A Nanking Winter by Marjorie Chan

Author:Marjorie Chan [Chan, Marjorie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781770912250
Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press
Published: 2012-10-14T04:00:00+00:00

act two

NANKING – 1937

The second act is different than the first act in that the settings should be imagistic and simple. There should be a sense that this act is muddier, dirtier and indeed a natural type floor covering would add to this effect. It is more theatrical and loose, an act that has more to do with chaos and uncontrollable elements.

SCENE ONE

LITTLE MEI is surrounded by a heap of bodies. Her throat has been slit. Snow is falling, obscuring her face like tears.

LITTLE MEI

Snow falls and I am in Nanking’s wintry embrace.

The cold advances and so,

Girls I knew, women who were strangers.

Soft arms entwined, like schoolgirls on their way to class

What will happen today?

A trickle, a stench, a heaviness never to be undone

Their lives lost protect me now.

I am held in a blanket of bodies,

Piled on top of them, heaped on top of me.

Their blood, it mixes and mingles with mine

Life and deadly wounds indistinguishable.

Their rigid and torn flesh,

Absorbs the piercing eye and point of a passing soldier.

Eighteen times he walks by and I am ever silent.

Alert, their wide eyes remain on call.

There is security among their wounds.

There is safety under their open gaze.

They are my watchers and protectors,

Fallen heroes, my corpsely guards.

Oozing and cast aside,

They open their arms,

And I learn the strength of their embrace.

The bodies close in on LITTLE MEI, who wakes up with a start from her nightmare.

Ah!

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