Theater of the Unheard

Written by Mileva Anastasiadou

(Twitter: happymil_

Instagram: @happilander)

“You tried to tell your story to people who didn't know how to listen.”

― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

This two-person scene takes place in his bedroom, while he and Maria lie on the bed, their eyes fixed on the wall.

Maria is holding his hand, like they’re still together, like they’re a couple, but Alex knows better; she wants to break up with him.

She hasn’t told him yet, but he could tell from the tone of her voice on the phone. She sounded harsh, distant when she called earlier — she said she wanted to talk, like they’re on mute whenever they meet.

You know, serious talk, she said, and he nodded, and she heard him nodding or somehow she knew, for she hang up as soon as he nodded, as if she didn’t want him to talk back, or argue about it.

The backstory is not included in the play, a plot hole which doesn’t seem to bother them much. They both know how things started; the first time their eyes met, Maria looked the other way.

She stayed silent when he approached. Her friends had left her alone by the bar, a whole bunch of friends, who stormed to the dance floor, at the sound of a familiar tune from the ’00s.

Maria would later say that they play this game from time to time, like they pretend they’re still in that era, because all was simple back then.

She’s lucky her childhood happened before the recess, and they listen to Morrissey because they still love him in the game, he seemed a good guy back then, and they sing on the top of their lungs, like they don’t have a care.

Like they don’t know, and they pretend they don’t as long as the song lasts.

What’s wrong with now, or with Morrissey? He asked jokingly, but Maria looked at him perplexed as if she didn’t get the joke.

She’s pulling away, now is the time, he thinks, now she’ll tell me, but Maria lights a cigarette, and she’s holding his hand again, then stares at him, through the smoke she exhales.

He looks back, but can’t stand her stare, like she sees beyond his eyes, right into his heart, his soul, like she knows what happened last night.

Her eyes, her blue eyes, have always been mesmerizing and transparent, since that first night, like his future lay within them.

But now they are a blue curtain that hides the future and he can only see the past, playing like a film on them, he watches last night playing on repeat, like a GIF someone posted on them to annoy him.

I ran into Tom this morning, she tells him, still staring at him, her voice firm. She knows, he thinks, Tom must have told her, although Tom is his friend and he wouldn’t say a thing.

The backstory is not included, because nobody’s watching the play except for them.

They are the actors and they are the audience, both at the same time. They met at that squatter building. His friends had insisted they visit — just once, Tom had said, just for the fun of it. Dean had insisted, and he didn’t want to spoil the mood, so he went along.

There was a party, the drinks were free, beer and cheap wine, unlike the cocktails they had been accustomed to.

He hadn’t thought she belonged there, he thought she was like him, an outsider, a visitor, a talented visitor who managed to merge with the crowd.

Unlike them three, Tom wore a suit. Alex wore a black shirt and a tie and Dean, poor Dean, Dean wore his three thousand dollar jacket, which disappeared the moment he took it off and left it on a chair behind him. Somebody needed it more than him, Maria said.

Alex thought that was an unkind thing to say, considering Dean had been robbed, but that was Maria. She thought aloud while Alex laughed, like that was a joke.

She never called his friends by their names — she always referred to them as ‘those people’, pretending to not remember their names, except for today. Today, she mentions Tom like she knows him, like he’s her friend too.

She hands him the cigarette but Alex shakes his head. I don’t do drugs, he says.

Alcohol doesn’t count, does it? She asks and smiles and takes a long puff, inhales the smoke, looking up, like she sees something up there, like the meaning of life hides on the ceiling, but Alex can’t see it.

He grabs the cigarette and takes a puff, then he waits.

He waits long, but no epiphany happens, the meaning of life remains hidden to him.

The backstory had action — it could turn into an action movie, with cops and panic and running, but he hates running, but it is not included, it is a one-act play, in which there are two actors, only the two of them, who improvise, hoping for a happy ending.

When cops entered the building, there was a mess.

His father was furious when he came to get him from the police station. Alex was calm and claimed he didn’t do anything illegal; he only attended a party.

Choose your parties wisely, his father said, his ears reddened, like they do when he’s angry or anxious, then took a couple of deep breaths and said, I’m not asking you not to party, just party wisely, as if talking to a kid. Maria felt sorry for him; she waved at him from behind bars.

She was released two days later. Although Tom advised him against it, Alex met her again.

Dad doesn’t care much, Alex told her, explaining that his father owns a large part of a company he’d soon be in charge of, that his father trusts him too much to leave the company in someone else’s hands. As such, he just wants Alex to finish his studies as soon as possible.

She didn’t have a place to stay. Not after the squatter building was evacuated.

Don’t worry about it, she said, like she was used to not having a place to stay. Alex nodded, like that was fascinating.

The first time it happened, it felt bad. But I’m fine now, she said, like she meant it and Alex didn’t bother to ask further. She’s still holding the cigarette.

Maria looks right ahead now and she coughs a little, clearing her throat. She opens her mouth like she’s about to speak, but then changes her mind.

He watches her face get red.

She says she suffers from performance anxiety, that she can’t perform without anxiety overwhelming her, and he wonders how she entered his mind, how she knows about the play and the stage and the acting.

It’s been like this lately. He feels like he’s on a stage, that he only acts, that life isn’t real. He longs to escape the act, but it swallows him, he’s only a puppet, controlled by invisible strings.

It’s only the two of them in the room, in Alex’s house. She won’t perform in front of crowds, but Maria feels awkward, like a thousand eyes are watching her, judging her.

She has prepared a speech that only Alex will hear, but still, she’s afraid she’ll stutter, that she’ll forget the words, that her message won’t get through.

I have mostly existential anxiety, says Alex. Maria finds it natural; he never performs, he only acts and things get fixed — things go his way. He only fears the end of this, because his life is so good that he fears he may lose it.

The backstory is important because they spent two happy months together — only the audience does not know.

Two months that felt like bliss to both of them. They spent most of the time in his apartment, but they also took trips. Naturally, he paid for all of their expenses since Maria could barely afford her meals.

This was a different life to the one she had been used to. It was carefree, and her needs were met the moment she spoke them out.

Alex arranged a trip for the two of them to Venice, and she’s looking forward to it. She’s excited and eager to escape the misery if only for a while, but then again, she feels like this kind of life does not really belong to her.

We’ll have to talk, Maria says, and Alex puts his finger on her lips to stop her. She’s not sure she wants out of this, or she’d sound more confident, he thinks.

Perhaps she expects him to apologize. Alex is trying the words inside his mind before speaking aloud. He’ll also bring up Venice in the conversation, but casually, like it’s not important, only a polite reminder of what she’ll miss out should she consider leaving him.

I’m sorry, he says, it just happened.

His eyes intentionally look away, out of the window, into the future that awaits, like saying, the past is of no importance; let’s dive into the future, but Maria does not follow his glance.

She’s looking right through him, like she wants to imprison his eyes in hers. For a moment, she holds him captured, and once he looks back at her, he cannot unfasten his eyes from hers, like they’re entangled in some sort of cosmic prison together.

What happened? She asks. Alex is about to say he doesn’t even remember the name of the girl, before he realizes that Maria knows nothing about last night.

Oh, nothing, he mumbles and caresses her cheek, but it’s too late to lie, too late to feign normalcy.

Now is the time. Now comes the climax. Now the plot thickens, and Alex wishes he’d read the script. He also wishes he knew what happens next, but there is no script, this is real life, he reminds himself.

Only it doesn’t feel like it. The tougher reality gets, the more he feels like he’s acting, like there is a vastness out there but he only hears the ocean through the shell he keeps on his desk, like everything is an illusion and he can only hope that someday he’ll snap out of it.

Maria doesn’t speak for a moment and he fears her silence. The climax is less noisy than expected.

‘Nothing’ as if nothing happened, or ‘nothing’ as if nothing important happened? She asks after a while. I think we should forget about it, he tells her, then adds, We’ll always have Venice, in an attempt to sound romantic.

Maria stands up, starts walking up and down the room, her hands trembling as she takes hold of the lighter.

But she doesn’t care.

She throws it away, out of the window, out of the stage. She makes a big deal out of it, he thinks, while he sits still, remains calm.

You always buy your way out of everything, don’t you? She asks.

Alex keeps looking at his hands, mumbling incomprehensible words, like he didn’t mean it that way, but she starts crying, sits down on the floor, holding her head with her two hands, then she looks up, saying: A stupid rich guy ‘buys’ a fucking exotic fruit he always wanted to taste.

Please don’t talk to me like that, he tells her.

His ears hurt. He’s not accustomed to such language. What now? You’re gonna sue me too? She asks.

He reminds her of that man on the phone, she says, the man who threatened to sue her. He was calm and polite too.

What man? He asks.

That man who auctioned off my house, she says. I’d be super polite too if I knew I’d win in the end.

The backstory includes this morning, when Maria thought about their relationship before she visited him after meeting his friend.

She thought of the good time she had because Alex could afford it. For once, life felt colorful, the colors saturated, like she had chosen the perfect filters.

Like she created the perfect photo, but when she was alone, life was less intense, less noisy, a terrible hangover followed, like coming down from drugs, like life was but a background noise she could not stand.

Alex served as her middle finger to the world, while before meeting him her own finger was enough.

Tom told her this wouldn’t last forever, that she’d better stay away.

We are a team, says Alex, like family, and she shakes her head, rolling her eyes, like saying, Don’t start, so he stops and thinks about it and he rephrases, We’re like socks, he tells her, a pair of socks.

Just that one of us went missing because we wanted attention. If both of us disappeared at the same time, nobody would notice. We'd only count as one.

As one pair of socks? She asks, laughing because it’s hard for her to visualize him as a sock.

Perhaps we were mismatched, she says.

She had holes while he was a brand new sock, but he says she’s missing the point: We were one, for god’s sake, one single pair of socks.

She keeps on laughing, she’s laughing her heart out, like that’d be improbable.

You didn’t like the family analogy, he tells her.

I didn’t, she says, rolling her eyes, sitting on the bed, bringing her knees closer to her body, embracing them, like they’re her anchor, like keeping afloat depends on them.

Alex approaches her, trying to touch her back, but she pulls away, like a wave of electricity just hit her.

She meant nothing, he says. Maria turns around to face him.

You don’t even get it, she tells him. It’s not about that girl, it’s about you trying to buy me.

She tries her best to explain what it feels like, being broke:

It’s like sinking, like living in a sinking boat; you see the holes. You see the water come in, and you do your best, to fix the holes. Only you can’t.

You put your hands on them to stop the water, but you know that sooner or later, the waters will surround you and then you’ll drown and in the meantime, you pretend you have fun, because that’s life, she says.

He nods. That’s life, he thinks.

He’s disappointed, like he was certain she had a secret, a secret to happiness she would reveal to him someday.

Only there is no secret, and he’s been fooled.

The best lie ever told is the world is as it should be or perhaps it needs a slight change, some polishing, and it’ll be perfect, Maria says, while the world will be better only if there are no more people like you.

She’s pointing her finger at him, like he’s the accused in an informal court, like he’s to blame for all evil.

There was a spark in her, he thinks. But now there isn’t, no spark, no flame, not anything.

Her eyes do not carry the future, they carry the past, the past of people who suffered.

Alex lowers his head — he can’t face her, but then takes a quick look at her, as if expecting an apology. He looks at her fiercely, as if politely asking her — Please, stop being poor! — a last attempt for the blue curtain to rise, but the curtain falls heavier now before her eyes and he can’t look through it into her soul.

So he makes his glance condescending instead, which he mistakes for tenderness and compassion. He sees nothing but the past in her eyes and ponders for a while, as the guilt accumulates.

It’s not only about last night.

It’s about carrying the world upon his shoulders.

Like he’s to blame for every single person on earth who can’t breathe, who can’t afford food, or shelter, or hope, and that curtain before her eyes is rising now, like the show is over, and the actors come out to bow.

He wants to applaud.

He barely can keep his hands from clapping.

Instead, he uses them to throw away the guilt.

As if it were a bug that rested on his shirt, some dirt he wants to get rid of. Alex cannot stand dirt — can’t face it, actually, since he’s used to others cleaning his mess.

So he turns a blind eye, already daydreaming about his trip to Venice next week, already gone back to his bright little clean, flawless world.

Perhaps he could take that girl along. He couldn't remember her name, that girl from last night.

About the Author:

Mileva Anastasiadou is a neurologist, from Athens, Greece, and the author of "We Fade With Time" by Alien Buddha Press.

A Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction and Best Small Fictions nominated writer, her work can be found in many journals, such as Chestnut Review, New World Writing, HAD, Lost Balloon and others.

You can follow Mileva on :

Twitter: @happymil_

Instagram: @happilander