE: How strange. I didn’t get wasted that night.

CHORUS 1: Wasted. 

CHORUS 2: Night.

JOSHUA: I must have been sufficiently charming on my own merits.

MARA ROSE: You were. You are. My body didn’t get bored of your touch—It got thirstier of its own accord, for reasons that are beyond me. Why do I drink? Am I trying to remember how small I am, how much a part of all living things, and so destroy my too-alert self conscious thought? To be a babe in utero, or a fish that does not think, nor judge itself? Just swims. A fetus in the womb moves in a sphere. Makes circles, as close to perfect as a living thing can get. Fish and birds form themselves in rigid alliance, and no one sticks out. I’d like that grace.

CHORUS 1: Did you just pontificate on how you wish you were less cerebral? 

CHORUS 2: Kill metaphysics with itself?

MARA ROSE: (quickly, dismissively) Whatever, I guess. (beat) But it’s not only that.

I drink because I am…an alcoholic. The tautology is brutal, elegant in its simplicity. Red wine is called that because it looks red. Drunks are called drunks because they’re drunk. There’s no mystery, no underlying cause to the phenomenon. That is: I’m an alcoholic. No why, only what.

JOSHUA: I almost lost you. I didn’t.

MARA ROSE: Am I a good gambler, because I won?

JOSHUA: There’s no such thing as a good gambler. 

CHORUS 1: Chance eventually makes you its bitch.

CHORUS 2: What a tasty gun is booze, loaded in your hand, brought to your tongue. Dragging you to heaven. 

CHORUS 1: Be careful not to mix metaphors. Metaphors aren’t drinks!

CHORUS 2: At least I’m not slurring my words. 

MARA ROSE: (Interrupting CHORUS 1) I would feel dazzling. The eyes of my friends reflected my buzz as we shared wine and laughter. I was so funny, everything danced…and in the morning we remembered little. Sunlight can’t recall the magic dark. Before the blackout is the darkening.

JOSHUA: None of that matters; you require no veneer. I only see one of you, and you’re no less beautiful for that. You’re still whole.

MARA ROSE: Your love’s my favorite elixir. Great high, no headache! 

JOSHUA: I do what I can. 

MARA ROSE: Well, so does everyone, you just do it better. I worry, though. We’re beautifully in love. According to the classics, shouldn’t one of us die soon? And seeing as I’m the one with the disease….

JOSHUA: Shut up. Get that out of your head. Don’t even think of hurting me that way. That’s not romance, that’s melodrama. Suck it up and stay awhile.

MARA ROSE: Until the world spins one time too many, and we’re no longer on it.

JOSHUA: But how many spins, how many rotations, have we until that dread time comes? How many nights of your sleeping head by mine? How much bread will we break for each other? Our flesh will be solid until it is naught. For all purposes, we have eternity to touch.

MARA ROSE: Oh god, it should be enough! And yet…I’m afraid. Of a future with no more liquid hope—A bottle held fast in the same space I breathe.

CHORUS 2: Breathe.

CHORUS 1: Heal.

CHORUS 2: Drink. 

MARA ROSE: It tastes so sweet and hearty, as if joy could be distilled, bottled, and corked. Emotion fermented by fruit. Born fully formed in the throat.

CHORUS 2: Poison is easily brewed to taste sweet. 

CHORUS 1: Do not conflate pleasure with happiness.

MARA ROSE: I love my body, but sensual pleasure is not enough. That’s a dead end, as sure as the same body someday must die.

CHORUS 2: And yet?

MARA ROSE: I want to leave myself—swim away from the gravity that brings me down, pulls at my breasts, my face, ever closer to the dirt. Free myself from Earth, my breasts, my ego. 

JOSHUA: I love your breasts.

CHORUS 1: You crawled from the water, you walked upright—Why would you return there? Fish aren’t happy. They’re just simple.

CHORUS 2: Simple. Stupid.

CHORUS 1: Don’t envy them, Stupid!

JOSHUA: I need you here.

MARA ROSE: Could I be partway here? Drunken revelry’s the compromise between too much consciousness and death. You still can hold me, feel my bourbon breath even as I float above it.

CHORUS 2: Don’t kid yourself: The serpent’s fruit only offers false wisdom.

CHORUS 1: Nothing appears more beautiful, less sinister, than what harms you!

CHORUS 2: Shatter your idol. Break the glass.

MARA ROSE: What’s broken in me must break, dissolve. The antimatter of my illness, my antibody, if you will. 

CHORUS 2: You were damn near destroyed by the chemical explosion erupting in your veins.

CHORUS 1: Do you remember what number your blood was, as they hauled you away in a stretcher? 

CHORUS 2: You didn’t ask. You didn’t need to know. 

MARA ROSE: I got the point. 

CHORUS 1: She’s very perceptive.

CHORUS 2: Why waste that? Is the world so dull that you must dull it further?

CHORUS 1: Through a wine glass, dark and cloudy.

CHORUS 2: Break the glass.

CHORUS 1: Red wine is called that because it looks red.

CHORUS 2: Blood. Red. Break. Glass.

JOSHUA: Look at me. Focus on the human that loves you. The rest is ephemeral, of no matter.

MARA ROSE: I love drinking, while thinking of you. I stumble home smiling. Toasted. Warm.

JOSHUA: On nights you came home drunk, you’d slam the door open and jump in my lap. You’d swallowed fire, that my touch alone would fuel and quench.

CHORUS 2: Fuel.

CHORUS 1: Quench.

MARA ROSE: Life seemed to get easier with every drink. (beat) But it never gets easier.

CHORUS 2:  Just more lush. And therefore, better.

CHORUS 1: Lies, lies, lies!

CHORUS 2: We’re lying to you. You know that, right?

MARA ROSE: I know; I don’t care. I want a drink. I WANT A DAMN DRINK! (beat) Or five.

CHORUS 1: Or ten.

CHORUS 2: No you don’t. We want you to drink. 

CHORUS 1: But you’re the one calling the “shots.”

CHORUS 2: Will you drink? Will you?

CHORUS 1: Will you?

CHORUS 1 and CHORUS 2: Will you? Will you?—

MARA ROSE: (interrupting, with violence) NO!

(CHORUS 1 and CHORUS 2 recoil. Pause.)

MARA ROSE: (with weary resignation) Dammit.  No. At least…not today. I physically can’t. I wish I were stronger…this is where I am. 

JOSHUA: Mara Rose? You’re the perfect amount of human. You need to wake up, and come home. I’ll make love to you. You can drink your own endorphins.

MARA ROSE: (Going back to the letter) Joshua, my husband, my Valentine. March comes closer. Soon I can leave the prison that I—with help from others—walked inside. Healed. (beat) Or nearly healed.

CHORUS 2: Well, sober at least.

MARA ROSE: No small feat, that. And in the meantime…

JOSHUA: In the meantime….

MARA ROSE: Dream of my body, beside yours, and whole. 

MARA ROSE, CHORUS 1 and CHORUS 2: Dream of me.

JOSHUA: Always.

END

Bio:

Alaina Hammond is a poet, playwright, fiction writer, and visual artist.

Coming Soon:

LE’s Interview with Ms. Hammond about her work and influences