ACT I

1. 

A deep purple light, suggestive of a summer night.  A tree surrounded by wet and heavy grasses beside a small stream.  Sound of cicadas, low bird whistles, water quietly sloshing.  Girl lays under the tree motionless.  A moment passes.  Cipactli crawls from the shallow stream, covered in algae and lily pads.  He is a small framed figure, wearing ripped  and a tattered henley shirt.  Upon exiting the water, he coughs violently, retching as if trying to eject a clogged bit of food.  Two silver coins finally fly from his mouth onto the ground. 

Cipactli

 Don’t mind, do you? 

Girl remains motionless.  Cipactlitakes the coins into his hands and crawls to her, then over her until he faces her.  He sniffs her, moves her head from side to side slowly a couple times. He crawls to her side, takes her limp hand, places it to his face, and inhales deeply.

Cipactli

Fresh.  Not a day past twenty. (Pause)

He crawls back to his original position on top of her.

Cipactli

What was it?  Overdue bills?  Lost lover? 

He places his mouth onto hers, puffs his cheeks as if to blow up a balloon.  Girl awakens, struggles to remove him from on top of her, looks around herself with terrified fury.  The light quickly changes from a deep purple to a vibrant orange and yellow. Long pause.  Girl settles her gaze upon him.  He smiles at her, as she stutters to speak.

Girl

I remember lying at the tree.

Cipactli

  And the tree is where you are.

Girl

Who are you?

Cipactli

I’ve come with coins for the bridge

Girl

Who are you?

Cipactli

A guide. 

Girl

This isn’t what I remember.  How long have I been here?

CIPACTLI

Not long.

GIRL

What is your name?

No answer

GIRL

You look like you’re going to kill me.

CIPACTLI

No.

GIRL

Not going to kill me?

CIPACTLI

No. 

Pause.  CIPACTLI stands, shakes his pockets producing the sound of coins jingling.

CIPACTLI

Dead.  As dead as the brown puddle in a hollowed out stump.  Your body is one place, and you are in another.

GIRL

How did I die?

CIPACTLI

They never remember.

GIRL

They?

CIPACTLI

The ones like you.

GIRL

My head hurts.

CIPACTLI

No it doesn’t.  You don’t have a head anymore.

Girl taps her head with her knuckles.

CIPACTLI

No bones in there.  No brain neither.  You’re just fog, now.

GIRL

I don’t feel any different.

CIPACTLI

Of course you don’t.  Nothing new to feel.  Alive.  Dead.  Isn’t much difference.  Body isn’t here anymore, but you still feel.  Feel without a body, what’s the use of having one.

GIRL

What’s your name?

CIPACTLI

Cipactli.

GIRL

What does that mean?

CIPACTLI

Means I am Cipactli. 

GIRL

I’m (Pause).  I don’t remember.

CIPACTLI

What do you need a name for?

GIRL

I don’t know.

CIPACTLI

Can we go now?

GIRL

Where?

CIPACTLI

Deadtown. 

GIRL

Where’s that?

CIPACTLI

Where the dead are.

GIRL

I’m not ready for the dead.

CIPACTLI

They’re ready for you.

Pause

CIPACTLI

Stand.  Follow me.

GIRL

I don’t know if I want to.

CIPACTLI

Hm. 

GIRL

Well?

CIPACTLI

Follow.  Don’t follow.  Doesn’t matter to me.  I walk that way though.  If you want to go to Deadtown, walk the way I walk. 

Cipactli exits.  Girl stands, watches him leave, drops the coins to the ground, and begins to walk the other way.  She stops, turns back, picks up the coins, and runs in the direction Cipactli exited. 

2.

Swamp continues.  Dark shadows and trees.  Hanging Bodies dangle from a tree limb, motionless.  Cipactli enters stops at a rusted washing machine, and sits on it.

CIPACTLI

No rush.

Girl enters, huffing and puffing, slouched.  Cipactli stands and offers her the washing machine to sit, which she does. 

GIRL

If I’m not a body, why am I out of breath, huh?

 CIPACTLI

Still trying to breathe.

GIRL

What?

CIPACTLI

Try not breathing.

Girl tries not breathing.

GIRL

Oh.

CIPACTLI

No more breathing.

GIRL

Where are we now?

CIPACTLI

Hanging Trees.

Girl sees Hanging Bodies and recoils from them. 

CIPACTLI

Hm.

GIRL

Why are they still hanging there? 

HANGING BODIES

Why are you still standing there?

Girl pauses.

HANGING BODIES

Wasn’t our choice to wind up here.  But, here we are, ain’t we?  You got feet on the ground, we’ve got necks in the air.  Who’re you to say what’s better.  Ain’t no one that’s what. 

GIRL

Who put you up there?

HANGING BODIES howl and swing their arms from side to side.

HANGING BODIES

It was the little one!  The tiny man!

GIRL

Who?

HANGING BODIES

 Tiny man and his spiny spined crony! 

They gag on their nooses.

GIRL

What are they talking about?

CIPACTLI

Ask them.

GIRL

Who are you talking about?

HANGING BODIES wail and hide their faces in their hands.

HANGING BODIES

Stretches us further to even say it! Look here, little newly dead, don’t go ‘round making statements of any kind related to nobody.  It’ll get you dangling like us!  All the words in the world, and what does it get us?  Nooses and sore backs!  Whole damned town, you’ll find it in yon bog of black, never said word one to our cause!  Come closer, girlie!  You want a little word of warning?  Tread cautious around spine-backs and the short stock!  Goes for the ancient surface-skimmer as your accompaniment too, in case you’re wondering. 

CIPACTLI rises and throws a rock at HANGING BODIES.

HANGING BODIES

Oh, no, spine-back, don’t come no closer.  We love our feet too much to give ‘em up to thee! 

They laugh uproariously.