No Time Left. Behind The Glass

                No Time Left. Behind The Glass
   The two-act play
by Vladimir Snegurchenko

translated by
Vera Aliseychyk 
Maxim Grehovodov


Dramatis personae:
NICK (Age: 25)
APRIL (Age: 30)
ElISE - (Age: 45)


***

The play takes place in the apartment. One-storey house with a high foundation. This is quite a large apartment in the center of the metropolis. The tall window on the wall is facing the street, this is what is in the foreground. Right at the back there's an entrance to the bedroom, to the left at the back entrance to the bathroom, there is a kitchen. Front of the window on the wall hangs a large screen. Before the window are three leather chairs, one chair in the center, the other two - a semicircle evenly on both sides. On the left, before going to the kitchen, there is a small closet with mirrored doors. The window is arranged so that if it is inside the apartment, we can see what is happening on the street. But, if we are on the street, then we can not see what is happening inside the apartment. At least that's what our characters think, being inside the apartment. On the street, which we could view from the window, there is always a lot of people, mostly tourists, this boulevard is for pedestrians.

***
ACT ONE
 Scene One.
Episode One.

It's morning. Elise lies infront of the window with the chair behind her. She's making a birch exercise, the kind of exercise in which legs are lifted along with the pelvis. 

ELISE: How do you think, which part of human body is most interesting: lower or upper?
After making the birch exercise, you have to make fish exercise three times faster to analize the blood pressure.   
The Birch  decreases the pressure and the Fish increases. (Elise takes a lotus position, looks into the window and talks to passers-by.)
I had a granny. (Puase) She used to say that the most fascinating part of human body is lower. If one falls in love with what's below, he'll love the rest, which is the person itself. But I'm different, as the years pass, it gets harder for me to love people for what's below. Granny, 'till her last breath payed a lot of attention to what's below. In fact, if people walked upside down, she'd never look down. But since most people prefere to stand straight on their legs, granny had to look forward, always considering what's below. She had a lot of admirers and lovers. But she never got married.
(Elise stands up. Looks into the window. Talks to passers-by)
Who among you think that the upper body rocks? Put your hands in the air! Now the fans of the lower body, show me your hands! Now we got to know each other. There are so many of you. You come and go and there's no chance to remember every single one. (Pause) I'm Elise, simply Elise.What about you? What is your name? (Points her finger on a passbyer) Don't you remember, or what? I am a playwrite. And upper part is what I love the most in human being. But my professinal duty forces me to do a very detailed description of things below. Now it's my turn to show you what I have in there. I think it's fair enough. I've often looked inside other people's pants so now it's my turn. I'll show you what I have below only if that'll entertain you. You may turn away if you wish, it's upto you. But I don't think that you'll discover America by looking in there. By the way,  do you remember who discovered America? I mean, the way it was discovered. What do you think about that. (Pause) I'll tell ya. A powerfull nation. (Pause) Do you consider yourself a powerfull nation? Like, really powerfull. (Demonstrates her strained muscles) Strong, ya know?!.(Demontrates a part of her hand) I see you do. So, the powerfull nation destroyed the weaker nation.
Yeah. (Smiles. In fact she always smiles that Alice) That's the way America was discovered. Or rather covered. (Smiles) To it's indigenous people. (Smiles) But do you remember, I promised  to show what I have below. Remember? It's quite intimate for me. I'm really nervous 'cause it'll be my first time. But you want it don't ya? You may disagree with it but that's the way it is. Am I right? You came for this didn't ya? (Talks to herself) To see what Elise has below. (Stretches her pants and looks inside. Laughs) I think I rush the events. You're not ready yet. I still haven't got used to you. Though... I don't wanna shock you. (Sighs) Although my manager would have been happy if I could shock you. Do you get it? As for me, I don't think that it could make me any happier. I didn't tell him about it. I already showed him what I have below. (Smiles) You get it? You see... I often say this word, you know, don't try to look like you don't understand, you're not dummier than me.  Yes, we're slightly going back to our question, to our favorite topic.What's above and what's below. (Pause) It's an old Taoist pensee. (Smiles) What's beneath (Points down) resembles what's above. (Points at her smile. Shows her tongue) And so the powerfull nation destroyed the weaker one. And that's the way America was formed... I hate America for that. (Turns away and sighs) I hate us because  the America appeared. (Smiles) You know what they say? (Lifts her finger and speaks factitiously) I gave you life, I will take it... Well of course I don't mean it. Americans are really nice. Pretty much like Spanish and British. But it's not about people, is it? It's rather...W-what are we talking about anyway? (Speaks tougher) C'mon, c'mon use your brain (Pause) of course if it's a part of your plan... Right now I'm going to show you what I have below and we'll find out what I have above... Now then, the powerfull nation destroyed the weaker one, terminated it. The powerfull nation (Lifts her hand with the pointed finger) — is what's below. And the weak nation (Covers her pubis with an open palm) — is what's above. The disgrace to a weaker nation gives birth to things like 'terrorism' .
               
   




 Episode Two.

(Nick and April enter the room. Nick recently had shower his hair is wet. April is sleepy, she just woke up.) 

APRIL: Who are you talking to?
ELISE: These folks. (Points on passers-by)
APRIL: Oh, all right then.
ELISE: It's not all right. I think they hear me.
NICK: No way.
ELISE: I'm quite sure.
NICK: They're outside the window. That's not possible.
ELISE: I know, but still... (Alice looks at Nick then at April. They don't understand her) I spoke to them and I'm completely sure that they've heard me.
NICK: Where did you sleep?
ELISE: Here in the chair.
NICK: You've been dreaming it.
ELISE: Perhaps
APRIL: And what the conversation was about?
ELISE: I wanted to get undressed in front of them.
NICK: Are you insane or something? Why would you do that?
APRIL: It doesn't matter. What the chat was about?
ELISE: Don't remember... What was your dream?
APRIL: Oh, I had some spooky nightmare. Like I am at classes at school and I have my first monthlies. I wear skirt and the blood flows down my legs, I'm shocked I don't understand what's going on. I think that I'm dying. I stand up and everybody starts laughing at me. I don't understand why they laugh seeing the girl dying right before their eyes. They keep laughing and suddenly I feel some kind of embarrassment, I want to cry, but I can't shed a single tear as like someone had closed my tear valve and opened another one, completely different. The teacher sees it and takes me out of the classroom. Then I spend a whole week at home, afraid of going back to school.    
NICK: Is that the first time that you had this dream?
APRIL: No I see it very often. 
NICK: This really happened to you?
APRIL: Yes (Pause) Well no, not with me. My schoolmate. She was a really stuck up girl. She couldn't even walk into the restroom if other girls were there. She'd always run away from their attention. I was among the girls who laughed at her when something like that happened to her. Since then, three or two days befor my periods I have this nightmare. (Long pause)
ELISE: What was your dream, Nick?
NICK: Well, I had that dream... I'm not even sure if that was a dream or just my personal fancy. I was interested with one question.
ELISE: What question, Nick?
NICK: What?
ELISE: What question interested you in your dream?
NICK: If one collects all the worlds piss accumulated in one day, how much that'll be?...
ELISE: Per day or in 24 hours.
NICK: Per day. I mean...Including nightime. In 24 hours.
APRIL: What about you, Nick. What is your pissing prime time, night or day?
NICK: What are you trying to point at? I've just been in the shower. Helps me to wake up. I sleep at night. Everybody sleeps at night. Twenty four hours, on earth, in different time of day and night.   
ELISE: Well, a big swimming pool of some fancy resort if not bigger.
NICK: What about a month?
APRil: I think pool would be enough to satisfy your interest.
ELISE: Nick's interest, if you don't mind.
APRIL: I don't mind.
ELISE: I just wanted to clarify that.
APRIL: Yes, sure.
NICK: I'm starving. 
APRIL: Yeah, it would be nice to have some breakfast. Let's look at what we have. I'll just go brush my teeth first.






 
Scene Two.
Episode One.

April, Nick and Elise stand infront of the window and stare at people. They hold their toothbrushes. Nick holds a tube of toothpaste. He squeezes some paste on Elise's and April's brush, but April gets just a little drop of it. April takes hold of a tube and puts as much paste as she needs. They brush their teeth thoroughly. April picks a glass of water from the floor, gargles and spews into a bowl that stands at her feet. Hands a glass to Nick. He repeats the procedure. There's no more water in the glass. Nick used most of it. He goes away. You could hear the sound of running water. Nick brings a full glass to Elise. All this time they stare at people who walk behind the window. Elise takes a glass from Nick and rinses her mouth. Steps to April. Unlike Nick she doesn't bend to spew, and that causes numerous white stains on her legs. Actually Elise's feet are all in stains as well. But April wears skirt, and Elise wears pants. April contemptuously points her head noting Elise's discourtesy. Nick takes all the brushes, glass and toothpaste. Puts it all in a bowl. He goes away without turning his head from the window. April leaves as well. Elise sits in the armchair in the middle  of the room. Looks into the window.   

Episode Two
Nick's back. He sits into a chair left from Elise. They look into the window silently. But Nick peeps on Elise once in a while. It seems that Elise is watching someone particular, apparently living through his feelings.
April comes back. She rolls a two-tier snack table with tea, cups, some sandwiches, cereal, pack of milk on top of it, and bowls, spoons, some fruit, chocolates and small packs with different kinds of sugar below. April sits in a free chair. The table stands between April and Elise. But no one can reach it but April.

APRIL: Self service!

(Everybody is having tea. Nick is eating cereal. Both April and Alice pick sandwich.)

NICK: Shall we begin?

(No answer.)

NICK: Now, we have this violence scene. (Pause) Can you imagine?

(No answer. Everybody is looking in the window. Everyone including Nick, by the way.)

NICK: Some decent woman is raped and beaten by some decent man. Somewhere in Uruguay. Just to make it simple... Imagine someone you don't feel sorry for. (Nick takes a look on April and Elise). You got it? (Long pause. Nick's angry with them because they don't pay any attention. He stands up, comes closer to the window, watches the passers-by.) You got it? (Pause). Lift your hand if you've got the picture. (Talks to Elise and April). Let's say, I have this rape recorded. Do you have any interest to see it? (Pause. Nobody answers. They just keep looking into the window. Nick pretends that he speaks to the people outside). How do you think, will it be Ok to show it right now?
Lift your hand if you don't mind. Who's ready to see this recording now, right on this screen? Any volunteers? (Nick points at the screen. Walks to it. There is a remote right below it. Nick clicks the remote, and the screen projects the real time picture of what's going outside. Both women look at the screen for some time, but not too long. Then stare at the window again. For a moment Nick thinks that he's caught their attention. But that's not true. Nick's dissapointed. He talks to Elise and April again.) Who wants to see the terrible scene of vilence, lift your hand!
APRIL: You see Nick, it's not relevant any more. There are so many of these rape scenes, and how did you get this picturer of the outside?
NICK: I did nothing, I just turned it on. Right before your eyes. I think I should switch the channel, there should be something interesting.
APRIL: Piss off and do what you want.
NICK: I didn't get the answer! Who wants to see!? (Nick talks to the screen) Who wants to see this freakin' rape scene!!? (April and Elise look at the window, they're not in the mood to talk. April's apparently sleepy. And Elise... Elise is different, she seems to know something what the others don't.) Allright, let's do it the other way. (Nick comes to the window and talks to passers-by.) Who would like to see the live violence scene right now in this room, only without any beating, just a simple dumb piece of abuse?! Or simply a plain bit of coitus?! Any volunteers, show me your hands!
ELISE: Hey, do you control yourself?
NICK: Yes, I do! (Nick stares into passers-by.) There are some, here they are, some of them.
ELISE: Listen, I do think, that some of them would love to do that, especially with you (Looks at April), if you let them in of course.
NICK: (To passers-by). Hey, I personally invite you to join our company, come over here be so kind show me what you can! Perharps you could do that right where you are. Fuck each other! C'mon, you were lifting hands. Don't have guts, hah? Right over there, grab someone and get laid! Look over there, that girl's horny. She lifted her hand! C'mon, just two of you, body to body, rock on! You afraid? Are you afraid!? You volunteered for this!               
APRIL: Go and do it yourself!
NICK: I'm not interested. How many people would look around if something like that actually happend in a public place. How many would faint, how many would call the police? Or they would stand and stare or film it on their cellphones. Ok, we're done, thank you. Let's consider this as a simple public opinion poll. 
APRIL: So, do you know how many?
NICK: How many?
APRIL: Do you give a damn?
NICK: Do I give a damn? Yes I do!
ELISE: Why is that, Nick? Why do you need this?
NICK: I wanted to find out more about modern people.
ELISE: Did you?
NICK: Yeah.
APRIL: And what is that you've found?
NICK: I'm afraid to talk of it.
ELISE: You damn right. I have creeps too (Pause)
APRIL: I don't get it, what both of you are so scared of?
ELISE: A-a-ah...
NICK: I'd rather not speak.
ELISE: Yeah, me too.
APRIL: Listen, you both are like a pair of kids. No, like two retards.
NICK: You'd better look after yourself.
APRIL: And what's wrong with me? I'm Ok, you two have problems.
NICK: We're alright. Me and Elise have no problems. It's them who have problems.
APRIL: Who?
NICK: All of them! They always have plenty of problems. (Points at the window)
APRIL: Alright, then what's our problem?
ELISE: April, who're you exactly with? Them or us?
APRIL: Me? I'm with them! I'm always with them! Because they're me. They've alwayse been a part of me. Whose side are you on?
ELISE: April, stop. You have to be on our side is that clear? You have to be with us, April.
APRIL: Why's that?
ELISE: Because, alright?! Because they'll come and go and we'll remain, 'cause we always remain, and them, they just walk on by. That's why you have to be on our side.
APRIL: You serious? You'll vanish! They'll come and go and come and go again! You'll disappear and they'll just keep coming.
NICK: Where?
APRIL: Nick, gimme a break. Just don't play dumb. You know exactly what I'm talking about.
NICK: Yeah, but I'm not ready to leave. I've only just begun to live.
APRIL: Ok, than live happily ever after. What's the bother?
ELISE: She's right.
NICK: 'Bout what?
ELISE: We're the ones who'll go, and they will just keep on coming. They like it here.
NICK: Ok then! April, you're right.
APRIL: Do you really think I'm right or it's just Elise?
NICK: No, I really think so.
APRIL: Honestly?
ELISE: Oh, stop it, April. He'd already told you.
APRIL: No, I want to know. Nick, do you mean it?
NICK: (Gritting his teeth) Yes, April, I mean it.
APRIL: Then apologise.
NICK: To whom?
APRIL: To them.
NICK: For what?
APRIL: Do you think you did nothing to apologise for?
NICK: I think that if you need an apology you should do it yourself.
APRIL: And you think you'll go away with it?
NICK: Hell yes.
APRIL: That's why you have to apologise.
NICK: Go screw yourself.
ELISE: Yes, Nick you have to apologise.
NICK: For what?!
ELISE: You doubted them. You may lose touch, that's a bad sign.
NICK: Just tell me, since when you started believe in signs?
ELISE: Since now.   

(Nick looks nervously on way, then the other. He wants, he wants... Nick doesn't know what he wants now, but he knows exactly that he doesn’t want to apologize to anyone. He even knows that there is no any God, but there is something else, something completely different, and it is much more powerful than God, it is a hundred times more powerful than God. And it’s him, Nick himself. He feels himself almighty. And he understands that it was provoked by the pressure exerted on all sides. It seemed even to him that passers-by stopped and demanded also an apology from him. Nick overcame this pressure of human emotions. And he believed that he would never, even in his thoughts, doubt his divine mission. Which, as Nick felt, was only the beginning point of his limit. And where is his limit? Nick had no doubt about it, there was no any. There are no any limits.)

NICK: Oh yes! (Pause.) But you, Elise, doubted them at first too, you were at first on my side. What’s the matter, what has happened?
ELISE: (Elise speaks to passers-by.) I was wrong, sorry. (Pause. Nick is silent.) Nick! (Pause. Nick doesn’t answer.)  Nick, now it's your turn. (Pause. Nick doesn’t answer.)
APRIL: Nick, if you don’t apologize now! (Pause. Nick doesn’t respond.) If you don’t apologize now, I will do it for you.
NICK: But I don’t give a damn about them, you know?! That's it, they will come and go, come and go! And what?! And what?! Nothing. And we go on bothering, and thinking about each of them. We are afraid to miss even one of them. We mess about them, come to know them, and nurse them like children. Examine them, and try to emulate. It is they who will go away, April, and we will stay! And they don’t give a damn about what will be with you tomorrow, the next day, on any day when they don’t need you until they need you. And that is what reality is, cruel reality.

(Nick turns off the screen and leaves.)

APRIL: (To passers-by) Excuse him.
ELISE: (Defiantly.) What?!
APRIL: (Piercing Elise with her glance.) Got!

ELISE: Oh, who do you think you are?!! (Elise follows Nick out.)
APRIL: One more minute ... One more minute and they will come back.

(She follows Nick. Blackout.)


Scene Three.
Episode One.

(Night. April and Nick stand in a glimmer of light by the window. They look at passers-by. Though it’s late, but now and then someone passes by. The built-in floor lamps shine under their feet. Their faces are hardly seen. The lamps shine like small spotlights. The rays draw a thread of light along the entire ceiling. The voices sound like in the confessional. Sometimes a distant Elise’s heavy breathing is heard. It seems that Elise has fallen asleep.)

NICK: You know, when I first met this woman, she didn’t even want to talk to me.
APRIL: Why?
NICK: I think so because she was so much in love with her husband that she could not afford to even just talk to a strange man. She talked to everyone, but never to anyone in private. It applied of course to males. If I asked her a question, meeting her somewhere in the corridor, she did not answer. I followed her. She came out to a crowded place so that everyone could hear and that was the only way we could talk. But you know, I have never once told her what I really wanted to say. I couldn’t afford to let anyone except her hear what I'm saying.
APRIL: And what did you want to say to her? (Nick doesn’t answer) I didn’t talk to you because I wanted you to insist on, you know, to insist on the conversation. I wanted to feel you need me. (Long pause. Nick doesn’t respond at all.) I mean, it was she, she who thought like this. (Pause.) I mean, I think so. (Pause.) I mean, I think she thought like this. (Nick looks at April as if he wants her to decide on what any of them thought.) And what did you want to say to her, Nick?
NICK: I cannot tell you, I feel still a bit awkward about it.
APRIL: But who is she?
NICK: She? (It’s getting interesting for Nick to play this game. He even seemed to April unusually mysterious and Nick noticed it.) Sorry…
APRIL: Do you still love her?

But now Nick has thought it all was pretty silly. April never seemed to Nick original in heart-to-heart talks. But one couldn’t help noticing that in her daily reflections about life. But Nick is a romantic and he didn’t want to become someone's property. He realized that now he will have to hear the conversation out. And it can drag on for the whole night. There can be even undesirable consequences. That is, undesirable consequences after momentary weakness. And usually this ended sadly for Nick. He was very sensitive about it when someone took offense at him.

NICK: Yeah. (Pause.) I don’t know. I think it’s pointless. Even after she had divorced her husband, what made me extremely happy, I didn’t come up to her and didn’t speak to her of my love.
APRIL: But why?
NICK: I guess because I'm used already not to speak about it, and I guess I was afraid that if I told her she would not understand and would refuse me. (Nick invented the answers now on the spur of the moment. If we’re going to play, let’s play till the end, he decided. But doubts still lurked in his mind, so he was careful.)
APRIL: But how could you be afraid, even without having tried to do this, at least the slightest hint of that?

April ... April, she was still a little embarrassed by herself. She wanted to feel her heart full of feelings, freedom of her love. But there, in the heart, as if a drying well destroyed all her blossom. She was choked with thirst. She wanted to get drunk with Nick’s hard-heartedness. But she couldn’t overcome her embarrassment. And now she realized, to the boot of all that, that it’s not a matter of embarrassment, that's not the point. A drying well in her heart was destroying her blossom. That’s what April was worrying about. Love was fading because of lack of moisture, there’s nothing worse. It seemed to April that she realized something. She felt better, her heart began slowly to melt.

NICK: Yeah, I guess you're right.

April had a hope again to flash back to her childhood and to fill her heart with true love. She remembered the girl who had her first period. April began in her thoughts to apologize to her. And it seemed to her the girl even forgave her. April kissed and hugged her, shook her fist at the whole class, and then took her home, explaining on the way that it's not at all terrible what happened to her. After that April had never this nightmare.

APRIL: But maybe it’s not too late to do this? (April thought for a moment that her emotional experience is directly related to a communication with Nick.)
NICK: Yeah, maybe it’s too late. (Nick didn’t understand why he couldn’t think of it before. Maybe it was really just an illusion and not a love as he thought.) No, it's not too late. Thanks. That’s for what I love you and have respect for you, that you understand, deeply understand people.

Then April keeps talking, but not to Nick, she talks to another Nick, it seemed to her that Nick is something more than it seemed to him.
Perhaps thanks to such attitude Nick became a little better, a little purer, so to say.
  She goes on talking to the innermost Nick’s thoughts, maybe one day he will manage to talk to it.
Perhaps because of this, because of her attitude to him, Nick listens carefully to all that April says. He seems to find some hints in her words, some signs for himself.

APRIL: You know, the last two years before the divorce, it was very difficult for me. I regretted I had acted so. Day by day I regretted more and more that I had acted like this, and reproached myself for this act. I could destroy our lives. He loved me very much, cared for me. He would have been a wonderful husband for almost any woman. But I could no longer bear this deception. And when he started drinking in the second year of our life together. (Pause.) Well, how could he not drink? How he could not drink, I didn’t love him at all. I married him just somehow to take my mind off of longing for people, for you, of cold and indifferent glances. And when he started beating me...
NICK: Who, your husband?
APRIL: My ex-husband.
NICK: Did he beat you? 
APRIL: Oh, yeah! Sometimes even battered me.
NICK: Bastard, brute, no one can beat you.
APRIL: No, no. This helped me a lot, helped me to switch off, to seek oblivion, to reduce my pain. You know, physical pain turned out to be much milder than mental anguish.
NICK: Really?
APRIL: Yeah, I am saying it to you as a woman.
NICK: Hey, maybe he beat you not too hard? (Pause. April doesn’t answer.) Well, how often did he beat you?
APRIL: Whenever he was drunk. Whenever he wanted to have sex. I had never wanted him, well, there was perhaps the time when I wanted him, but, you know, having sex without love is boring. And he felt it. At first he didn’t understand of course what was happening, just felt it. I saw that he felt something, but I managed somehow to conceal it the first year. And then he exposed me. (Pause.) I faked my orgasm far too unnaturally. He realized that I didn’t love him and even didn’t want him. His mind fitted all pieces together like a complex jigsaw puzzle. He understood all and after that started beating me. (Pause.) He comes, and then starts making a row and beating and beating me. Then drinks and beats me again, and so all over again.
NICK: Yeah... Yeah...
APRIL: And then I had a slight hope again. Remember you called me one day? (Pause. Nick doesn’t answer, he doesn’t remember it. The pause began to seem awkward and April went on.) Well, after that I dreamed about you more and more. And I thought it was a sign, I had a hope, I had a small chance to become happy.

Pause. April looks at Nick. Nick feels a bit uncomfortable, a bit ill at ease, as if he was asked to share his single bed with someone else. April doesn’t like that she has put Nick in an awkward position. “Well, damn it, so be it, let him be in an awkward position! When I finally start thinking about yourself?!!” April thought so, but she could never step over her complex not to be intrusive. “Next time, definitely next time” so she justified her decision to back away for a short while from her plans about Nick.

APRIL: I divorced my husband and waited for you to call me, that is, to call me up when you need me. Well, you called me once, so I decided that soon you would call me again. I realized that I could wait a long time, as long as you need. (Pause.) Understand?

Nick could not remember when he had called her, however hard he tried he could not remember. That is, he knew exactly that he had never called April. But now, when she told him the story, now he began to doubt. “But maybe he had really called her?”. Nick remembered that it was him who had called her with an offer to come to this apartment to observe people. He called not on his behalf, but as if at Elise’s request. And it was the only time he had called her, and this was a few days before they came here. But now Nick a bit shocked by these memories because he hadn’t met April before that call.

NICK: Yeah, a very sad story. In principle, even like mine. But ... No, no, I don’t think that her husband beat her. It’s impossible. Probably when she realized she fell out of love with him, she divorced him at once. It seems he couldn’t keep her love for long. (Pause.) Oh, by the way, they also spent about two years together. (Pause.) Yeah, about two years. (Pause.) Two years! Apparently it’s something like a trial period. (Nick is speaking with emotion to passers-by.) If you have been living together for two years and everything is fine, then you're made for each other! (Pause.) Sort of, yeah? (Pause. They look out of the window.)

Blackout.


Scene Four.
Episode One

Morning. April, Nick and Elise stand by the window and are going to brush their teeth. The same procedure as the last time. Nick takes the pot away and returns. April goes away to bring breakfast. Elise sits down in the center armchair, it's her favorite place, rolls up cannabis. Nick sits down to the right of her, he was standing all the while, until Elise sits down. They look out of the window.

ELISE: When do you usually brush your teeth, before meals or after?
NICK: Usually I brush as soon as I wake up.

Elise begins to smoke.

ELISE: Do you want hashish?
NICK: Yeah, I think I'll take a couple of hits.

Nick smokes and gives a roll-up back to Elise. April wheels a tea trolley.

APRIL: Self-service.

She places it as usual near her armchair, the other come up, take something to have a snack and sit down in their armchairs again. Today everyone drinks coffee. They thank April with a nod as they pour a cup of coffee for themselves.

ELISE: April, want to smoke?
APRIL: What is it?
ELISE: Weed.
APRIL: No.
APRIL: Why not?
APRIL: I have enough impressions for now.
ELISE: Your loss.

They smoke by turns with Nick. Make “power hit”, when one takes a "hit" of a joint, turning it around so the lit end is inside the mouth, and blows the hit out into the mouth of another. Then they make the so-called “Gypsy's Kiss”, when one inhales the smoke and then blows it into another’ mouth. They have fun and feel good. April is watching all this, it annoys and bothers her. April's afraid to admit to herself that she's just jealous. She looks now at them, now turns away from them.

ELISE: April, want a “power hit”? One power hit? (April keeps silent.) Come on, April! (April keeps silent.) Nick, go and blow a hit to April.
NICK: Why me?
ELISE: You're younger than me. (Archly.) And you're a gentleman!
NICK: It doesn’t matter, everyone is equal in love and we have a democracy in our country!
ELISE: Nick, don’t start all over again. You'd better go and blow a hit to April.
NICK: Okay! Mind you, you've asked yourself.
ELISE: Yes, yes, go and relax! (Smiling.)
NICK: Just for you.

He’s about to go to April, but April turns away in the opposite direction. She seems to have indeed a lot of impressions.

NICK: She doesn’t want.
ELISE: Well, go, what if she wants.
NICK: She turned away, she really doesn’t want.
ELISE: Well, okay, leave her alone. There’s a democracy in our country, you’ve said this?
APRIL: A democracy is in the ass!

Elise and Nick smoke nervously the last hits.

ELISE: And what is like, April?
NICK: The democratic ass is probably when you put your ass when you want and to whom you want. And where you want.
ELISE: Or to someone to have profit from it, right?
NICK: How come?
ELISE: Well, if April is to profit from putting to you her ass, and she easily puts it, then it’s a free democracy, which as April has said is in the ass. Did I get that right, April?
APRIL: No, not right.
ELISE: Then how? (April keeps silent.) Well, then how, April? (April doesn’t answer.)
NICK: April, April, April, April, April...
APRIL: Shut up!
NICK: Oh, we know even such words?
ELISE: (Significantly.) Democracy.
APRIL: Democracy is your ass is considered to be the same as mine. But my ass does at least something, even if it puts to someone. And your sweet bottom does fucking nothing, just sits on the mum’s tit, hiding from everything, and pretends to equal rights.
ELISE: Oh, really? And your bottom does quite a lot?!

April doesn’t take this remark as referring to herself.

APRIL: Well, this means that democracy is fucked up . Fuck such a democracy. Everything should be at least as under tsarism, as in the days of the Russian Empire. Some think and command, and the others grind away at a factory or sit in front of a telly or a computer. Because if you cannot and don’t want to fuckin' think, and cannot simply make a decision by yourself. And you just think, what the others have, wishing you had it as well. So how can you be compared with the person, who thinks and deliberately makes a decision? He's worth ten, a hundred of you! And his vote, for example, in presidential elections is equated with your vote. So what happens? Half the country is miners, the other half is at factories, shops or pensioners who still live in the Soviet Union, everyone in his personal union, the others went abroad for a better life. And there is the same situation in those countries, the same situation is everywhere, a democracy is everywhere.  And who will go to the polls, who will vote and on what criteria? It’s they who will do. Therefore, we are all in the ass, and our state and democracy are in the ass. You come from the factory, gorge and goes to sleep. What do you know about that, for whom you can give your vote? No, I'm not saying that they are all stupid, but judge for yourself, for whom they give their votes? For the one who tells you that he will give you more food next year, will reduce taxes, will make gasoline cheaper and will stop the war after they had sucked all the petroleum out? For what people are fall? For such promises! And I'll tell you that they feed us with such or similar promises on TV, in newspapers, in the campaign trail, in these fucking election leaflets. Do you know who is tougher? Those are tougher who throw away more money on the campaign trail, this is the money that you work off, grinding away at your plants. You understand? You see what I'm driving at? The promises given to us, can be given by any moron, by absolutely any moron, you understand? And the same morons come and vote for him, because they are in the majority. And if they don’t come, then someone will vote for them anyway. At least, in our country it is so. In my beloved country! And a clever man, well, there is no point for him to vote for someone. Because his vote is nothing compared to the total mass. Yes, he can understand the essence of things. Because he doesn’t believe the words, he understands what is behind the words. And usually there is nothing behind the words. Because this is mostly how matters stand, there are two candidates for whom the majority has voted. As if there is any difference between them. But we are told that there is one. And now elect, people! And start by means of people stirring things up, arranging meetings and turmoil. Mind you, not people themselves, but someone by means of people, with their hands. But people don’t understand that horseradish is no sweeter than black radish. Therefore, the guys who know the political crap, only their votes should worth the votes of the whole plant, you know? Then this will make sense.
ELISE: Where to find them, these guys?
APRIL: And I tell, I tell you. If you have a higher education, then your vote should be worth twenty votes, if you are PhD, for example, you should be worth much more, and so on. A hierarchy, a hierarchy should be.
So, if we talk about democracy, it will be easier for me to warn from the very beginning that you and your democracy are in the ass.
Because they (pointing at the window) can only dispute that it was better to live under one president and worse under the other one, and under this one it's the pits... To tell the truth, I don’t give a damn who our president is. The first thing I'll ask you – Hey, guys, it's all certainly cool, you just tell me one thing, under what political system you live? And they will answer me with pride - Well, we have democracy! Oh, then fuck your democracy and our talk about it in the ass. And I don’t want to talk about that at all, and I don’t give a damn about politics, and advise you the same. Don’t give a damn about politics, all together. Or rather, about democracy.

Long pause. Everyone looks closely out of the window. They seem to figure out who among the passers-by is worth more votes than others.

Blackout.


Episode Two.

Nick, Elise and April rummage in the wardrobe. They try on different clothes in front of the mirror. It is very uncomfortable for them, the mirror is a part of the wardrobe, and sometimes they have to wait a long time while someone rummages there. They comment on what is happening, they find it funny and amusing. “Oh, threads, threads, look at these threads!” But it does not matter.

Blackout.


Episode Three.

Nick, he is dressed as a Marine. April and Elise, they are dressed as flight attendants, standing along the edges of the stage, going to play “Battleship”. You know, there’s such a game. Each of them has a high tablet with Whatman paper A1 on it, with 10x10 grids. Each of them can see only her own tablet. But during the game they try to see the enemy ships in the window reflection. Nick is pleased that they support him, playing his favorite game. Elise and April draw their ships with a marker and shoot at each other, interrupting constantly Nick. Nick is in the center, in front of the window, he speaks to the passers-by.

NICK: Well, I've always wanted to serve in the Air Force. Air Force! But it so happened that I joined the navy. (Nick looks over his outfit. Smiles. The uniform fits him well. Nick likes it, he smiles. Elise and April turn sometimes back to look at Nick, they like him too.) And, to tell the truth, I’m not sorry for that. By education I am a… (Pause.) Why did I put on this uniform??
ELISE: Now we're going to bomb the enemy ships! Come over to my side, Nick!

(But Nick considers himself to be a captain of two ships at once. Nick raises his hands in the air and gives the command “FIRE!” April and Elise begin to bomb each other and do it rather severely.)

NICK: Well, I say, the military, you know, who have already served there, or… Well, no matter. So, well! They like, they adore, you know, with or without reason, if it’s a holiday or a parade to put on their uniform, in which they served, and to stroll through the city. To walk, strolling around, to show off, you know, even those personal dirks on them, different badges and trinkets. Handsome men, in short. And especially those, how are they called?  Shoulder marks, that’s it! Shoulder marks! Everything in the world happens because of shoulder marks. Why am I saying this? Not because I’ve put on this uniform and want somehow to justify it all. No. I hate military men. You understand?  I don’t understand how can one of his own accord to agree to be a murderer? You see what I'm driving at?
APRIL: (She’s shooting, she finds it funny.) No, Nick, we don't understand, now we don’t understand anything!
NICK: The whole army, especially today, it is only the business interests. How can one of his own accord to become a mercenary? How can one kill people for money? Do you understand? I was taught, everyone was taught that a killer, a killer, it’s bad, to kill is bad. Do you understand? It's just for show. Today the entire countries, states call up tens of thousands of mercenaries, tens of thousands of killers each year, and this is considered to be the heroism! You just try to understand this nonsense. This is your doing too, because you agree with this. It’s worse than cannibalism, you know?  What's there? You killed one and you’re full up for a week. And here? In bundles! In a minute, in a second they kill people in bundles. And what? Not a cannibal for a hundred thousand years is able to devour so much flesh. And this means that there is someone more tougher. It's us! Civil and full up people of the 21st century. Do you understand? We kill each other in bundles. Do you think the Second World War is the worst thing that we had? Do you think that now there is no war? Yes, there’s no war, there’s no war formally, but it is more severe than World War II. Just statistics, just think of statistics! How many people die now every year, and how many at that time, each of those five tragic years. What was at that time we’ve finally counted, at least approximately. And how many of them die in the world, people just like you, with a beard and a smell of perfume. Who has counted? But count everyone, without exception, we are interested in the number of bodies. And compare, taking into account, of course, percentage by the population size, now and at that time. Compare them! The difference isn’t favorable to us. (Speaking to April and Elise.) Girls, you'd better do a striptease! (Nick smiles.) Here one more thing. When you'll count, count up the percentage of people who are mentally dead while you're at it. Do you understand? Who have completely disillusioned with everything! Who have lost irrevocably the glint in their eyes! The living dead men, who cannot be raised from the dead. It is very important too. Perhaps it’s the most important thing.

(April and Elise imitate an explosion. Sudden blackout.)


Episode four.

Evening. Nick and Elise are with flashlights.  They shine now on their faces, now through the window, sometimes on each other.

NICK: Here must be somewhere the knife switch.
ELISE: It’s useless, there will be no light till morning. April is tired, she’s gone to have a rest. Let's just shine on each other. I wanted to tell you, well, today you’ve got carried away with your theory of military men.
NICK: And you thought I was fit for nothing?
ELISE: Look, I didn’t think anything like this.
NICK: No, you thought I was an idiot, and very young in addition.   
ELISE: Don’t be silly.
NICK: You see, you still think I'm capable of stupid things.
Elisa: But you’ve said cool about morally dead people. I’ve never even thought of it.
NICK: Nobody thinks of it, it’s convenient for everyone.
ELISE: And really, how many of them? Probably a lot. Take only the post-Soviet countries. Imagine, when the Union collapsed, people lost all their savings in banks they saved up all their lives. It’s really so, it’s possible to die without dying.
NICK: You know statistics show that Ukraine is the first country in the world for heart disease?
ELISE: Don’t live after their heart?
NICK: Yeah, they suffer. Do you understand? From all this idiocy that’s going on. Nation that is almost morally destroyed. I tell you more, recently I went by plane, crossed almost the whole of Ukraine, from Kiev to the Black Sea. I was shocked! (Long pause.)
ELISE: Why?
NICK: What do you think, why?
ELISE: Beautiful?
NICK: Madly beautiful. But this isn’t the most important thing, you know? Fields are the most important. Fields! The whole of Ukraine is continuous enormous fields planted with everything one can. Grain, potatoes, beets, corn, buckwheat, by the way, the deficit of which was announced in Ukraine this year. You know, huge fields, huge, you’re going by plane for over an hour, and they're everywhere, these fields, and it’s all the black earth. You know, and somebody eats it all, but not Ukrainians, this I know for sure. That's the worst thing. Maybe one of them eats all that? (Nick’s pointing at passers-by.) I mean, anyone but not the Ukrainians? They cannot eat so much. I was shocked, I was just shocked. When you go by bus or by car, you can see all these fields, they are always well-groomed, despite everything, flower and smell. But, you know, I went from city to city. To hell with them, with these fields. Then my mind didn’t fit all pieces together. And here, I just flew for the first time over Ukraine. Imagine, what wealth it is. And someone eats it all! But not Ukrainians, you understand?  It's all transported somewhere! And now you will laugh till your sides ache. I have already said, but I say that again. Well, in 2010-2011 we were told that the buckwheat run out in Ukraine. And it disappeared all of a sudden in the shops. That is, it was in the shops, but the other buckwheat, that is, the same buckwheat, but 6-7 times more expensive, supposedly the rest. Do you understand? Surrounded by nothing but fields and buckwheat is over. The most interesting thing was that the prices for other cereals began significantly to increase. But then it was the funniest thing I really laughed at, I still laugh when I remember it. (Laughing.) The Chinese decided supposedly to save us and began to deliver the Chinese buckwheat. Well, just a case of cucumbers and the Arab revolutions. The salvation was that this Chinese buckwheat was only three times more expensive than the buckwheat we had before. I don’t know who eats all these blooming fields, or rather, I won’t point a finger. To be more exact, what does it matter? (Pause.) But on the other hand we’ve tried the Chinese buckwheat, it’s probably a disputable issue too, we must ask the Chinese about import of their buckwheat. Maybe they will be surprised by this? But, by the way, people said that the Chinese buckwheat tastes so-so. Well, why should it taste better! Power of suggestion, Elise, you know, power of suggestion! (Pause.) We don’t know why we say this, why we do it. Maybe someone at this very moment presses different buttons on the remote control, and we think that we really want something to say, well, as I'm talking right now, or to do something, to go out for a meeting, for example, to set off a belt packed with explosives on my chest, to kill in the name of the resignation of the former government. Do you understand?! (Pause.) I studied at the Faculty of Theatre, it was called Academy of Culture, it was 2004 and there was just then the election fever in the country. Look, I don’t want anything bad to say, but we, at that time, all students, without exception, were forced to go to a meeting to support one candidate. A supervisor who was in charge of the group of students answered with his head for that each of us had come to the square where the performance took place.  I speak about students of the Academy of Culture, and what they did with other students, how manipulated them, I can hardly imagine. But probably the television needed a pretty picture. I’ve remembered it, Elise, probably, because these supervisors, who led us to the meeting after our lessons, they were the very same buttons that were pressed. Do you understand? Someone just pressed his bloody button. (Pause.) One of those who live on earth, of course. I don’t mean the divine intervention, in any case.
ELISE: It's obvious. (Elise’s looking at Nick. She thinks she got to know him from the other side.) Hey, Nick, take off your smart clothes. After your stories it turns me inside out from a military uniform.
NICK: Really? Not bad, you would be a perfect flight attendant. (Nick goes to the wardrobe, and changes into informal clothes.) And my name is, you see, Nick and Nick. Well, there is no such names in Ukraine. Nikolai, that’s me real name, and my father's name was Nikolai.
ELISE: Why was?
NICK: He died on active service, at Stalingrad.
ELISE: Are you kidding?
NICK: No. He went to Moscow in the 90's to work and never returned. (Pause. Elise thinks she’s partly guilty towards Nick for what had happened to his father, but cannot understand for what exactly.) It happened that way I make, you see, frequent trips too, run round like a squirrel in a cage. But, as they say, there is no place like home all the same. (Pause.) And where are we now? (Elise doesn’t answer.) I also don’t know. (Pause.) Everything has changed out of all recognition. (Pause.) I'm sorry, I speak more eagerly, my heart swelled with hurt and anger. Oh, women, you've got to watch your step with you, you will out-talk us. In short, some kind of mass feminism, emancipation.
ELISE: Yes, such as we are.
NICK: Yeah! Well, we want, you know, some sort of warmth, womanliness, encouragement and confidence. And you, women, are trying in everything to be stronger than men. Not that you can do it any better, but you’re really trying hard. You, women, have too much foolishness, and there is nobody to put it in the right direction, and you cannot get along with yourselves. People have almost lost their respect for men, so you shake in all directions. To be honest, your desire for equality with men bothers somehow, it’s a real unhealthy desire.

There, in the back part of the room April appears with a flashlight. It seems she needs to go to the bathroom. Now she appears, now disappears, blinking with the flashlight.

ELISE: Why not?
NICK: Because we have different functions, by nature we’re absolutely different. And you try to pretend to the male nature, you understand? Thereby destroying your womanliness and destroying the machismo. (Pause.) But that's not the point. I wanted all the while to tell you something quite different. I tried to change gently the subject, but didn’t make up my mind.
ELISE: Really, and what’s the subject?
NICK: About you and me.
ELISE: Look, you’re at your old tricks again? I’m 20 years older than you, do you understand this?
NICK: Yeah, I understand, but it doesn’t matter for me.
ELISE: Why it doesn’t? It is of great importance, of enormous importance.
NICK: But try to understand that we are made for each other. (Pause.) You understand me, you understand the gist of what I’m saying before I finish speaking, you believe me, believe what is happening in my heart. You are very global, you're a very global woman. That is, you can think globally. I have never met a woman who can think globally.
ELISE: I think you’ll meet. .

 Pause. Elise keeps silent. She is more interested in what a person has at the top. She realizes that it will be not enough for Nick.

NICK: I just had to be born 20 years earlier, but I stayed too long somewhere.
ELISE: Or I was too quick.
NICK: No, Elise, no.
ELISE: Why not?
NICK: Because you are doing everything right. You're already perfect, because you're a woman. Well, I blundered as usual somehow.
ELISE: Look, let's not talk about it. Let's not start this senseless talk.
NICK: No, it isn’t senseless talk. There is a lot of sense in it, at least for me.
ELISE: Well, talk, talk, you've already intrigued me.

(Elise hugs Nick, they’re kissing.)

NICK: Maybe you're right, Elise, and it makes no sense at all. When we’ll get out of here, when it will be all over, this will make no sense. You and me - what is it? An illusion, a dream, real feelings? I don’t even know what to say, what I should talk about. I have a feeling that we move in a circle. Repeat what has already been said. We say in what we no longer believe. You know, beauty will not save the world, it was an illusion. And childhood will not save the world, everyone has been disillusioned with it.
ELISE: What do you mean, talking about childhood?
NICK: Oh, nothing, all kinds of nonsense creep into my head.
ELISE: Oh, and what exactly?
NICK: Well, I remembered something from the Bible.
ELISE: Do you read the Bible?
NICK: Oh – no. From my childhood I believed in God, well, I was brought up this way. Once I read the Bible I believed no more in God.
ELISE: Why?
Nick: Because I realized that I could write as well. If I had a good producer and PR manager, they would have been able to foist my new religion on people. And that would be the word of God.
ELISE: Do you compare yourself with God?
NICK: No, I just think that everything that is happening on earth is the handiwork of a man. And if God exists, he is somewhere within us. It all depends on how much we are able to feel in ourselves this divine part. And then it all depends on where we direct it all. Do you understand?
ELISE: Vaguely.
NICK: Well, we give it either to the common pot, called religion, or we will cultivate what we have been given from birth.
ELISE: That is, after all, to become God? If you have His part, and you will actively develop this part, then this part will be all of you?
NICK: No. I mean, I don’t know. To some extent it may be so, I do not know. I just think that God is not the limit, you understand? Everything that a man does, it is the handiwork of a man, even if so-called God helps him. Everything that a man does, he can not to do this. But for some reason, people sometimes do such things, make such acts, that no God ever dreamed of. And it's silly all this to justify such concept as God, everything that happens in the world. (Pause.)  Once I read on the internet that scientists had made a sensational discovery. It turns out that people who are blindly faithful, religious fanatics, people of orthodox beliefs, well, their brain grows a lot dull, unlike an ordinary person of average ability in all respects, including their attitude to religion. They are not capable of thinking in its entirety, because they used to entrust their lives to God. Thus, their brain functions die off because an organ that is not used will atrophy. But God gave us a brain, so I think we should use it to the full, equally with feelings, well, muscles of the body. There must be harmony in all that a person has. But when you sacrifice the brain to develop feelings, I don’t understand it. It looks like a madhouse, the world of passion, and nothing more. Therefore, I think that these religions, they are a deadlock, I mean, they have exhausted themselves. All the humanity is at a deadlock, and it’s necessary to do something with it.
ELISE: What the Bible says about childhood?
NICK: Jesus said that we can enter the kingdom of God only as children. This aphorism shocked me most of all in the Bible.
ELISE: Oh, it’s interesting.
NICK: So, Elise, beauty will not save the world, it will most likely destroy it. As in the movie “The Matrix”, remember, everything is very nice, but everyone is sleeping?
ELISE: Then we're doomed, I don’t see anything that could have saved us from the matrix. 
NICK: Cataclysms, Elise, global cataclysms, perhaps it is the only thing that can save us.
ELISE: Natural?
NICK: Yeah, natural calamities. Nature feels very keenly that we have tough problems and tries to help us in that way. Very gently wiping more and more people off the face of the Earth. And each time, making intervals between the cataclysms, it gives us the opportunity to realize that we are doing something wrong. It is waiting for us to finally hear it, the nature, not only the environment, but also our own nature. Do you understand? Nature is tougher than God, that's in what we must believe and about what books to write. We do not know our abilities. We do not know what we are really capable of, who we are at all. We do not know our nature, because it was replaced by technology.  We have forgotten how to feel each other at a distance, because we have a phone. Mother doesn’t feel that her son is in danger, she doesn’t feel that her son is dead, until she was called and told about it. This is not right. The era of technocracy makes us an appendage, a part of the computer. A man created a new God, it’s a computer and everything connected with it. A man is a creator, and a man created religions as well. Therefore, I think we must have faith in ourselves, in our stars, in our nature. And it’s necessary to treat each other as if we're unique creatures.

We didn’t notice it, but April is sitting for a long time in the armchair, from the moment they were kissing. She just didn’t turn on her flashlight, and apparently sat down very quietly. April is applauding.

ELISE: Oh, April! (Pause.) I think it's time for bed.
NICK: Today we sleep in the same bed?
ELISE: Nick, you and me, we had never slept in the same bed. (Smiling.) April, are you coming?
April: Yes, I’m coming.

Nick and Elise are going away. April is in the armchair, sitting for a long time, shining a flashlight through the window, falling asleep. Blackout.


INTERMISSION.




ACT TWO.


Scene Five.
 “April’s dream.”

“April’s dream.” But, this maybe cannot be, we cannot say for sure what exactly she dreams about. The same room, but it is completely empty. Dim light. April is in the midst of the room, naked and wet. Nick is to the right of her, near the window, looking all the time out the window. April looks sometimes out the window, but more at Nick, or rather at his back. She knows that it's Nick, she can’t see his face, but she knows that it's Nick. As often happens in dreams, we see a stranger, but we sure we know him. That is, his face is not familiar, but this is the person we know. It is very difficult for us to think of what exactly face Nick has. But, imagine that Nike has a golden mask and his voice is heavily distorted. Nick is in black clothes, he holds a remote control.

NICK: Well, what do you think?
APRIL: (wrinkles her nose, sniffs, feels an unpleasant odour from her.) After your pool I need a half of my life to wash myself clean.
NICK: Yeah, but it's good for skin, it rejuvenates. My discovery will soon be applied worldwide.
APRIL: I know. But it is dangerous for nervous system. It’s the taste of salt on my lips. It's pretty disgusting. They say, sperm is useful for skin.
NICK: Yeah, but where can I get so much sperm?
APRIL: Okay, but if every man on earth would come, then how much would it be for a day?
NICK: I’ve never thought about it, I don’t know, first of all I would be interested in how I could manage to convince them all to come on the same day.
APRIL: Well, what for do you have me?
NICK: (Pause. Nick looked at April, he tries to imagine how April could have forced all men in the world to come in one day. Nothing came into his mind. Maybe if it could be spread over a year, she would have succeeded. Stop! It's a trick of April, to make me look at her, Nick thought.) I was in the swimming pool, I think we should add there a couple of air conditioners.
APRIL: Yeah. (Pause.) You're not even looking at me. You don’t like me?
NICK: I have a girlfriend.
APRIL: You know, it sounds like an excuse!
NICK: That's exactly.
APRIL: Well, how long should I wait!!
NICK: Sorry!

Nick turns the remote control to the ceiling, presses the button. The shower is turning over April. She feels good, she raises her hands towards the water droplets.

APRIL: Give me a soap.

Nick takes a soap out of his pocket, throws it to April.

APRIL: You could have come up and give it in my hand.
NICK: First wash yourself clean.

April is offended. She soaps herself hard, there is a lot of soap foam. Nick turns off the shower. April is in foam from head to foot.

APRIL: We have a foam party today?
NICK: Yeah, it’s a special soap.
APRIL: Your new method?
NICK: Yeah.
APRIL: What is it made of?
NICK: Well, finish washing, then I'll tell.

Nick turns on the shower. April washes off all the foam, no longer soaps herself. She stands for a while under the shower, she feels good, she is grateful to Nick that he doesn’t turn off the shower. Nick turns off the shower. Nick turns off the shower, as if he has heard her thoughts. Pause. April looks at Nick. Nick looks at her. Pause.

NICK: How does it feel?
APRIL: Give me a towel.

Nick leaves, returns immediately with a towel, and gives it to April in hands. Nick came back without the mask. Yes, it's exactly him, now it's exactly him, and it’s his voice, there is no doubt, April thinks. She smiled even a little, feeling a rush of joy.  Nick stands beside her. April slowly wipes herself with a towel, rubs actively her hair. Pause. April looks Nick in the face, then she looks out of the window. Nick hold her stare. Pause.

APRIL: (Confusedly.) Nick, you scumbag.

Nick goes out quickly, returns immediately with the clothes in his hands. He helps April to put her clothes on.

APRIL: (Dressing herself.) I think you're not just scumbag, you're pervert too.

Nick goes to his former station at the window.

NICK: (Points at the window.) I'm just trying to keep up with the times. (Pause.) Elise will come here presently, she also swims in the swimming pool. (Points at the window.) Then I will go there. (Pause.) Here, take the remote control, help Elise to take a shower, while I'm out. And then she will help me to wash, give her the remote control.
APRIL: (Takes the remote control from Nick.) And what button to push?
NICK: I’ll show you. (Takes the remote control from April.)
APRIL: I cannot do that.
NICK: What cannot you do?
APRIL: She's not like that.
NICK: Like what?
APRIL: Elise! She's not like that, she won’t wash herself for all to see. (Points at the window.) She's not like that.
NICK: Well, you know... (Pause.) She‘ll wash herself without taking off her swimsuit.
APRIL: Swimsuit?! She wears a swimsuit?! But you didn’t give me a swimsuit, you bastard!! (Goes up to Nick, and gives him a slap in the face)
NICK: You know, Elise is not like that, it won’t do anything without a swimsuit. She would never have allowed me to take off her swimsuit.
APRIL: And I, like, I can, like, I can allow myself just to stand in front of you completely naked, and take this damned silly shower, fuck, for all to see! (Points at the window. Pause. Nick realized that he was wrong, protecting Elise from April, he felt awkward.) And you say after all that, that you, bugger, have a girlfriend!!
NICK: Yeah.
APRIL: With a big dick?!
NICK: What?
APRIL: Your girlfriend with a big dick and with a big fucked ass?!
NICK: No, April, I'm not a gay, I really have a girlfriend.
APRIL: And who is she?
NICK: Elise.
APRIL: Who?!
NICK: My girlfriend is Elise.
APRIL: Elise, our Elise?
NICK: Yeah, our Elise.
APRIL: She is old enough to be your mother.
NICK: My girlfriend is Elise.
APRIL: Oh, you harp on the same tune, my girlfriend is Elise, my girlfriend is Elise. You pervert, Nick, that's what you are. (Pause.) She knows something about it, that you're her girlfriend? I mean, that she is, well, you’ve got it.
NICK: Yes, she knows. It's all serious between me and her.
APRIL: How’s that, all seriously? Allow her to bathe in your bloody swimming pool in a swimsuit, and to force me, force me to bathe completely naked?! And then here, in front of these mugs, (pointing at the window) to stand naked and wash, and you say, all seriously?!!
NICK: Look, we have meaningful relationship with Elise. So she will wash herself only in a swimsuit, you understand? I cannot allow her to stand here naked, as you did. This can harm our relationship.
APRIL: I don’t understand, how it can harm your relationship?! To stand here naked and take this bloody shower that you can turn on with your fucking remote control, for all to see, how it can, damn it, harm some relationship?!
NICK: April, I understand you, but believe me, it can harm me. You don’t want me to have been harmed, do you?
APRIL: (Crying.) To what, Nick, to what can it do harm?!
NICK: Don’t cry, April. (Nick hugs her.)
APRIL: To what can it do harm, Nick, to what can it do harm?
NICK: It may harm our relationship with Elise, my relationship with Elise.
APRIL: Fuck! Nick, listen to me, hundreds of women undress in public, do a striptease in bars, act naked in films, even fuck for money! And at the same time they have husbands or boyfriends, damn it, who consider them to be their girlfriends, and each of them has your bloody relationship! And believe me, it doesn’t harm anyone, any relationship, for sure! Everything is fine, Nick! Dressed and undressed, and it’s all, no problem, everyone is pleased, everyone is happy! And it doesn’t harm anyone, and it doesn’t affect any relationship, on the contrary, they may become only stronger! 
NICK: I’m not like that. (Pause. April looks at him as if he were a madman.) It can badly hurt me.
APRIL: And if I would fuck you right here and now, would it hurt you? (Nick keeps silent.) And we all here (pointing at the window) would fuck you right now, one by one, would it hurt you? (Nick keeps silent.) Would it fu.., hurt you, Nick?!!
NICK: Yeah.
APRIL: Yeah?! Would it, Nick?! Would it hurt you, would it hurt you, Nick?!
NICK: Yeah! Leave me alone.
APRIL: Well, Nick, when I stood naked under your bloody shower, under your fucking shower, under your damned silly invention in the middle of the room, that is turned on with the remote control with your world-global buttons on it! When I stood naked and washed myself clean after your pissed pool. (Pause. April is crying.)
NICK: Don’t cry, please.
APRIL: Don’t cry?! It's you, brute, who forced me to stand here naked. It was you who told me that it must be so, that it must be so, that it is for the sake of something lofty! But I’ll tell you, you turkeycock stuffed with oysters! I’ll tell you! While I stood here (pause), naked (pause), these mugs (pointing at the window) stared at me! You understand, they were staring at me all the time? So, how do you think, fucked someone me at that time? (Nick doesn’t answer.) I felt it, damn it, felt that they fucked me! I felt it with my ass, how they fuck me in all the holes! Do you understand?! (Pause.) They still continue to do so. Some of them. April is crying again.) I feel it, you understand, Nick, I fell it very good? (Heavy sighs.) And it's you, Nick, who forced me to undress! So, what do you think, Nick, should it hurt me? (Nick doesn’t answer.) Should it hurt me?! (Nick keeps silent.) Should it me, Nick, somehow hurt, I ask you?!
NICK: Yeah. Sorry. (Nick hugs April.) I'm sorry, please forgive me. (April tears herself out of his embrace.)
APRIL: No, Nick, it hurt me not in the least! I liked it! I did it with love. And you know why, Nick, do you know why? (Nick keeps silent.) Why, Nick?? (Nick doesn’t answer.) N-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-k???!!!!

Nick falls on his knees and covers his ears with his hands.

NICK: Because you're a bitch, bitch, b-i-i-i-tch!!!

April runs up to Nick, hugs him and cries.

APRIL: No, Nick, no, not just because of this! Because I did it for you. Because you asked me to do it. You made me do it! And I did it. For you, Nick, I did it. Because you asked me, Nick. Because you needed it, because it’s important for you. I did it with pleasure and love, because it was for you. Just because it’s you asked me to do it, but not because I wanted it myself, because it’s you asked me, it’s you asked me to do it. And at that time I wanted to do it just because you strongly asked me about it. Remember, Nick? (Nick keeps silent.) Do you remember that, Nick? (Nick keeps silent.) Nick, you made me do it, and I wanted to do it just for you, if you cannot avoid rape, relax and enjoy, you said it, Nick, you said it? You said it, Nick, do you remember that? (Nick doesn’t answer. April steps aside from Nick. Nick stands up, goes the other way with a depressed look. April turns abruptly around and goes to Nick. Nick turns around. It seems to him that April wants to hit him. He doesn’t resist. He waits obediently for the blow. All his protective functions are turned off. April grabs him by the balls and squeezes them strongly. Nick froze, it hurts him.) So why you turn away from me now?! Why, Nick?! (Nick keeps silent. April squeezes stronger.) Why, Nick?! (Nick keeps silent. April squeezes them as much as she can with her delicate woman’s hands.) N-i-i-i-k!!! (Nick doesn’t answer. It seems to him that he is just about to faint from the pain. But he is afraid even to move.) I cannot do harm to this treasure. I love them as much as I love you. (April gradually relaxes the fingers. Pause. She hugs Nick. She's crying.)
NICK: I’ve done what I couldn’t do last night.
APRIL: What, dearling, what have you done?
NICK: I have come. (April strokes his back.) The very moment when you just began to relax your fingers, I’ve come, all the while I was having an orgasm.
APRIL: I hurt you, I’m sorry.
NICK: It was awesome.
APRIL: I'm sorry if I hurt you.
NICK: April, one of my greatest impressions in the life is now connected with you.
April: I didn’t want to harm, forgive me, if you can, forgive me. I'm a fool, what I’ve done, forgive me if you can. Sorry, Nick, I'm sorry, I'm sorry ...

April wakes up, because Elise shakes her by the shoulder.

APRIL: I'm sorry, Nick, I'm sorry, I'm sorry ...
ELISE: April, go to bed, morning will be soon, why are you sitting here? We need to have a good sleep, tomorrow is the most important day for us. At ten in the morning everyone should be ready-fitted.

They leave.

Blackout.


Scene six.
Episode One.

Morning. Everyone sit in the armchair. Elise is in the center, Nick is to the right of her, April is to the left.

ELISE: (Looks at her wristwatch.) Ten o’clock exactly. (Looks at April, then at Nick.) Today is the last day. And I would like each of us to share the most important you realized during this time. (Long pause.)
NICK: Really? I lost completely track of time.
ELISE: Maybe it's just as well.
APRIL: And how do you know that today is the last day?
ELISE: You remember, yesterday the light was cut off?
APRIL: Yeah.
ELISE: We were warned that the day before the end the light would be cut off. You’ve just forgotten, we were warned about this.
NICK: Yeah, right, I’ve forgotten about that.
ELISE: Nick was talking interesting about childhood, even quoting something. (Pause.) So, I think I'm getting old, but I have a feeling that childhood is somewhere about. (Pause.)
APRIL: Is childhood a happiness?
ELISE: Yeah. (Pause.) I think it is, and what do you think? (Pause. April doesn’t answer.) Childhood is a happiness that no longer exists and never will be. This is like an advance from life. It says here's childhood, and then live as you like. That is, we cannot preserve it during the whole life, you know?
NICK: I think that we are now in childhood. I think on the contrary that we’re still in it. All mankind.
APRIL: Are you saying that all people are happy?
NICK: No, but (pause), it may be even more than childhood.
ELISE: What does this mean?
NICK: It’s a dream.
APRIL: What do you mean?
NICK: Euthanasia, slow falling asleep. A beautiful dream, a beautiful death, it is a flashback to childhood, yes, it's childhood, almost uterine childhood.  We feel good, we disappear in this beauty, in this serenity, in this lulling.
APRIL: What's the good of that, there are many terrible things in the world, what's the good of that?
NICK: But you have a different world after all. And everything’s good in it, you're in safety.
APRIL: Yes, but how can you be so indifferent to others who don’t feel as good as you do?
NICK: I can. (Pause.) I'll explain it to you. When I see on TV some problems, war, famine, revolutions, floods, and so on, I feel good, you understand? I feel good at the subconscious level. And you know why?
APRIL: Because it happens not to you, because you're in safety in front of TV?
NICK: Yeah, yeah! Because someone creates this illusion for me, you understand? Someone creates for me childhood. I feel good because it's not my problems! And the worse problems there, you know, the better and safer I feel, because it happens not to me, because I can relax and have a rest, looking at all that while I sit in the armchair. If people are dying there of starvation and bombings, of viruses, I certainly sympathize with them, and then I will anyway open my fridge, and my sympathy will turn into a good. Because the full man does not understand the hungry.
ELISE: Yes, I think that this is the childhood. Nick, you’re right, this is the absolute childhood. But it's still an artificial childhood, childhood for all ages.
APRIL: No, then it’s some sort of nursery of death, cradle of death, and not a childhood.
NICK: It is an absolute childhood! Try to understand, just look at that all in a different way. It's not as good as we think at this moment, and we know it, though we are in childhood. As a matter of fact, everything is very simple, at this moment someone is paying for my serenity, for my childhood, for my satiety. Do you understand? Someone is saying at this moment – We'll take it from one to make the other feel good!  And I understand that today I am in the number of those who feel good, who are in childhood, and the needs are growing and growing. We are not able to give up comfort that we’ve used to. We’re just insatiable consumers. And I also understand that I cannot do anything to help them. I cannot do anything, because if I start to do something that I have never done before, then I can find myself on the other side. Do you understand? And what for? To be the one who has been taken from, to give the one who has occupied my place? No, I will never do this. I have to be completely counted up, those who give me this childhood have to be sure of me. I treasure my childhood, I used to live like this. Although I understand that the better I feel, the more my wealth, the worse someone feels. This means that one day I will have to pay for my comfort.
APRIL: You always compare yourself with others.
NICK: Yeah! Why not? Cognition comes through comparison.
ELISE: Then try to put yourself in somebody's place who you think feels worse than you do.
NICK: It's pointless, Elise. Because those who feel worse than I do, they're anyway on my side. Worse, better, a wife left, a mother died, fell ill and all that. They are still on my side, they're all in childhood. Someone has better toys, someone has worse ones, someone has stricter “parents”, but it is all childhood.
APRIL: What is then not a childhood?
NICK: I do not know. Everything is childhood, everyone doesn’t care.
ELISE: So it turns out that everybody is happy, everybody feels good, everybody is in childhood, well, who has problems then?
NICK: I do not know. (Pause.) As a teenager I wanted to become a fighter pilot.
Elisa: Is he not in a childhood?
NICK: Yes, he is in his childhood more than anyone! He is at the top, at the peak of his childhood. Do you understand?
APRIL: No.
NICK: He's in the sky, he's flying! He has a variety of buttons, these radars, small screens, he's wearing a helmet, a gas mask, he’s making a supersonic flight! This is the peak of childhood, a dream, a happiness, you know? This is a childhood. (Pause.) And it’s not a childhood, I'm just now starting to understand it, not a childhood is what is going on there, after these magic buttons of childhood have been pressed, when these toy rockets of childhood have been launched. It’s there where not a childhood begins. When you come to yourself without a leg, without a roof over your head...
ELISE: It turns out that children rule the world?
APRIL: The children who have the best toys. In my kindergarten the one who had a new interesting toy was in the spotlight.
ELISE: And ruled the world?
APRIL: Yeah. (Pause.)
NICK: April, what’s your real name?
APRIL:  (Pause.) Martha. (Pause.)  When I was at school, we lived then with my parents in the central Ukraine. (Pause.) Among my peers it was shameful to speak their native language. They were not held in respect, and they were jeered at that they spoke Ukrainian. Well, it was out of fashion then. I'm ashamed to confess but I speak badly our language. It was in fashion to speak Russian. Even now, English, Russian. (Pause.) When I am asked to tell something about Ukraine, I say that Ukraine is a stumbling block between Russia and the USA. Sadly, yeah. I am April, because it was fashionable for me, because it made me independent. Well, I thought so, when I was at school, and everyone called me so, April, and respected me highly. I was like a heroine of an American TV serial. I think that just because of such name I managed somehow to escape from without. (Pause.) And you, Elise, what’s your real name?
ELISE: (Pause. Elise’s smiling.) Elise is my real name. (Pause.) I remember in my childhood, it was the beginning of the 70's, we had constantly anti-Soviet talks in our kitchen, as I then understood. (Smiling.) My father had a lot of friends, they often gathered in our kitchen. My father often talked about whom and how much he gave bribes that his daughter was allowed to have such a name. He was even suspected of espionage. (Pause.) We have been in the first wave of immigrants, after the “Iron Curtain” was destroyed. (Long pause.) So, Nick, what do you mean, that childhood is a bad thing? I had a wonderful childhood.

NICK: No, I want to say that childhood never ends. This is a planet of childhood. This is a universe of childhood. Half the world dream of depriving us of our land, depriving us of the roots and traditions. Maybe Chernobyl’ is that has saved us up to now, if we hadn’t it, we would have been long ago a part of some superpower. The whole life is a big wonderful childhood. At least, judging by our biographies. And I think that these people (Nick points at the window), they will never take notice of us, we can shout to them, provoke them as much as one wants to. But, they are too busy with their lives, their survival. We can endlessly look at them through the window or watch them on the screen (pointing at the screen), they won't take any notice of us. We’re just a shop window for them, a shop window, and that’s it. And there is no need to hope for a mutual understanding. They came to do shopping, you know, and they will pay any money for the product they liked. Therefore, if we don’t want to become a commodity, we must go out of this room and join them, merge into the crowd. And maybe some of us will manage to remain alive, with their dreams, and one day we will deceive these people and will find ourselves on the other side of this room, and they will be in our place, so that we’ll never see them again and know about their existence. They’re good people too. (Pause.) But the story doesn’t end, the story goes on. And, remember, Elise, powerful people destroyed the weak people? (Pause.) It happened just so that today we are playing the role of weak people, but weak people is what at the top. But once we played the role of strong people, just history is silent on this matter. We interchanged, and that's all. Over time, we will interchange again, and that's it. (Pause.) The whole life is a big childhood. If you want to know more about a person, look at him as if he were a child. And then you won’t have to take offence at him, or to look for logic in his stupid actions. All around us is a childhood. Just look at the sky of stars at night – (Nick carefully examines those who’re outside), this is a childhood.

Smooth blackout.


Episode Two.

Evening. Almost dark. They sit in the armchairs. Elise is in the center, Nick is to the right of her, April is to the left. Look out the window. Nick holds a remote control in his hands.

NICK: I wonder if it works. (Nick turns the remote control to the screen.)
ELISE: Yeah. It always works, in spite of anything.

Nick pushes the button, the screen turns on. The street is seen on the screen, drowsy tourists are listlessly moving from place to place. But our heroes continue to stare with indifference out the window. For a while the street is on the screen. Then the channel switches over by itself. We see a day filming from a side window of a passenger aircraft. Ukrainian fields spread in all their beauty before us. Filming accelerates, we cross the whole Ukraine. Then we see that it’s Nick who is filming with his camera. Nick smiles at us and waves his hand. The arrow of the plane indicates that he is flying in the direction of Uruguay. Nick goes to Montevideo, to establish international relations. The camera rises above the plane, we see the earth, then the solar system, the galaxy, the universe. We see the great universe. All of it sway, breathe, twinkle. This is a childhood Nick was telling us about. The camera moves away, and it all turns into a cell of a huge living organism. This is a limb of a cockroach. We see three giant cockroaches crawling about on three leather toy armchairs. Cockroaches gradually disappear. Emptiness. We see again the evening street, drowsy tourists are still listlessly moving from place to place. The screen begins to blink. It’s out of order. It goes out.


Episode Three.

Nothing has changed. But from the way how slowly the screen went out, we had the impression that a considerable amount of time has elapsed for something to happen. We don’t know what happened, but we feel it. One can feel it in the eyes of our heroes. Something has happened.

April goes up to the window.

ELISE: Something is going on there.
APRIL: When will it be all over?
ELISE: When we all will be dead.
APRIL: And when we die?
ELISE: When we want.
APRIL: How is that?
ElISE: Well, like. (Pause.) I don’t understand a lot of things too. It seems just to me that the only way is to start the hole thing from the beginning.
APRIL: As if nothing had happened?
ELISE: No, we have always lived like that as if nothing had been, as if nothing had happened. But this is not a way out.
APRIL: Do you think we still have a way out?
ELISE: I guess. (Pause.) Maybe. (Pause.) Someone has to drop out of the game. (Pause.) And it all depends on who it will be.

Nick gets up. He goes up slowly to the window.

NICK: One you don’t feel pity for?
ELISE: Yeah, the most vulnerable.
APRIL: But there are a lot of them, almost everyone.
ELISE: Yeah, perhaps this is the only way out.

Elise goes up to the window, looking at April, then at Nick. Elise realizes that they are completely defenseless against the oncoming end.
The sound of the door opening from the kitchen is heard.

NICK: Is it the end?
ELISE: Yes. (Pause.) For some is the end, but for some is just the beginning...

The oncoming heavy footsteps are heard.

Blackout.

THE END.               
    

Maxim Grehovodov
dasheip@mail.ru

Vladimir Snegurchenko
rotkaer@mail.ru