WRECKAGE OF DREAMS
------------------

by Shaun Gardiner

[The scene, lit only by the moon, is a small raft, adrift on the sea with a dead engine.

A large number of refugees lie on the raft; they swamp it, almost concealing the shape of the hull. It is as if a mass of bodies floated on the sea. They have been adrift for fourteen days, and are dying of thirst and starvation.

Towards the centre of the group a MAN and a WOMAN lie together. The people lying about them are the CHORUS. The WOMAN clutches a small ragged bundle: a baby. It is silent. She grips it tight but does not look at it.

The sea is busy - a squall is blowing.]

					CHORUS
					The big waves
					roll over.

					The sea is black blood
					and unforgiving
					but lost in the flood
					we are still living.

					Each minute erodes the memory of bread,
					congeals in the two-week-waterless veins;
					the waves have drawn down the remains
					of our hope to the depths, a lineless lead.

					The sea plots all, divines the route,
					the current commands advance, retreat,
					and the darkness sings softly of day's defeat
					when the mouth of the sun falls mute.

[The squall relents. There is calm.]

			MAN							WOMAN
			You must sleep my love
										My love, how can I sleep -
										on land I knew
										knew without knowing			 
			sleep my love
										the sun would see me wake.
										Here on the waves
										nothing is fixed -
			sleep my love
										who can know the difference
										of sleep's calm
										from final silence?
													
										Which the lights
										behind the lids?
										Which the stars?

[The sun begins to rise, but with it the waves grow more restless.]

					CHORUS
					What choice remained besides the waves?
					Behind us our home, defiled, bomb-broken,
					its sleep rent by gunfire, bullet-awoken:
					abandon our past or sink in its grave.
			 
					Our boards are slick with rot. At night they creak
					like the dreamer's ribs when they swell with sleep.
					We are dreamless. We await the light.
					Day's fire makes change from frost of night.

[The sound of the sea rises, swamps over the words of the CHORUS.

The sun has risen. A throbbing is heard, a deep concussive rhythm that gradually builds. The sea is disturbed, beaten back in a widening ring.]

					CHORUS
					Something above us beats the air,
					in and out of the sun it fades.
					The angel of our granted prayers,
					its halo a whirl of blades.

[The WOMAN holds up her bundle. The MAN holds up his empty hands. Around them, the CHORUS also stir and grasp upwards. The sea streams out in a wide bowl, the raft at its centre.]

			MAN							WOMAN
										My baby - see my baby 
			From the sky they came down
			to our shouts,
			to our hands.
										my baby
			We thought they would catch us
			up to their clouds,
			up to their sun.
										my baby
			They only dropped water and bread:
			for each of us
			a gulp, a crumb.
			 
			Kindness half-handed,
			cruel, to stretch out
			death.

[The helicopter fades away. The light is going with it. The people on the raft fade back into hopelessness.]

					MAN
					They left.

					WOMAN
					They may come back.

					CHORUS
					Our teeth grind
					the air.
			 
					Hunger's fire claims
					the stomach's ash.
					Fuel and flames
					close one flesh.
			 
					We sought the lands beyond the sea:
					northward, where they weave war's wing,
					northward, where they strike its sting
					from a wall-watch of justice, from a hoard-house of peace.

[Again the sea rises and subsides. The sunset is a fiery gnawing.

The shape of a great hull appears on the waves. It draws closer, a huge shadow.]

					CHORUS
					What is this void approaching?
					Its shadow daubs the moon with tar.
					Is death, a dog grown bold, encroaching
					the wounded sky to scavenge stars?

[The ship circles the raft. Finally it is night.]

					MAN
					They took pictures of us;
					outside of a lens
					they have no frame
					for suffering.

					WOMAN
					They came so close. Our faces -
					they must have seen -
					the little bodies.

					MAN
					They took their pictures and left.

[The ship is disappearing into the distance.]

			MAN							WOMAN
			Suffering - sensation.					Suffering leaps the sense -
			Projections on a skin of screen				lies in the arms, a child
			is all they see.					of the beholder.
			 
			How can our suffering cross the waves			Who could see another's misery
			when we cannot?						and not be in sorrow too?
			 
			That is all we are to them				That is why we cannot be

					WOMAN and MAN
					a mere report of suffering,

					WOMAN and MAN with CHORUS
					a wreckage of dreams.

			CHORUS
			(in alternating halves)
			They can see everything.
										They will do nothing.
			They have seen us.
										They will not smile on us.

					CHORUS
					(together, softly)
					We are still living
					but lost in the flood
					and unforgiving.
			 
					The sea is black blood.
			 
					Roll over
					you big waves.

[The sea rises.]

- END -