Firstsih Draft

No, it's not done. It's no where near done. But I feel comfortable with calling what I have a first draft. It sort of falls apart in a couple of places and it is now officially the longest think I've ever written (158 pages), but that shouldn't be important. Especally since I see it loosing at least 50 easy.

But, here is a preview. You may never see this monologue again. It's something I wrote to help me write, and I'm not putting it here to do anything other than to prove to you I've put something on paper.

(David alone on stage.)

DAVID

When will it be over? I felt the pressure in the air drop so fast my ears popped and it wasn’t until that moment I could hear, really hear, the whole world breathing in and out. And, God, it was so hot. I went to the news room where everyone was going to wait it out, and we talked about water and food for two days and some of them had brought their families and they were bringing out cots and blankets and listening to the radio. Mandatory evacuation. Mandatory evacuation. And someone in the back of the room, the back of my mind, laughed and said “Yeah, right.” And I asked when will it be over? And no one said anything. And then the winds came. Slowly rising, but it was already the worst thing I’d ever been through. It was already so awful I wanted to run away. And everyone around me were talking about other hurricanes like they were ex-girl friends they had restraining orders against. But they survived. And whatever doesn’t kill you… And whatever doesn’t kill you… And maybe they were strong enough for this but I…I had never survived something like this…not this. And I only thought again and again and again and again…When will it be over? And beneath us the building shook and swayed and the windows warbled and the noise…the noise was so loud. A screaming, urgent, insistent, demanding thing wanted in the building. It wanted revenge for a million wrongs. And at that moment, I knew this storm with my whole self. It was a lost child tormented and misunderstood, ignored and unloved, grown into an adult and seeking to prove itself. It was a lover who had never been touched with kindness and now touched the only way it knew how. It was an ancient unreasonable hate, stirred and prodded and starved and then thrown into a ring with a like hate. I knew this storm and I knew it was not something you survived. It exploded the windows and brought the river and the lake into our laps. It broke all the trees and tore down the beautiful shutters. This fury battered and shook and broke the city under its immense catharsis. And every second, every moment, I thought “God. When…when oh God oh God when…when will it all be over?” As the cry of the winds died down the screaming of the city rose up. On the radio a woman called out “I lost him. I lost him. The water took him away.” A man spit with the fury of the storm itself, “No body is coming. No body is coming. We’re all alone out here and no body is coming.” And quietly…so quietly… “I think they all died in that house. The water came up too fast.” We waded out into the soup until it was at our chests and we could go no further. And the water was rising. I heard a scream from a house near me and we swam in. But I…I froze and lost my breath when I realized we would all be trapped in that house. The roof couldn’t be punched through and the rising water would push us all against the ceiling. The broken bottles and bits of window and wood from the house and kitchen knives and everything that was good and was life was floating in the water and turned into weapons that could rip our skin from our bones. Our breath our flesh our selves would be caught up in that house and so I watched better men then I rescue those from within. And I thought God, when will it be over? And still we went further out into the neighborhoods and to the streets we had so recently reported. And I saw families on top of roofs dieing from heat, dehydrated and scared. So much fear. And betrayal. They had trusted blindly, unfailingly, that they would not be left to die. And in these first few hours after the storm…nothing was certain any more. Not God, not love, not family, not New Orleans, not life. I remember being in a boat, taking people off of roofs but there was no where to go. Babies crying and mothers fretting. And old people. So many old people. And there was no where to go. There wasn’t enough room in the boat, there wasn’t enough land to put them, there wasn’t anything and always always always the water was rising. When will it be over? When will it be over? When will it be over? The sun came up and it went down again and up and down and still there were more people and less water and less food and the heat, had it ever been so hot in the history of the world. And no where to go. And the dead…the dead lapped at the side of our boat, where swept against the sides of houses, tangled in the branches of trees. The last word of each dead man, woman and child was an angry suffocating stench that screamed to be seen and recognized. But there were still so many living to be harvested from their roof tops still. Still. And I thought I would give the world to live forever in the fury and anger and power of that storm than to have ever seen this. This destruction. This death. This fear. This hate. This betrayal. This fear. This fear. This fear. This all consuming horrible horrible fear. You don’t survive this fear. Death is calling out your name. Death is banging at the door. Death is standing at your shoulder. When, when will it all be over? What ever doesn’t kill you…When will it all be over?