little deaths

a play by
rachel rosen

Originally performed by Bandersnatch Productions in Aurora, Ontario

"Pataphysics will examine the laws governing exceptions, and will explain the universe supplementary to this one; or, less ambitiously, will describe a universe which can be - and perhaps should be - envisioned in the place of the traditional one..."
- Alfred Jarry

"I'm living in films for the sake of Russia."
- Andrew Eldritch

Dramatis Personae

Doktor Francis Fabian, a pataphysician
Ashera Aisling, mayor and sole inhabitant of Eternigrad
Comrade Igor Kieslowski, a Russian spy
Tossles, a two-dimensional man
Drugmuffin, a pimp
A Boy
Citizens of Eternigrad

* This play is to be performed outside, in a place not generally considered suitable for theater.

** A note on production: Tossles exists in only two out of twelve dimensions. He has height and width, but not depth. To give this effect, he
can be played either by an actor who does not turn sideways, or by a life-sized cut-out.

*** The Citizens of Eternigrad should be suitably colourful - drag
queens, high school physics teachers, crack addicts, old movie stars, bicycle couriers, psychiatric patients, 1920s gangsters, punks, medieval town criers, chaos mathematicians,clowns, or anyone imaginative or strange.

little deaths

sour theatre | and the queen became a sardine | kaddish for allen ginsberg

Act I - Sour Theatre


Scene: Doktor Francis Fabian addresses a convention of scientists, standing behind a podium and looking very official. He is in his late twenties or early thirties, but attempting to look old and scientific. His hair is bleached for the occasion and done up in carefully constructed corkscrews. As his studies are not yet recognized by the scientific community, he cannot afford a real suit, so he wears a paper shirt and a tie made entirely out of string. His jacket has big holes and patches on it. The effect is comical but disconcerting.

Fabian: This is the documentation concerning one Ashera Aisling, the subject of my recent study in the realm of pataphysics. The results of my experiments have been most complicated and troubling. Specific conclusions are impossible to make, except to say that the subject was able to assimilate herself completely into a supplementary universe, or rather, a supplementary city known as Eternigrad, within what is called a baby universe that existed inside her head. When I came across her, she had become so fully integrated with this place that to remove her would ensure certain physical death. From what I have gathered from the study of both Eternigrad and the baby universe, neither can be considered an adequate substitute for our current, real, and traditional universe - and yet they merit further study, if only to demonstrate concrete proof that such places can, and do, exist. It also brings into question the set of ethics to be determined if pataphysics is to be recognized as a legitimate field of science. Friends, colleagues - I leave the interpretations up to you.

He makes a very dramatic, very pompous gesticulation, and exits with well-practiced flair.

Ashera Aisling enters, led as if blind by a young Boy. She is dressed somewhat like a bag lady (although she is somewhere between the ages of sixteen and twenty), wearing a dark, ragged coat, a big scarf, a black hat, and unlaced boots. She is wearing black sunglasses to emphasize the idea of blindness. In one hand she holds a piece of paper.

She drops the blind routine, flinging off her sunglasses, releasing herself from the Boy's grip, and sits down, facing the audience.

Aisling (to Boy): I come here a lot to think. There aren't enough places for it. There is an unnatural stillness here, an almost complete lack of movement. There are people here, but they don't speak much. They don't affect much. It is minutely tragic, but very convenient. (She pauses, thinking, then reads from paper.) Memo from Eternigrad, on this, the 21st day of July, in the year 1523. Eternigrad is a place of medieval hierarchy, of cyberpunk aesthetics, of romantic ideals, of spiraling infinite complexity. Within each mind, buried deep in the de-evolution of man, is the history of belief, of every time that ever was, of the primeval world of the animals. Eternigrad cannot be seen because it is in each one of us. Here time flows like water, fluid and uncontrollable. Eternigrad is infinitely long, infinitely wide, and takes up no space. (Pause, considering.) Eternigrad is so big, we're in it right now. As I write this, I have died in someone's private world. Write me out of the script. Signed, Ashera Aisling.

Aisling glances at the paper again, then crumples it up and throws it at the audience.

Aisling: It's all pointless, anyway. I know what this place is. I'm almost certain of how I got here. I know where all the people come from. I've seen them all before. (to Boy) Do you want to hear a story? A story about what happened to me? About this place?

The Boy stands up and quietly leaves. Aisling doesn't notice. She keeps talking, standing as she recalls the story.

Aisling: There is a baby universe inside my head. I am nearly certain of it now. I can feel it thudding against the inside of my skull as it slowly expands. I can't remember when it appeared. I can't imagine why it would choose to deposit itself in my brain. I had a Big Bang with God and I must have gotten knocked up. The damn bastard better pay child support.

So here I am saddled with a baby universe. I am all too clearly aware of it. My eyes are black holes and every so often some unfortunate being gets sucked in. That's why my universe is expanding.

I have 168 billion baby galaxies, each with 942 billion baby stars, each having an average of eight point five baby planets, of which approximately ten percent are capable of supporting life. And let's not assume everything is sweet and cuddly in my baby universe. There's a lot of baby space between every baby society and every baby individual that would deny them the vital connection that would theoretically redeem them all. So they form their baby religions and baby politics and they have baby wars with baby bombs going off one after another and you wonder why I say I've got a headache.

She reaches into her coat and pulls out a bottle of pills. She takes a handful and swallows them, then continues talking. Somewhere along the line a figure walks across the "stage", pauses, looks at Aisling, and continues walking until he disappears. This is Fabian, who unlike the other characters, is not a figment of Aisling's imagination.

Aisling: Somewhere in this baby universe is a baby Ashera Aisling wandering around in a baby Eternigrad with a baby headache. I'm halfway there before I realize where I'm going. I am still and my eyes pick out shades of fuscia. Hideous shapes materialize, monstrous, alien forms. The baby universe shifts and kicks. One day my skull will no longer be large enough, elastic enough to accommodate it. Then the struggle will begin. (Looks around, notices Boy has left.) Oh. He's gone. Kids these days.

My confession is this: I hate this place. Nothing happens. No one is capable of the act of creation. If an event is to take place, it must be initiated by me. Observe.

She snaps her fingers. Comrade Igor Kieslowski, the Russian spy enters. He is straight out of a bad Cold War era movie - about thirty-five, expressionless, dressed in a beige trenchcoat, with dark sunglasses, sipping vodka and muttering in Russian. There is a distinctive bulge in one of his pockets, and it's not because he's happy to see anyone.

Aisling (not in the least bit surprised): What are you doing here?
Igor: Downsizing.
Aisling: What?
Igor: They didn't have much use for us after the Cold War. Obsolete, they said. Who needs spies when there's no war, they said. So they shipped the lot of us here. Didn't know what else to do with us.
Aisling: Couldn't you have gone into another occupation?
Igor: Times are tough.
Aisling: Yeah. (Pause.) Times are tough.
Igor: It's hard being out-of-date.
Aisling: I think I said that once.
Igor: Could be. Very likely. Almost certainly.
Aisling: But sad, if true.

Pause. Both stare at each other. It is awkward.

Igor: America must be destroyed.
Aisling (looking around): Where is America?
Igor: I can show you. If we walk. If we walk far enough, we'll get there. America is always behind you. It creeps up when you're not looking. It speaks every language, but pretends to be mute. Do you speak Russian?
Aisling: No.
Igor: You should. Then you could be a spy.
Aisling: There's not much job opportunity, is there?
Igor: Well, no, not exactly. (Pause.) America...
Aisling: Yes. America.
Igor: It's subtler than any spy. It crawls up through your drainpipe when you take a shower. It sticks to the bottom of your shoe and won't come off no matter how hard you scrape-
Aisling: I don't wear shoes, usually.
Igor (annoyed): America tugs at your hand, and you feel guilty shooing it away. It clings to your leg and whines when you tell it to play by itself. It doesn't like to be alone. It cries and cries as it sits there in the corner until finally you say okay come play with me for a little while. But if you say that it will never leave. It just never goes away.
Aisling: Are you a Communist?
Igor: I'm an actor. (He takes a sip of vodka.)
Aisling: If we go hunting for America, will it tag along behind us?
Igor: Only if it hears us.
Aisling: Then we'll have to be very quiet. Won't we?
Igor: Yes.

They exit. Quietly.

Enter Fabian.

Fabian: I will not overestimate my contribution in the eventual decay of Eternigrad. Before I had spoken a word to Ashera Aisling, the forces plotting against her, dragging her from her imaginary city, were already on the rise. It did not start in the way of a glorious revolution, with the great intellectuals stirring the masses to action. It began in a backwards manner, with the lowest dregs of society, the wretched creatures that were closest to her heart. They were the first to sense the stirrings of unrest, the first to notice her rapid fading. I was blind to them, and she...

I suppose she was accustomed to their whispers, their secret and scandalous purposes. They kept Eternigrad revolving. In Ashera Aisling's world, nothing seemed at all abnormal.

Enter Drugmuffin and Tossles, the Two-Dimensional Man. Drugmuffin looks like a pimp, with a long leather coat and lots of chains. Tossles always faces the audience, because if he turned sideways, he'd disappear. The effect is that he's a cut-out, albeit a very realistic one. They are whispering to each other, both looking shady and suspicious.

Fabian exits.

Tossles: I heard she's mad.
Drugmuffin: She's been inventing tragedies for herself.
Tossles: As long as they don't involve us.
Drugmuffin: You know they will.
Tossles: Eventually. What's the word on the street?
Drugmuffin: Eternigrad is in an uproar. Revolt is almost certain.
Tossles: But she hasn't done anything.
Drugmuffin: But she will.
Tossles: She will.
Drugmuffin: I'm counting on it.
Tossles: Whatever for?
Drugmuffin: Excitement.
Tossles: Rumour has it that there's a stranger in town.
Drugmuffin: Rumour has it that he's famous.
Tossles: Or soon to be.
Drugmuffin: Agreed. Soon to be famous.
Tossles: A scientist of some sort.
Drugmuffin: Or so he says.
Tossles: He's been watching her. Waiting. To see what happens.
Drugmuffin: To see if it happens.
Tossles: The birth.
Drugmuffin: The birth. Yes, the birth.
Both: The seams crack.
Tossles: The baby universe stretches its legs.
Drugmuffin: It opens its eyes.
Both: It likes what it sees.
Tossles: It expands with a rapid force.
Drugmuffin: It screams with the weight of nations.
Both: The moment has arrived!

Tossles exits. Drugmuffin stands for a minute, looking out at the audience.

Drugmuffin: Well, almost.

He stalks off.

Aisling enters, accompanied by Igor. Both are brandishing waterguns and walk cautiously, hiding behind any available obstacles. They are looking for America.

Aisling: Are you sure it's here?
Igor: Positive.
Aisling (mostly to herself): We tread carefully. Every step could be our last. Teeth are sewn like landmines beneath the soil, waiting to explode. Time is of essence in Eternigrad. There may be too many pages with not enough words, or too many words with not enough pages. Both situations will eventually yield the same result. Eternigrad's history is punctured, a rip appears in the continuum, and all is lost.
Igor: Who are you talking to?
Aisling: We velvet our footsteps as we walk though the cold, blowy streets of Eternigrad. It's hard to do sometimes, but the wind covers up most sounds. The wind is my alibi.
Igor: Quiet. You must be quiet. America will hear.
Aisling: We must dim our eyes. The light of the mind in a sudden flash might frighten America into wakefulness.
Igor: You're hiding too.
Aisling: America is not here. You're living a dream.
Igor: The wind is fierce tonight.
Aisling: I am safe from the noise of my own existence. Eternigrad is at peace. (Pause.) I'm dying.
Igor: Of what?
Aisling: Of time. Of motherhood. I'm pregnant, you know. Only one of us will survive. It's me against a universe.
Igor: I'm sorry.
Aisling: I know who you're working for.
Igor: It isn't America.
Aisling: I'm glad. (Long pause.) We're fighting every moment. I give it life though it takes mine away. Perhaps we are both doomed, and this knowledge causes a cease-fire in our battle.
Igor: What would happen to us, if you died?
Aisling: I'm not sure.
Igor: You protect us.
Aisling: I don't want to. I am a temporary temporal interlude.
Igor: Who are you?
Aisling: Eternigrad. Creator, mayor, sole inhabitant. I raise my hand and keep America at bay. I am the keeper of an unborn universe. I keep the dead alive, and the motionless moving. I am the refuge of the obsolete.

The baby universe kicks. Aisling grabs her head.

Aisling: Go.
Igor: Farewell, Comrade Aisling.

Aisling nods. Igor exits. Aisling sits down, hunched over, rocking back and forth. Eventually the kicking subsides, and she looks up.

Aisling: Another story. This happened last night. I was lying in bed. Everything was dark. It was midnight - everything is dark at midnight. There were no lights on anywhere in the house. I was listening to music. Nearly asleep, but not quite. Not asleep enough to be dreaming.

Fabian appears, at the very edge of the "stage". He stands, watching
Aisling speak. Sometimes he makes notes in a notepad.

Aisling: Suddenly, this unearthly light filled my room. It's kind of funny, because my room was pitch black but the sky outside was bright as day. It was yellow. Flaming yellow. And then it started to pulse. It changed from yellow to peach to orange, to gray and brown and white. Can you imagine it? A white sky and a black room. It was pulsing in time to the music. It was a beautiful sight, beautiful, and frightening. It was as if the sky was speaking to me. Warning me.

Fabian approaches, cautiously, and sits down beside Aisling. She takes no notice of him. She is overwhelmed by what she is saying.

Aisling: I would never have imagined that something so great and magnificent as the sky would care to attempt communication with someone like me. I mean, I don't matter at all in the greater scheme of the universe. (Pause.) No, well, that's not true. Not really. Everyone counts. Every little thing. It's the law of chaos. If a butterfly flaps its wings in Japan it causes a thunderstorm in Chicago. You'd think with all the butterflies in the world it would be storming all over. But they cancel each other out, I guess. It's just one little butterfly that makes a difference. Maybe I'm that butterfly. (Pause, sees Fabian.) Hi there.
Fabian (awkwardly): Hi.
Aisling: You don't belong here. You don't live here, anyway. I haven't seen you around before. And I know everyone here.
Fabian: I'm...new. Visiting.
Aisling: Oh! Visiting who?
Fabian: There's no one here, other than you and me.
Aisling: There's lots of people here.
Fabian: You're the first I've seen.
Aisling: Ridiculous. Comrade Kieslowski was just here -he's a spy, you know. For the KGB. He's difficult to pick out sometimes - he looks very spylike. And there's Tossles the Two Dimensional Man and Drugmuffin, although I haven't seen them for days. And that freak kid. I don't know where he went either. I guess people here are hard to spot if you don't know where to look. Are you lost?
Fabian: In a manner of speaking. I'm a scientist. I'm doing research.
Aisling: A scientist? (Thoughtfully.) Do frogs have penises?
Fabian: I beg your pardon?
Aisling: Frogs, you know, the little green things, live in marshes. I was wondering if they have penises. You're a scientist, you should know.
Fabian: I'm not that sort of scientist.
Aisling: Oh.
Fabian: I don't think they do, though. Not the females, for sure. And probably not the males either.
Aisling (to herself): She lied.
Fabian: Who lied?
Aisling: No one. That's unfortunate. About the frogs. Although I've gone my entire life without a penis and I never regretted it. You're not a very good scientist if you don't know about frogs.
Fabian (haughtily) : I don't study frogs. I'm a pataphysician. I study alternate worlds.
Aisling: That's nice. I've never heard of it.
Fabian: It's not - well - it's not actually a science, really - not yet, anyway. It hasn't been recognized by the Absolutely Official Universal Organization of Scientists as of the present moment. It's been around for quite some time, though. We're still waiting to get our certificate.
Aisling: We?
Fabian: It was invented by Alfred Jarry. He's dead now. They're all dead now, all the pataphysicians. I'm the last one. It's almost died out.
Aisling: Perhaps it's because you don't know anything about frogs.
Fabian: I don't think so. I know about exceptions.
Aisling: Do you know about baby universes?
Fabian: Alternate worlds.
Aisling: There's a difference. (Pause.) You're not from Eternigrad. I can tell. You're much too stubborn to be one of my creations.
Fabian: Creations?
Aisling: The people here, the citizens. I made them all. I am their leader. I make them real.
Fabian: I don't see any people.
Aisling (standing abruptly): WELL THEN MAYBE YOU'RE NOT LOOKING HARD ENOUGH! (She sits down.) Sorry.
Fabian: I'm looking for exceptions. Different places. Better places.
Aisling: You've found it baby.
Fabian: There's nothing here.
Aisling: Eternigrad's as good as it gets.
Fabian: How long have you been here?
Aisling: I don't remember. Years. Decades.
Fabian: What year is it?
Aisling: 1523. The countdown has begun.
Fabian: What countdown?
Aisling: To my death, of course, and the death of Eternigrad.
Fabian: You look a little young for it.
Aisling: Just prepared, early. I knew someone who was dying for eighteen years. It was horrible. All his life. By the time it happened, the novelty had worn off. I'm not that prepared. Oh well. Good-bye, Scientist Man. I hope you get recognized.

Aisling stands up, brushing dust off her coat. She walks away.

Fabian: Wait! What's your name?

She ignores him, and exits. He stares in the direction in which she left, then goes back to his notebook, scribbling madly. Igor enters, still stalking America with his watergun. Fabian doesn't see or hear him.

Igor: Her name is Ashera Aisling.

Fabian stands up, looking around. He walks away. He would trip over Igor, not seeing him at all, if Igor didn't move quickly away. Fabian exits in one direction, and Igor exits in another.

Tossles and Drugmuffin enter.

Tossles: It's official.
Drugmuffin: Or almost. Official enough.
Tossles: It's all over Eternigrad.
Drugmuffin: They whisper it in the streets.
Tossles: They publish it in the underground newspapers.
Drugmuffin: They spraypaint it on the wall.
Tossles: The tabloids are having a field day.
Drugmuffin: The gossips drop dead of exhaustion.
Tossles: The tension is so thick you can cut it.
Drugmuffin: Unnatural events rock the countryside.
Both: Ashera Aisling has fallen in love!
Drugmuffin: Who IS he?
Tossles: A stranger. Mysterious. Romantic.
Drugmuffin: What would you know about romance? You're two dimensional.
Tossles: You can see it in her eyes. She's losing control.
Drugmuffin: The Revolution stirs. They're calling for her blood.
Tossles: It will never happen.
Drugmuffin: It WILL happen.
Both: It's happening.

Igor enters, brandishing watergun. He sprays a blast of water in their general direction and shouts in Russian. He is silent, suddenly, taking a sip of vodka.

Tossles: What the hell was that?
Igor: Comrade Igor Kieslowski, formerly of the KGB, now citizen of Eternigrad. You stand accused of Counter-Revolutionary Activities. How do you plead?
Drugmuffin: Get with it. There's a new Revolution now.
Tossles: Wanna pamphlet?
Igor: Uh. Yeah.
Drugmuffin: The New Order begins.
Tossles: The Aisling is passe.
Drugmuffin: Cliche.
Tossles: Gone away.
All: CITIZENS OF ETERNIGRAD, UNITE!

Pause. Igor looks embarrassed and a little frightened.

Igor: But what about America?
Drugmuffin: A myth.
Tossles: It never existed.
Drugmuffin: Or if it did-
Both: It never existed here.
Igor: That's not true. I've seen it with my own eyes. Seen it when it was sleeping. We've stalked it, Comrade Aisling and I. She keeps it away. Keeps us safe. (He takes the pamphlet and rips it up.) I don't think I like what you're saying. (Stomps off in rage.)
Tossles: He'll come around.
Drugmuffin: They all will.
Tossles: Once they know.
Drugmuffin: Once they hear.

They exit in opposite directions.

Fabian enters.

Fabian: So there it was. I had found what I'd been seeking for years. It was a genuine alternate universe, albeit a somewhat shabby one. Not to mention the incredible instability of it all - but then again, what universe can exist in a stable state? It was exactly the breakthrough that could give me, Doktor Francis Fabian, an aspiring young pataphysician, a chance at everlasting fame and recognition. I was standing literally on the threshold of a dream.

And there she was. Ashera Aisling. A beautiful creature, trapped among her imaginary gangsters and spies. There was a conspiracy around every corner of Eternigrad, a thousand plots and intrigues, and they all involved her. She was the centre, the sun around which the invisible planets revolved. I would have done anything to free her.

But the gravitational pull was strong. She saw people that weren't there. She heard voices when all else was silent. She nursed a life within her. She was doomed from the very beginning.

When you take a life, it is not only that individual that dies, but all those around her. In the case of Ashera Aisling, the danger was more pressing. Her life, her death, exerted a pull on an entire universe, a fractal universe in which her city and herself existed infinitely again and again. One little death - and the Apocalypse arrives.

Such is the dilemma of science.

Long pause. Fabian looks around, then continues talking. As he speaks, Aisling and the Boy enter, quietly, and sit down.

Fabian: I loved her. I knew it, even then. But I couldn't have her. It wasn't even so much a matter of her survival, though that was at issue. It wasn't a matter of the ethics of falling in love with an experimental subject. It was more difficult than all that. It had to do with reaching her, realising the issues involved with her world, and convincing her to abandon them for my own plane of existence.

He stands aside, watching Aisling. He doesn't see the Boy.

Aisling (to Boy): ...I woke up from a dream. The soles of my feet hurt from where nails had once been driven in. It's a dangerous game we play, against life, against fate...
Fabian: Hello.
Aisling: Hi.
Fabian: Will you tell me your name now?
Aisling: Ashera Aisling. And you?
Fabian: Doktor Francis Fabian.
Aisling: Now we can call each other by name, when we meet again. (Pause.) You have very bad manners, Doktor Fabian.
Fabian: How so?
Aisling: You haven't said a word to my young friend here.
(Gestures to Boy.)
Fabian: I don't see anyone. Other than you.
Aisling: He's been sitting here all this time. Right beside me. And you haven't even had the decency to say hello.
Fabian (making an effort to play along, but looking in entirely the wrong direction): Uh...hello.
Aisling: He's over here. (Pause.) You can't see him, can you? You think I'm crazy.
Fabian: I see him, I see him.
Aisling: Then what does he look like?
Fabian: Like a boy.
Aisling: Describe him to me.
Fabian: Um...He's a good-looking kid. I don't know. Blond hair.
Aisling: Black. (Pause.) You can't see him at all. What sort of joke are you playing on me?
Fabian: There's no one here, Aisling. Just us.
Aisling: You think you're so educated, don't you? Too big and important to know about frogs, or baby universes, or anything having to do with real life. You've got a big title but you really don't know anything at all. You're so very analytical and scientific but you don't even notice someone who's sitting here right beside me. Go away, Doktor Fabian, and come back when you've learned to see!
Fabian: It's not your imaginary friends who interest me. It's you.
Aisling: Hah! (Nods to Boy, and they exit.)

Fabian stands where he is, staring into space. He is perfectly still.

Tossles and Drugmuffin enter.

Tossles: I heard he can't see or hear.
Drugmuffin: Can't see or hear anything.
Tossles: Other than HER.
Drugmuffin: She's all he sees.
Tossles: All he knows.
Drugmuffin: You know what that means.
Tossles: He can't see or hear us.

Drugmuffin starts skipping around Fabian, making silly faces. Tossles stands where he is and hurls insults.

Tossles: Geek! Dickhead! Shitface! Fishmonger!
Drugmuffin (standing still): Fishmonger?
Tossles (ghetto accent, to Fabian): Yo mama's so old an' fat, God said "Let there be light" an' she moved!
Drugmuffin (to Tossles, with a hick accent, pretending to hitch up overalls): Hey Bobby Joe Billy Bob. Whaddya say we go out behind th' barn an' tar an' feather Œim?

Both explode into a fit of giggling, then stop at the same time and look at each other.

Tossles: He's not reacting at all.
Drugmuffin: This isn't much fun.

They walk away, disappointed.

Aisling screams from off stage, then runs towards Fabian. He takes her into his arms, a little stiffly, looking dazed.

Fabian: What's wrong? Was that you?
Aisling: Nothing really. I mean, just shock. The universe is expanding. It's a time of great chaos. (Long pause.) I went into the bathroom. In the tub I saw this thing. I thought it was a piece of dirt, so I scooped it up. It left more dirt on the porcelain tub, charcoal grey dust. It came to life in my hands. It was a silverfish. I held it in a piece of toilet paper. It was squirming, trying to get free. I wouldn't let it, but I couldn't kill it either. I couldn't even flush it down the toilet and imagine myself free of blame. So I threw it outside. Except that there was snow, piles and piles of freezing cold snow and there was no way one little silverfish was going to survive out there. So it was like murder anyway, although the responsibility was not entirely mine. And I went back into the bathroom. My mind thought up surrealist fantasies. I saw myself turning on the shower and millions and millions of silverfish falling down instead of water, like gas in a concentration camp. Falling all over, in my hair, on my skin, and I could make no movement without crushing dozens of soft little bodies. I saw the Silverfish Gods taking revenge on me for killing one of their number. And then I got angry because my spiders weren't doing their job.
Fabian: It's okay. You can probably call an exterminator.
Aisling: It's not my house. And that's not the point. I haven't seen a silverfish since I was four, and I thought they were so goddamned neat until my parents killed them all. My consciousness doesn't fabricate silverfish. Cockroaches, yeah, but silverfish were so gone from my psyche...
Fabian: What are you talking about?
Aisling: I'm losing control. Eternigrad is making things without me. Or at least things are being created from a more primal part of my brain. I don't know what's happening. I can't explain...I've got to stop this.
Fabian: Stop what?
Aisling: Pretending everything is normal, when it isn't.
Fabian: There aren't any Silverfish Gods, you know.
Aisling: I'm beginning to doubt it. Anyway, religion's about as important to me as math.
Fabian: How so?
Aisling: They both show a beautiful, perfect, orderly view of the universe. You can lose yourself in them. They explain things, they focus your mind. They're wonderful for meditation. And they're completely wrong. (Pause.) This is a terrible way to die. (Sits down, buries her head in her hands.) I knew a dying nun once. She wasn't afraid of death. Or at least, she was ambivalent. If she lived, she still had work to do. If not, then she would be with God. Either way, she was happy. We were both so tired, both of us, barely alive. I couldn't keep my eyes open, but I wanted to look at her, at the blue plastic rosary dangling from her hand. She looked out the window and said, "It's good to see people, so many people." Then she looked at me and said, "Go to sleep, go to sleep." And she smiled. I wish I could leave, that easily. (Pause.) You don't have a place to stay tonight.
Fabian: No.
Aisling: I know a place. The Hotel Eternigrad. It's mine too.
Fabian (yawning): Could you take me there?
Aisling: It comes to you. Wait.

She runs off stage and returns, dragging a large cardboard box. Fabian stares at it.

Aisling: Goodnight, Doktor Fabian. You are not the one Death beckons for.

She exits.

Fabian: (to audience): I watched her leave. And though I deluded myself then, as I would do so many times again, I knew right away that I couldn't save her. That she and Eternigrad were inseparable. That she, and all her people, and by extension, myself...that we were all doomed, right from the beginning.

Lies down in box.

Act II - And the Queen Became a Sardine

Scene: A few weeks later. Aisling is seated in Eternigrad, making a hat out of newspaper. The city has decayed rapidly since the last act, with garbage strewn all over the ground, crumpled propaganda posters, syringes, used condoms, fish bones. In an attempt to revive civic loyalty, someone has planted Eternigrad flags, which are tattered and pathetic.

Fabian enters. Aisling looks up at him, then stands. She puts the hat on his head.

Aisling: This is for you. It matches your shirt.
Fabian: Thank you, I guess. (Gesturing at flags.) What happened here?
Aisling (shrugging): I don't know. A nationalist movement or something. I didn't start it. It's all terribly silly. The place is going to hell.
Fabian: Where are all your friends?
Aisling: They're NOT my friends.
Fabian: You're alone?
Aisling: Currently? Yes. Well...no. You're here. But that's like being alone, isn't it?

She looks away from him and starts to construct another hat.

Aisling: Doktor Fabian?
Fabian: Call me Francis, please.
Aisling: Francis, then. What does your science say about the fall of imaginary civilizations?
Fabian: You want to know the truth?
Aisling: Yeah.
Fabian (carefully): Nothing. Nothing at all.

Pause. They both look at each other for a moment, and then burst out laughing.

Fabian: It is rather useless, isn't it?
Aisling: Of course it is.
Fabian: I can't expect to find another occupation, though.
Aisling: You could become a spy. (Giggles.)
Fabian: What was that?
Aisling: Nothing. Just an inside joke. All of my jokes are inside, now. (Pause.) You know, it's good to hang around someone who isn't controlled by my subconscious, for a change. (She crumples the hat into a ball and tosses it away.) It didn't look very good anyway. I mean it, though. Sometimes absolute power is a little boring. Not often, but sometimes.

She stands up and kicks over one of the flags.

Aisling (suddenly exploding into anger): Spitting, flag-waving murderers! I hate them! Wave on, wave on, fascists. Do they know the name of the land they tread on? Do they know what this place is?
Fabian: I thought they were all you or something.
Aisling: They're becoming just as bad as the people where you are. The bastards! They know nothing! I found a place away from all of that, away from all of the distractions of the traditional universe. I found a place that ordinary people could never touch. I built Eternigrad from ashes, from oblivion. And now they turn and do this to me. I expected more than this, somehow. From them. I just expected more. (Long pause. She calms down.) It's sad, Francis. There are so many things that can kill us. I'm not talking about the usual things - tragic love affairs, car accidents. So many other things, things we don't even understand. There are more dimensions than we can see. They used to think there were only three, then four, and now they don't know. They just keep thinking up new ones.

And we don't know what's in those other dimensions. We might have extra arms growing out the top of our heads, and we'd never know it. We can't see them. Or extra organs. And what would happen if one of those invisible organs was removed? I suppose it would depend on which organ it was, and how necessary it was to our survival. But we could die, just like that, and it wouldn't have any purpose. We would never know why. So many things that can destroy us...and so little that can make us alive...
Fabian: Why do you always talk about death? You're so young.
Aisling: It's never too early to start. (She smiles, a little sadly.)

Igor enters, looking confused. His watergun is broken.

Igor: Comrade Aisling? Where have you been?
Aisling: Here. Right here.
Igor: The city is in a state of chaos. The people are revolting.
Aisling: The people revolt me, Comrade. And sometimes chaos is a good thing.
Igor: What's wrong with you?
Aisling (shaking her head): Nothing. Absolutely nothing. (Pause.) Did America get loose again? Is that it?
Igor: No.
Aisling: The flags?
Igor: Eternigrad flags.
Aisling: Even worse. Oh well. Come back when there's a real danger.
Igor: You'll be here?
Aisling: I'll always be here.

Igor nods to her and exits. He looks unusually unhappy.

Fabian: That's very unnerving, you know.
Aisling: What is?
Fabian: When you talk to the air.
Aisling: I wasn't talking to the air.
Fabian: Oh, yes. Your imaginary friends...
Aisling: I think I have a relationship with absence. (Pause.) Have you ever seduced someone, Francis?
Fabian: Not so directly.
Aisling: You're not terribly good at it.
Fabian: Thank you.
Aisling: I'm not like other people. You should realise that. You think you know me, but you don't. Even after I die. You'll never know me. No one does, no one ever will.

She exits. Fabian stands still for a moment, and then follows her.

Enter Tossles and Drugmuffin.

Tossles: So at last...
Drugmuffin: At long last...
Both: It begins.
Tossles: The Revolution!
Drugmuffin: The Liberation of Eternigrad!
Tossles: Perestroika for the Invisible!
Drugmuffin: The streets are awash in posters, pamphlets, graffiti, blood, piss, shit, the trademarks of the decay of civilization. The sky bursts with eclipses, with comets, with all the random occurrences in the universe that are so often mistaken for divine omens. Dogs break free of their chains, children overshadow their parents, snow sheets the earth in the middle of July. A shift forms and builds in the balance of the world - control loosens another notch. Eternigrad is about to explode.
Tossles: And she?
Drugmuffin: She has left Eternigrad.
Tossles: She cannot leave.
Drugmuffin: Her body is still here. Or maybe it's her mind.
Tossles: It's hard to tell, these days, which is which.
Drugmuffin: She cannot leave.
Tossles: She will not leave...
Both: Alive.

Enter Igor.

Drugmuffin: Oh. You again.
Igor: I'm ready.
Tossles: Ready?
Drugmuffin: Ready.
Igor: To fight for the Cause. (Long pause.) Whatever the Cause is.
Tossles: Welcome.
Drugmuffin: Yes. Welcome.

Citizens of Eternigrad enter gradually, waving banners and shouting. They form a massive crowd around the three central figures.

Tossles and Drugmuffin: Welcome, friends. The Revolution begins!

All exit, yelling and cheering.

Fabian enters, carrying a bag of bread. He is looking for Aisling.

Fabian (to audience): I don't want to talk about it right now. I saw what just happened too. It's inevitable, yes, and sad, and I can't help but think that it is, at least partially, my fault. But that doesn't mean I need to talk about it. I just-

He stops speaking, abruptly. Aisling enters behind him. He turns around.

Fabian: Hi.

Aisling waves. She looks nervous.

Fabian: I brought some bread.
Aisling: It looks mouldy.
Fabian: So does your city. (Pause.) It's to feed the birds.
Aisling: I don't see any birds.
Fabian: I don't see any of your people.
Aisling: Oh.

They both sit down, taking slices of bread. As they talk, they throw out pieces of bread to imaginary birds. For every sentence they throw out a piece of bread.

Aisling: Love is masturbation for two.
Fabian: Love and death are the only two states of being.
Aisling: Death is not about the dying, but the living.
Fabian: Suicide is an existential sin.
Aisling: Crashing prom is the ultimate expression of freedom.
Fabian: Mediocrity is the only path to happiness.
Aisling: You disgust me.
Fabian: I'm in love with you.
Aisling: You will never know love, Francis. To you I am the only girl in the world.
Fabian: Maybe. I still love you.

Aisling takes the remainder of the bread and throws it away.

Aisling: What did you want to be when you were a kid?
Fabian: A dinosaur. You?
Aisling: I saw this picture once. It was of these two people standing against a setting sun, a man and a woman. It wasn't a romantic picture - they weren't holding hands, weren't even touching each other. The man was just standing there, looking out at you. He was wearing those cool 1980s sunglasses and he was dressed all in black. Even though he was little more than a silhouette. He was standing there, staring. You could make out that much detail. The woman, you couldn't see at all. She was dancing, spinning, her dress billowing around her. She looked like she was dancing a sacred farewell to the sun. She looked like she would dance like that until the day she died, and she didn't care at all what anyone thought about it, or if anyone would dance with her. And the guy looked like he envied her. Like she had a kind of freedom that he would never possess, this not-caring. Like he thought she was beautiful, even though she wasn't. She was beautiful because she was dancing. I used to stare at that picture for hours. I don't know where it came from. But I wanted to be that girl.
Fabian: Come away with me.
Aisling: There is nowhere other than Eternigrad.
Fabian: You know that's not true.
Aisling: I know, but I can't accept it.
Fabian: I can show you beauty, Ashera. We could learn to recognize it, together.
Aisling: To leave here would kill me.
Fabian: You don't know that.
Aisling: I won't die for love. I would sacrifice myself for a Great Cause, even if it's a bad cause, an immoral cause. I would die fighting for a revolution that succeeds and becomes more corrupt than the original oppression. I would die in a war, even, with millions and billions of other people and not even know what I was dying for. But I won't die for the love of a man. Or anyone.
Fabian: I would die for you.
Aisling: That's all very well for you to say. You're not in my position.
Fabian: Leave the dream, Ashera. Come back with me. You won't die. You'll live. For the very first time. You'll live like you've never lived before.
Aisling: I'm not afraid to die. I'm just afraid to die like this.
Fabian: But-
Aisling: And it's not just that. I'm afraid to be with another person. To die with an attachment to the world. It's horrible. Being part of someone's life - it's giving a part of yourself away. Like dying a little. And I'm already too close to death. I can't, Francis. I'll never leave.
Fabian: You will leave.
Aisling: I wish I could believe you. I really do.

She stands, looks around, and then exits.

Fabian stands up.

Fabian (to audience): In the event that you, my dear friends, have become attached to Ashera Aisling - as I so foolishly did - I will tell you what you have already probably suspected. I will tell you now what I did not know then.

She is going to die.

It is an unfortunate by-product of existence that we are all, in one way or another, doomed to die. It is a fortunate by-product of theatre that we occasionally are given a glimpse of inspiration before someone who is a figment of somebody else's imagination bites the big one. But here, I am afraid, there is little chance of that epiphany taking place. Perhaps it is because, although we are able to observe the complex workings of Ashera Aisling's mind, we are never fully able to understand them. Perhaps it is because she will die before she has the chance to really live. Perhaps it is because the end she meets and the method in which her body is disposed of are both unusually gruesome, and to maintain some level of suspense, I will not yet reveal them.

But I think it is because, while Ashera Aisling herself may have received that rare light of inspiration, it is not particularly applicable to the rest of us. She did not speak the same language, somehow. Had she lived, she might have learned to communicate it to someone. But she died, and so the light died with her.There is nothing inherently tragic about death in itself. The tragedy comes in the extinguishing of character and memory, in the catastrophe that spreads to even those who are not involved. The tragedy - as I think she realised - comes only to those who are left behind.

In the height of the tragedy we cease to be scientists and lovers, victims and heroes. We are just people. People who are doomed...because of the nature of the word.

But enough of this. On with the play. The Revolution is about to begin.

Aisling enters.

Fabian: Leave with me.
Aisling: There's something I forgot to tell you.
Fabian: You can tell me anything.
Aisling: I'm pregnant.
Fabian: Oh. (Pause.) But we haven't...
Aisling: It's not yours, stupid.
Fabian (jealously): Whose, then?
Aisling: No one's. Mine.
Fabian: Then how-
Aisling: Scientists should know these things. Even pataphysicians.
Fabian: It's one of your imaginary friends, isn't it?
Aisling: I don't quite know how to put this. Um...well...it's not, that is...I mean...well, it's not, as you could say, a traditional sort of baby.
Fabian: What on earth are you talking about?
Aisling: We're not on Earth anymore, hon. (Pause.) It's a baby universe. In my head.
Fabian (apparently relieved): Oh.
Aisling: Don't sound so happy about it. It's going to kill me.
Fabian: All the things that can kill you...
Aisling: Never mind. I shouldn't have told you.
Fabian: No, it's good that you can be open.
Aisling: It's not really that important.
Fabian: What is it, exactly?
Aisling: Evidence of the fractal composition of the universe. You see, there are baby universes all over the place. They're related to black holes. They're exactly the same as regular universes, but on a miniature scale. They're appearing and disappearing all the time. They are our universe, repeated over and over and over again and always the same. Of course, we don't know for sure that we're not in one right now. Anyway, one seems to have deposited itself in my head some time ago. It used to be small, but it's expanding. Quickly.
Fabian: How quickly?
Aisling: Point ten micrometers a nanosecond. How am I supposed to know?
Fabian: Maybe you should have been the scientist.
Aisling: Aren't you at all concerned?
Fabian: I would be, if I wasn't convinced that you were crazy.
Aisling: Oh. (Pause.) I told you I shouldn't have mentioned it.

She wanders away.

Fabian (to audience): And that was how it was. That was how it would be, always and forever, right up until the end.

Fabian exits.

Aisling re-enters.

Aisling: I used to have a spaceship when I was a kid. It was white and smooth and half the size of infinity. It was big enough for a whole tropical rainforest, where all the animals lived together in peace. It was so big nothing could scare it away, except for this black spaceship with stained glass windows carrying a race of Christian vampires. Vampires were the only monsters that scared me as a child, and only because they looked so much like people. So they were my chosen villains. All the other monsters and villains I loved, better than the good guys. The faceless Russian spies that always got killed at the end of movies, the werewolves, the dragons slain by Aryan heroes...those I felt sorry for. Didn't they have mothers? Would no one cry for them?

I couldn't cry, certainly, because I watched these movies with my parents, read the books in school where everyone was always watching you. Tears were useless and stupid, not to mention embarrassing. So this is what I did, secretly, when I was alone at night. I travelled back, in my mind, in time, to the moment of death and I plucked the dying villains away and took them to my rainforest on the spaceship. They would live with me there, and be reformed. Everybody got a second chance in my world, even the vampires. That is, if they could say the right words, which I oh-so-conveniently placed in their mouths. They were my awful creatures now, and that was how I made my world.

As she speaks, Tossles, Drugmuffin, and Igor enter, standing to one side.

Aisling: Daughters of the Revolution, I kneel before your beauty. I pray for forgiveness for what I have done. I have stayed too long in my attempt to redeem Eternigrad. I now accept this. Mea culpa, sisters. It has all been my fault. I have corrupted what seemed to me corrupt. Tell me what I must do, or give me death.

The baby universe kicks. It shows on Aisling's face.

Aisling: The spaceship crashed a long time ago. The good guys won. It's horrible, really, to die like this.

She exits. The others step forward. They are planning the Revolution.

Igor: Working men of all countries, unite!
Drugmuffin: Wrong revolution, baby.
Tossles: Can I hear a hallelujah?
Drugmuffin: Not that one either.
Igor: Okay, how about this one? Libertie, egalitie, fraternitie!
Tossles: It's been done.
Igor: So what are we after here?
Drugmuffin: Just the Revolution part. That's all.
Igor: But how can you have a revolution without dogma and platitudes?
Drugmuffin: This is Eternigrad. Dogma hasn't been declared obsolete yet. We can't use it.
Tossles: This is going to be a bust. I can tell already.
Igor: The citizens are approaching.
Tossles: And here we are, caught without dogma. Like being naked.
Drugmuffin: They won't notice.
Igor: She'll notice.
Drugmuffin: By then, it will be too late.
Igor: What a shitty revolution.
Tossles: Confidence, honey. That's the key.

Enter Citizens of Eternigrad, led by the Boy.

Tossles and Drugmuffin: The Beast stirs!
Drugmuffin: The time is at hand!
Tossles: The Great Cause begins!
Both: And it begins NOW!
Drugmuffin: We have had enough!
Tossles: We've been here forever!
Drugmuffin: We were her creations.
Tossles: Now we are our own.
Igor: We declare an end to Eternigrad as we have always known it! We declare that Ashera Aisling will be overthrown, that violent revolution is the only solution, and that America must be destroyed!
Drugmuffin: America's a myth, remember?
Igor: Oh. Sorry.
Boy (raising his hand): Um, is there going to be a test on this?
Igor: Every moment is a test.
Tossles: We declare that every truth held by us before is false.
Drugmuffin: We declare every previous falsehood true.
Tossles: We declare that the universe is upside down.
Drugmuffin: We declare the existence of negative dimensions.
Tossles: We arose from dust, not monkeys.
Drugmuffin: We are no longer thought made concrete.
Both: The Revolution has arrived!

Shouts and cheers from the assembled crowd, then a sudden silence.

Enter Aisling.

Aisling (singing, to the tune of "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands"):

I've got the whole world
In my head
I've got the whole world
In my head
I've got the whole world
In my head
And it's about to EXPLODE.

Drugmuffin (to the crowd): Let's get her.

There is a brief, very tense pause as Aisling stares at the Citizens of Eternigrad, and they stare back. For a brief moment, it seems like everything will be okay. Then they start to chase her, and she runs away.

Aisling: What do you want from me?
Drugmuffin: We want you to leave!
Tossles: You've lost control.
Drugmuffin: This is an uprising.
Aisling: I can't leave.
Tossles: You WILL leave.
Aisling: You don't understand! I made all of you! I can't leave, because I carry Eternigrad with me! If I left, you would all cease to exist.
Drugmuffin: So be it.
Aisling: You are making a big mistake!
Tossles: It's more than you've ever allowed us before!
Aisling: Stop it! Stop it right now!
Drugmuffin: It's too late.

The Citizens scatter in all directions, trying to corner Aisling. Igor grabs her and throws her up against the wall.

Aisling: You've joined them too!
Igor: You've abandoned us.
Aisling: What about America?
Igor: What's America?
Aisling: Then what were we hunting, all that time?
Igor: Nothing.
Aisling: What's this revolution about?
Igor: Nothing.
Aisling: Help me, Comrade.
Igor: There is no help for you. And I am not your Comrade any longer.
Aisling: Has the whole world gone mad?
Igor: Only you.
Aisling: Don't you know what will happen now?

He doesn't answer her. She struggles out of his grasp and runs away, nearly colliding with the Boy.

Aisling: You too, now? You're one of them?

He doesn't answer.

Aisling: You've been silent all this time. Have you anything to say at all?

No response.

Aisling: Can you even talk?
Boy: Not until the end.

Aisling pushes away from him. The chase goes on.

Enter Fabian. Everyone else is running around as if blind. Aisling goes to Fabian and falls into his arms. He is staring at the crowd.

Fabian: I'm...sorry, Ashera. I see them now. All of them.
Aisling: Took you long enough.
Fabian: What's wrong with them?
Aisling: They want me gone. I've lost control. I'm...separating. I can feel it. It's almost like a release, except I know...I know...

She buries her face in her hands, close to crying.

Fabian: I love you, Ashera. I will always love you.

Aisling looks up at him. There is a very long, very tense pause.

Aisling: I'll go with you, Francis. My time has come. I will leave Eternigrad, if that's what you want.
Fabian: That's what I've always wanted. Are you sure?
Aisling: Yes. There is nothing left for me here. Look at this place.
Fabian: I know. I can see it now, for what it is.
Aisling: I loved them once.
Fabian: I'm sure you did.
Aisling: I'm ready to leave. Just tell me what to do. And I'll go. Hold me, Francis. I'm so scared.

They hold each other, while the shouting and rioting goes on around them.

Aisling (in a barely audible whisper. All else is silent): Thank you, Francis. Of all of my delusions, you have been the sweetest.

She falls to the ground.

Everyone else freezes.



Act III - Kaddish (for Allen Ginsberg)

Scene: Eternigrad, after the Revolution. Everything that can be broken is broken. The flags have turned to black and hang at half mast. Even the propaganda posters have been mutilated. The decay of the city has considerably advanced. Aisling is dead.

Tossles stands alone amid the ruins. Throughout the rest of the play, he and all the other characters except Fabian and the Boy are dressed in white Communion dresses.

Enter Fabian, looking very confused.

Fabian: Where is she? Where is Ashera Aisling?
Tossles: She's dead.
Fabian: What?
Tossles: She's dead. Her head exploded.
Fabian: Excuse me?
Tossles: You heard it right. She's gone. Dead. Shuffled off the mortal coil. Kicked the bucket. Bought the farm. Probably turned it into a wasteland like this place by now.
Fabian: Did you kill her?
Tossles: Natural causes, sweetie.
Fabian: Did I? (Pause.) I did, didn't I? She said she'd die, if she ever left...But you people drove her out! Hornstrumpet! But it was because of me.
Tossles: You didn't hear it from me.
Fabian: Her head exploded?
Tossles: Yeah. She couldn't die like a civilian.
Fabian: Don't you have any feelings at all?
Tossles: Not in my nature, baby. I'm Tossles, the Two-Dimensional Man. Don't think, don't feel, don't nothing. That's me.
Fabian: It must be terrible.
Tossles: It would be, if I could feel it.
Fabian: Where is she?
Tossles: In heaven.
Fabian: Her body, I mean.
Tossles: They'll be bringing it in, shortly.
Fabian: How could this have all happened? (Pause.) We were going to be together. For ever and always. We were going to be happy.
Tossles: It never ends like that.
Fabian: I sort of thought it would, this time.
Tossles: Don't kid yourself. This is Aisling we're talking about. No man could ever have her. She couldn't have herself.
Fabian: You're right, I guess. (Pause.) What are you still doing here?
Tossles: Waiting to die. Like you, and everyone else.
Fabian: I thought you would all...I don't know...cease to exist or something.
Tossles: Oh, we will, I assure you. But we're drawing it out as long as we can. Looking for the baby universe. Looking for a new home. A new host. Maybe.
Fabian: I suppose I should go.
Tossles: You're not sticking around for the funeral?
Fabian: There's going to be a funeral?

Enter Drugmuffin and Igor, bearing the body of Aisling. Behind them, in a procession, the Boy, dressed as a Catholic priest, leads the Citizens of Eternigrad.

They set the body down.

Boy: Hoc est enim corpus meum.

All except Fabian begin to eat the body and drink her blood.

Boy (Drawn out as they eat): Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei, novi et
aeterni testamenti
- mysterium fidei -
Qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum.
Haec quotiescumque feceritis, in mei memoriam facietis.
Fabian: Remember her, people of Eternigrad. No one else will.
Igor: Hannibal ad portas.

All exit except for Fabian.

Fabian (to audience): She turned my own universe to dust, when she left hers for good. And now, as I prepared to leave Eternigrad forever, I realized that there would never be a place for me. I had found it - the Great It, the Great Thing, the Thing we'd all been looking for - and now I didn't want it anymore. I just wanted her. And she was dead. I had killed her. And that was how it ended.

Friends, colleagues, I left Eternigrad a broken man. When I came, I was young, but Eternigrad makes everyone old. It grows dust and mold on you like a thin white blanket, drapes your every movement, sticks to you and so you can never let go. I understood, standing there, that I would never really leave. This was Eternigrad, the refuge of the obsolete, and at that moment in time there were none more obsolete than I. Here I was, Doktor Francis Fabian, the last of the pataphysicians, the love of my life dead by my hand, no hope of ever continuing. And so I will not tell you a happy ending, because there wasn't one. She made her world, and it swallowed her whole. My research notes, scribbled and scientific, were all I had left of her.

I do not know what became of the people of Eternigrad. At the very last, when I saw them, all I could see in their eyes was fear. They were all alone. And without her, they were nothing, figments of an imagination that had been crushed like the shell of an accidental beetle. I suppose, soon after Ashera Aisling's death, they one by one ceased to exist. There was no one left to hold onto the memory of the out-of-date. After her, no one knew their names. I can only extrapolate that the baby universe, her only child, perished with her. A universe within a universe, a thousand times over, blinked out of existence in a single moment.

And so, for a little universe in a place that never existed, a miniature Apocalypse swept everyone away. To think of all the people who die, suddenly, people whom no one ever knew existed, is too much of a tragedy for the human mind to comprehend. We must go on, forgetting them, loving only the ones we can see, forgetting them too, when they go. You would think that, with the knowledge that we are all dying, we would scream and run and love every instant remaining to us. But we do not. We wait, so passively, and the world crumbles around us.

I loved her, I suppose, in the way that the doomed love the doomed. When we know that there is nothing left for us, this is all that remains.

Friends, colleagues, there is blood on my hands. I took her from Eternigrad, and paid the price. There was one little death, and now I understand this: nothing will ever be the same.

He exits.

Igor enters, holding a piece of paper.

Igor: Memo from Eternigrad, on this, the second day of August in the year 1523. At last, the truth comes out. That wasn't how she died at all. He'll go on believing that until the day he joins her. But she swore until the end that she would not die for love - and she wouldn't. Ashera Aisling did not die for the love of Doktor Francis Fabian. That is where the final joke lies.

The baby universe broke free. That was how it happened. Growing inside of her head like a cancer, it expanded until she no longer had the strength to hold it in. It got out, killing her in the process. Ashera Aisling died, you could say, of childbirth.

No one knows how the baby universe got there. It doesn't matter, really. What does matter is that it was in her head, it expanded, and it eventually killed her. Just another random act of chaos. If it can happen, it will happen. That was how she lived - that was how she died. It has no meaning, but it has beauty. The two do not always go together.

Francis Fabian, you are blameless of her death! Your hands are clean. Go back to your world, pretend she never existed, wait quietly for your own death. He will go to the grave thinking that he killed her. But he didn't. And this is her last secret from him.We will never tell him, of course. We didn't like him.

We are, and always will be, the villains.

Until the end...

LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION!

[Exeunt Omnes]