The Imagination Act

(FENN walks onto stage with a box full of props. She is in plain if not youthful clothing, hair half up, half down. She looks out and counts the heads in the audience. 

Once she’s satisfied she places the box down on the table and begins taking certain objects out. A tea cup, a feather, paper snowflakes. 

She steps away from the table and observes the objects and counts them over and over. She nods and steps back. 

She counts the heads in the audience again. She nods.) 

FENN 

I am not fully convinced I’m real. 

(Pause.) 

I am! Don’t worry, I am. I am not a ghost or anything like that. Though how scary would that be… Boooo. 

(She laughs to herself.) 

No, nothing like that. Though sometimes I wonder if I have already died. That all of this is just my synapses firing in my final moments of cognitive function, reliving every little thing I can remember. Then perhaps, if that is true, then that means I am the only thing that’s real, and that all of you are just figments of my dying imagination… I’m not a ghost… you are. 

(She pretends to get scared and laughs then stops.) 

However, when I think of that too hard… the thought of not being real anymore… (The sound of a heart beating, and quiet frantic breathing begins.) 

I get this feeling that like, I’m reminding myself that I am already dead, and that there’s no hope, my path is set, and the end will come. But worse than that, that I can’t even put into words is the feeling that nothing changes. I can’t change a single thing and I just have to relive every horrible mistake that I don’t know why I make until I finally run out and everything turns into nothing. (She counts the members of the audience multiple times. The heart and the breathing slow till they stop.) 

But I know I have to be real, I’m just not convinced of it. 

I know my body moves in space, physically moves through physical space. But what is a mind, what is it for? 

Sometimes I catch myself in moments where I wake up. Like all the fog from living in between fades and I can feel my blood moving from my heart to my veins, and I hear every sound physically accessible to me, and everything is just so present. 

(The sound of a diner plays, glasses and plates clinking, people politely talking and coughing.) 

And I never know if I am happy to have woken up, to finally be present in the moment so as to not miss a single thing or if maybe… the world being so loud and all… if it were better I stayed asleep. 

(The sound of the diner stops. 

She looks out into the audience intently like she’s searching for something. She counts the audience members again. She nods.) 

No, I don’t know. Maybe, I can’t remember what I was thinking. 

(FENN looks at the items on the table. She picks up a paper snowflake. She looks intently at its intricacy. She counts each one of its gaps. 

She nods.) 

When I was little… I used to refuse to go to sleep. 

(A mother’s voice says, “Fenn this is the last time okay? You’re getting too old for this”). 

At night, especially in the winter, I would stare out my window at the snow. I wasn’t afraid of the dark, or the outside. Really, I wasn’t afraid of anything. But I knew scared children got to sleep in their parents bed. Cozied between the two people who are supposed to love them more than anything in the world. 

(Pause.) 

But I wasn’t a liar. And my mom wouldn’t tolerate me just barging in on a whim, I needed a reason. So I looked outside, and if I looked long enough and hard enough at the snow… (The sound of snowfall.) 

I would swear I saw faces. Both in the snowflakes themselves, and in culmination of them all, as if some great beast of snow was out to get me. 

(A roar.) 

I frightened myself sufficiently enough to be able to run out of bed, blanket and bunny in toe, to my parents room, and they’d let me crawl in next to them. 

(Pause.) 

They both slept with their backs to me. 

(FENN doesn’t know where to go next. 

She looks at the snowflake again. 

She counts the gaps. She nods. 

Delicately she puts the snowflake back in the box.) 

I still have trouble sleeping, I think my brain just moves too fast… or maybe too slow. I was never the brightest in the class. I mean I got A’s and all but there was always a caveat. 

(Different aggressive voices say, “Fenn Hawthorn, pay attention!”, “Another late”, “Please speak up!” 

A gentler voice says, “She’s just so sensitive”.) 

I am, I suppose. When I was little I would cry if anyone even remotely said no to me. I didn’t know why. I didn’t feel entitled, god knows I knew nothing belonged to me. But I would cry. So when mom would say things like: 

(A mother’s voice says, “Fenn this is the last time okay?“) 

I would cry. And because I didn’t know why I was crying, I cried harder. 

( A mother’s voice says, “Fenn that’s enough, I said no”. 

Pause.) 

Eventually I even started crying when she would say yes to me which seemed to make her even madder. 

( A mother’s voice says, “I told you yes, Fenn. What else do you want?”) 

I didn’t know what I wanted. I don’t know what I want. I guess… 

(The sound of a heart beating, and quiet frantic breathing begins. 

FENN counts the audience members again. 

The heart and the breathing slow till they stop.) 

The same. That’s good. 

(Pause.) 

I didn’t feel like crying anymore… it wasn’t worth it. 

(FENN shakes her head profusely.) 

So I stopped asking. That was the best solution. If I had problems, I could fix them myself. I knew I could, because if I just made my own world, my own rules, then one rule would be that nothing changed and that because nothing changed there were no problems and nothing needed to be asked for. It’s perfect. It’s clean. Everything had its place, everything had its count. And it never changed. 

(Pause. 

She stares at the box.) 

Things weren’t supposed to change. 

(Pause. 

She stares at the box. She goes to the table and picks up a feather.) 

FENN I used to pretend I was a god. 

(FENN uses the feather like it’s a sword as the sound of a great ancient war plays.) 

And that the grass, garden and driveway were all biomes under my control. And I would wage legendary holy wars against the ants that ravaged the peony’s and yellow jackets that invaded the tool shed. I could displace thousands with the step of my boot, and redirect whole river systems with my finger tips. 

(The war ends. A different war begins. A muffled male and female voices argue.) 

It got me out of the house. Everyone needs a hobby. 

(The argument ends and a door slams. She shrugs. ) 

My mom taught me that everyone needs a hobby. She said: 

(A mother’s voice, “A busy mind is a happy mind, remember that Fenn”.) 

I suppose she didn’t expect her husband’s hobby to be his massage therapist whom he apparently had been in love with since he was fourteen and kissed her at the water fountain during a sermon at the Methodist church. But… 

(Pause.) 

Whoopsies. 

(She chuckles. ) 

After that it was just me and my mom. A different count. And she had her hobbies. She was a master at crochet, knitting, sewing, needlepoint, rubber stamping, paper crafts, painting, thrifting, cooking, breadmaking, basket weaving, basketball, jogging, bird watching, fishing, swimming, kayaking, and… landscaping. 

(The sound of a bomb dropping.) 

Boom. There went my domain. But I found other ways to play. I had my hobbies, she had hers. That’s the way things are supposed to be. 

(FENN goes to the box and pulls out a lab coat, clipboard and large glasses. In a scholarly manner:) 

My new hobby became memorizing hers. Eighteen, that’s how many she had. I would read the books and pretend I was teaching college courses on the intricacies of counting stitches and weighing flour. It didn’t take me long to memorize the equation for crocheting in the round or how to make a perfect sourdough starter. My mom would get frustrated with me when I would show her where her equation went wrong or how if she didn’t let the mixture sit long enough the bread wouldn’t rise. She’d say, 

(A mother’s voice says, “Fenn, do you know what your name means?” 

Suddenly small.) 

The marshes? 

(A mother’s voice says, “Do you know what marshes are?”) 

Wetlands, like… like a swamp. 

(A mother’s voice says, “Silent.” 

FENN says nothing. She nods. 

The sound of a heart beating, and quiet frantic breathing begins. 

She starts taking off her costume and puts it back in the box. 

She counts the audience. She nods. 

The heart and the breathing slow till they stop.) 

I suppose we never really talked. My mother and I. I wish I could– I just wish that– (FENN looks back at the tea cup.) 

It was my fault. I was a burden. I was annoying. I never did anything right. (FENN starts breathing heavier.) 

But part of me wonders if there was ever a way to get it right. If there was the right amount of words to say I could say or questions I could ask or not ask, the perfect balance, the perfect equation to just make her listen to me! 

(Pause.) 

Why did she never listen to me? 

(FENN begins counting the flowers on the tea cup.) 

A few months before we found out she was sick, Mom invited me home for a little “tea party” or so she called it. 

(FENN smiles confused.) 

It was so childish. It wasn’t like her. But maybe things were different now I was out of the house. Maybe she felt like some sort of weight of expectation had been lifted from her, and she could just… play pretend. 

(FENN counts the flowers again.) 

She left me these tea cups. I wonder if she remembered they were the ones she used that day. Pause. 

She was so happy to see me… 

(A mother’s voice says, “My baby girl!” 

She’s small again.) 

Hi mom. 

(A mother’s voice says, “Well come inside!”) 

Okay. 

(Pause. 

FENN sits at the table and places the tea cup in front of her. 

A mother’s voice says, “How are you?”) 

I’m good. 

(A mother’s voice says, “Is that all?”) 

How are you? 

(A mother’s voice says, “Happier now that you're here.”) 

The kettle blows. She smiles and kisses my head. When she comes back from the kitchen she pours the tea, and we sit in tense silence. 

(A mother’s voice says, “Tell me about–”) 

Mom, why am I here? 

(A mother’s voice says, “I missed you.” 

Pause.) 

Mom? 

(A mother’s voice says, “What?”) 

Do you ever miss when I was little? 

(Pause. A long pause. 

FENN begins to smile before: 

A mother’s voice says, “Not really, I couldn’t wait for you to grow up.” 

FENN’s smile dissipates quickly. She sips tea and stares at the cup.) 

Thirty. The cups have thirty flowers on them each. 

(Pause. ) 

I know she didn’t say it to be cruel. I knew what she meant. She wanted to see me as my own person, adult and happy, successful. A gold star saying she did a good job. (FENN sighs.) 

Now I’m being cruel. She loved me. I know she did. She had to, right? Parents love their children, even if they have unsentimental ways of showing it. She let me do whatever I wanted. She let me be whatever I wanted, so I decided to be everything I could. Because if I was everything she couldn’t be mad at me for being the wrong thing, but I wish she was. I wish she would have argued with me more. I wish we had screaming matches, and real conversations instead of, 

(A mother’s voice says, “Okay, darling”) 

Or. 

(A mother’s voice says, “It’s up to you, darling”) 

Or. 

(A mother’s voice says, “I’m not getting involved, it's your mistake. Fix it.”) 

I wanted her to show me how to be. I craved it. Maybe if she helped me fix my mistakes she could’ve shown me that it’s okay that things change, its okay numbers get lost, it's okay that you counted 35 flowers when there were only 30, it’s okay! I wanted her to tell me it's okay when three becomes two so when two became one I would have been ready. 

(Pause.) 

I don’t know how to mourn something I’ve never had. 

(FENN begins packing up her box. She stops and pays extra special attention to the teacup. She takes out newspaper from the box and wants to wrap it but she can’t help counting the flowers. She stops herself. She takes the cup up to the light. 

The sound of a heart beating, and quiet frantic breathing begins. 

She throws it at the ground. It shatters. 

The heart and the breathing stop. 

FENN smiles. 

She takes out the snowflakes and tears them to pieces and throws them at the audience. She snaps the clipboard and glasses in half and tears at the lab coat. 

FENN laughs so hard it’s almost crying.) 

There are x number of you here in this room and I don’t care. 

I’m convinced I am real. 

(FENN looks at the carnage around her.) 

That was real. 

The end.