Textile Drive

We do not choose the stories of our lives; we accidentally appear in them.

Imagine that there is a stage play in a theater, a play at a point somewhere in Act II or Act MCMXCII...just anywhere at all. The set might be elaborate or simple; there might be three players or a crowd;  it could be a grand tragedy or slapstick, "Our Town" or one of those strange Sam Shepard off-off-Broadway plays like "Kicking A Dead Horse." That's the main thing: we have no idea what play this is or even that it is one.

A trap door opens in the stage at a random point and we...I or you...appear slam in the middle of everything or off somewhere Stage Left, unable to either speak or translate the language, blinded by the lights and assaulted by the fug that envelopes a theater in a hot moment of a long run. We are not yet familiar with gravity, much less with the role we're to play. We have no choice but to get up to speed with the action as fast as possible (understanding, optional) and try, for all of our allotted forever-after, to keep up.

We're not at all sure if we are the protagonist, the villain, or just a bit player with a few bad lines. We're never sure. Occasionally, someone hands us something that might be a script or a synopsis, but all of these turn out to be bogus. All that is clear and abundantly clear is that if we just sit there, we'll be stomped. So we join in.

Like you, I am still struggling to figure out what play this is. I have decided that it began centuries before my arrival, but I cannot tell you if it goes on after the hook hauls me off stage. I look back over the scenes I've played in, the ones that have led to this one, and study them, roll them through my fingers like pop-beads, worry beads. Sometimes, I burn with shame over fluffed lines or pratfalls. Sometimes, looking back, I decide to award myself a belated TONY. Those are mostly reserved for the first ten years of my performance, before I had the role of Critic added to my responsibilities by the onset of hormone flooding.

Without permission, I have given the play a name. Here are remembered scenes from Textile Drive.

The Mouse And The Moonbeam