sans everything

[enter narrator, centre stage. narrator addresses the audience directly.]

Narrator: The world is gone. 

   I don’t know where it went.

maybe it disappeared

maybe it's hiding

maybe it never existed in the first place. 

It's gone though, and we can’t get it back. 

We’ve tried. 

We’ve tried leaving the theatre 

   (if this even is a theatre)

 It's dark

so 

very 

dark 

except for when it's not

and every door we try is either 

locked 

or leads to a stage. 

We always turn back.

There is no “time”

 We don’t know how long we’ve been here

Minutes.

  Years.

We just want to leave.

We don’t know why they took everything from us, we don’t even know who they are

  but their existence weighs on us like the sensation of a person walking behind you, breathing on your neck, whispering in your ear. 

 A person without a body

 Following     us.

Maybe that's what they are. 

Maybe, it's not.

We’ve gotten lost 

countless 

times. 

So many times 

but I think that now we won’t be coming back.

We won’t find each other, 

or find another door, 

or find. 

We can’t find because we can’t see because we are blocked—

I have nothing to do. 

Which is why you’re here, I suppose. 

They want me to recount my story to you.

My will isn’t my own anymore. I will have to.

[the scene changes around narrator, framing narrator in a different light. different how? who knows]

Narrator: Where did the world go?

I don’t even remember how it happened, what my life was really like.

All I know is: One moment I was living my life, and the next, it was just me and Orion. 

Alone. In the dark.

There could have been a transition. Hell, a whole year could have passed, but I wouldn’t remember it, it passed like the blink of an eye.

We wander, Orion and I.

Well, I call him Orion. We don’t remember his real name. Mine neither. 

Names require a certain degree of identity that seemed to have been lost during the “transition” (if there was one).

So, I go by nothing, and he goes by Orion. He likes that name. At least that’s something for an identity.

We think there are others, other people we haven’t already failed, but we can’t be certain. 

Maybe they were all lost in the transition, or maybe they were hiding in the shadows, just like us. 

Even if there aren’t any more, we have to try. What else would we do? It’s not like the beings who changed the earth left us- left us-

I can’t remember what it’s called. 

It's not like they left us entertainment. Gods forbid we enjoy ourselves anymore.

So we just… wander.

Looking for others.

Looking for… something.

We hardly even talk. What is there to talk about? 

There seems to be no weather. Nothing in sports, no world news, not even a new apocalypse.

So we just wander in silence.

Of course there are moments it's not silent.

If we take a wrong turn, touch a curtain, open a door, we’d end up on a stage.

The floor, the walls, the ceilings would all be black, and there never seemed to be an edge.

The lights were blinding, illuminating your hand in front of you in the strangest way, drowning out the audience until all you saw in front of you was pitch blackness.

Except it wasn’t all black.

If you spent enough time there, walked onto enough stages, seen enough audience voids, a mask would appear. 

I don’t think I interacted with the theatre much in my previous life, but I knew enough to recognise it as a neutral mask. 

A plain, blank face, devoid of any emotion.

The cutouts for the eyes were large and circular, and the colour stood out brightly, almost shining out from the dark, whether it was white, gold or red.

It was so quiet, so peaceful up on that stage, surrounded by the black, the white; staring at the uncanny character of your audience.

But it was not silent. It was far from it.

The white noise, the whispering.

Then the announcer.

[announcer says all lines via god mic]

Announcer: Welcome to the stage, young one! What is your name?

Narrator: They say the same thing every time.

Announcer: Everyone has a name! Would you really like to do your act anonymous?

Narrator: I do. I really do.

The masks just keep showing up after that. 

Not only neutral masks at this point, larval, commedia, chinese opera, any and every theatre mask in existence.

They multiply, filling the seats quicker and quicker until the whole audience is full, waiting for your performance.

Orion and I steer clear from the stages. 

There isn’t anything to do except to step onto a stage, so we just wander.

We wander

And wander

And 

w  a  n  d  e  r 

And 

w

    a 

        n

            d

                e

                    r 

Until “wander” doesn’t sound like a word anymore, doesn’t feel like something we’re doing.

We’ve been wandering for far longer than we could count, for far longer than we thought would ever be comfortable on human feet.

We’ve forgotten our motivations. But if they were to get away from the masks, we were failing miserably.

[Enter Jane, stage right of narrator]

Narrator: Jane was the first real person we found together.

And the first we lost as well.

I can’t even remember what she looked like. All I can see is that- 

Dark.

Those masks.

Jane was young. Really young, and impulsive.

You know how when you’re in a store your parents tell you not to touch everything?

Jane wasn’t told that. 

I really, really wish she was.

But she touched the door anyway. The door that led to the stage, she turned the knob- handle? And opened that door and saw the side profile of the stage, saw the stage wide open and waiting for her.

We had told her not to walk onto the stage.

We tried to haul her back, tried to drag her away from the stage, anything. 

It didn’t work.

Announcer: Welcome to the stage, young one! What is your name?

Narrator: Jane was paralysed. What would she say? How could she tell the voice coming from nowhere and everywhere that she couldn’t remember her own name?

Announcer: You do have a name, don’t you, silly?

Jane: no. 

Narrator: Jane was quiet onstage. So very quiet. 

I don’t think she liked the masks that kept showing up.

We didn’t either but at that point there was nothing we could do but watch.

Announcer: Very well. An Anonymous performance. and a quiet one too, hm?

[The "audience" murmurs in agreement.]

Announcer: A simple neutral mask, then? A quiet act that requires nothing but wandering? An audience can be quite insightful when they see something as simple as that.

[The audience cheers.

the stage goes dark, 

And 

Jane 

is 

gone.]

Narrator: All that remains in Jane’s place is a hooded figure, and a mask.

A worn, gold neutral mask, the first one I saw here.

I’m not very ashamed to say I ran, and I believe Orion was right behind me. 

We lost her.

We 

Lost

Her.

Jane was gone and there was nothing we could do about it, nothing we could do to save her.

She could be hurting.

She could be dead

can you die here?

She was the first one we lost.

We lost two others, but countless other people could have been lost here, countless other people could have been

Hurting

Dead

?

[enter John, stage left of Narrator]

Narrator: We didn’t like John.

He talked more than any of the others, but it wasn’t pleasant. 

It was far from it.

The words here are distorted, they’re warped and full of radio static.

They’re uncanny.

Just like everything else here, speech is

uncanny.

He would touch a curtain, one we knew was rigged,

He would touch a door and assure us,

John: It’s fine.

Narrator: It was not “fine.” 

And that was his downfall.

His arrogance is what led him to the stage.

As he opened his last door, Orion or I didn’t stop him. We had nothing to lose on him.

It went just like Jane’s did.

John knew his name before he opened the door, but when the announcer asked him:

John: my- my name? My name… fuck I don’t know.

Narrator: He didn’t even sound distressed. 

I didn’t think he truly belonged here, he wasn’t suffering like us. He should have been somewhere else, somewhere where they  would  hurt  him more. 

The announcer understood that as well.

They punished him for swearing, then they changed him.

I saw him transform as I saw Jane transform.

A flash of dark, and John was gone.

[John is gone]

In his place was a hunched shadow, with a commedia mask floating in front of it, large and ugly.

An unfortunate mask hiding all kinds of pain.

Maybe this was the right place for him after all.

[enter Hudjefa, downstage right]

Narrator: Hudjefa stayed with us the longest. We got to know who they were better than the other two, or anyone we could have possible encountered. They were a friend. Someone we liked, someone we wanted to keep close.

But the Masks don’t care about closeness. They don’t care about relationships, they don't care about protection.

Orion and I kept Hudjefa as close as possible.

We shielded them from the masks, the doors, the entire world, keeping them away from the same thing that took Jane and John.

But this place 

gets to you 

It messes up your mind, compels you, d r a g s  you, until you have no choice but to succumb.

It didn’t happen to Jane or John, they didn’t get enough time.

But Hudjefa, 

The Masks had to go to their last resort to get to Hudjefa, and it worked.

We immediately knew something was wrong when they seemed to stop hearing us.

Hudjefa was a follower, not a leader, and they would do anything we asked them to do, which generally made it easy to keep track of them, to keep them safe from the horrors that lurk in the undiscovered.

But as they began to wander, as they began to ignore our calls, we knew something was wrong.

Orion and I did everything we could to keep them safe, to bring them back, but it was all in vain.

As the time passed, Hudjefa was  p u l l e d.

We weren’t looking.

We were so stupid, we took our eyes off of them for minutes at a time-

We didn’t get to see them disappear.

We couldn’t watch them transform. 

Orion looked through all the doors, I ventured carefully onto all the stages, and we couldn’t find them.

It took us what felt like weeks until I saw them.

I met a wandering spirit, a lost shadow with a larval face frozen in dismay, and I knew it was them.

I knew that was our Hudjefa and we could do nothing to get them back.

I thought I had lost it all.

[enter Orion, downstage left]

[narrator looks at Orion. even through the ???, we see narrator look]

Narrator: I didn’t think I would lose him.

After everything we’ve been through, all the cruelty I- we witnessed, the idea of parting with him never crossed my mind.

I guess I assume we’d just

w a n d e r 

together e

f̵͖̜ o̯̱̊ r̴̨̦͕e ẹ̿ v͒̄ ẹ̿͋ r̴̨̦

But of course it didn’t work out that way.

Nothing ever works out 

That way.

It was just a repeat of Hudjefa, it wasn’t even anything special. 

We had something- a bond, a friendship, we knew each other and when he finally had to go 

He didn’t even get his own demise.

Orion was kind. He listened, he was patient, he understood and he knew exactly what to do.

Too bad I didn’t know how to do any of that.

Too bad I won’t be able to take care of myself, to listen to myself now that he’s gone.

But come to think of it, there isn’t much of a “myself” anymore. 

So when Orion succumbed,

When he was slowly driven to madness, a desire so strong that I couldn’t hold him back anymore, the way he tried with Jane, or John, or Hudjefa, 

All I could do was watch.

Watch as he stepped onto the stage, forget his own name, and   𝕓 𝕖 𝕔 𝕒 𝕞 𝕖

And as it ended, I could feel myself starting to slip. 

Starting to let go of everything I knew until I couldn’t help my curiosity.

I had to see what was on that stage,

All the way through.

I wish I hadn’t.

I can still hear the echo of the announcer over the speaker, still feel the harsh sense of the masks staring at me even though I knew they had no eyes.

I can still feel the white hot flashes of pain coursing through me, separating my essence until all it was, is now a cloud of black smoke, holding dearly onto a smooth white chinese opera mask.

Wander doesn’t sound like a word to me still.

But since it’s something I do every day now, I can see it on a much deeper level.

As I float around in the endless black halls that seemingly look more and more familiar over time, I don’t truly wander. 

I Coexist.

c o e x i s t i n g

As one, with everyone and everything that I will ever know.

And as I feel myself starting to slip once again, I hold onto that, and I know that as long as I exist, I will always be in pain.

And the pain is bliss.

[exeunt]