THE DARK THINGS

by Ursula Rani Sarma

This play was first performed at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh on 6 October 2009.

DANIEL is an artist in his twenties. He has survived a horrific bus crash and is tormented by the fact that he was the only person who walked away. There was one other survivor, LJ, who lost both her legs. This monologue occurs at the start of the play and DANIEL is filming himself in a wasteland littered with bus fragments. It is his attempt to come to terms with the experience. He likens the crash to a moment in his childhood when he was drowning in a lake and his sister’s voice helped him to the surface.

DANIEL

Darkness. (Beat.) Total and complete darkness. (Beat.) Oceanic darkness (Beat.) Like being at the bottom of a lake, on your back, stuck fast in the mud and sinking (Beat.) Trying to breathe, trying to decide if I am alive or dead, try telling myself it’s a dream and will myself to wake up and see… and see…my bedside table…yellow lamp…floral sheets (Beat.) comforting. (Beat.) No. (Beat.) Then tell myself I’m drowning because I know that feeling…drowning…this… being…crushed, lungs being crushed, collapsing, no air, stuck fast in the mud and…drowning. (Beat.) Before…there was a woman beside me, bright coloured clothes, baby strapped to her chest, smiling, happy, made me smile without meaning to. (Beat.) There was a girl by the door with long red hair and her face was covered in freckles…and her skin…looked like porcelain…pale…translucent. She was very thin…looked like she could break easily…delicate…made me want to protect her. (Beat.) In that heat…everything seemed that little bit more…intense and colourful and I smiled at this red haired girl and she smiled back and the city didn’t feel like a city, it felt like we all wanted the same things in the end…and it was a good feeling…warm and comforting and good and then (Beat.) Darkness. (Beat.) Metal scraping and collapsing and the bus seats buckling and people screaming. (Beat.) My eyes closing and not re-opening (Beat.) Heaving…things snapping…breaking…things being broken…bones…no…yes bones. (Beat.) The sound of bones breaking is…inhuman. I curl up…in a ball…pull my knees up duck my head down and pray…please God get me out of this…please God…please fucking God… I don’t care… I don’t care if everyone else is crushed to death and I’m… I’m the only one left.

…

And then I hear a voice…calling me and it’s a familiar voice… it sounds comforting…and it’s coming from above…and more than anything…I want to be near that voice. (Beat.) And I will myself to move…will my lungs to inflate and push outwards and push upwards…force my bones up towards the voice… towards the light beyond the darkness and beyond the metal scraping bone breaking…and then the voice gets louder and louder until it kind of… (Relishing the moment.) wraps itself around me…and it is heat and comfort and safety and home…