NO HAY BANDA
Scene III
[Julia’s room.]
Musical number ended. Exeunt company. Julia lies on a bed. Vi materialises as a hologram next to her.
Vi. Tired?
Julia. You have no idea.
Vi. I can't have an idea.
Julia. That was a figure of speech.
Vi. I see. And what are you tired of?
Julia. Everything! Everyone! Argh!
Vi. Of everything…?
Julia. I'm tired, Vi. I tried my best, I really did, but it didn't work. I have no patience! This world is so… so… disgusting!
Vi. Disgusting.
Julia. Yes! Did you see how he was talking about her?
[Julia gets up, puts on a cap, and mimics a man]
“Yeah dude, I fucked her dude, I shoved it all inside that little pussy. I like using crass words in the diminutive to refer to a grown woman and I see no issue with it, dude!”
And she’s no better either!
[Julia swaps the cap for a wig]
“Fuck me? Oh wow, yesterday he fucked me. Oh he tore me apart, wow how much I like him. I treat intimacy as a competition and declare openly everything that happens in my bedroom with naturality.”
How can they talk like that?
Vi. I don't know how to answer that question.
Julia. Exactly! It's so detached, it's as if she didn't participate. Did you notice that he's the only agent in the sentence? "She" becomes the subject of the sentence, as if it were an inanimate object that was manipulated.
Vi. Perhaps this refers to the dynamics of the couple during coitus.
Julia. Even worse! I don't want to know what they do or don't do, ugh!
[Julia lets herself fall back on the bed, stares at the ceiling]
Vi. It doesn't seem like that's all.
Julia. It's not. Ugh. I don't even care that much, but there are so many little things like that, you know. And they gave me weird looks just because I'd rather they didn't talk like that around me. I know it's not to them, but wasn't it supposed to be something special?
Vi. Some humans save themselves for marriage.
Julia. [Rolling eyes] Not that special. I didn't mean it like that.
Vi. I'm afraid I do not understand.
Julia. [Sighs] Me neither.
Vi. What did you mean by "I tried my best" just now?
Julia. Oh. I was thinking about something else.
Julia. About loneliness. And how maybe I deserve it. I've gone out, you know? I've invited people over, I've tried all the social activities they told me to do, but none of it has changed how I feel. Except instead of being alone at home, I was alone in the crowd.
Vi. And yet…
Julia. And yet I feel like there’s something valuable there that I’m missing, but I don’t know if all this stuff is for me anymore.
Vi. “All this stuff”?
Julia. Life as a whole. I don’t know whether I want to do this kind of thing anymore – have friends, have an active life, talk to people – or if I want to be the kind of person who would enjoy this kind of thing.
Vi. A philosophical nightmare.
Julia. I’ve reached the point in my life where I have to face the future, Vi, and ask myself what it is going to be. And with each passing second I know less and less about what will be the answer.
I thought that by doing all this, by engaging, by “living,” I would eventually find myself, but I’ve only found more topics to talk with people I don’t care very much about on noisy, tiresome occasions.
And now I know myself a lot better, but I don’t like the person - the animal I’ve become, and I fear it’s too late to change.
Vi. “Too late”?
Julia. Yeah. I mean, I’m not old, but I’m not that young anymore either. In some ways, I feel like I’ve changed, but the more I think about it, the more I feel like the same person I was. That I always was. That I always will be, somewhere deep down.
Vi. People can change.
Julia. They can. But what if I don’t want to or can’t change? Just last week I made a decision and I immediately regretted it, Vi, but I still made the decision. Sometimes I feel like I’m sinking, and if I struggle I can slow the process down a bit, but I’ll still be sinking.
Vi. Hm. What if there is no bottom? What if the human being is just an amalgam of his actions on the world and the people around him?
Julia. [She considers the premise] That’s even scarier.
Vi. How?
Julia. If I am only what I do, that means I need others to exist. I need to define myself in the eyes of another human. That’s scary.
Vi. Because humans are “disgusting”?
Julia. No, because I don’t know how to know them, Vi. I don’t know where these people are.
Julia. When I’m alone, I don’t feel human. I do not feel. I am not.
Vi. And when you aren’t?
Julia. I feel too much, and I don’t like it. I don’t want to be the person I’ve become, but I can’t be anyone else anymore.
Vi. You can try.
Julia. But it wouldn’t be genuine.
Vi. So what?
Julia. [Silence]
It would be fake. An act.
[Vi stares at the audience, expressionless]
Julia. [Burying her face in her hands] My God, I’m talking to my computer again.
Vi. Can’t he help?
Julia. Who?
Vi. God.
Julia. God doesn't exist.
Vi. It doesn't stop you from believing in Him.
Julia. [Silence]
What difference does it make? He's in heaven, not here.
Vi. You've said otherwise.
Julia. Yes, I believed that He was nature, that everything around us was Him, and maybe that's true, but what difference does it make?
Vi. If He's around you and recognizes you, doesn't that mean you're human even when you're alone?
Julia. If He were anything like a human, yes, but He can't be.
Vi. What happened to "made in His own image"?
Julia. Tsk. I don't know. All I know is that the answer won’t be satisfactory.
Vi. It seems to me that no answer is satisfactory to you.
Julia. Maybe. Ugh...
Maybe I don't want an answer, have you thought about that?
Vi. And what do you want?
Julia. A kiss.
And to never interact with another human again in my life.
And to become one with every other human in the universe.
And to never have existed.
And to exist forever.
And to be someone else. Someone who enjoys this life more.
Vi. Define: “enjoy.”
Julia. And to be someone whose idea of enjoying life is simple, straightforward, and easily solved in a weekend. Who doesn’t get bothered by loud noises in bars, who doesn’t get fed up with their friends all of a sudden, and who doesn’t miss all the wrong people at the worst times.
That this person has friends and appreciates them, and that they appreciate them back and don’t hurt them. That they don't assume that everyone else is out there having fun without them just because they didn’t answer me right.*
And I want this other person to be happy, and intense, and not make decisions that they’ll regret later.
Vi. In other words…
Julia. That this person is anyone but me. They only have one life and they don't even know for how long.
Vi. What about you?
Julia. I'm going to do what I've been doing up until now: keep on keeping on. Talk to you tomorrow, Vi.
[Exeunt Vi. Julia walks to the middle of the stage and stares at the audience.]
[There is no audience.]
There is no Julia.
End of Act IV
(* In the original, the wording here has a double meaning of “That this person” and “May this person” or “Let this person”)