Act II
Spacecraft wreckage.
Afternoon
The MAN enters, still clad in rags. His space suit sits, upright and empty, upstage right, on a rock. Man is haggard, fatigue strains his voice.
Man: Mavis, Mavis where are you? Answer me, Mavis. Tell me what's the status of the ship. He turns away, looks at the ruins of his ship, and turns back to face the audience. He sinks to his knees and falls forward on his face. Enter WOMAN, still dressed normally.
Woman: Here again. Why do you always come back here? It can't be fixed.
Man: Must ask Mavis, what's the ship status?
Woman: (Furious) It's destroyed, you fool! Obliterated! Nothing left but a pile of junk! You can see it for yourself!
Man: Stands to face her. He adopts the tone of an adult correcting a petulant child. Don't be silly. Mavis will tell us what's wrong with the ship, how to fix it, and the best way to go about fixing it.
Woman: Angrily, sarcastically. And where is this "Magical" Mavis? And who is it? Some oyster you found down by the shore? A piece of seaweed?
Man: Smiles, looks off in the distance. No. Mavis is not an animal, nor is she a vegetable.
Woman: Disbelief. Mavis… is a rock?
Man: Technically, yes. But her personality is wonderful.
Woman: You want a ROCK to tell you how to fix the ship? It's a rock! They don't move! They don't breathe! Pauses, thinks. I suppose that makes them the most tolerable inhabitants of this island.
Man: I said her personality is wonderful. Don't you ever listen?
Woman: Don't you ever hear?
Man: Don't you ever comprehend?
Woman: Do NOT get started into one of those awful word games the failed Sirens play. She shudders. If I ever get off this rock I will never listen to a trumpet again. Never. Ever. And I will become a pacifist. The far off noise of a cannon firing echoes across the stage. I'm surprised she hasn't killed us with that thing.
Man: Mavis would calculate the probability of us being hit with that cannon. Then she would tell me medical tips on how to survive the impact of a cannon shell, how to treat cannon wounds, and how to haunt wooded areas if a shell should happen to strike your head off. Then she would expand on the history of the gun, naval warfare, and provide me with a list of famous blue-water naval engagements to read at my leisure. Then…
Woman: Who has been staring at him while he rambles, cuts him off abruptly. Mavis sounds like the most annoying person I have ever had the pleasure of not meeting.
Man: You and she got along quite well. You had the most fascinating chess games…
Woman: What? I can't play chess! I barely even know what chess is!
Man: Can you stop now? You're distracting me.
Woman: What am I distracting you from?
Man: An exercise in memory. I am having trouble with mine, and you have lost yours.
Woman: I have lost my memory? If she were a deity, thunder and lightning would be rolling across the sky at this point. Instead, they here the far-off BOOM of a cannon shot. Both instinctively duck. That's ridiculous!
Man: No, only very loud.
Woman: I have not lost my memory! I remember everything!
Man: You seem to have forgotten the cannon shot.
Woman: I remember… pauses. Thinks hard for a span of a few minutes. The MAN sits down and begins to tap his fingers rhythmically on the ground. Soon he adds his other hand, then his feet, then begins humming and singing to himself.
Woman: I remember…
Lights fade to dim. "Taps" faintly echoes across the stage. Cannon shot. Spotlight on WOMAN and MAN as lights fade completely.
Woman: I remember…
Man: I'm going. His spotlight turns off as he gets up to leave.
Woman: We were married! Sound of MAN falling flat on his face, a curse. I'm sure of it! Come here. She walks over to where the MAN lies stretched out across the floor, face down. She lies down next to him, raises his head up and kisses him. I remember that clearly. Then came the space flight. Then the crash. Then this. Man leaps to his feet, stares at her in mute terror. She rises, startled at his alarm. What is it?
Man: Mavis! He runs, tackles the empty space suit. Mavis! Is that you? Mavis! Mavis! Talk to me! The WOMAN rushes over to see what is causing his agitation.
Woman: Talk to me! What's wrong?
Man: Yells into the empty neck ring of the space suit. Talk to me! Where are you?
Woman: Talk to me! Who is Mavis, why are you doing this?
Man: Talk to me! What is the ship status? What are the answers?
Man: Come in, come in!
Woman: Come out of your shell and talk!
Man: Answer me! Help me!
Woman: Answer me! Help us!
Man: Answer me! Send help! Send Mavis!
Woman: Just answer me!
Both, simultaneously: I'm dying here and I don't know what's going on! Pause. They look at each other. Revelation on both of their faces. They kiss.
A single jazz trumpet plays sweetly after the Blackout.
Scene II
The decayed ruins of an old, Viking-style wooden ship are in the background.
The WOMAN is singing whimsically to herself, offstage. She enters, dressed in rags similar to those worn by the man. They do not mar her beauty.
WOMAN enters, scat singing beautifully. Sound of the seashore.
Woman: I don't know what I'd do without the beach. It's the one place that really seems peaceful and quiet. Pauses. Or maybe it's the white noise. Still, I can't believe how much I enjoy being here. Pauses. Or how much here enjoys me being.
Leader enters, dressed normally, with the addition of a very prominent feather in her hair.
Leader: When exactly are you going to eat him?
Woman: Excuse me?
Leader: You're supposed to EAT him once you've enticed him.
Woman: Why would I want to eat him?
Leader: Are you nuts? It's the only way to make sure he won't turn on you!
Woman: You're crazy!
Leader: You were able to entice him, why shouldn't someone else be able to? You have to make sure no one else does!
Woman: Why would he go to someone else? We're happy together and there IS no one else.
Leader: There's myself and the others.
Woman: He doesn't care about anyone else but me.
Leader: Oh come on! He's a man! If you won't eat him, I will!
Woman: Don't touch him!
Leader: You aren't using him to his full potential! Why should I let you waste, even though I let you stay here?
Woman: You LET me?
Leader: I allow you to. I tolerate you to. You certainly allow us to try him.
Woman: You haven't.
Leader: We will and will continue to do so until we prove that you should have eaten him when you had the chance.
Woman: For what reason do you want to eat him?
Leader: First off, we've been marching all over the island playing for him, and two, we're all hungry and you won't eat him.
Woman: Why do you expect me to eat him?
Leader: You enticed him, didn't you? You lured him in! Just like everyone else, you brought one here in some high-minded attempt to show us how it's really done, but you torture us by not eating him! What are you, some kind of self-denying sadist?
Woman: Wait. You she points at LEADER, who nods want me… points to herself, LEADER nods again to eat him points offstage, LEADER nods a third time why?
Leader: Puzzled, this situation has never come up before. Well, I figured you would get bored with us and go back to the others once you were finished with him.
Woman: Others?
Leader: You know… sheepish … the real, official sirens? WOMAN bursts into laughter. If you think this is some kind of joke, it's isn't! Do you realize how bad you make the rest of us feel?
Woman: Controls her laughter. You think that I'm a Siren? Stifles another round of giggles.
Leader: Well… you were enticing him, and you can sing beautifully. Not the best I've heard, but there were no men around, so I guess you didn't have to go full-bore.
Woman: No, I'm not a siren. I am merely a woman. LEADER is furious.
Leader: You're not a SIREN? You're Mortal? You're human?
Woman: Of course. What did you expect?
Leader: A SIREN! A real, official siren! They always come down here, hoping to finally show us the error of our ways! OR they come with the remains of their latest conquest! It's infuriating! It's insulting! They're so condescending about being REAL sirens, and we play our hearts and lungs out and I fire my cannon on and on, but no one ever comes! She bursts into tears. You have no idea how degrading it is. Addresses the audience. They don't know good music when they hear it! And they didn't care that you were here, and they barely noticed he was here! They were quite impressed before one of them double-checked and said that you must have brought him here, and then they sand us one of their infuriatingly peaceful songs, and flew off. We gave them our best shot, we gave our music the most gusto we've ever played with. I swear my cannon might have grown another inch in circumference it was so deep and loud and beautiful! And then, she's gasping for breath, but mad to get her words out YOU gasp DON'T gasp EAT HIM! She bends over, clutching her belly, trying to catch her breath. WOMAN stands next to her and sits both of them down, laying a hand on the LEADER's shoulder.
Woman: Real women don't eat their men, they love them.
Leader: You're pitiful.
Woman: And you're a failure. No wonder you're not happy. You can't stand pleasant music, you don't want to love…
Leader: It's weak! We EAT men! We don't LOVE them and let them impregnate us like some kind of weak female! We eat them! Dominance! We are the strongest, they come like moths to a flame, terrified of our power, fascinated with our music!
Woman: Their music. The sirens' music.
Leader: I am a siren!
Woman: A failed one.
Leader: A siren is a siren, even if a live man's never set foot here since the beginnings of time! So what if we've failed? Someday, we will succeed!
Woman: You're insane.
Leader: I'm hungry. I want one conquest. One man. To eat. You have him. You got him, and you aren't a siren. And you won't eat him.
Woman: It's a method of consumption that fills both while diminishing neither.
Leader: So you ARE Mavis. Do you know what he means?
Woman: I am not Mavis, I am something for him to devote his time to. Before me he searched for Mavis. He still searches for answers. He may not find any solid ones, but if he thinks he's on the right track, he's happy. He's calmed down, and doesn't bother me about Mavis. Without me, he'd still be searching for Mavis. Without each other we would go insane finding things to do.
Leader: I admit it works, but I like my way better. So does he still muck around with that massive, twisted pile of rock on the north end?
Woman: It's what he does. If he ever finishes it we'll return to civilization, but he probably won't, and I'm fine with it.
Leader: You'd accept his weak failure just like that?
Woman: It keeps us sane, doesn't it? It keeps you sane, doesn't it?
Leader: In shock. How rude! See if we play for you ever again! She stalks off stage.
Man's voice (offstage): I think I fixed it! Explosion. Nope! But it's a start!
Woman laughs, then walks offstage.
Blackout.
Curtain.
End of Act II
End of Play.