Way to Home
Ethan
Conan
ACT I
Birds’ chirp echo weakly, implying it is a forest.
Ethan groans, shakes off leaves and twigs from his clothes, then stands up.
A sudden snap of a branch indicates a visitor.
CONAN: Let us go.
ETHAN: You certain about that?
CONAN: Let us go.
ETHAN: (sighs, then) Lead me home–
CONAN: Let us go.
ETHAN: as you hope.
They began walking along a trail.
After a while, Ethan snaps a branch from a nearby tree, and throws it to a pond that appeared a few minutes later. But the sound is too heavy for a branch, rather closer to that of a metal. Right before the (supposed) branch completely submerges, a paw appears from underwater and snatches it.
ETHAN: Was it a cat I saw?
CONAN: All is up to the imagination of yourself.
ETHAN: That was one loud purr from under the water.
CONAN: An attempt with a bone will cause a different sound.
ETHAN: That is one large bone I see over there.
CONAN: But there is no such idea of “next time.”
ETHAN: (semi-sarcastically) How shocking.
Silence.
They continue walking along a trail. One of the steps has become slower and heavier, as if he has grown tired. In fact Conan’s steps are too quiet to be heard, as good as inaudible.
ETHAN: Wherever we head to, do you have the knowledge of this journey?
CONAN: My knowledge equals that of yourself. Simple as that.
ETHAN: So you are not able to have knowledge of this journey.
CONAN: Am I?
ETHAN: So you are not able to have knowledge of home.
CONAN: Am I?
ETHAN: So you are not able to overtake me.
CONAN: Am I?
ETHAN: I am able to become the first failure.
CONAN: (annoyed) I have overcome you. I always have.
Silence.
They continue to walk, and kick some pebbles on the way.
ETHAN: Today is Friday. So will I see the third day?
CONAN: Sunday has started by now.
ETHAN: So tomorrow is Sunday and yesterday is also Sunday.
CONAN: That is the spirit.
ETHAN: Which is also a tragedy.
CONAN: And also a life.
Silence.
[END OF ACT I]
ACT II
CONAN: (from the fine line between concerned and sarcasm) Why being dead silent all of the sudden? Cat got your tongue?
ETHAN: (sighs heavily, then annoyedly, almost ranting) I might not have nine lives, but I do have nine tongues. Well, maybe less than nine, to be exact, but I have seen the worlds other people might never view in their lifetime, and I can say something about life. C’est la vie, so celebrate life? ¿Viva la vida? Puedo poner verde a esa frase.
CONAN: ¿Por qué lo ves todo negro? You can be realistic while being irrational, but you cannot be complex without being imaginative.
ETHAN: There is no ‘i’ in death. Therefore it cannot be as complex as life, but at least it is real.
CONAN: But there is one in the dying.
ETHAN: So the process is more complex than the completion itself?
CONAN: I believe it is an axiom that took root for a while.
ETHAN: Which means the irrationality will continue for infinite cases.
CONAN: For whom the doom will resume?
ETHAN: Those yearning for both of their womb and tomb or neither. In the end the doom will consume them– what a gloom.
CONAN: What makes you assume that?
ETHAN: Consumption is an act of both living and dying–
CONAN: Glad I have only consumed red herring and soylent green.
ETHAN: Thus consumption is an incurable plague.
CONAN: Thus a plagueless vagueness becomes plaguelike.
ETHAN: And syphilization stimulates civilization.
CONAN: La Peste est plus preste et leste que Alceste, le prestidigitateur.
ETHAN: Mais je ne m'appelle pas Alceste?
CONAN: Et le reste d’Alceste est trop indigeste à weasel out, like a measle.
ETHAN: (in sing-song voice, if you know the melody) Cancer, quand c'est, et qui est le prochain?
CONAN: Всякое семя знает своё время.
ETHAN: Aujourd'hui, je suis mort. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas. Est-ce que ça peut-être demain?
CONAN: Ça doit être le jour que tu as choisi avec tes deux mains.
ETHAN: It has to be tomorrow. Because there is no day but today. Cannot wait another (in sing-song voice, if you know the melody) five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes for another day.
CONAN: It can be in two morrows or a morrow. Maybe it was simultaneously yester-morrow and overmorrow and ereyesterday.
ETHAN: Can it come biweekly?
CONAN: Which kind of biweekly?
ETHAN: Fortnightly it is.
Silence, scattered with birds chirping twice at a time.
CONAN: Nevertheless it will be your red letter day, the day you chose to borrow the sorrow and take the red pill, letting colorless green ideas sleep furiously at last.
ETHAN: Not when the nostalgia– это бре́мя. Что име́ем – не храни́м, потеря́вши – пла́чем. Therefore nostalgia can never be green-eyed.
CONAN: Est-ce que c’est ton fil rouge?
ETHAN: It is the kind of story that is cousu de fil blanc. The author chose to cope with l’angoisse de la page blanche by getting intoxicated on IPA with a hint of deadline adrenaline, only to face the wake at the break of the moon. Bring the Irish whiskey!
CONAN: Not the IPA?
ETHAN: The other kind of it I prefer more.
CONAN: How peculiar.
ETHAN: No son más raros que un perro verde–
CONAN: (offended dramatic gasp)
ETHAN: a menos que esto fuera una película.
CONAN: (growls) Rude.
ETHAN: Cállate, pero verdinegro.
They continue walking in a hostile silence for a while.
Then the change of the sound of their steps indicates that they left a grassy field and entered a brick road.
ETHAN: ……Это прекра́сно.
CONAN: Да, это кра́сно.
ETHAN: This building looks exactly like my house…… except for bone white marble walls.
CONAN: (facepalms) That is a terrible choice of vocabulary.
ETHAN: But it fits the purpose of this building.
CONAN: How so?
ETHAN: If people return to the ground because they were taken from it, and if people return to the dust because they were taken from it, returning to the color white must mean–
CONAN: Tabula rasa.
ETHAN: –blank.
Silence.
[END OF ACT II]
ACT III
They continue to walk along an endless path.
Suddenly the wind stops, throwing them to complete silence. Not even an echo nor breath can be heard.
ETHAN: The color of the bone I sense.
CONAN: From the ground, back to the ground. Being the dust, going back to the dust. And from the color of the bone–
ETHAN: Back to the color of the bone I go– now.
They walk toward the sound of the stream. As they get closer, the sound becomes louder, to the point it is loud enough to be referred to as a river.
Ethan grabs a stone nearby and throws it to the water, attempting to skip a stone. The stone bounces off the surface three times and sinks.
ETHAN: Deeper than my thought based on the color of the surface.
CONAN: You have to swim across the water.
ETHAN: But I do not see the end?
CONAN: As if all knowledge lasts unknown till the end.
ETHAN: (almost dreamingly, with a hint of resignation) The end…….
Silence.
The silence extends, almost full half of a minute, long enough to trick the listener.
CONAN: So now I question you again, do you have the knowledge of where this journey will take you?
ETHAN: (hollowly, as if losing will) Lead me home.
CONAN: You certain about that?
ETHAN: (even more hollowly, as if all will is lost) Lead me home.
CONAN: (with determination) Let us go–
ETHAN: (completely devoid of emotion, like an automaton) Lead me home.
Ethan carefully walks into the water.
CONAN: as you hope.
Conan jumps to water, but does not make any splash.
They stand still in the water.
[END OF THE SHOW]