A History of Breathing by Daniel Macdonald

Author:Daniel Macdonald [Macdonald, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Post-apocalypse, Daniel Macdonald, War, Story, absolution
ISBN: 9781770911765
Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press
Published: 2013-11-04T16:00:00+00:00

Act II

There are faint water sounds. That’s all.

A light comes up on ANDREW—alone, isolated.

This feels like a dream. There is sound, music, something.

ANDREW

Once there was a man who was alone. He was still a young man. But he was always alone. He had no one and almost nothing and most of the time all he did was write stories. And he lived in a small house in a small village by a small mountain. He liked his life because people liked his stories and he would share them and the people would tell each other the stories over and over again, but he wished he wasn’t so much alone all the time…

…Then one day when he was out hunting near the bottom of the mountain, he came upon a woman who was laying on the ground. The woman was hurt. She was holding her ankle and crying a little—in the way women cry when they’re hurt, (high-pitched crying) hmm, hmm, hmm. Very softly. Very much trying not to. And the man said, “Are you hurt?” And the woman nodded. And the man looked up and he saw that they were under a tree and that several of the branches were broken. Very large ones. And he said, “Did you fall?” And she nodded. And he looked up and pointed and said, “Did you fall from there?” And the woman looked up and nodded because she was still crying in that soft way, (high-pitched) hmm. Hmm. And the man said, “What were you doing up there?” And the woman just shrugged her shoulders. And then she spoke…

“I was… I was looking down…”

She said, “I was looking down,” she said…

“…I was just looking down and then suddenly I was falling.”

So the man picked her up in his arms and carried her back to his house. And he took care of the woman and she liked the way he took care of her so much that she fell in love with him and because she was younger and did not have a husband or children yet, she married him. And they lived in the village and gardened and sometimes he hunted.

…And then one day she told him that she was going to have a baby. And that’s exactly what she did. And they named their baby Lily. Because she was a girl and she reminded them of the lilies that floated on the pond that fed into the river that was near their village. And the people and the village were very very happy. And everyone grew up together and always had enough to eat and their village was always peaceful. Always.

He turns and looks off at someone we cannot see. He smiles. He fades from our view.

We are on the land.

Water can be heard lapping against the shore.

The land looks like it is a garden. Well, what used to be a garden.

It is completely overgrown with weeds and plants that have overrun everything. It is humid and fetid and full of smells and insects that buzz around.

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