Clown Pieces - BOOK II
BOOK II - Encounters
Chapter III: The Writer's Glimmer
Chapter VI: The Writer's Vision
(Click on a Chapter to read, or watch concept videos)
CHAPTER INDEX
BOOK II - ENCOUNTERS
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Chapter I: Losing the Thread
A brief moment of darkness.
Muisc starts.
Lights.
The Old Weaver smiles and weaves, her head nodding to the rhythm.
But the white substance has gone out of control without her knowing it.
The squeaky sounds of the dismantling loom become clearly audible.
But she still weaves undisturbed, happily and serenely.
Lights up dimly on the sad writer.
The stack of paper on the sad writer’s desk has now become ridiculously high.
Frustrated and miserable, he continues to discard his writings.
Lights fade on the writer.
The mother finishes feeding the little girl.
Both of them are glowing beautifully now.
The mother tucks the little bowl and spoon into her waist.
They stand up.
The mother begins to teach the little girl how to walk.
The little girl walks shakily.
She falls down.
They laugh.
The mother goes to the front, clapping her hands to lead the little girl.
Clap.
The little girl giggles.
She falls down.
Clap, clap, clap.
She gets up, over and over again, having fun.
The old weaver weaves.
When suddenly, her finger is pricked by the spindle.
Blood.
Lights up dimly on the creepy clown still madly cutting white stuff.
The weaver is badly hurt. She struggles as if she is fighting an old curse, and tries to get back to work, to no avail. The endless white substance now loses control completely.
They fly around in mid air and begin to surround and strangle the Old Weaver.
Lights on the Old Weaver begin to flicker.
And at the same time as the Old Weaver is hurt,
the clapping mother is also inflicted by mortal pain,
as if she and the Old Weaver share one fate.
All their struggling motions hence are completely identical.
The weaver, shrouded by her own work,
falls heavily to the ground, incurring a surge of dancing white shreds.
Lights on the Old Weaver go out completely.
The mother collapses as well.
The bowl and the little spoon fall out from her waist.
All the lava-like gems are spilt and lose their glow completely.
The mother stops glowing.
The little girl sits there in stupor.
Lights stay on.
End of Chapter I (Go Back to Chapter Index)
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Chapter II: Deviation
The Cutter, after cutting up nothing for a while, suddenly realizes that the supply of paper has stopped.
But he can’t stop his motion in his madness.
He begins wandering around the space,
and slowly walks towards the little girl like a sleepwalker,
cutting up empty air, chairs, props, and THE AUDIENCE.
He cuts.
cuts.
cuts.
The mother never wakes.
The little girl does not know what has happened.
The Cutter walks towards her.
He hurts the little girl with his scissors.
She falls down.
She tries to get up on her own.
Lights up on the Creature at the Volcano.
He never gives up on trying to send the gem to the little girl.
When he sees the little girl wounded by the Cutter,
He tries to break free from his bonds more frantically.
He tries all kinds of tricks, sometimes even hurting himself.
The Cutter proceeds to cut up the mother.
Until there is nothing left of her except white shreds.
The Creature tries harder to break free.
The Cutter walks towards the creature at the volcano.
The creature battles with the Cutter.
The creature kills the Cutter and drowns him in the lava.
The Cutter sinks and disappears.
The creature sits there quietly after the victory.
The lava spews out the pair of scissors.
The creature was surprised at first.
Then he uses the scissors to try to cut himself off from the lava.
When he cuts, he howls painfully.
But he cuts and cuts nonetheless.
Lights dim.
End of Chapter II (Go Back to Chapter Index)
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Chapter III: The Writer's Glimmer
Lights.
The stack of paper on the sad writer’s desk is noticeably thinning.
The sad writer continues to take pieces of paper, crumples them and throws them on the floor.
Soon, there is no paper.
The Sad Writer sits there in a daze,
for a long time,
completely exhausted.
He looks up.
Something just dawned on him.
He gets up and picks up one of the crumpled pieces of paper on the floor.
He unfolds it.
He reads it.
He looks away and begins to cry.
He holds it to his heart.
The little piece of crumpled paper breaks free a little and begins to dance in midair.
The sad writer is astonished.
The piece of paper invites the writer dance with it.
The writer holds it.
They dance a little bit.
The writer lovingly folds it nicely into all kinds of shapes.
He makes it into a bird.
The bird dances with him.
He makes it into a butterfly,
It dances with him.
etc.
While at the same time,
The little princess who fed on gems remains seated.
She realizes there’s no mother.
She is very hungry.
Her glow is noticeably weakening.
She shivers with cold.
It’s time to do something.
She tries to stand up, but falls.
She tries to scrape up the spilt gem on the ground.
Nothing was left.
After the piece of paper dances with the Sad Writer, it begins to playfully refuse to let him fold it.
It begins to fold itself, coyly, not wanting the writer to see.
The writer turns his back on it and happily takes little peeks.
The piece of paper shyly reveals itself as a flower.
The writer is thrilled.
They dance and interact with some hint of bashfulness.
The paper unfolds itself again and quickly forms a heart-shape.
And hastily unfolds in fear of being seen.
It folds itself into a Ninja Star.
They play like brothers.
The Writer shoots the Ninja Star out of the window.
During its travel, it sees the struggling little girl.
The Ninja Star flies back like a boomerang.
It demands to be flown again.
The writer this time folds it into a paper plane.
He flies it.
The plane lingers a little bit near the little girl.
The little girl sees the paper plane.
She tries to catch it.
The paper is shy.
It flies back to the Sad Writer.
The Sad Writer caresses the paper.
End of Chapter III (Go Back to Chapter Index)
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Chapter IV: The Hijack
The paper plane wants to see the little girl.
It fidgets at the window, demanding to be flown.
The Sad Writer flies it, to fulfill its dream.
But the writer does not know it has an aim.
He flies it at another direction.
The paper plane arrives at the cave and sees the creature.
It flinches, unfolds itself and freezes in midair.
The creature is intrigued by this new piece of wonder.
He realizes that it can be transformed.
The origami folds itself into a paper plane again and attempts to fly away.
The creature again quickly recognizes its ability to travel.
He grabs the plane in no time.
He tries to make it bear the gems.
But the paper plane is too afraid to stay still or relent.
In desperation, the Creature forms a rock in his hand with lava.
He knocks the paper plane to death with the rock.
He pokes and fumbles to make sure it is completely still.
He carefully makes it into a paper boat.
He caresses the paper boat.
He carefully puts the glowing gem on it.
Humming, he puts the paper boat on the floor.
The floor responds with sound of water.
The paper boat, now dead, quietly flows towards the little girl, under the sound of water.
The gem it carries shimmers steadily in the dark.
While the boat flows,
lights up softly on the sad writer.
He waits for the plane to come back.
It never does.
He is worried.
Light dims.
End of Chapter IV (Go Back to Chapter Index)
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Chapter V: Deliverence
Lights.
The first glimmering boat reaches the little girl.
She examines it curiously.
She eats the gem hungrily.
She absentmindedly glances at the paper.
She is struck dumb by the first few lines.
She unfolds the paper.
The little girl falls in love with the story.
She doesn't know what to do.
Lights down on the little girl.
End of Chapter V (Go Back to Chapter Index)
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Chapter VI: The Writer's Vision
Lights.
The sad writer waits for the plane to come back.
It never does.
He is worried.
He tries to get out through the window,
but realizes he is agoraphobic.
He looks like a joke.
He comes back.
He waits and waits.
In his distress, he starts to have a vision.
He sees the close image of the Match Girl,
projected somewhere in his personal space.
The Match Girl's corner is also lit dimly,
to reflect the simultaneity
between the reality
and the writer's illusion.
The writer sees the lowered head of the Match Girl.
The writer fears what he sees.
Then he sees the stuff that the Match Girl is trying to burn up.
He now understands where his writings will end up.
The writer fights this fact with disbelief.
He tries to make this living nightmare disappear.
The Match Girl in the Writer's illusion
slowly responds by turning her head.
Her face is hauntingly deformed.
One of her eyes is blind and glowing with red light - The face of the most ominous, weathered prophetess.
But it is only the writer's illusion of the Match Girl that has the ominous red eye.
The Match Girl in the corner is still an incredibly young and defenseless figure, shuddering with all the vulnerability in the world.
The image of the Match Girl disappears as soon as the red eye is seen.
Light disappears on the Match Girl in the corner as well.
The Sad Writer knows the paper will never come back.
His grief is overwhelming.
He picks up all his writings and laments for their sad fate.
He uses his last glimmer of hope to make an array of similar origami in memory of the flown away paper.
He mourns.
And then he sets all of the origami free like doves,
madly.
Lights dims.
End of Chapter VI (Go Back to Chapter Index)
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Chapter VII: Courtships
Lights.
The Creature at the Volcano sees the pieces of origami flying towards him
en masse.
He is so happy he almost jumps out of his body.
He trains himself to capture the origami.
Soon enough he becomes very good at it.
One by one, the flying origami are hijacked.
And one by one, the creature knocks them dead, makes them into boats, puts gem on them, and sets the boats drifting on the water.
Lights dim on the Provider of Warmth and Gem.
Lights up on the little girl.
One by one, she receives the boats and gem.
She eats the gem.
Page by page, she reads the story.
Lights up on the creature at volcano again.
He repeats his action of sending gems to the little girl.
On and on.
The girl eats.
She reads the story.
She has strength now.
Wind starts to blow.
She looks up.
She decides to stand up,
and look for the writer of the story.
She teaches herself how to walk,
against the wind.
It is the most difficult struggle.
But she is determined.
She walks.
And walks.
Lights flicker in the disastrous storm.
The storm continues.
She walks on, unafraid.
End of Chapter VII (Go Back to Chapter Index)
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Chapter VIII: Battle II
In the poor visibility of the storm, the little girl grows in the process, until she turns into a young girl.
She continues to walk along the river, towards the source of all the origami.
She is enraptured to see them increase in amount.
She finally reaches the volcano, where she sees the creature.
She looks at the creature.
The creature does not see her coming, because he is so engaged in his business
of catching origami and knocking them dead.
The little girl is appalled, and disgusted, to see the gruesome murder.
The creature looks up.
He sees the girl of his dream, standing right in front of him.
He panics.
He tries to pacify her disgust.
He produces the gem.
He tries to give it to the girl.
And the girl tries to save the lives of the origami.
In the messy process the spilt lava hurts the little girl.
Now fully believing that the creature is evil,
the girl grabs the scissors lying aside,
and begins to battle the creature.
She cuts him and hurts him.
She also learns to conjure up a protective shield.
She is getting better and stronger.
She defeats the creature.
The creature makes the last effort to give gem to her.
He is imploring.
The girl stares at him.
She takes the gem, as if from a snare.
She abandons the defeated creature,
who gives up all his attempts
for the first time.
and sits down dejectedly.
Lights dim on the creature.
Another light follows the girl, who goes to a quiet area and wolfs down the gem alone.
She is glowing beautifully now.
She braces up, and continues her journey
towards the source of the stories.
During her walk, we can see her grow and mature, in posture and in manners, until she reaches adulthood.
She can even transform into the same performer who plays the young mother.
Lights dim.
End of Chapter VIII
~Interlude~
During the process of the Princess’ growth, lights up dimly sometimes on the Match Girl in the corner.
She continues her efforts to light a fire, vulnerable and defenseless as ever. But the course of the princess' maturing seems to trigger a crushing fear in her.
We see that, between the princess,
who is holding the writings lovingly in her chest,
and the Match Girl in the corner who tries to destroy all the writings,
there is some awareness of the mutual existence of each other,
and subtle influence on each other’s action.
The fire-lighting efforts become more and more frantic, as if the Match Girl is trying to prevent something from happening.
Lights dim on the Match Girl.
End of Interlude.
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Chapter IX: The Visit
Lights.
The princess who fed on gems now becomes a tall, beautiful young woman.
She wraps herself up in a long winter coat.
She has learned how to walk against the wind,
and how to conjure up a protective shield while she walks.
Finally, the princess arrives at the window of the Sad Writer.
Nervously, she knocks on the door.
The Sad Writer opens the door and sees her.
He does not know who she is.
She takes out all the corpses of stories she collected.
She holds them to him with both hands, shaking and crying now.
The Sad Writer goes mad when he sees the corpses of his writings.
He forages among the pages.
He found the original piece of paper he fell in love with.
The Sad Writer broke down.
The princess tries to console him.
He won’t let her touch him.
The princess tries with her life to show that she loves him.
During the process a special emotion is built between the princess and the sad writer.
The Sad Writer, however, cannot get over his own pain.
His anger and sadness flood over him.
The Sad Writer kisses the princess - the most woeful, angry kiss, his last gift to the world.
After the kiss, the Sad Writer takes out a gun and shoots himself.
END OF BOOK II
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BOOK III - CONSUMMATION
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The work CLOWN PIECES is dedicated to Leslie Ayvazian, an incredible mentor of mine.