Into The Snowstorm

CHARACTERS

Rōnin – a recluse monk, sixty-seven years of age.

Conscience

 

SETTING

Mountain. Buddhist temple.

 

In the distance, a shrine.

 

A vicious snowstorm whips across the remains of an avalanche.

 

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                        RŌNIN IS WALKING THROUGH THE STORM.

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Rōnin:              Tracks in the fresh snow

                         Remind me of that warm place

                         But I am not there.

 

                        CONSCIENCE APPEARS. THE SOUND OF THE STORM DIES AWAY.

 

Conscience:     Jiji told us that one. It’s from a collection. The writer walks out in the snow, following tracks, only to realise that what he’s been                         following is himself.

 

                        Jiji always told us complex things.

 

Rōnin:             He was a clever man.

 

Conscience:    We were five.

 

Rōnin:              I hadn’t thought of it.

 

Conscience:     Yes, we have.

 

                        SILENCE. RŌNIN WALKS UP A STEEP INCLINE OF THE MOUNTAIN. CONSCIENCE IS UNAFFECTED.

 

Conscience:     Oh, but his laugh. I know you remember. What a laugh it was – like a pack of hyenas. No. A trombone. Yeah, a great big                                     volcanic blast that nearly brought the walls down. Didn’t even have to be that funny, and he’d be rocking in his chair, laughing                           his head off, that great big smile on his face. And everyone always ended up joining in. Laughing so hard that we forgot what we                         were laughing about in the first place – and that just made us laugh even more.

 

                        Infectious.   

 

                        Sobo used to say that it was because he’d been in the theatre, travelling around the country performing when he was a young                               man.   

 

Rōnin:              He did have a taste for the dramatic.

 

Conscience:     Yeah, but it made his story-telling the best.

 

Rōnin:              The ones about the samurai.

 

Conscience:     The ones about the samurai.

 

                        Our favourite… The green knight – when he chased the evil Chinese emperor to the temple at the top of the impossibly tall                                 mountain. A climax of slashing swords, and blood and sweat as good battled evil. Then there was that moment when we feared                           the green knight was doomed – a dragon swooped down from the sky, conjured by the evil emperor. And still our hero won,                                 slaying the beast, and roasting the emperor with the dragon’s breath.

 

                        That was entertainment.

 

Rōnin:              I don’t think the dragon bit was true.

 

Conscience:     Oh, where’s that sense of adventure gone?

 

Rōnin:              Look where I am.

 

                        AS IF ILLUSTRATING HIS POINT, ROCKS TUMBLE FROM THE MOUNTAIN-EDGE.

 

Conscience:     Yes, but we wanted to be samurai. To be stealthy, but also famous and respected. Feared. Even made our own katanas from                                 sticks and went racing around to save Mr. Omori-san’s cat from the laundromat again.

 

Rōnin:              I hated that cat. It always looked at me funny. I saved it every day; it never said ‘thanks.’

 

Conscience:     And it got us in trouble. That time on Mrs. Tanaka-san’s roof – we were being shinobis that day.

 

                        RŌNIN CHUCKLES.

 

Conscience:     And of course, the cat had to show up and scratch on a neighbour’s door, which made them come out and see us. And tell us off.

 

Rōnin:              That cat was evil.

 

                        THEY BOTH LAUGH.

 

Conscience:     Samurai… We were obsessed with honour and loyalty and warfare – so we tried to create the perfect warrior.

 

                        Innovative is what they called us. For all our hard work on robotics and neurology in technology – never realised that was so                               strange to say.

 

Rōnin:              I haven’t said it in a long time.

 

Conscience:     No. But we were pioneers. We wouldn’t have realised then, but all those stories that Jiji told us shaped our future.

 

Rōnin:              Now look at me – I’m as old as him.

 

Conscience:     Maybe all those stories, maybe they’re what brought us here, too. When it all went wrong, when we lost everything – we                                     managed to cling to that child’s dream.

 

                        When you lost every part of yourself in the bottom of a bottle.

 

Rōnin:              Glass –

                

Conscience:     Bottle.

 

                        BEAT.

 

                        RŌNIN BLINDLY FUMBLES IN THE EVER-RAGING STORM. HE SEEMS TO BE LOOKING FOR TRACKS.

 

Conscience:     Do you think you’ll find him?

 

Rōnin:              He can’t have gone far. Might be stuck in the snow.

 

Conscience:     I’m not talking about the goat. That’s not why you’re out here.

 

Rōnin:              I don’t –

 

Conscience:     Don’t lie. Seriously. You can’t lie to me. I am you. Every thought you have, I have. I can see right through you. And what I see –                         it’s empty.

 

                        All the meditation. All the times with only me and the goat to speak to. Coming up here, away from distractions, away from                                 technology and baseball and shoes, away from the whole – mess. All those sacrifices – searching and searching and searching –                           and you still haven’t found what you’re looking for.

 

                        SILENCE.

 

                        RŌNIN APPEARS TO STEP OUT OF HIMSELF.

 

Rōnin:              I remember, in the city, through all the concrete and glass, seeing a tiny bonsai tree between the pavements. It’s stuck with me                             because I remember the shock of it, I suppose. That in that vast, grey place, where literally nothing grew, there was this tiny tree                         sprouting from the crack in the pavement. The size of it against those looming concrete cathedrals, it was vulnerable. So tiny and                         frail and alone. And I just wanted to pick it up, to protect it from the other people, who might have stepped on it in their haste.                             And I realised the miracle in me seeing it, that in ninety-nine times out of a hundred I would have passed it. But that one time –                           that one time – when I wasn’t rushing to work, or had my head buried in text or crammed in the clouds, I saw it.

 

                        And it made me realise how precious life was.

 

                        A CHERRY BLOSSOM TREE COMES INTO VIEW. CONSCIENCE IS FARTHER AWAY.

 

Conscience:     We loved the city.

 

Rōnin:              It was too big. Too much… I was lost.

 

Conscience:     And you aren’t now?

 

Rōnin:              …

 

                        CONSCIENCE GOES TO SAY SOMETHING, BUT RŌNIN SUDDENLY RUSHES AHEAD, FALLS TO HIS KNEES, AND                           GROANS IN DESPAIR.

 

                        THERE IS A DARK MOUND IN THE SNOW, WHERE THE CORPSE OF THE GOAT HE HAS BEEN SEARCHING FOR                             HAD FALLEN. IT IS ALREADY COVERED IN A BLANKET OF WHITE.

 

                        IN HIS GRIEF, RŌNIN PERFORMS A RITUAL OVER THE BODY. EVENTUALLY, HE CRADLES THE DEAD GOAT IN                           HIS ARMS.

 

                        THE STORM AMPLIFIES. AGGRESSIVE.

 

                        RŌNIN TRIES TO FIND HIS WAY, THE BLIZZARD CONSUMING HIM. STEALING HIS WORDS.

 

Rōnin:              I need to get him back.

                        

                        Which way?    

                                                Way?                                     

                                                            Way?

                                                             

                        I can’t see.

 

Conscience:     See…

                       

                        Follow the tracks.

 

                        SHOUTING OVER THE STORM.

 

Rōnin:              They’re his – The goat’s!

 

Conscience:     No. Don’t you get it. The haiku.

 

                        THE TEMPLE FADES BACK INTO VIEW.

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THE END.