Monologue for Ocean

Ocean is rummaging in a pile of rubbish. His ass is pointed skyward, his torso completely devoured by a trash can. His back is turned on the audience. Suddenly, he finds something. We see him absorbed in his new possession- exploring and experiencing to full capacity. Eventually, he turns around. He has a super-size McDonald takeaway cup in his hand.

Ocean             Containers are always intriguing- something that can hide things pretty well.

He shakes the cup and plays with the lid.

                        I like coke. It is yummy and sticky. Being sticky attracts the flies- they tickle. It is brown and ugly like Turd, but I don’t mind it. In fact, I think I like it.

       He tips the contents on to the floor. Broken make-up and blunt pencils fall onto the ground.  Ocean starts to slowly, tenderly and immaculately apply the makeup. He does so in silence. The moment feels intimate like watching a lover tie up her hair without her being aware of your gaze. It is a naked moment.

Ocean adopts a different tone as he speaks now - a borrowed voice. Perhaps it is his voice; perhaps it is a voice of someone who has passed through Lloyd’s confessional.

                        A face for every occasion, a colour for every word; summertime, wintertime, every time - especially after lunchtime. I couldn’t tell you how many different faces I have. In fact, there are so many painted faces I love - more than most members of my family. All of my family. 

                 Pause.

                        I wanted to touch you like you touched me. I wanted to touch you in a way that spoke. But I didn’t have the words. So I decided to lie, not beside you, but about you.

                   Now he has completed his makeup.  He applies the final coat of lip-gloss.

            Everyone has baggage; it’s just in different packaging.

       Pause. Sheepish grin..

            The third eye looks like fish             pie.  Um-hmm.

                 He turns, leaving the mess of makeup on the ground, to resume his rummaging through the trash. 

                        Audition Scene for Turd

*NOTE: Auditionees are not expected to learn Ocean’s lines.

Ocean folds the chip packets around Turd as a blanket, tucking him into bed. Ocean goes to kiss him goodnight with great compassion.

Turd                Ocean…

Ocean             Oh, right.     

Turd                Buddy, seriously. You can’t get too excited. Remember what happened last time?  I can’t afford for you to smear me all over that body of yours. I’m not a big enough specimen for you to just smear willy-nilly. Last time I lost about 300 grams. I’ll never get that back. If you could just…

Ocean sees something in the corner of his ‘hoard-room’ and goes towards the object, fascinated.

Ocean             (Absentmindedly) There’s a lot to learn from looking after shit….

Turd                Ocean has the freedom of amnesia. He gets déjà vu a lot. So he remembers. Remembers to look after me now and then - which, well, it ain’t too bad.

Pause

                         But he always remembers to forget too.

Pause.

                         Fine by me anyways, I can look after myself.  

                         Eat, eat, eat.

                         Everybody wants to eat. Everybody likes to eat. Everybody has to eat.

                         A lot of thought goes into diets and cooking. So much planning into what you put in.

                         But how about what comes out, eh?

                         Shit.

                         It can be diarrhea or a stale, constipated poo that’s been hanging around for weeks, months, (steals a look at Lloyd) or years even.

                         Either way, you don’t exactly want me in your family photos.

                         You flush me away.

                         Out of sight, out of mind, right?

                         Just because you can’t see me don’t mean I don’t exist.

                         You heard that, Lloyd? (Pause. No response) Lloyd’s the worst. Creates all this glorious food and all this GLORIOUS shit. He just plain and simple dumps it into the public system.     

In the distance, Ocean whispers, “I wonder whether Lloyd misses Turd”. Turd doesn’t hear this.

                                      Like a bloody orphan or something.

6.      INT.           NINO’S ROOM.        LATE NIGHT

An island in a sea of white rubbish, NINO sits straight legged and awkwardly poised on his white mattress in the centre of his otherwise empty room. A barricade of black and white polaroids cover all surfaces, doors and windows. Long strips of undeveloped film hang from the roof. Unfinished packets of chewing gum are scattered everywhere. There are giant balls of gum stuck to the whitewashed wooden floorboards and the blades of his fan. NINO’s polaroids are stuck to the wall with gum.

NINO is chewing ferociously. The sound of spitty bubbles grows increasingly loud. He stares with a furrowed brow at a polaroid of CARMEN who is blowing an enormous bubble of gum. NINO blows an enormous bubble of gum. A single tear is falling from his exerted face.

7.   INT.    JORGE’S PATIENT BATHROOM.   MID MORNING

JORGE(V/O)

Law is determined by what a ‘reasonable’ person would do under circumstances. Feels pretty reasonable to feel, don’t it? I could be wrong… most evidence seems to fuckin’ suggest so.

A steamy fart bubble forms in a lime tiled bath and pops on the surface of the dirty water. It is followed by other tiny bubbles.

NINO, 26, a skinny man with large grey-green, fish-like eyes and a mop of haphazard hair sits on the side of the bath in a cold-blue uniform that has been ironed too crisply. Inside the bath sits JORGE, 57, a 6ft 2”, barrel-shaped and olive skinned man with a yellow and pink stripped towel wrapped around his head. Jorge chuckles to himself. Nino washes Jorge’s hairy chest with a lime hand cloth. Nino stares at the motion of his hand on Jorge’s chest as he blows an enormous swelling bubble of gum.

Jorge reaches across and pops Nino’s bubble. Nino snaps out of a vacant stare, chews a few times and places his gum around the outside of the bath, joining another ten or so other gumballs.

JORGE

You trying to lock me in or out?

NINO

Hmph…

JORGE

-with that bubble gum barricade of yours?

Nino drops the lime hand cloth into the water. He walks over to the toilet and sits down on top of the lid. He absentmindedly starts to whistle ‘I feel the earth move’ by Carol King. Jorge pulls the shower curtain around the bath. Bath water gurgles down the drain as Jorge dries himself. A cockroach scuttles across the bathroom. Jorge rips open the shower curtain. He still has his towel on his head, a red and white towel is wrapped around his waist and he is wearing a pair of soaking wet navy boat shoes. Jorge sits on the edge of the bath while Nino tries to ram a pair of jeans over Jorge’s boat shoes.

  JORGE

Are you the curious kind, Nino? If curiosity is the only thing you got, then you’re doing ok. Curiosity means you give a shit. You give a shit, Nino? Insanity happens when people don’t give a shit.

NINO

You sure you don’t want to take these off, Jorge?

JORGE

Well that’s a first! A question. That’s my quota for the month used up now, ain’t it?

NINO

You could really save us some time here.

JORGE

You don’t strike me as a guy whose first priority is time-efficiency. Not mine either. Time is like bread, I ran out of it yesterday but there’s certain things that need addressing immediately, like open wounds.

Nino tugs one of Jorge’s pant legs over his shoes and struggles with the other one. Nino’s pace quickens.

JORGE

Ok, ok I do a lot of talking but it’s only in the hope that someone’ll listen. You listening down there? In a place like this time don’t exist. Things get pretty crazy. Time is an important measure of human behaviour- otherwise all kinda shit happens. You know what I’m referring to exactly?

Nino finally yanks Jorge’s pants up. In a hurry, Nino drops the waist of the pants and they fall on the wet bathroom floor. Nino and Jorge do a yo-yo dance in an attempt to pick up the pants without banging into each other. Jorge finally hoists his pants up and buttons them. Nino faces the wall. Jorge goes over to the bathroom counter, puts on a parrot earring in the mirror and ruffles his hair with the towel.

JORGE

You’re a funny guy, Nino. A funny guy. Somewhat feminine. You got a feminine other?

NINO

You had today’s medication?

JORGE

I think you would be a lovely lover, Nino. You’re a good kid. I think you care, give a shit even. Am I right? A lot of ‘good’, ‘sane’ people think there’s such thing as necessary, inevitable cruelty. You believe that?

Nino looks out the window. A cat slinks across the grey stone pavements in the yard. Nino traces the cat’s movements across the glass with his finger.

JORGE

You know, they say curiosity killed the cat.

Nino steps away from the window, cautiously stepping over the wet, green tiles. His rubber shoes squeak loudly. Nino falls -sliding and slipping around in an attempt to get up. Jorge hauls Nino up onto his feet.

JORGE

Now why would they say that?

Jorge releases his grip. Nino swallows and opens the bathroom door. Letting all the steam out, Nino exits.

JORGE

Dennis was curious. Curious and lonely. Didn’t do him any favours.

Nino pokes his head in around the bathroom door.

NINO

What do you mean?

JORGE

Well, you wouldn’t exactly say he was purring in front of a hot bowl of milk.

NINO

Were you good friends?

JORGE

Not particularly- patients round here have a few stories about him though. I’d have a chat to those folk- even if chatting ain’t your thing.

Nino absentmindedly leans against the bathroom cabinet and starts tracing triangles on the steamy laminate. Jorge reaches down to the bottom draw and brings out an envelope stuffed with photos.

JORGE

You’re one of those artist types, aren’t ya. Won’t hold it against you. I’m one myself. Closet artist these days though. Thought you might be interested in some of these.

NINO

What are they?

JORGE

Patients, things I’ve seen here, things I thought I’d seen but couldn’t possibly…

NINO

You’ve got it wrong. I’m no artist.

Nino wipes his hand over the intricate pattern of triangles that he’s drawn on the laminate.

JORGE

Oh yeah… photos are art to me.

Nino takes the envelope of polaroid photos and becomes absorbed in flicking through the colour prints.

NINO

Look at all these faces. You’ve got a really good eye. How do you know I used to take photos?

JORGE

You bought your camera in a couple of months ago.

Nino stops flicking through the photos. Jorge grabs the envelope off him and sorts through them.

JORGE

There’s one of Dennis in here… before he died. (shouts)”You want shortbread or a short black?”. He used to say that all the time. Don’t know what he meant by it. Think it came from his time as an airhostess. He quite liked those uniforms you guys wear. Think it reminded him of his working days or maybe it was just a movie that he’d seen. He’d-

NINO

 Shortbread.

JORGE

 What?

NINO

I’d want the shortbread. Where’s your camera?

JORGE

In here…

Jorge reaches down into a draw in the bathroom cabinet. Nino takes the camera and turns it around in his hands. He pulls the levers and gadgets. He points it at Jorge and takes a snap. Nino shakes the polaroid photo as it slowly develops.

8.    INT.         NINO’S ROOM.         LATE NIGHT

An island in a sea of white rubbish, NINO sits straight legged and awkwardly poised on his white mattress in the centre of his otherwise empty room. A barricade of black and white polaroids cover all surfaces, doors and windows. Long strips of undeveloped film hang from the roof. Unfinished packets of chewing gum are scattered everywhere. There are giant balls of gum stuck to the whitewashed wooden floorboards and the blades of his fan. NINO’s polaroids are stuck to the wall with gum.

NINO is chewing ferociously. The sound of spitty bubbles grows increasingly loud. He stares with a furrowed brow at a polaroid of JORGE’s shoes from the bathroom. NINO blows an enormous bubble of gum. He pops the bubble and uses it to add the coloured polaroid to his black and white barricades.

9.    INT.         JORGE’S BEDROOM.      LATE NIGHT

JORGE is in bed with the covers over his head. His navy boat shoes poke out the end of the bed. His alarm goes off- 11.11pm. JORGE reaches under his blanket and we see him struggling. There are two ‘clunks’. JORGE is under the cover again. His feet poke out from beneath the covers. They are covered in scars and blisters and cuts.

In the end, we all go back to the ocean. From conception, to incubation, to inspiration, to death, to the afterlife (and all over again) we exist as salty fluid. These oceans are as much life as they are death. Each new arrival of life’s oceans signals a death and each deathly ocean welcomes new life.  Life’s greatest gifts are the oceans we give one another: the little ocean that is an orgasm, the little ocean new mother’s make in their wombs, the breaking waters as life enters the world, the dreamer’s tear and the sweat on skin. At the end of our life, we go back into the oceans we have made over the course of our lives. The signal of a well-lived life is the size of your ocean. The orgasms, the births, the sweat, the tears of dreams and the tears of grief are the currency in which your life will be valued.  In the after life, we swirl around in our own oceans, sometimes colliding with others, sometimes alone – much the same as in life. 

However, it is not the liquid body that characterizes the ocean but its salt. These grains of salt are souls.  The salt of the earth are the souls of the living and the salt of the sea are eternal souls. Just as the ocean kisses the shore, molding its contours and ruptures, eternal souls mould the world of the living. In the time it takes for a wave to crash on the shore and then be drawn back into itself, millions of lives have occurred. With each breath of the ocean, eternal souls are given the chance to momentarily touch and shape the earth but are always swiftly reclaimed.

In the end, all you can do in life is to shape and be shaped by the souls of the living- to have the bravery with each in-breath to let the universe change you and with each out-breath to let yourself change the universe.  In the afterlife, it is not about the breath…. but to provide momentum for those in the land of the living to have their time. 

The night is sweaty and pregnant, bursting with equal measures of creative juices and the possibility of complete destruction. Constant rain over the past week has left deep puddles in the lawn and under the house. Cackles and the smell of mixed perfumes invade the rooms of the house, creating their own humidity and the certain suffocation that lingers in greenhouses, despite the growth. The heat of Brisbane summer rain steams off the bitumen and mouldy cement paths outside.

The walls are covered with mismatched paintings and awnings from friends, lovers and the hands of the owner of the house herself. Seven women sit around a table, each rummaging, swaying and inhaling, reaching and retching. Reaching for each other, for something to consume, for something to consume them. They have begun their bi-monthly girls’ night out in tonight’s sweaty January fester. Although. There is nothing girly about this species. Women? Even the title is lacking. The sounds of farting and all-too-human smells ricochet against conversation of work, art, fucking, family, idiots, traffic, and accountants. Dust, mould and chewy grime lines the panels of the balcony underfoot. Bottles, cigarette ash, papers, and stained mugs are littered throughout. Their collective female presence charges the house, transforming it from a home into a dome that divides sound from statement.

In the process of having nothing to say but the space to say it I decided to lie. Not beside you but to you. I lost the ability to feel so I learnt to touch. I wish I could have touched you in a way that spoke. It seems I’ve lost my voice. Your bedside table has its secrets and I, my dear, have mine. If you let me tell you all I have to tell, it would land us in a lot of trouble. I want to go down to the sea and swim and sail and fuck in a little trough just off the shore. Then I feel like I could be sure. Sure of what? That’s irrelevant. I’m just trying to say goodbye.

The hostess clunks into the house searching for the cheap Coles spring rolls sizzling in the kitchen stove that came with the house. As she steps in, she notices the holiday postcard from him that she’s hidden as a bookmark in Leonard Cohen’s Beautiful Losers. Just where it belongs, she thinks. If only I could have loved. If only I could say goodbye and goodnight.

“Goodnight” he replies. It startles her. It’s a politician on the lounge room television screen. The presenter looks serious and apologetic as she responds to the politician. She earnestly delivers an intelligent, yet rehearsed segue, the kind you’ve seen most nights of your life. A little something she’s prepared earlier.

The echoes and muffles of the chatter outside leak indoors, reminding the hostess that this could be her segue, if she let it.

“I’m sure it was Winston Churchill!”

“No! No, definitely Hunter S. Thompson”

“What are they talking about?”

“Some quote that he said when they went on their date. It was at that nice restaurant in…”

“In War, the first casualty is truth”

“I thought he was trying to just seduce you. Is he trying to tell you you’re at war? Or that he’s lying?”

Back in the kitchen the hostess fumbles with the hot edges of the pan. She plonks the food down on the bench. Goodbye, indeed. She traces the open lid of the sweet chili sauce bottle with her index finger, sucks and slurps on the syrupiness of her finger and grazes its fleshy pad against her molars. She contemplates dishing out some Indonesian soy sauce that tastes like molasses but decides against it. She has to pee, wants a fag and wants to add her two cents to the conversation outside. She thinks ‘Politics creates war. Politics is devoid of truth. And if the art of controlling your environment is politics, then politics prevents you from becoming a victim of your environment. The victims are the ones with the truth.’ She gloats to herself and is proud of the profundity of her statement, which adds momentum to the speed of her food preparation.

I live with a woman that proclaimed never has she met someone quiet so great at detaching. I will not be a victim. So goodbye. Then she made a list of times. The times frighten me. The newspaper isn’t my favourite either. I, in the moment of spoken word, fell in love with that particular notion of myself and latched on for dear life. Dear life. Dear universe. Dear me. I decided, in a little snippet of destruction, to hold on to that external method and apply it to you. I chose not to be courageous. I chose to hide and I chose to hide beneath the image of bravery and the righteous notion of “This is what I have to do”.

The conversation outside shifts again. The hostess goes to the freezer and plucks the vodka from between the peas and frozen mince. She pours a glass and squeezes half a lemon, watching as it foams against the alcohol. She notices two pips slip in, hesitates, considers removing them but can’t be bothered. Armed with a drink in one hand and the plate of spring rolls in the other, she saunters outside.

The white noise of the tv annoys her and the moving-images flicker and jerk across the wall, deflecting her thoughts. She goes to turn it off but finds she can’t. Across the screen is an avalanche of mud and cars and litter and people sweeping down the main town centre. The rivers have burst their banks. The waters have broken. A wall of earth and water to rock you.

“Ladies……”

They don’t hear.

“Ladies!”

They come. She takes a swig of her drink.

There is nothing amiss. I am self-diagnosing where no illness prevails. In the name of the father, the sun and the Holy Spirit, I plunge the body. In the absence of my father, in the darkness and in the spirit of violence I plunge the body. A dose of coffee and drink and cigarettes and sugar and preservatives alongside immune defense tablets, vitamin c, liver health capsules and those slim line lavender pills for the contractions and jitters that rattle the bones and bruise the flesh. To health, the deceit and the hope. I am trying to find some words, say something hefty, something transient or meaningless. I hope, that if you ever read this, you might confuse one for the other.

They all stare and watch and do not know what it means. Where it comes from. How it heaves and thrashes. The rains have brought the ocean to the land.

If I could anchor you or her or him or them or me in some sort of situation, I would invent some armor and amour. It could be a self-confessional in disguise. There were feathers in your bathroom from the chicken that you call Dave. It was early morning and we had the day to spend together in each other’s arms, if we wanted to. There was no early flight to Papua New Guinea with the subsequent taxi and walk through the city. You did leave the next day though and I did walk through the city. It pays not to think that we could still be in bed. Now that I’ve washed my face, I feel capable. I guess it comes down to face value. Face value. Repetition in writing is not a rewriting of meaning.  In life, it changes, but on paper it remains stationery.

“Well I don’t know about you but we have six liters of bottled water and 11 litres of vodka. I’ve never felt so prepared for a natural disaster in all my life.”

The tap drips in the kitchen and someone has left a cigarette to burn on the table outside. Nobody speaks as images of the floods roar across the screen.   Statistics and hotline numbers are incessantly repeated as if in explanation of the event. One of the ladies says her joke again. 

“Well I don’t know about you but we have six liters of bottled water and 11 litres of vodka. I’ve never felt so prepared for a natural disaster in all my life.”

The repetition of the joke changes the degree of noisy stillness in the room from sizzling to freezing. The waters are still broken. The flood is still coming but something has changed, something in the stars.

I have an allergy to astrology. By trying to make an artifact of art, you impinge your ability to live the events and life of what art should contain. Searching for substance loses its substance. I guess, yes, and I guess, no. I was frozen, eyes locked, bones stiff, breath slow, rhythm fast, body still. I zoned into the aluminum, wind, pace and space of the desert and its hard, clay road seemingly composed only of dust. Stability and groundedness made up of something so flighty. My grandma had a little flat in a coastal town just outside the city. By the end, she was grinding her cigarette ash into the carpet with declarations that it was good for its growth. Her little flat with the astroturf, gnomes and cockatoos on the balcony. Their claws have corroded and punched away at the thick, green plastic barricade. Let go. We are not your commission fee. 

From outside you see the old Queenslander’s roof give way just over the lounge room. A torrent of water from the previous week finally breaks the tin roof’s back. The gutter waste, debris and the carcasses of Bluegum branches from several years fall through with the loss of suspension. Inside the telly sparks. The ladies stand there drenched, horrified and shrieking alongside soggy spring roles. All that remains is the violence of silence.

Sometimes there’s a very fine line between something profound and something that’s fallen flat on its face and looks like chickens cooking dinner while proclaiming to be Mussolini.

This time of night The grime of peripheral sight You are, and I am too, we give in without a fightLike a transfer sticker you are transposed An arthritic window into the past you bin And the future in a garden of a humble sin

Thanks for the feedback. Do you think it’s too cutesy in terms of predictability? or the language I’ve used? or some of the imagery? 

So my name is Frank. Frank is my name. And I guess, here I am on your shiny, porcelain, bleached plate. Ya know what, the chef spat on me before I came out. Don’t worry toots, you won’t taste it. I’m smothered in lemon juice and oil. Serves you right for sending your lamb back last time you was here. I was still stiff as a nipple, alongside some frozen peas, when I heard the uproar. Not so wise of you, this disgruntled customer biz. Anyways, here I am (am I here?). You’ll grind your chalky teeth into my boney spine and garlic crust and I’ll get wedged with the cheesy onion between your back molars. You’ll have a suck on my eyeballs with their washing machine glaze and swell. I’ll high jump down your throat bones, ribs and flounder in your belly button. Take a wrong turn in your Bolognese flavoured armpits and swim in your red and peach and mustard flesh. Let me tell you, hun, there’s more oceans in this universe of ours than the one in the pacific. I didn’t want to be the one to tell you, but the douchebag you’re sitting next to, who just so happens to be sleeping with your sister, knocked you up. You is preggaz. I mean, I won’t be rude or nothing. I’ll drop into that little ocean of yours, ebbing and crashing in your womb, and say “hello, hello and see ya later” to this child of yours. We’ll both probably be ejected out of your body sooner or later. Granted, it won’t quite take me 9 months but you get the gist. Don’t give me that look and hesitation! None of this surprise charade with me please and thanks. You don’t even like sardines and here I am. Well and truly ordered by yours truly. Oh great, here comes the fork. Well ain’t that swell. Cheers to love and murder: Bon Appetite!  

thanks heaps! I love any feedback I can get at the moment!