The Ascension

Curtains open to a stage lit by overhead lights. AOROI stands stationary in the centre, as sombre as an elder, as a chorus of five others dances around them, their outstretched hands brushing against AOROI, before they slow their dance down to stillness and arrange themselves around AOROI in a wide pentagon, making AOROI visible to the audience. AOROI stands for as long as they can, before their convulsions become too violent to stand, and they shrink down on their knees beneath the impassive, unchanged five others. They begin to cry against their will, attempting to hide it from the five, making it even more pathetically obvious. Between sobs, they begin to scratch at their sides, like a wild sheep attempting to scratch off their wool. Their scratches continually become more frantic, more uncontrollably compulsive, until AOROI takes their shirt off, struggling to shed this tight cocoon, exposing the red, raw marks their hands have left. The five others take a step back.

FIVE OTHERS: [In unison] We’re all here for you.

[AOROI attempts to hold their hands back, trapping them between their legs, but eventually they move back to their sides again, independently, compulsively, slowly scratching down the red marks.]

FIVE OTHERS: [In unison] You can talk to us if things are getting to you.

[AOROI keeps scratching at their sides, drawing blood, and their slow, supressed movements become more rapid and frantic again, digging into their flesh with their nails. As they claw at themselves, odd structures beneath their skin become increasingly apparent.]

FIVE OTHERS: [In unison] We’re here to help you.

[AOROI digs at their sides until two small, bony structures protrude, their ends still trapped within AOROI’s body. They pause, exhausted, losing blood, and catch their breath before clawing again at the trapped ends, gouging and pulling at them. Eventually, one wing flops out, and they rest again, collapsing further into the ground so that their whole body hugs the floor, limp as a child who feels upset for the first time.

Another five people dance onto the stage, each dancing around one of the original five, their outstretched hands brushing against each other, before the original five join in the dance, all circling each other, circling AOROI, in patterns gleefully.

After another rest, AOROI manages to claw and heave the second wing out: a mess of bones and tight skin, covered in red like a new-born baby, rising up and down as if breathing.

The overhead lights are extinguished audibly, replaced by sidelights pointing up, as strings connected to whirring pulleys lift AOROI up above the others, painfully, by the wings, outstretching them. Trumpets slowly build, like the gilded spires of a throne rising from the floor. AOROI trembles before flapping them, monstrous as a bat, and their shadow moves like a great bellows behind them, distorting into dark lungs over the walls.

Trumpets blare, regally, majestically. The others have finished their dancing and pause, looking up at AOROI, before exiting the stage at a mournfully slow pace, one by one. AOROI, looking back down, watches them go, slumped over weakly in the air, suspended on their wings of flesh in the perfect shape of a cross, dripping red from their points like a canvas. They open their mouth, and the trumpets play a triumphant melody.]

CURTAIN