Conversations Seldom Overheard [Salvation] 

Arthur Meiselman

Scene4 Magazine — inSight - perspectives on arts and media www.scene4.com
writings: dialogues

April 2012

In a cave, in the hills, in a country.

J: It went very well.
P: It went very well.
But each time we lose more of our friends.
J: Each time we die a little more.
P: Yes, each time.
J: And what we lose we lose forever. I feel the weight, so heavy I can hardly breathe.
P: It was good you stayed back today, you're exhausted.
J: I am... as tired as an old man who's seen too much to sleep.
P: Just fatigue. We're all...
J: No, it's fear, doubt! See my hand? My mind is like that... it shakes with the doubts I have in myself. Nothing is clear anymore. I find myself living in the past before it began, and living in the future when it'll finally be over. Doesn't that disgust you?
P: No.
J: Doesn't that make you sick?
P: No.
J: It makes me sick to my stomach. It makes me want to throw up until I choke on my guts. Do you know what I dream about? Night after night? It haunts me. It's the face of Garcia, and all the others. And for the first time in my life, I'm afraid.
It's a risky proposition,
P: Of course it's risky, everything we've done since we came to these hills has been risky... but such small risks. 
J: Garcia was no small risk.
P: Small risks, small. That's why the Pig still sits in his palace grinning at us, grinding his heel into our face.
J: And if we fail?
P: Then God has failed.
You've said many times that God is on our side because we are right.
J: I've said that to the people because it has to be said. We're right only if we win, and gods have nothing to do with lt.
P: That's true. Nursery rhymes for children.
I agree, the risks have been enormous. And this time? If it fails... disaster! We would lose everything. But if it works... if it works! Think what it'll mean...to us, to the people. They'll lift themselves from their own pain and march out into the countryside and scream with a million voices: This land is ours, no more chains, no more hollow bellies, no more rotting babies. Think of it, you'll give them... salvation again... the only way it can be given.
J: I have no yearning to be a saint.
P: No one yearns to live in the sky except fools... and intellectuals.
It's all been arranged. There isn't much time for doubt.
J: You're a man of pure action, you always move straight ahead. And me... I wander.
P: You think... that's why you're the leader.
J: I think, and I wander... like a dream. Damn, if only I could sleep without dreaming. And the delivery?
P: It's all been arranged.
J: Is it a lamb or a calf? And the... return?
P: It's all been arranged.
J: When?
P: Tonight.
J: What about the others?
P: They're believers. They know nothing. Their belief has to be preserved. As you've said, faith is a delicate thing. It's never the object that matters, only the way it's flashed before the eyes of the faithful.

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©2012 Arthur Meiselman
©2012 Publication Scene4 Magazine

Arthur Meiselman is a playwright, writer and the Editor of Scene4.
He also directs the Talos Ensemble and produces for Aemagefilms

For more of his commentary and articles, check the Archives
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April 2012

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