The sounds of the sea.
The Guy and Icarus, wings not melted, boy not drowned.
ICARUS
Ebb tide.
THE GUY
Yeah.
ICARUS
It comes back, you know.
THE GUY
It?
ICARUS
The tide.
THE GUY
(smiles)
Yeah. I know.
ICARUS
Well I didn’t.
At the birth of me, we didn’t know anything about tides. Well, we knew they existed, we could see them, but we didn’t know what made them happen, what force of the world compelled the water to ebb and flow.
We only knew… it was.
Then you exist a few thousand years and suddenly there’s knowledge! Science!
Amazing thing, isn’t it? The mechanics of the universe. Forces beyond our sight pulling things together, pushing things apart.
THE GUY
True.
ICARUS
I wonder sometimes what our myths would have been like had we known the names of things, the reasons behind the business of the world. If I’d have really known what a miracle it was to take wax and feathers and resist the pull of gravity…
I might have been less ambitious. Flown farther from the sun.
THE GUY
I’d hope not.
ICARUS
I still can’t get over the fact that something unseen, something without a body, compels the ocean to swell and recede. I mean, really, that’s… amazing. Something invisible compels the OCEAN! The pull of gravity… astonishing.
THE GUY
You’d think if it could compel the ocean, it could handle people.
ICARUS
No, people are tricky. We might need wings to fly into the air, but nothing (and I mean NOTHING) stops us from ramming headlong into anything we want to ram into. No force in the world can compel us.
Other than desire, I guess.
I guess that’s what’s stronger than gravity. Desire. Wanting…
THE GUY
Guess so.
ICARUS
Desire.
THE GUY
I want…
ICARUS
… and so you fly.
THE GUY
Do you fly soon?
ICARUS
Sure. As soon as the tide comes in.
THE GUY
You mind if I wait with you?
ICARUS
Not at all.
They sit.
The sound of the ocean.
Icarus looks toward the sky, the pull of his desire ramming headlong against the pull of gravity, making the sound of the lapping waves sound more like the friction of gears moving the world along.
The lights go down.
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2 comments:
Where do you get your inspiration from? Who is this Redneck Intellectual? Do I have competition?
As a kid, I saw ants walking blindly on the flat concrete sidewalk, and I put a stick in their way, and the ants walked straight into it, causing a pile up in the advancing line. They never got the idea to go around it. People are ants.
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