Oralephemora
By: Joanna Wheeldin
A glass-closeted optimist and an optometrist
​
Swap philosophical
​
Sitting cross-legged and opposite
​
​
FADE IN
​
​
Rose switches the cross of her legs. N'game softens her gaze on Rose's shiny forehead. Her locs tie back and show the gleam where the sun has been stamping her pores.
Rose
Hate?
​
N'game(patiently)
Too easy. I'm interested in seeing how far you can take it.
​
​
Rose(exhaling)
Love too then, obviously.
​
Rose and N'game(in unison)
Obviously
​
Rose
Not time..
​
Rose sinks her jaw into her palm and leans her elbow into her knee. N'game's posture is strong like a deeply rooted Acacia tree.
​
N'game
Why not? Why not time?
​
​
Rose (confused)
You have less time the more you spend.
​
N'game(breathes in deeply)
In French, we say 'Quel-age as-tu?' It means, how many years do you have?
​
Rose
Interesting. I'm twenty-two.
​
N'game's bracelets climb concentric
circles up her arm, clacking when she sweeps the air in gesture. Rose shifts her lean into her left side. Jaw into palm. Elbow into knee.
​
N'game
When you turn twenty-three you will have spent twenty-two. The more you spend, the more you have under your belt. Let me ask you this. Do you feel closer to death now than you did yesterday?
​
Rose(shrugs)
I am whether I feel it or not.
​
N'game watches Rose fuddling the twigs in her grip.
​
N'game
I don't understand the experience of not feeling something. How can you be something you don't feel?
​
Rose
I am what I am and what I'm not.
​
N'game (excitedly)
Ah! And what you are becoming!
​
Rose (devaluing)
Who cares who I become? I don't want to belong to this society. I want to go back.
​
N'game (Breathes in a heavy breath)
You don't know the past of which you speak. You only possess the now. What is it like?
​
Rose(angrily)
It's always been the same.
​
N'game
But ask yourself, what does the now feel like? Is it the same as it always was?
​
Rose
It is and it's not. The now it's… it just is what it is. I don't know. It just happens. Over and over. Don't you ever wish to return to the past?
​
N'game (Deeply amused)
Return? To the past? Ha!For what? Let the past begone. Leave it there. The more time is in the past leaves room for me now, in the now where I am free.
​
Rose toys with her locs. She unfolds her numbed ankle from her knee. She searches for a deep breath, but finds an angered sigh.
​
Rose (bleakly)
There was a time when all of us were free. Now, I have to fight. Every day.
​
N'game (curiously)
You fight for your freedom? How does one do this?
​
Rose(anxiously)
Everything I do. I am constantly fighting for my freedom.
​
N'game
This is to me like saying you have military intelligence or you are happily married. Ha! Freedom, it's something we're doing. When you feel free, you are free from fight.
​
Rose
Freedom. Hmm. Freedom.. The more you spend, the more you have? No, I disagree. It doesn't quite work. Doesn't translate. How can I spend my freedom?
​
N'game (amused)
What a wonderful question!
​
Rose (matter of fact)
No, I mean I can't spend it, like I can't concentrate it and physicalize it and -
​
N'game
But you do, Rose. What does the now feel like?
​
N'game closes her eyes softly. Rose, looking for N'game's gaze to validate her anger, rebelliously plucks a twig from the ground and tears it in half. N'game breathes steady boughs.
​
Rose
As long as I belong to time, I'm subject to it as a forward function toward death. So my freedom is by definition temporary. I'll never get back the life I lived, and I'll never know the life I could have lived. The more time I spend, the more is in the past, and the less time I have to spend again. It's just one long continuous shot till the end. Only so much film.
​
N'game
How can the now feel the same as it did then, if you really do have less time? What is the difference of the feeling of the now if death comes tomorrow or in thirty years?
​
Rose (Carelessly)
I don't know where the now goes. It's not fleeting, cause it's always here. But it's certainly changing. I'm losing it every day as it goes by.
​
N'game (Certainly)
You cannot lose the now, child. It is infinite. There is no difference in the now if the end is tomorrow or in thirty years.
​
Rose
The more time I spend, the more time I have to do what then? How am I supposed to be free in this world? My bloodline, our bloodline, ripped apart. Split open with a speculum, used, shredded and spat on? My history, our history. Gone. And here I am, speaking fucking English. English? What is this English that lives in my mouth? I hate it. I want to taste the language I'm supposed to speak.
​
N'game
I know, child.
​
Rose
The now, it doesn't belong to me. It's not truly mine. The more now I spend, the more I lose. The farther away I get. I want to go back.
FADE OUT