(Victoria storms into the bedroom after a long pretentious night out with neighbours. She sits tamely on a floral printed bench in front of her vanity, preparing herself for bed.)
Victoria: You son-of-a-bitch.
(Following quickly behind is her husband Thomas. He is furious with her verbal carelessness and quickly refutes it.)
Thomas: Don’t you dare raise your voice with me woman – if I can even refer to you as one. You resemble more of a five pence whore then any degree of a lady.
(Thomas reaches for a drink but does not prepare himself for bed. He stands stiffly by the alcohol cabinet and stares at Victoria completing midnight routine.)
Victoria: Then what role should I assign you? Considering you are so intimately related to a whore? I would say you are the reminisce of a lonely, rich and degraded man who sees happiness as a reflection of how others see him. You are a selfish man who does not care for truths but rather how truths can be intricately created from ‘material happenings’. Truths are meant to be the constructions of individual minds, which you obviously lack the capability of doing.
Thomas: And yours are truths that ultimately mean nothing and serve no benefits to you in the real world, which, by the way, relies heavily on ‘material happenings’.
Victoria: So I suppose it is more efficient to accustom oneself to this – this falsity then to question it and its significance and your significance in relation to it?
Thomas: Questioning why things are as they are does not change the fact that they are, dear.
(Victoria turns around to face Thomas as he leans against the wall finishing off the last of his drink.)
Victoria: Shut up. You have always been predictable. You are a mannequin. A man constructed for a purpose and whose limbs move according to another’s desire. Your whole body is vacant of any autonomy.
(Thomas pours another drink. Replies with his back the Victoria)
Thomas: But it is I, nevertheless, who receives the reward, darling.
Victoria: Your face is vacant too. You have permanent features that don’t change in relation to your feelings. You have no feelings! No personality. You would be useless as soon as you were removed from the glass window you so securely and confidently stand behind.
(Thomas turns back to Victoria. Glass filled.)
Thomas: Seems to me that you are also on display within this glass window – along side me.
Victoria: That may be true but I am screaming, hitting and kicking this window so that I can escape this horrifying life.
(Victoria throws a comb against her vanity mirror in hopes that it would shatter. But it does not. After a moment of silence she continues, increasingly frustrated.)
Victoria: I am not submissive. I am fighting my way out. This life does not bring me happiness nor truth. However it may look to others makes to no difference to me. Unlike you – you coward, I want to be vulnerable, move as I would like, display myself as I choose, think and speak at my own discretion. This glass does not serve as protection, nor do you.
Thomas: Your safety is not my purpose, dear.
(Victoria sits calmly on her vanity bench again, and continues to prepare herself for bed)
Victoria: And what exactly is the purpose you have been ascribed, dear?
Thomas: To merely play a part. I do not have my own incentives – the world does not require me to. If everything and everyone is interconnected by these material happenings then why must I challenge it? Why must you challenge it? What you seem to ignore is that all life is encased within a glass display. You dear, just choose to see it as imprisonment rather than a guarantee.
(Victoria stands up abruptly from her bench and moves towards the alcohol cabinet. As she pours herself a drink she questions Thomas.)
Victoria: A guarantee? What is it that we are guaranteed? An unfulfilling life? What you – dear – seem to not understand is that you are also a creator of these mannequins. It is a domino effect, you see. All these manufactured people, things really, are intricately placed in a spiral. You are a single piece which has fallen within the control of the previous one, and you, in turn, are in control of the following one.
Thomas: Where are you within this spiral – dear? And who is it that tipped the first domino? Do not challenge the inevitable. The answers you seek are useless, unimportant and serve as no more then silly distractions. You are much better off falling when it is your turn. You mustn’t feel as if you are privileged, you are only meant to fill in a tiny and meaningless gap in this much larger spiral. You are insignificant.
Victoria: The difference dear is that I see the inevitable approaching from afar and I will defy it, no matter how meaningless I may be.
Thomas: You will?
Victoria: I will define myself according to self inflicted purposes.
Thomas: You are stubborn.
Victoria: There is no sense in continuing this conversation. You have already fallen. You are much more meaningless then I. You cannot be saved.
Thomas: You can defy as much as you’d like but whether you choose to acknowledge it or not – you too have fallen.
(Thomas exits the room.)
Victoria: How right you are dear. I have fallen out of the glass display and into the infinite.
(Victoria finishes her drink and throws the glass at her vanity mirror – and this time it shatters.)
Picture: http://brockeric.com/bpf/range/manequins/body_mannequin/
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