3.24.3007: Rubik’s (A Thousand Unnamable Things)

The Guy and the Brother, both trying to solve Rubik’s cubes.

THE GUY
These are hard.

THE BROTHER
I know.

THE GUY
I could never solve these back when they were popular.

THE BROTHER
I can’t even solve them now.

THE GUY
I used to take the stickers off and rearrange them so I could solve it.

THE BROTHER
Everybody did that. I can’t believe you even bothered to write that in a play.

THE GUY
Well…

THE BROTHER
Jeez…

THE GUY
It’s something to say. While we try to solve these damn things.

THE BROTHER
Whatever.

They work on a little more.

THE BROTHER (cont.)
Boyfriends are like Rubik’s cubes.

You get them, and they have these colors everywhere,
these things that catch your eye,
stuff you like,
stuff that makes you smile
stuff that attracts you,

but there’s no order to them yet,
no order to them in relation to all your stuff
all your colors
all your things to catch the eye,

so the work begins,
and you twist the colors around
rearrange things to try to line things up

but every time you line this up here,
something goes wrong over there
and it seems like every time you get something to work
something elsewhere gets out of whack

and the whole enterprise becomes a frustrating mess
of trying to order something that doesn’t want to be ordered

but you know there’s a solution

and there’s a thousand unnamable things that can
get in the way of the solution

a thousand false turns

and even though you know there’s a solution to a person
maybe you’re not the one with the solution,

maybe you don’t know how to line up the colors
and they’ll forever be something…

unsolveable.

THE GUY
You can’t take their stickers off, either.

THE BROTHER
No.

THE GUY
It’d be easier if you’d just take their stickers off.

THE BROTHER
I know.

THE GUY
Look. I got a line right. All green.

THE BROTHER
I need to get this white over here and I’d have four corners.

THE GUY
Cool.

They continue to work on the cubes as the lights go down.