Echoes
A short prose play about regrets
(Image from the New Yorker)
If you know me, you will know this Substack page has a collection of both old and new pieces with some pieces dating back a sizeable number of years to when I was at university. The last half a dozen short plays were started in one way or the other at university over twenty years and mostly completed recently and I remember starting each piece with a clear idea of how I was going to start it and finish it even though if at the time I simply wasn’t good enough to do it.
Echoes, the next piece I am including tonight I don’t remember writing I have to be honest, but the style of is a very Samuel Beckett feel with ‘The Flute Player’ and I suspect was started around the same time.
The piece itself is certainly another piece with a next to no staging and is a play that shows three different but similar emotions among three men and shows how similar as human beings we are.
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(AN ABSTRACT SETTING. DIM LIGHTING ON THE THREE
MEN AS THEY STAND SEPARATED ON THE STAGE)
Characters:
Man 1: A dreamer longing for love and understanding.
Man 2: Filled with bitterness and the desire for genuine connection.
Man 3: Battling loneliness and regrets of the past.
(Scene opens with dim lighting, casting an introspective atmosphere.)
Man 1:
Last night…
Man 2:
I dreamt of a better world.
Man 1:
A place where the hills were green,
and the sky was eternally bright blue.
Man 1 and 2 (Together):
A world where you still loved me.
Man 3:
Last night…
Man 2:
I dreamed of a time and place where worlds
collided, and everything made sense.
Man 1:
Last night…
Man 3:
I asked myself, "Where did it all go wrong?"
Man 2:
I almost asked myself, "Why did I bother
in the first place?"
Man 3:
Last night…
Man 1:
I dreamed of a better world.
Man 3:
A world where the sea was red,
like the passion in our hearts.
Man 1 and 3 (Together):
A place where you still loved me.
Man 2:
Last night…
Man 1:
But I found myself running away
when I should have stayed.
Man 2:
I felt hatred, a burning desire to
rip and destroy, but most importantly, I... I…
Man 3:
I felt loneliness.
Man 2:
Loneliness...
Man 3:
I felt loneliness, a feeling that weighed
heavily on my heart. I wasn't desperate for love,
but I longed for someone who would understand.
Man 2:
I felt loneliness, and despite my hatred for you,
I pitied you. I saw the tears you couldn't fake,
the words you almost whispered out. But, I... I…
Man 1:
I just wanted somebody to take my hand and
look deep into my eyes, saying, "Things will
be all right. You don't have to be afraid anymore."
Man 3:
Last night…
Man 2:
I just wanted you to listen to me. I just wanted you
to stand still for just one minute. I just wanted
a chance to tell you what I felt. I just wanted you
to listen to me for once.
Man 1:
Last night…
Man 1 and 3 (Together):
I didn't mean what I said.
Man 3:
I didn't mean to scream those words.
Man 1 and 3 (Together):
I didn't mean what I said.
Man 2:
Last night…
(As the play ends, the lighting gradually fades out,
leaving a sense of unresolved emotions.)