COME AND SLEEP

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This is a work in progress. The two brief scenes that follow are from a full-length play titled COME AND SLEEP based on a chap book of seventeen little poems by Steve Sanfield. In the middle of the two scenes is another scene titled The Coverlet of Tears that I have removed for this blog post. Let me know what you think.

Scene 3

The Fox Eye

(KITSUNE and POET enter a hotel room)

KITSUNE
We do a thing to keep safe.

POET
Safe from what?

KITSUNE
Bad foxes.

POET
(In an exaggerated Japanese accent) Ah so. Foxes.

KITSUNE
Ah so? Funny man. You have pencils?

POET
Not very sharp.

KITSUNE
No sweat. Now you give me two pencils.

POET
No sweat.

(POET rummages through his bag. KITSUNE goes to the closet and gets a coat hanger. POET gives her two pencils.)

KITSUNE
You have string?

POET
No, I don’t think so.

KITSUNE
Rubber bands.

POET
Nada.

KITSUNE
Paper clips.

POET
Bingo.

KITSUNE
No bingo. Paper clips.

POET
(Laughs) How many?

KITSUNE
Four.

POET
Here’s a handful. Knock yourself out.

KITSUNE
Why I want knock myself out?

POET
Just an expression. It means, take all you want.

KITSUNE
OK. I knock myself out. You take shower. You go in there. I make Fox eye.

POET
I take shower? You make Fox eye?

KITSUNE
Yes, go now. Get pretty clean. Smell better.

POET
Yes, mam.

(POET exits to bath room. KITSUNE begins to make the “Fox eye” from the clothes hanger, two pencils, and four paper clips. As KITSUNE works, Noh Drama music begins and KOHARU, as masked Tsure, enters from the hashigakari. The following scene is enacted in Noh Drama style.)

Scene 3

Shigure no Kotatsu
(the coverlet drenched with tears)

KOHARU
City of Osaka, once proud, is become decadent and cynical. In a poor section near the entertainment district, lives a woman of noble birth . . . Kitsune.

(KITSUNE’s work assembling the “Fox eye” becomes her house keeping chore.)

(in this space resides the deleted scene)

KITSUNE
I hear about the double suicide. I have sacrificed everything to prevent this horror. I strip off my holy robes, and wrap myself in my only possession, my tear-drenched coverlet, long hidden in the wall of my cell. I abandon the nunnery:

Two years
a nun
--useless exercise

I spit on Bushido code of honor. I defy my own karma. I make my way back to Osaka where I take employment in a second-hand bookstore. There I find this little book of anom . . . anum . . .

Scene 4

Now Sex Time

(POET sticks his head in from the bathroom where he has been listening.)

POET
Anonymous?

KITSUNE
Yes, anonymous, poems.


(POET returns from bathroom, naked, takes the coverlet and wraps it around his waist like a towel.)

POET
Smell better?

(KITSUNE smells the POET, not a little sniff from a distance, but all over, the way an animal smells another animal. She pulls his towel off and smells his crotch, his ass, his feet. It is quite matter of fact.)

KITSUNE
Yes, smell better. Smell like sex. Good sex.

POET
I’ve heard Japanese women don’t like to kiss on the mouth. Is that true?

KITSUNE
This Japanese woman kiss on mouth very much, but first we hang Fox eye. Bring chair over here.

(KITSUNE points to the center of the room. POET moves the chair to the center of the room as instructed. KITSUNE climbs on to the chair.)

KITSUNE
Hold this.

(KITSUNE hands POET the “Fox eye.” She unties the ribbon that holds her pony tail and shakes her hair loose, then indicating the “Fox eye.”)

Give me.

(She ties the ribbon to the hook of the coat hanger and stretches up toward the ceiling.)

Hold me.
(POET puts his hands on her waist.)

Tighter.
(POET steps closer and wraps his arms around her).

Tighter!

(POET squeezes her very hard).
Good.

(KITSUNE ties the ribbon to something on the ceiling, then gives the “Fox eye” a little spin. As it spins, the lights dim, and gigantic, distorted shadows of the “Fox eye” revolve around the room. She looks down at him.)

Now sex time.

(What happens is hard to see, and hard to understand. In a blur of incredible speed KITSUNE breaks free of the POET’s embrace and violently takes him to the ground. With yips, barks, and growls, they roll in a tangled frenzy across the floor until she subdues him and mounts him with her teeth on his throat. Growling low in her throat, KITSUNE begins to hump him.)

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