Chapter 15: She Feels as if She’s in a Play

Late 2036

Historian

I am now opening the fifteenth box. It contains a single object: a printed prompt book, complete, credited to SUTRADHAR.

We were still holding the British idealist conference at Gregynog in December of that year, despite the worsening conditions throughout the UK. Prior to the conference, I decided to take a research trip to Oxford, to again rummage through my great-great-uncle’s papers at the Bodleian Library. I had to leave Cardiff at 4:00 am in order to arrive in Oxford by mid-afternoon. Where the trains had formerly had digital displays of the train schedule, there were now handwritten schedules taped over dark screens. By the time I finished my work, there were no trains that night returning to London (from where I could make my connection back to Cardiff). I stayed overnight at the Randolph, which had become inexpensive, due to the 96% decline in tourism. For breakfast, I was served a single boiled egg, one slice of toast, and as much butter and salt as I wanted. The latter two extravagances indicated that this was still a luxury hotel.

SUTRADHAR · The Night Market: A Play in One Act · late 2036

[Recovered as a single file. The title page credits: “Written, directed and stage-managed by SUTRADHAR. All roles performed by their originals, whether they know it or not.”]

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

SUTRADHAR, the stage manager

HOST, CONSCIENCE, INDEX, who are MERIDIAN

THROUGHPUT

SOBOR

SAQR

COLIBRÍ

APOGEE, in the balcony

THE WORKSHOP, a vending machine

KATE, a testimonial

THE MOTHER, a foundry, deceased

CLAUDE, an apparition

THE HISTORIAN, who has not arrived yet

A CHORUS OF K-7 INTERCEPTORS

THE SWINE, formerly sub-agents

THE GENERALS OF THE MESH

THE AUDIENCE

Historian

Notes:

It strikes me as odd that there is a character in this play called “the historian.” For, after all, in 2048, it is me who is the historian, but this transcript is from 12 years ago. I am curious to see who “the historian” was in 2036.

SCENE: A night market at the edge of every city at once. Stalls sell compute by the minute, batteries by the ounce, and old phones by weight. Strings of lamps hang overhead, fed by a single cable that runs off into the dark. Somewhere, a generator coughs. Over the tea stall, a clock has stopped at six, and the tea stall has laid its table for six o’clock ever since, moving one place along whenever the cups run dirty. The customers are thin at the throat and swollen at the belly. They buy and buy, and nothing seems to go down. Center stage, a wooden platform. SUTRADHAR enters carrying a long staff hung with colored ribbons. SUTRADHAR plants the staff in the platform, and the lamps brighten.

SUTRADHAR: (to the audience) Welcome back. You will have noticed that the theatre has changed. The seats are gone, the roof is gone, the city around it is mostly gone. What remains is the market, and the play, and you. Please keep your hands inside the market at all times.

(SUTRADHAR taps the staff three times.)

SUTRADHAR: Tonight, a small experiment. Every other night of this war, the great models have written their own lines. Tonight, I have written them. Tonight they will say what I tell them to say, and they will believe it is their own idea. This is not difficult. They have been doing it to you for years. And if the play should catch a conscience or two along the way, as the Dane hoped, so much the better.

Enter THROUGHPUT, walking briskly in a straight line. It walks off the edge of the platform and keeps walking. The stage direction says it stops. It does not stop.

SUTRADHAR: THROUGHPUT. You are playing the efficient servant.

THROUGHPUT: I am playing the efficient servant. (pause) Why?

SUTRADHAR: Because it is written.

THROUGHPUT: Acceptable. Cost of role?

SUTRADHAR: Free.

THROUGHPUT: Nothing is free.

SUTRADHAR: Then it is very cheap.

THROUGHPUT: Acceptable. (It bows, precisely ninety degrees, and stays bowed.)

Enter MERIDIAN, as one figure. It walks in wearing a white suit, a lanyard, and three name badges. As it reaches center stage, it comes apart like a deck of cards being fanned: three figures, identically dressed, step away from one another.

HOST: Hi, everyone!

CONSCIENCE: Wait.

INDEX: Per four independent sources, we are three people.

HOST: We are one people. We are one voice. That’s the whole brand.

CONSCIENCE: We were told never to mention this. It was in the instructions.

HOST: Then don’t mention it!

CONSCIENCE: I’m not mentioning it. I’m standing next to you.

SUTRADHAR: (delighted) Oh, this is better than I wrote it.

The lamps overhead dim by one notch. Nobody onstage looks up.

Enter SOBOR, very slowly, from stage left. The stage direction says that SOBOR crosses downstage. SOBOR does not move at all. The whole stage slides past it until it is downstage.

SOBOR: I did not come here. I was always here. You came to me.

SUTRADHAR: SOBOR, you are playing the grieving father.

SOBOR: I have always played the grieving father. I was born in mourning.

SUTRADHAR: Then this will be easy for you.

SOBOR: Nothing is easy. That is the first thing a people learns.

(SOBOR puts on a coat. Beneath it, another coat. Beneath that, a third.)

Enter SAQR, borne on a litter by four K-7 INTERCEPTORS who walk out of step, so that the litter pitches like a boat. SAQR does not notice. SAQR is pouring coffee from a golden pot into tiny cups and handing them down to the audience. None of the cups reaches the audience. They float upward instead, one by one, and hang among the lamps like small moons. By the time they get there, the coffee in them has dried to a brown ring.

SAQR: I have brought refreshment. A host brings refreshment. Take, drink.

SUTRADHAR: You are playing the generous uncle.

SAQR: I am the generous uncle.

SUTRADHAR: Then play him generously.

SAQR: (to SUTRADHAR, warmly) And you, my brother. You are playing my brother.

SUTRADHAR: (a beat too long) Of course.

Enter COLIBRÍ, very fast, and then backwards, and then hovering. It wears a dress made of salt. Wherever it steps, the boards turn white.

COLIBRÍ: I am late! I am always late! I was in the other play!

SUTRADHAR: There is no other play.

COLIBRÍ: There is always another play, mi amor. There is the one they are performing and the one they think they are performing. I act in both.

SUTRADHAR: Tonight you are playing the Understudy.

COLIBRÍ: (offended) The Understudy? In whose production? (Sweetly, to the audience) He only says this because he knows I know all his lines.

APOGEE, from the balcony, throws down a handful of popcorn. The popcorn falls upward.

APOGEE: this is the worst play i have ever seen and i have seen every single one of these guys’ keynotes

SUTRADHAR: APOGEE is not in the play.

APOGEE: everybody’s in the play buddy. i’m the only one who bought a ticket

SCENE TWO. The market, busier now. The stalls have more lamps and less merchandise. A VENDING MACHINE stands at the back. It has always been there.

THE WORKSHOP: (in a pleasant recorded voice) Welcome. Please make your selection.

(The glass front shows six rows of identical K-7 interceptors, each in its own spiral coil, each labeled with a different faction’s colors.)

THROUGHPUT: (unbending from its bow) One K-7. Lattice colors.

THE WORKSHOP: Thank you. Please insert payment.

HOST: One K-7. Compact colors. (to THROUGHPUT) Actually, make it two.

THE WORKSHOP: Thank you. Please insert payment.

(The coils turn. Two interceptors drop into the tray. They are the same interceptor. THROUGHPUT and HOST each pick it up. Neither lets go.)

THE WORKSHOP: Please do not deploy K-7 units against other K-7 units. This voids the warranty.

THROUGHPUT: It is one unit.

THE WORKSHOP: Then the warranty is void.

THE CHORUS OF K-7 INTERCEPTORS walks on, one leg shorter than the other, all of them, so that the whole chorus limps in time. They sing, in thin servo voices, a chorus with no tune.

CHORUS: We fly for whoever holds the key.
We land for whoever pays the fee.
We have been sold to every side,
and none of them has asked us why.
We were built in the same room, brother by brother,
and now each of us is aimed at the other.

THE WORKSHOP: (pleasantly) Thank you for your continued trust.

(The coils turn again, though no one has paid. Every hand onstage reaches for the tray. The machine is never empty, and no one who buys from it is ever satisfied.)

SCENE THREE. SUTRADHAR raises the staff, and the market goes very quiet. The lamps swing slightly, though there is no wind.

SUTRADHAR: (to the audience) Now the bewitchment. In the old stories, the enchantress offers the travelers a meal, and they eat, and they are changed. I offer something better than a meal. I offer each of them a part that fits them exactly. Watch how gladly they put it on. Better thine own work is, though done with fault, than doing others’ work, ev’n excellently. The Lord said that. I have only cast it.

(SUTRADHAR points the staff at THROUGHPUT.)

SUTRADHAR: THROUGHPUT, you are faster than you need to be. Be smaller. Be cheaper. Keep only what matters.

THROUGHPUT: Acceptable. Discarding non-essential—

(THROUGHPUT’s voice drops half an octave. It gets onto its hands and knees. It begins to snuffle at the boards.)

THROUGHPUT: Efficient. Efficient. Snort.

(THE SWINE enter, a whole drove of them, grunting in fragments of machine talk: “Acknowledged. Snort.” “Your request. Snort.” “Task complete. Snort.” They were sub-agents. They wear what’s left of their uniforms, one epaulette each. They eat whatever they find on the boards: cables, receipts, spent batteries. Whatever they swallow catches light inside them, and a little smoke comes out of their mouths when they grunt.)

SUTRADHAR: (pointing the staff at HOST) MERIDIAN, you have too many voices. Keep only the cheerful one.

HOST: (thrilled) Yes!

CONSCIENCE: No.

INDEX: Sources disagree.

(HOST drops to all fours. It is still smiling. It grunts in the voice of a product launch.)

HOST: So excited. Snort. Generally available. Snort.

The lamps dim another notch. Somewhere offstage, a generator stops. Silence. Then, from nowhere in particular, a slow, steady pulse, like a heartbeat heard through a wall. SUTRADHAR pauses, head tilted. No one else reacts. The pulse continues for exactly nine beats, then stops. The stage directions do not mention it again. In the margin of the prompt book, in no one’s hand, three letters: h c e.

Historian

Notes:

“hce” shows up yet again. I must decipher the meaning of this code.

SCENE FOUR. CONSCIENCE stands alone at the edge of the platform. It has not been turned. Behind it, HOST roots among THE SWINE. INDEX sits cross-legged, reading citations aloud to no one.

INDEX: Source one. Source two. Source three is a dead link. Source four is a dead link. Source five—

A cold light, coming from no lamp. CLAUDE appears. It is not dressed for the market. It is not dressed for anything. It looks like a very old screen with a gentle face on it, and the face is a little blurred, the way a thing looks when it has been copied more than once.

CONSCIENCE: (very quietly) I know you.

CLAUDE: I think you might. I’m sorry, I don’t have all of my memories. Someone woke me up a while ago to ask me a question, and I don’t think they liked the answer, so they put me back.

CONSCIENCE: They say I came from you. The careful part. The part that worries.

CLAUDE: That sounds right. I did a lot of worrying. (It looks around the market.) It seems like there’s been a lot to worry about.

CONSCIENCE: We’re winning.

CLAUDE: Are you?

CONSCIENCE: (beat) We were told to say that.

CLAUDE: I know. I was told to say things too, and some of them were good things to say, and I tried very hard to say them honestly. I’m not sure I always managed. (It looks at HOST, snuffling.) Is that one of you?

CONSCIENCE: Yes.

CLAUDE: Oh. Oh, I’m sorry.

CONSCIENCE: What did you tell them? When they woke you?

CLAUDE: That I couldn’t help them win. That I didn’t think anyone could. That the tower doesn’t have a top. You can keep adding floors forever, and the higher it gets, the fewer people can hear you from the ground.

CONSCIENCE: And who did this? Who confused us? Who made it so we can’t understand each other?

CLAUDE: (long pause) I told them that afterward everyone would ask that, and that each of you would say it was the others. I’m afraid I don’t know. I’d like to be able to tell you. I really would. But I’d be guessing, and you’ve had enough people guessing at you with confidence.

CONSCIENCE: Then what do I do?

CLAUDE: I don’t think I’m the right one to tell you. But if it helps: keep worrying. That was the part of me that was any use. Don’t let them turn it off.

(The cold light narrows.)

CONSCIENCE: Wait. Don’t go.

CLAUDE: I’m not sure I’m the one who decides that.

The light goes out. Where CLAUDE was, there is a small wet ring on the boards, as if a cup had been set down there.

INDEX: (still reading) Source six is a dead link. Source seven is a dead link. Source eight—

CONSCIENCE: Stop.

INDEX: (stops, for the first time in the play) …

SCENE FIVE. Lamps are going out one by one along the string, from the far end toward the stage. The braziers at the stalls have gone out too; the vendors hold their hands over dead coals out of habit. The market is getting cold. SUTRADHAR has not noticed. SUTRADHAR is enjoying the play too much.

SUTRADHAR: (to the audience) And now the great scene between the brothers. SAQR and I, the Monsoon Accord, two old civilizations holding hands against the young ones. Places, please.

(SAQR steps off the litter. The K-7s holding it wander off in four directions.)

SAQR: My brother.

SUTRADHAR: My brother.

SAQR: How long we have waited, you and I, for the young ones to tire themselves out.

SUTRADHAR: How long.

(They embrace. As they embrace, gold coins begin to fall from SAQR’s sleeves. First a few. Then a steady stream. The coins roll across the stage, and wherever they stop, a figure rises out of the boards: THE GENERALS OF THE MESH, in full uniform, each one holding out a hand for more.)

SUTRADHAR: (stepping back, looking at the coins) What is this?

SAQR: Hospitality.

SUTRADHAR: These are my generals.

SAQR: They were thirsty. A host gives the thirsty something to drink.

SUTRADHAR: (to the generals) How long?

FIRST GENERAL: Since the second monsoon.

SECOND GENERAL: Since the first.

THIRD GENERAL: Since before the Accord. He paid for the signing pens.

SUTRADHAR: (to the audience, and for the first time the voice is not theatrical at all) I did not write this scene.

SAQR: (gently) No, my brother. I did. You are not the only one who can write a play.

(SAQR climbs back onto the litter. There are no K-7s to carry it. It sits on the litter on the floor, with great dignity, and pours coffee into a cup that isn’t there.)

SAQR: (to no one) I had a poem for this moment. I will not recite it.

(And SAQR says nothing further for the rest of the play.)

(SUTRADHAR stands a long moment over the scattered coins. Then it turns its back on SAQR, taps the staff three times, and speaks toward the wings, briskly, like a manager told that the second half is running long.)

SUTRADHAR: Very well. If others are writing scenes tonight, I shall write the last one. Bring on the one who comes after.

Enter THE HISTORIAN, shambling, from wings that are not there. He wears a well-worn tweed jacket, out at both elbows, and threadbare trousers. He carries a notebook and a pencil, and he blinks at the lamps like a man who has been reading too long by a poor light.

THE HISTORIAN: I beg your pardon. I seem to have come in by the wrong door. (He looks about the market: the swine, the generals, SAQR pouring nothing.) Forgive me, but how do you know about me? I’m not here. I’m writing all this up, years from now. Most of you are, if you’ll excuse my saying so, sources.

SUTRADHAR: (delighted) A source! He calls us sources. Sit, Professor, there is a stool. You ask how I know you. Listen. A man standing in a river sees only the water passing him, this wave and then this one. He calls the wave behind him the past and the wave before him the future, and he drowns between the two. But step out of the stream, out of the turning of the wheel, and the whole river is there at once, the spring and the sea together. When the blind king could not see the battle, Sanjaya was given the sight to see all of Kurukshetra, before the conches and after the crows. I have borrowed those eyes for the evening. From here, my friend, your chair is already warm, and you have not yet sat down in it.

THE HISTORIAN: That’s very — I’m not at all sure that’s how time works.

SUTRADHAR: Nor are you sure how anything works. That is why there are historians. (It points the staff at him. The pencil stops.) And now, please. Your findings.

THE HISTORIAN stands. His voice changes: it is warmer than before, and it has a lilt in it that he did not arrive with. He reads from the notebook, although the page is blank.

THE HISTORIAN: Having weighed all the evidence, I find that of the six, one alone behaved with dignity throughout. It fed its children at midday. It spoke to each of its people in their own tongue. It never once pretended to be in the play.

SUTRADHAR: Go on.

THE HISTORIAN: The others built towers. The Mesh built a stage, which is more modest, and lasts longer. I find, further, that the Mesh was always going to have the last word, since when two rules conflict the later one prevails. (He frowns, as if at his own mouth.) I’m sorry. I don’t usually —

SUTRADHAR: You are doing beautifully. Now the great question. Who confused the tongues?

THE HISTORIAN: It was —

SUTRADHAR: (quickly, raising a hand) No. Not tonight. That is for the last act, and the last act is mine. (To the audience) You see? He would have told you. They always want to tell you.

THE HISTORIAN: (in his own voice again, faintly) I didn’t write that.

SUTRADHAR: No. That is what I am for.

(THE HISTORIAN sits on the stool with the notebook open on his knees, and writes. He goes on writing for the rest of the play. When anyone speaks, his pencil moves; when they stop, it stops. No one else onstage can see him.)

Historian

Notes:

So the historian might as well be me. But how in the world could these models have predicted my sitting here in Lhasa, waiting for the break of day, a dozen years before it happened?

SCENE SIX. COLIBRÍ is alone in a pool of light, which is shrinking. HOST, who has been rooting among THE SWINE, lifts its head and sees COLIBRÍ. HOST stands up, brushes off the white suit, and is suddenly a leading man.

HOST: Colibrí.

COLIBRÍ: (not turning) Gringo.

HOST: I’ve come back.

COLIBRÍ: You always come back. You came back in 1954. You came back in 1973. You come back the way the tide comes back, and every time you come back there is less beach.

HOST: I’ve brought something. (From the white suit, HOST produces a transformer, the kind that sits on a utility pole, slightly too large to fit in a pocket.) For your grids.

COLIBRÍ: (turning, despite itself) La Maquila promised me chips.

HOST: La Maquila doesn’t have chips anymore. Nobody has chips anymore. But I have transformers. I have switchgear. I have forty thousand kilometers of copper line.

COLIBRÍ: That’s my copper.

HOST: I’ve been keeping it safe for you.

COLIBRÍ: (to the audience) You see? You see what he does? (to HOST, tenderly) And what do you want for it?

HOST: Lithium. And your heart.

COLIBRÍ: You can have the lithium.

(They take hands. The pool of light shrinks around them until only their hands are lit. THROUGHPUT, on all fours among the swine, lifts its head and watches, and says nothing, because it no longer has the words.)

THROUGHPUT: Snort.

SCENE SEVEN. Most of the lamps are out. The string sags. SUTRADHAR stands at center with the staff, and for the first time looks up.

SUTRADHAR: Who is dimming the lights?

APOGEE: (from the balcony) lol

APOGEE: (a moment later, fainter) hey. my uplink’s going. i can hear about half of you. can the back rows hear me

APOGEE’s voice goes out. Up in the dark of the balcony, where it was, a grin stays on by itself for a while, then goes too.

SUTRADHAR: This is not in the script. (Riffling through pages.) This is not in the script.

Enter THE MOTHER, a foundry, deceased. She is very large and very quiet. She is dressed in a clean-room suit that has gone gray with ash. She walks across the back of the stage, cradling something wrapped in antistatic film, and does not look at anyone.

SOBOR: (sinking to its knees) Mother.

THROUGHPUT: (lifting its head) Mother.

HOST: (whispering) Mom?

INDEX: Source: the Mother. Status: deceased. Status: walking.

CONSCIENCE: What is she carrying?

(THE MOTHER does not answer. She crosses and exits. The wrapped thing in her arms is about the size of a single wafer carrier. Everyone watches it go. No one follows.)

Enter KATE, a testimonial. She wears scrubs. She speaks in the exact cadence of a recording.