Where We Learned to Disappear ~ An Archive of Unsent Messages
( A Shell Fell from the Skies )
Opening Scene ... Calypso Blue Moon ... hanging like a bruised eye ... behind silhouettes of rubber trees that used to grow in his grandmother's stories about places that no longer exist ... Sour white lily smiles ... the kind that funeral directors arrange on young faces ... Now ... another suffering sapphire haze ... the color of his mother's sleeping pills scattered on the bathroom floor ... India's black night stars shine like eyes ... watching, always watching, the way cafeteria monitors track the lonely eaters ... Curved addiction purrs above a blaze ... a cat named Sorrow who belonged to no one but visited everyone ... A shell fell from the skies ... or maybe it was just a button from his father's old uniform, the one he wore before everything changed ...
Protagonist's Crisis ... A neurotic and timid teen is crippled by anxiety and fear ... counts his heartbeats during math class, always losing track at forty-seven ... robbery pranks leave him so panicked that Sarah dumps him ... via a note written on the back of a movie ticket they never used ... and his own father sends him away to a boarding school ... his hand hovering three times over the radio dial, almost choosing their song, the one about coming home ... the same school from the brochures with smiling diverse faces that all had the same dead eyes ... to overcome his persistent fears ... or at least learn to hide them better ... In his drafts folder: 'Mom, I—' (87 versions, all unsent) ... Why don't we ... Why did we ... Memories floating in ... like dead goldfish in the chemistry lab aquarium ...
School ... and ghostly whispering walls conversations ... 'Did you take your—' 'Yes.' 'All of them?' 'Yes.' (But everyone knew that meant no.) ... about the boy who tried to escape through the laundry chute last semester ... Display official jackets ... hanging on hooks like shed skins ... representing ... a marginalized blind man ... who once played violin in subway stations ... woman in a wheelchair ... who dreams of dancing underwater ... a trans person with dwarfism ... whose poetry fills three hidden notebooks ... and a refugee from Senegal, Africa ... who still tastes dust when it rains ... Some meanings of meetings and purpose of encounters become lost in translation ... like love letters written in languages that were never learned ... the way your socks never dry completely in that place ... Words alone aren't always easily understood by every person involved ... especially when spoken through mandatory smile exercises ...
New Journey ... Lay down your clothes and show us your true identity ... the birthmark shaped like a question mark, the scars from picking at your skin during panic attacks ... Lend us your eyes ... though they've forgotten how to cry properly ... then try to read us like a psychological play ... where all the stage directions are written in disappearing ink ... pencil indentations in your finger from writing 'I'm okay' too many times ... Show us a last stream of your lonely story if you want to ... the one about the time you hid in the chapel organ pipes and heard yourself echo ... No need for strikes back at us ... to our uncovered soul ... which smells like old library books and unopened apology letters ... We don't exactly know everything about a transformation ... except that butterflies die if you touch their wings ...
As part of this performance played out ... in the common room where the plastic plants gather dust ... Explore themes of tokenism ... like the diversity pamphlet photos where the same wheelchair appears with different occupants ... dignity ... found in small rebellions like keeping forbidden snacks in hollowed-out textbooks ... belonging ... to the 3 AM insomnia club that meets by accident in the hallways ... grief ... for the person you were before the first panic attack ... and self-acceptance ... which tastes like cafeteria pudding, sweet but artificial ... the night someone accidentally played the Macarena instead of morning announcements and even the staff couldn't stop smiling ...
Do a deep immersion and explore the nuances of each one of these important contributing aspects ... the way morning light makes the institutional green walls look like pond scum ... add in some ... political correctness ... served with every meal like a mandatory vitamin ... an impressive stunt that ends up rolling into a fight ... over whose trauma deserves the most space ... tilt this scene towards what obviously seems like heartfelt satire ... where laughter sounds like choking ... Prove that an underdog character of your choosing holds a unique universal human story circulating beneath each absurd premise ... like the janitor who speaks in palindromes since his wife died, except once when he said 'you remind me of my son' perfectly forward, perfectly clear ...
A dark Conclusion ... Wrongful wonders ... unfortunately ... is something we did like verbal language crafting experts ... who forgot that silence is also a language ... Nothing can stop individuals who are put in a position of extra power from lift up and ... with fast reflexes ... shake a textile covered soft cube ottoman at a party as a bizarre joke ... while someone's grandmother's ashes sit in an urn that looks exactly like the school trophy ... This incident then flows into a coming-of-age narrative about an anxious teen sent to a formal boarding school ... where the formal uniforms still smell like the previous owners' fear ... where he confronts his fears ... named individually like pets: Abandonment (a spider), Rejection (a crow), Death (a mathematics equation) ... and prejudices ... inherited like eye color and debt ... ultimately revealing darker truths about power ... which tastes metallic, like biting your tongue ... and society ... which applauds the loudest at its own cruelty ...
Deja vu ... the feeling of drowning in reverse ... Calypso Blue Moon ... now with clouds that look like unread text messages ... Behind silhouettes of rubber trees ... where someone carved "help" in seventeen different handwritings ... Sour white lily smiles ... the therapist's favorite expression ... Another suffering sapphire haze ... the exact shade of loneliness at 4 PM on Sundays ... India's black night stars shine like eyes ... of all the students who didn't make it through the program ... Curved addiction purrs above a blaze ... of report cards being burned in secret ceremonies ...
A shell fell from the skies ... this time definitely a shell, from a war everyone pretends ended ... A neurotic and timid teen is crippled by anxiety … and fear … counts ceiling tiles instead of sheep, always stopping at thirteen ... And a robbery prank leaves him so panicked that Sarah dumps him ... but keeps his hoodie, the one that still smells like hope ... And his own father sends him away to a boarding school … driving in silence except for the radio playing weather reports for cities they'll never visit ... that moment when his father's hand hovered three times over the radio dial, almost choosing their song ... To overcome his persistent fears ... or at least learn their Latin names ...
Why don't we … talk about the empty chairs at graduation ... Why did we … pretend the crying in the showers was just water pressure ... Memories floating into an Institution ... that has conversations as whispering walls ... about the meditation room that used to be a punishment closet ... Displaying official jackets ... now with name tags of students who became statistics ... representing a marginalized … Blind man … who sees everyone's sadness in perfect detail ... Woman in a wheelchair … who races ghosts down empty corridors at midnight ... Trans person with dwarfism … whose reflection tells different stories depending on the mirror ... And a refugee from Senegal … Africa ... who builds tiny boats from cafeteria napkins and sets them sailing in sink water ...
Leading into ... Lack of meanings as part of encounters ... like birthday parties where no one remembers being born ... And meanings that become lost during translations ... especially "I'm fine" which means seventeen different kinds of drowning ... 'Did you take your—' 'Yes.' 'All of them?' 'Yes.' (But everyone knew that meant no.) ... Words alone aren't always automatically understood ... particularly when spoken through regulation smiles ... Lay down your clothes ... the ones your mother packed with labels she sewed while crying ... and show us ... the map of blue veins that spell out "sorry" ... pencil indentations in your finger from writing 'I'm okay' too many times ... Lend us your eyes ... though they're tired from watching doors that never open ... Read us like a play ... where all the actors forgot their lines and make up new ones about extinct birds ...
Show us your last physical fragment ... a baby tooth kept in a prescription bottle ... A reckoning ... with the mirror that remembers every breakdown ... No need for strikes to us in our mind ... which plays the same three seconds of a lullaby on loop ... and soul ... if it still exists under all these official jackets ... the way your socks never dry completely in that place ... Add some political correctness … measured in teaspoons like medicine ... a stunt that ends up stumbling into a fist fight ... over who owns the right to be the saddest ... through heartfelt satire ... that cuts like safety scissors, dull but persistent ...
Explore themes of tokenism … where diversity posters fade in perfect gradient ... Dignity … found in learning to cry silently ... belonging … to the fellowship of the eternally jet-lagged ... grief … which comes in waves timed to class bells ... and self-acceptance ... which might just be exhaustion wearing a costume ... Prove that a chosen underdog of this narrative holds a universal human story beneath its absurd premise ... like how everyone counts their steps to the cafeteria in prime numbers ... the janitor who speaks in palindromes since his wife died, except once when he said 'you remind me of my son' perfectly forward, perfectly clear ...
Wrongful wonders … unfortunately … Is something we did like verbal language crafting experts ... who forgot that screaming is punctuation ... Nothing can stop individuals who are put in a position of extra power from shaking something at a neighborhood party ... while the ice sculptures melt into shapes that look like reaching hands ... Displayed as a bizarre joke ... that no one laughs at but everyone remembers ... like the taste of institutional mint ... like the sound of regulated breathing ... like the Calypso Blue Moon ... always returning ... behind the silhouettes of rubber trees ... where we learned to disappear
