2.28.2007: Drowning Leander

“Leander, he would have lived many a fair year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont and being taken with the cramp was drowned and the foolish coroners of that age found it was 'Hero of Sestos.' But these are all lies: men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.”
- William Shakespeare, As You Like It

The Guy and Leander – you know, the mythic boy who swam the Hellespont every night to see his love, Hero, until one night her lamp goes out, causing him to lose direction and drown… or so goes the myth.

Leander is in a wet suit, face mask, and flippers.

LEANDER
This is ridiculous.

THE GUY
Clearly.

LEANDER
No seriously. The amount of trouble a guy has to go through to get out of a relationship. I mean, come on –

THE GUY
I’m sorry?

Leander starts to strip down through this, flippers off, face mask off, wet suit down to his waist.

LEANDER
Every night. The same damn thing.
“Swim the Hellespont for me, Leander.
It’s a gesture of love.
A gesture worthy of the Gods!”

Well do you have any idea how cold the water gets at night?
And it’s not like she picked a stream or something for me to cross
No ---

the HELLESPONT!

It’s a major waterway!

And you know, she tells me all the time,
“Our love, Leander, is like myth.
(she likes that sort of thing, you know,
the fact that we’re these mythic lovers,
we’re…
whatever…
the progenitors of lovers to come.)

“Our love will be written down in books.
Songs will be sung of our sacrifices to each other.”

But I’m the one who has to freeze my ass off in the water
and she’s up in that stupid tower
(no one actually lives there, mind you,
it’s completely vacant, has been for years,
her parents live three blocks away from my parents,
this whole river-crossing thing her big idea)

And I can’t take it!

So you know what I did?

THE GUY
What?

LEANDER
Tonight,
when her lamp went out
(because it always does, every night,
the wind up there in that tower, it’s ferocious,
and it’s February, the wind’s still bitter for a few more months)

instead of just getting to the other side,
like I always do
ALWAYS

I changed course.
I swam north a while
until I couldn’t see her lamp
and I couldn’t see her tower
and I could even see the life I was leaving behind.

And I came ashore here.

THE GUY
She’ll think you drowned.

LEANDER
Yeah.

THE GUY
That’s not very nice.

LEANDER
Neither is love.

THE GUY
But she’s… your Hero.

LEANDER
Look.

Let me tell you something about love.

That girl was never in love with me.
She was in love with the myth of me.
The myth of us.

Hence all the damn lamps
and towers
and crossing rivers in the middle of the night,

but when I got there…

she had nothing to say.
Nothing interesting anyway.
We’d just sort of sit there, starting at each other,
waiting for the sun to come up.

Don’t fall in love with the idea of someone, buddy.

Unless you’re a damn good swimmer.

Leander marches off.

The Guy, realizing he’s not a very good swimmer, takes Leander’s words to heart.

In the distance, a woman is heard. It’s a wail of great sadness.

The lights go down.