A single character
I.
1. It was Wednesday when I started talking to myself outloud
(INT. BEDROOM – NIGHT. In the background, in her head, we can hear System of a Down – Toxicity. She twists in bed, tries to sleep, squeezes her head in her hands. Down by the bed, the notifications from a phone keep beeping – she checks the phone every time)
THE BRAIN: SHUT UP!
(She suddenly gets out of bed, turns on the light, looks around, goes around the room. She is having a panic attack.)
THE BRAIN: Yo, there is no one here! Go to sleep! Until tomorrow morning you don’t have to submit any reports, you don’t have to do anything, absolutely nothing. Breathe and go to bed, fuck them, can’t you see that they are terrorists with their emails in the middle of the night? And switch off that phone!
THE HEART: What if there is an emergency?
THE BRAIN: Yeah, right, you were suddenly working at 911. Look at me, I started talking out loud. You’re not working at 911, but that’s where you’ll end up at this rate. And me alongside you! No more, that’s all that’s all that’s missing: to go crazy! And I told you to switch off that phone!
THE HEART: What if HE calls?
THE BRAIN: Your mother calls! How many times has he called since you divorced? Don’t you understand that that number will never ring for you again?
(She takes the phone and shuts it nervously)
THE BRAIN: If you don’t let me sleep, I swear I’ll call 911.
THE HEART: And what do you tell them?
THE BRAIN: To come and take me to the crazies. Why? Cause I can’t hear my thoughts anymore because of how much noise is in my head.
THE HEART: Yeah, well, what will those say?
THE BRAIN: What are your symptoms, miss? Well, I’m talking to myself. But that’s not the problem, Doctor, cause I’ve been talking to myself since forever. The problem is, now I’m starting to talk out loud. Hey, can you hear yourself? Well, yes, that’s the problem, ’em. Shut up and go to bed, tomorrow we’ve got work to do! If you don’t crack by tomorrow, then we’ll see.
(She turns off the light, lays down back on the bed, she tosses and turns. System of a Down – Toxicity is on again. She sits in the fetal position and begins to sway like a child… goes from System of a Down – Toxicity to Nina Simone – Ain’t got no. Mix between the two songs. As she sways, we hear only Ain’t got no slower and slower. She falls asleep.)
(INT. BEDROOM. MORNING – In the background, in her head, is heard System of a Down – Toxicity)
THE BRAIN: Are you dead?
THE BRAIN (stabs the finger to the heart): Yo! Are you dead?
THE HEART: For a brain you’re not too smart. If I was dead, you couldn’t ask anything. Medically speaking, I can live without you, but you can’t live without me.
THE BRAIN: Yes, yes, very funny. In fact, you can only survive without me, not live. Without me, you’d be like … a vegetable … well, that wouldn’t be much different from now. Plus, a heart transplant can be done, but not a brain transplant.
THE HEART: Mhm…
THE BRAIN: And if you were interested in reading anything other than love stories, you would have found out that medicine has evolved … there is an auntie somewhere in the world who lives with a mechanical heart in a backpack that she carries around. So, fuck off, you’ve become replaceable!
THE HEART: Well… replace me then… At least I won’t feel anymore.
THE BRAIN: If I had money, I swear to God I would replace you, cause you are driving me crazy with your feelings. But we don’t have any money, do we? Don’t you know why we don’t have? Don’t you know who quit her job to be an artist, to write, and wrote nothing? I mean, nothing valuable… quantifiable in money. Be grateful for at least taking this contract.
(She turns on the other side)
THE BRAIN: Come on, drop the act and pump more talentedly, we have work to do and you’re blocking me.
(She turns on the other side ă)
THE HEART: Leave me alone! I want to suffer my suffering in peace.
THE BRAIN: You will suffer later, there is no time now, we have work to do.
THE HEART: Well, you do the work because you’re the smart brain, I’m just the stupid heart, what do you want from me?
THE BRAIN: You’re keeping my processor stuck with your old-fashioned sorrows… but why didn’t he love me? What if I would have done the opposite? But what if I would have been more… I don’t know how? Why… I don’t know what and I don’t know how? I have no answers to these idiotic questions of yours and you take up my space in vain.
(In the background, Toxicity is heard in her head again)
THE BRAIN: 200 for maintenance. Phone 70. Taxes 3000. 3000 … where from? Fuck me when I accepted to be a freelance, independence my ass! Pfff… I have to finish that report.
THE BRAIN: And if you don’t pump properly, the oxygen won’t get to me and it’s like I’m short-circuiting, I can’t get all these thoughts in order.
THE BRAIN: They say I’m supposed to save 10% on my pension. Are these guys crazy, with their financial advice, 10% from what, when there’s nothing left? I’m going to be a homeless old lady with no pension and nothing. And I don’t feel like losing this job because of you!
THE HEART: I don’t want to work for these terrorists anymore. Don’t you understand that I didn’t even have time to cry?
THE BRAIN: Yo, cut the act, we need money and you want time to cry? After you screwed us over with your love, now you won’t even let me work? Aren’t you looser enough?
THE BRAIN: It’s going to take me at least 5 months to get back on my feet. Ah, and the installement! Good thing we took a loan to run off to the island together. Wow, I swear to Good, you were so fucking stupid!
THE HEART: Me? Was it me the one that got us in shit? Really?
THE BRAIN: But who? Me? Weren’t you the one that wanted love, marriage, children, weren’t you the one who chose him and chose him wrong? Did I have a say when you threw yourself like a cow with your head forward?
(The alarm goes off – Nina Simone – Ain’t got no)
THE BRAIN: And change this damn depressing alarm. What? Don’t you already know that we have nothing, you have to hear it sung every morning?
(She turns off the alarm)
THE HEART: You talk a lot, you know?
THE BRAIN: Good thing you’re quiet and weak and sensitive. You talk, why don’t you talk?
THE HEART: How could I? I can’t even hear myself because of you. You have to shut up before I can hear myself and speak.
THE BRAIN: Yes, of course I’m talking, I feel like I’m exploding, I’m not functioning properly anymore, I can’t keep my thoughts in order. You think I wouldn’t want to be quiet here in my head?
THE HEART: I can’t stand you anymore!
(She gets out of bed, goes to the desk, pulls out a pencil and a notebook, and starts writing something with her left hand.)
THE BRAIN: What are you doing?
THE HEART: I’m writing.
(She pulls the pencil from her left hand with her right hand and puts it on the desk)
THE BRAIN: No, no more writing! If you’re going to write something, you’re going to write that report. That’s paid! I mean, I’ll write it, if you’ll leave me alone with your annoying sufferings. Let me see… what you wrote? Tear-jerking aberrations, of course! Fucking write something concrete, real, cause the world is tired of… Here, from now on I write: Look: concretely: It was Wednesday when I started talking to myself outloud! At lest, this way, those people will know what happened when they come to drive us to the crazies.
2. I wore turquoise sneakers the day my body was smarter than me
(INTERIOR. BEDROOM. Dressed casually, running tights, T-shirt, turquoise sneakers. In the background we hear again Toxicity – in her head. She looks at her laptop, tries to type something, but fails. The phone keeps ringing. Every time it rings, she immediately turns it off and looks at the screen flashes. She paces around the room like a lion in a cage. She is breathing more and more jerkily, almost having a panic attack. She slams the lid on her laptop, the phone rings again, she grabs it and suddenly answers.)
THE BRAIN: I know everyone is waiting for it, but I can’t. I am sorry. My brain is stuck. I can’t explain, my body simply refuses to listen to me. It opposes organically every time I approach the laptop.
THE HEART: I don’t know what to tell them. That it’s going to take longer. If they can’t wait, we break up the contract and that’s it. I gotta run.
(She hangs up the phone. In the background we hear FUN – CARRY ON – my head is on fire, but my legs are fine. She starts to breathe jerky again, bends down in an exercise to adjust her breathing. Her gaze stops over the turquoise sneakers she wears)
THE BRAIN: Yeah, that’s it, I gotta run.
(She pulls on a sweatshirt, puts her iPod headphones on, and starts running – we keep hearing FUN – CARRY ON)
3. A fatty was eating shawarma the day I started training my heart
(EXTERIOR. STREET. DAY. In the background we hear Matt Holubowski – Exhale/Inhale –hiding from all my demons)
THE BRAIN: What are you looking at, yo, haven’t you seen people running at 3 in the afternoon? Come on, forget about them, inhale, exhale.
THE HEART: Can they see on my face that I’m running so I don’t lose my mind?
THE BRAIN: What the fuck are you looking at, like an ox? Yo, how come you are bursting into tears just like that, you cry like a cow on the street, wait at least to get to the park. That’s right, my friend, talk on the phone and eat some more shawarma, cause you’re already really skinny.
THE HEART: Yo, don’t be an asshole. You think it’s easy for him? Can you imagine how hard it is to be fat and have to lose weight? You’ve been thin all your life, you have no idea what he’s going through.
THE BRAIN: Come on, give me a break with your non-judgments and your fucking empathy, cause they’ve only got us in shit. What can I say, you see the good in people, poor them, victims who are all traumatized from childhood. What, was he born obese? Did he wake up like that overnight? Let him do something! Can’t you see he’s not stopping, he keeps eating that his cheeks swell and he can’t even see me on the crosswalk?
THE HEART: Good thing you’re the smart one… When you’re in the pit, you don’t have the strength to do anything. If only I’d be run over, I’d have an extended medical leave, maybe they would give me pain killers.
THE BRAIN: You have it, you don’t have it, you have to find it, you have to do something concrete! What medical leave? Have you forgotten that you haven’t paid your taxes yet and that you don’t have insurance? You are not allowed to get sick. Didn’t you want to be a freelancer?
THE HEART: Yes, but at least I’m free to run at 3:00 in the afternoon when others are at the office.
THE BRAIN: Yes, great achievement, what can I say. All the homeless could run at 3 in the afternoon, but they’re fainting from starving… the same you’re going to end up if you don’t do something. Come on, watch where you’re crossing.
THE HEART: Maybe I should tattoo myself like those people in the U.S., Don’t call an ambulance if I fall down the street, because it’s too expensive to hospitalize me. Better to let me die quickly, because I die slowly every day anyway.
THE BRAIN: Do you start with the self-pity again? You’re not dead yet. And the problem is… what if you don’t die? What if you’re run over unevenly and you remain disabled, that’s what you need, to be both poor and crippled, cause you’re already having a demented success in men, look at them… standing in line, one better than the other.
THE HEART: I’m tired, I can’t run anymore, I have to stop.
THE BRAIN: No, come on, come on, come on! Until it’s quiet inside me, you don’t stop. Until these tears stop, you don’t stop. Better crack than see you like this again.
THE HEART: Look, the entrance to the park. When I get to the lake, I stop, I can’t pump anymore, I can’t breathe.
THE BRAIN: Okay, but only when you get to the lake. Come on, one more step, left, right, inhale, exhale. My head is on fire, my legs are mine, my head is on fire, my legs are mine… my head is on fire… What the fuck you’re bursting into tears every time I breathe?
THE HEART: Cause I haven’t breathed in three months. He left me breathless. Don’t you understand I died that day when it ended? That I don’t want to breathe anymore? That I don’t want this world without him?
THE BRAIN: Do you start with dramatization again? Stop forcing me to think about it now… Here’s the lake, look at the ducks.
THE HEART: God, it’s so good when the sun caresses me. And how good it must be to be a duck. Look, they’ve got family, the duck, the duckling, the little dwarves lined up… the natural order of things. Where on earth did I go wrong??
THE BRAIN: Can you enjoy this sun and give me at least five minutes without all these stupid questions that have no answers? And if you really want to know, you were wrong that you were a stupid goose and you trusted… No, you weren’t a duck, but you were close. You think this drake wouldn’t divorce if there was divorce in their world? Especially if the duck would threw a pot at his head, do you think the drake wouldn’t run away into the wide world?
THE HEART: First of all, I didn’t throw it at his head, stop making things up. I took it off the stove and threw it in the sink.
THE BRAIN: True, he freaked out like a pussy. What, he thought you were going to beat him up?
THE HEART: And look, this drake have had five little ducks with this duck, he didn’t tell her he didn’t know if he wanted little ducks. But if he will ever wants to will be with her… but that he doesn’t know now. That if he had said that, the duck would probably have thrown the pot… well, whatever… a rock or whatever she found on the lake.
THE BRAIN: Yeah, honey, but the drake isn’t millennial… we millennials are really confused, haven’t you seen the studies? And why are we still talking about him? Are we going to start over again with the analysis and the over-analysis? Give me a break, come on, run!
THE HEART: But I still don’t understand!
THE BRAIN: You have nothing to understand! It’s over and done! Come on, run before I explode!
THE HEART: But I can’t do it anymore, I’m tired.
THE BRAIN: Yes, you can. At least that’s what you can do. As long as I’m still thinking and not quietly, it means you can still, go ahead!
THE HEART: Up to the bridge, I don’t think I can do more.
THE BRAIN: Up to the bridge and from there we’ll see. Can’t you see it’s better? At least I stopped thinking about the terrorists at work.
THE HEART: If they break off the contract with me, what am I going to do? I’m not just going to be without a husband, without kids at 35, without knowing what to do with my life, I’m going to be without a job, too.
THE BRAIN: Eh, maybe there will be a contest: Loser of the Year!
THE HEART: Yes, I would win it…
THE BRAIN: Come on, don’t start whining again, there is something called joke, remember? They are not going to break off any contracts, who else can stand them? Can’t you see they’re pulling on you like chewing gum and they’ve all quit before you? Take it slow, come on, it’s already better, look, you’re breathing and you’re not crying anymore. And it’s like there’s no more panic up here.
THE HEART: Yeah…
THE BRAIN: That’s it, I know what we’re going to do! We’re going to wake up every morning at 5:00 and go for a run. Look, I’m suddenly in the mood to write that report.
THE HEART: Yeah right… Have you given it much thought, Forest Gump?
THE BRAIN: Look who started having a sense of humor again. Yo, I don’t care what else you do, but five to six every morning you move your ass and do this thing. Don’t argue with me about this, because I won’t take it. I’m clearing things up here in the attic and you’re going to become a trained heart, you’re a muscle after all.
THE HEART: Hmmm… a heart trained to withstand disasters. That doesn’t sound bad, I could write it.
THE BRAIN: Are you starting again? You’re not writing anything!
THE HEART: Yes, I’ll write… I wore turquoise sneakers the day my body was smarter than me.
THE BRAIN: Yes, super creation…. What does it mean, yo, the body was smarter than me? I said concretely, stop writing weed: concretely, look: A fatty ate shawarma the day I started training my heart.
(In the background we can hear Sia – Elastic Heart – thick skin and an elastic heart)
II.
4. The ones who do, they escape
(INTERIOR. BEDROOM. MORNING. She writes, dressed in sportswear, but not wearing shoes. In the background Nina Simone – Ain’t got no)
THE HEART: I’ve got no house in installments, I’ve got no car in installments, I’ve got no husband… in installments or not, I’ve got no child, I’ve got no dog, I’ve got no book written… or some act of great courage. By Romanian and international standards, I am a loser.
THE BRAIN: Yeah, well, we’ve already established that, do you have to write it down? Are we going to do this every morning? Put your running shoes on and spare me the whining.
THE HEART: I can’t…
THE BRAIN: THE BRAIN: You can’t? Is that what you said? You’re allowed to tell me anything else in this life, except that. You turned into him? I can’t? I don’t know? Is that how you want to be? An impotent in your own life? If only he couldn’t get it up, then I’d agree to say… I can’t! But no, man, these guys that have it all and working properly, poor them… they are the ones that can’t, they are the ones that don’t know. Did you see that man with no hands feeding his child with his toes? If that man can, you have no excuse. You want to sit like this in a lukewarm, miserable soup, like mister? You’re going to put on your sneakers and run until I’m quiet in the head, you hear me? You want us both to escape alive and whole? You must do! You must run for your life! Not the ones who can, they escape, but the ones who do! Well, that’s not for sure either, but at least there’s a chance. Here, write this down! (with the right takes the pencil from the left, cuts everything she wrote and writes): The ones who do, they escape!
(She puts on her sneakers and runs out)
5. I was 52 kilos when I started saying NO
(EXTERIOR. STREET. DAY. In the background we hear Matt Holubowski – Exhale/Inhale)
THE BRAIN: How the hell do I get tears in my eyes every time I start running? It’s like I’m Pavlov’s dog. It’s embarrassing, I don’t have any self-control anymore. What are you looking at, auntie? Haven’t you ever seen people crying while running? These are not tears… it’s sweat. The antiperspirant I’m using it’s so great that there’s no sweat coming out of my armpit, it’s coming out through my eyes, there!
THE BRAIN: I feel like slapping you, I can’t stand you crying over a… murderer! How about I slap you twice when you cross? Like that in plain sight, in front of everyone. Pac-Pac! Do you think anyone would get off from behind the wheel to intervene or this falls into a domestic violence area and everyone watches like at circus but nobody does anything? Eh… no one does anything, they are all filming nowadays, televised circus, reporting: a young woman with turquoise sneakers slapped herself in the middle of the road. Until the closing of the edition, we couldn’t find exactly why, the young… well, not so young, she ran away and refused to give statements… but we think she knows very well why she slapped herself… we’re sure she’s done something to look for it, that you just don’t get beat up for nothing! As a result, family violence prevention associations made a viral video on Facebook that they didn’t have enough money to solve the problem in essence, and the authorities said they don’t get involved between husband and wife, so no way they are going to intervene in these internal conflicts, between you and yourself. It’s too dangerous. In the end, we assume she got tired of being stupid, and that’s why she’s been groping herself, much to the amusement of the traffic participants.
THE BRAIN: But I really haven’t seen other people crying in the street. Is it you the only one who suffers? Or are they all introverts? There’s indeed no one serene, they all seem sour, but, at least, they don’t cry. I’m sure they have their own problems, but they keep them to themselves. Can’t you also be introverted, you have to show off like that everywhere?
THE HEART: I don’t want to be sour. I want to be serene. Again. And I kept it to myself, but it’s too much. And when I run, the valve opens and everything gets out…
THE BRAIN: No worries, I will close it! What if everyone would be walking down the street with their snotty out of crying or screaming in anger?
THE HEART: Maybe they’d be more real and I wouldn’t feel like the only one flawed. Thus, everyone’s in their small, closed, robotic universe. I walk with my heart dissected through the world, the streets, among people who have no idea, they don’t even notice that my heart is out of my chest.
THE BRAIN: Are you starting again? What’s that?
THE HEART: Poetry.
THE BRAIN: Aaah… That’s what was missing, poetry… Great, that’s what the world needs… poetry… I’m sure you’re going to make a lot of money out of this. Come on, speed up, you’re starting to talk nonsense again.
THE HEART: Yes, I want to sprint like I did when I was a kid.
(she sprints race)
THE HEART: Oh, how good it is! The feet are running without me… I’m flying… Freedom… finally!
THE BRAIN: No, no, no… Wait, I’m getting dizzy…
THE HEART: Shhh… Didn’t you want peace? One more!
THE BRAIN: No… waaaait…
(she sprints, cries, laughs, maximum happiness.)
THE BRAIN: Yo, stop, I’m fainting here and no one’s picking you up from the ground.
(When she stops, she can no longer stand, she is panting, lies on the grass)
THE HEART: I’m resigning!
(The brain is perplexed for a few good seconds, it doesn’t recover from the effort)
THE BRAIN: Yo, you’ve left me without oxygen, I see foggy, you’re batshit crazy, you haven’t run sprints in 20 years and you throw yourself like this! Inhale, exhale…
(In the background we hear Matt Holubowski – Exhale/Inhale )
THE HEART: Inhale, exhale… But I’m breaking off the contract, I resign!
THE BRAIN: Boy, that’s what you do with everything, you don’t dose your energy, you throw yourself into chaos completely and will explode one day and me along with you. That’s what you did with the island and the other resignations and the marriage and… and with… That’s why we got here!
THE HEART: This is the only way to live freely, let’s all plunge headlong!
THE BRAIN: No! No more, no more! I’m tired of your freedoms, your plungings, your sprints like a disoriented Superman, after which I lie in the grass on my back, passed out. That’s not freedom, that’s kamikaze, bro! You are not resigning anymore! Starting today I’m saying NO! If you don’t stop resigning, I’m leaving. I’m leaving you! I’m going to short-circuit here in the brain and we’re going to go to the crazies, at least that’s how I know you’re going to have a roof over your head and food… Well, I won’t know anything, but I guess you’ll have these insured… But you know it’s not like in the movies, a holiday in a rich center, with quiet and handsome doctors… It’s with shit and bars, with other lunatics like you who steal your pajamas and spit on you and scream, with pills pushed down on your throat while you’re going to sit with saliva in the corner of your lips, knowing nothing about what’s going on around you and they’re going to tie you up… And eventually they’re going to send you home anyway because they’re not going to keep you there forever… Well, on the street, cause you won’t have a home… Let’s see then that you have to work 1000 times harder to reintegrate yourself and you won’t be any good in your head, you’ll be a walking vegetable and you’ll wish you’d have fought now, to prevent. Yeah, they’re going to tie you up… Let’s see your freedom then…
THE HEART: Don’t you understand that these people are killing me with 15 hours of work a day? And if only I were to pack something mechanical, not having to think, just move my hands there and that’s it, but no, I’m the director of the ass, I have to think, to strategize when I don’t even have the head to do the strategy of my own life. And from what I do more, they want more, but they don’t pay more, and after I draw the line after taxes, two and a half pennies… and I don’t even have time to breathe, I don’t even have time to cry.
THE BRAIN: Eh… you don’t cry, you cry, what, do you think I didn’t see, you think I don’t know? From sleep you start cry in the morning before I wake up. And in the evening when I start falling asleep and I’m not so lucid anymore… And when I start running and when you start eating, I don’t understand how the hell you’re crying when you start eating? You’ve lost 7 kilos, you are 52, if only you’d had 100 from where to give… but you’ve become a shadow… I need sleep, rest, food, where should I get my energy from? You just want to cry…
THE HEART: Yeah, cause you never let me finish! I cry for 2 minutes and you wake up and stop me.
THE BRAIN: Well, if it were up to you, you’d cry for a thousand years and you wouldn’t stop! An eternal suffering! Romanian style… Haven’t you seen that American women don’t suffer until they die, like Europeans? Those drink and run until it passes. You want to sit and lie down and feel sorry for yourself like in a European artistic film festival, in which no one does anything, they just constantly suffer. Give me a break, better yet give me a Hollywood one, without so many emotions, but more action!
THE HEART: Yes, look, I want to be like this blade of grass. To sit in the sun and do nothing, to just sit like this for a while, letting time flow over me. There should be a divorce leave of absence, a suffering leave. Why when someone dies, they give you at least three days to bury the dead, to cry, but not after a divorce? People take you for granted, but you’re no longer good, you’re not 100% whole, you’re defective, you’re disabled for a while. They should also give you a disability aid… but this is not visible, you are not lacking anything physical, but you’re lacking a big chunk of yourself, and you’re like this… crumpled, disoriented. It’s like you flew out of a slingshot and now you’re confused in the air. Let me land in a bush, to hide from myself and people for a while, until a child finds me and start playing with me. Or let no one find me and let the grass grow on me, turn me into a blade of grass and sit like this.
THE BRAIN: Do you think this blade of grass just sits like this? It might seem like that to you, but it’s growing up, not sitting. It grows a fraction of a millimeter each day. That’s what you don’t understand. That’s the natural rhythm of the world, not that crazy speed you put in when you start pumping exuberantly, tearing everything down left and right. Nothing grows at the speed of light, but the whole world has the feeling that it moves if it shakes from morning to evening. But all it does is spinning in circles, in chaos, like my thoughts, and at the end of the day it doesn’t solve anything, nothing essential, it accumulates more things, but it’s empty.
THE HEART: Now you’ve started with the philosophy?
THE BRAIN: Yes, in a strange way, after your crazy sprints, it’s like it’s quieter in the attic, I see somehow clearer.
THE HEART: Okay, so we agree, I’m resigning.
THE BRAIN: No way! When I said that sprints made me see more clearly, they made me see clearly that sprints are a mistake, which got us in big shit. They’re for kids. No more sprints, we have to go to the marathon, to the adult version. That life isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. You still run some sprint races, but one on top of the other, it’s a long race.
THE HEART: But I didn’t ask to sign up for this long race.
THE BRAIN: No one asked for it, but you’re allowed to exist in all this beauty. Since you’re born, you only have two choices: give up or stand up! And since you haven’t stuck a knife in your jugular yet, I understand you don’t have suicidal material, you’re not giving up… so it remains to fight and whatever it comes out, comes out. At least you’ll learn to live life, not let it live you. Just like this blade of grass, that’s what we’re going to do, a fraction of a millimeter a day. Step by step. Like running. Every day we add an extra 100 meters to the running. And you don’t resign. The first step is to learn to say NO! No more than 100 extra meters a day, no crazy sprints until after you train well, and to these guys have to say NO to them, give them back tasks. Everything that exceeds 8 hours a day is NO.
THE HEART: Yeah, well, good thing I’m not resigning, they’re going to fire me.
THE BRAIN: That’s their choice, you can’t control it. You can only control yourself. And you have the right to say NO. To those who ask too much, to those who ask for things that bend you, to those who want a piece of your brain, of me, but they don’t want to pay, to those who mock you. Hold your ground, don’t burn everything anymore, but you learn to say no! And we’ll see what happens…
THE HEART: But there are things that need to be done…
THE BRAIN: Very good, let it all be done. But not all of by you. They want more, they should give you more resources, hire more people to do them. Or clone you, their choice!
THE HEART: But I don’t know how to say no…
THE BRAIN: Just like that… No, No, No, No, Repeat after me. N… O… N….O. No! And smile.
THE HEART: Hmmm… I could write this… Smile when you say NO!
THE BRAIN: Give me break with the poetry… and run… left, right, step by step. Left, right… And if anyone’s going to write, I’m writing concretely: I was 52 kilos when I started saying NO!
(In the background we hear Matt Holubowski – Exhale/Inhale)
6. Let’s kill the killer with stones!
(EXTERIOR. STREET. DAY. In the background we hear Jamie Woon – Shoulda )
THE BRAIN: Now what? Not only did they not fire you, but they also increased your salary, and you still won’t give me a break with this crying?
THE HEART: –
THE BRAIN: Or are you crying with joy? You didn’t expect that, huh? I swear to God… the way these terrorists act… they said they were waiting for the moment when you were going to ask for your rights… that it’s a sign of self-esteem. Motherfuckers, they were doing it on purpose….see, man… the way people are? If you’re merciful and give them everything you have, they don’t appreciate… they only trample on you as much as you allow them. I still don’t understand why you’re crying…
THE HEART: Forget it, let’s run…
THE BRAIN: No, now if you started crying, spit it out. Come on, come on, I’m in a good mood. Oh… The asshole, that’s it, right? We got to this chapter…
THE HEART: Stop calling him that…
THE BRAIN: What? Chapter?
THE HEART: Asshole…
THE BRAIN: Oh, sure, I won’t call him that anymore… What do you want me to call him? The not-asshole? The loving one? The honest one? The Man? The responsible one? The brave one? The mighty one? I’ll call him what he fucking is: lying asshole, cowardly, feeble, traitorous, the one who abandons, criminal. Dream killer. This is who he is! Mamma’s little boy, who doesn’t want to grow up and use his balls! Ballsless, that’s it, that’s what we’ll call him… ballsless! Better than the asshole, right? Come on, let’s debate the ballsless instead of enjoying the sun and the green… Maybe his time has come, come on, I’m in good shape today! So… Why are you crying after mister?
THE HEART: –
THE BRAIN: No, nothing? Okay… we’ll just run then… There’s your crooked tree, your favorite… Go and hug him as usual. Beats me why you like only these defected ones…
(She embraces the crooked tree)
THE HEART: It’s not defective… or if you want… we’re all defective one way or another and that makes us beautiful… it’s different… and it’s very beautiful as it is!
THE BRAIN: (She makes a face sticking out her tongue like a child with a snoring noise)
Yeah, what can I say, you should have started an NGO, to protect crooked trees and men with soul disabilities… blasé intellectuals, incapable of action. Listen! Don’t you want to find one like these workers type, in jumpsuit and a dirty bit of Vaseline… The type that comes home hungry, hard-worked, tired, but with a lust for… Life… to stick you to the walls instead of philosophizing about immortality of the soul? At least you know one thing, I sit quiet down here, everyone’s happy.
THE HEART: I was happy. And he said he was too, and he actually seemed happy, everything seemed detached from stories… I don’t understand where I screwed up so bad… That’s the problem. How did he go from… happily ever after to… nothing at all? How did he go from… when I’ll die, I’ll leave five minutes earlier to wait for you so you won’t be afraid… How did he go from this to… to shut-down completely, closed road, dead end, wall?
THE BRAIN: Yeah, the asshole was romantic! (sighs)
THE HEART: (sighs)
THE BRAIN: That’s the cool part with intellectuals… they speak nicely. But it’s also the bad part, that even they believe the stories they tell you. Until they have to act. Do you remember where he got stuck?
THE HEART: When it came to children…
THE BRAIN: Yeah, right… When you said kids, it was like you said aliens that’s how he looked at you. Say what? And you want three??? Three aliens? It was like his programs were starting to crash, his head was moving like a broken robot… Come on, stop crying, you big little fool…
THE HEART: Well, he didn’t want kids with me… So he didn’t love me or I’m defective…
THE BRAIN: Oh, man… you drove me crazy with this love. And not only you, everywhere I go, the only thing I hear is love, love, love… big words like that… What the hell exactly does love mean? Concrete!
THE HEART: I don’t know what it is for others, but for me it’s… that feeling in which your heart warms and enlarges so much that can no longer fit in you, it grows so much that it is no longer in you, it expands and embraces you altogether until you get to be inside it like in a giant balloon. And when the other one feels the same, you’re two giant heart-shaped balloons floating and dancing together and inside it you’re two little ones staring with big eyes, fascinated by this sublime flight. And when the balloon bursts, you fall into the void and remain stripped of your heart and small as you were before.
THE BRAIN: Yeah, great, very concrete… You’re killing me! I understood nothing!
THE HEART: Well, concretely, when the heart gets that big, you start giving out of its overfill… each what has: time, beautiful words, caresses, money who has money, services, poems, cheesecake, common road, stories… each whatever has in his overflow. So love is generosity.
THE BRAIN: Aaah… why didn’t you say so? Then, he loved you, you stupid woman, at least you weren’t wrong about that, because I saw it with my clear eyes. That’s why you moved in together after a week and you were happy for two years more than others in 50 and you were crying like two fools with snots of gratitude that you finally found each other, that’s why he used to kiss you under the sea while he was spinning you so you’d feel like the earth was spinning with you, that’s why he’d draw hearts with the marker on your back and play hide-and-seek with you around the house even though you were 30 years old, that’s why he would bring you flowers and cheesecake without any occasion and you would lie down like a child on top of him and you would stand like a single body with two hearts, that’s why he came to take his crazy woman back home when you went off to the island, that’s why you married on a boat in the middle of the sea and he didn’t make you do churches and in-laws and the things you hate.
THE HEART: Well then?
THE BRAIN: Well then what?
THE HEART: How did all this go away and there was nothing left?
THE BRAIN: They’re not gone, don’t you see they’re not gone? Fuck it! They stuck here and I’m afraid they’re always gonna be, I carry them with me and I’ll have them on my retina for a lifetime. Sometimes I want to hinder myself, maybe I’ll fall on my head and end up with amnesia. But I’m afraid I’m gonna be left with a big scar on my face and no amnesia.
THE HEART: But I don’t understand… If they were real, how did he suddenly stop?
THE BRAIN: He got scared, man, what don’t you understand? He freaked out when he heard about the kids, I saw him shaking his head just like when you hid on the block ladder and jumped in his back like a thief when he put the keys in the door. Or like when you hid under the foil left over from the painting and when he got his hands on it, you jumped out of there and he almost went into cardiac arrest. His head was shaking the same way. He freaked out like a kid when he heard about the kids. That he’s a kid. You were a kid too. Two kids to raise three kids?
THE HEART: But he was the first to say that his eyes got wet when he saw two big ones and a little one on the street. I hadn’t even thought about it before…
THE BRAIN: Eh, he just said words, that’s how he felt at the time. We just decided that the asshole was romantic and sensitive. But from stories to reality, it’s a long way. When you go and think of thousands of pampers to change, regurgitated food, diseases, money, kindergarten, school, homework, parent meetings, accidents, rebellious teenagers, scandals, dramas… multiply them by 3, that you said 3, you couldn’t start with one.
THE HEART: I just said so, like a dream, that I’m scared of all this too. And no one forced him… I just asked if he ever sees himslef…
THE BRAIN: And what did he say?
THE HEART: Ee… like you don’t know what he said…
THE BRAIN: I’m getting older…
THE HEART: That he doesn’t know…
THE BRAIN: See? Stupid!
THE HEART: Stop calling him that…
THE BRAIN: Well, it’s the definition of stupid… You don’t know something, you’re stupid! So he’s stupid!
THE HEART: You don’t know something, you’re ignorant, not stupid.
THE BRAIN: Yeah, right, good thing you are the nice one again… he was ignorant when you first discussed it. You gave him time to find out… He didn’t find out, he didn’t know, so he is stupid! When you told him to try to find out… what did he say?
THE HEART: That he can’t…
THE BRAIN: Well, impotent, see? Both stupid and impotent because he couldn’t find out, not because he couldn’t… that if he couldn’t… you wouldn’t be suffering like this now… that’s the problem, that he could and even too well… Come on, please, don’t you want that vaseline-dirty one so we can relax and not bother with…?
THE HEART: He didn’t even try to find out, that’s the problem. I understand he had doubts about bringing a new being into this world. I also have doubts when I look around. You have to be crazy or brave to bring a new human into this world. I think that parents get a new layer over their hearts when the baby gets close to come, so it doesn’t crack every time something happens to him, when he’s sick, when he falls, when… But for the first time in my life, I wasn’t afraid. The joy of seeing the walking and smiling little piece of us was greater than fear. I could see her, with his big eyes blinking, with my crooked bangs and her small feet running through the house and through the grass, an explosion of light and pure happiness. Bold as me, throwing fluffy arrow words, but funny like him. All that gratitude and the joy and the play and the innocence and the magic between us, materialized… That’s what I lost… the innocence… and the magic… the faith. The belief that everything is magical and that what I imagine can become reality.
THE BRAIN: Like I said… a murderer! You’re the crazy one who always throws herself headlong… he – scared, a coward, ballsless!
THE HEART: No. I guess he just didn’t love me enough if the fear was greater…
THE BRAIN: Not that I’m defending him right now, but you know the animal said that if he ever were to want to, he would want it only with you, right?
THE HEART: I think that’s something you made up, that I don’t remember. You invented and you fooled me so it doesn’t hurt so much.
THE BRAIN: Yeah, I don’t know, maybe, they say that we remember the memory of the memory anyway, not exactly how it happened. I have my own self-protection mechanisms so that we don’t crack, I’m not a sucker. But I can’t stand you crying anymore. I really liked you then, you didn’t shed a tear, you moved calmly between two meetings, I remember that in the evening you had tickets to the theater and you went as if nothing had happened… I was so proud of you, look, man, dignity, self-control… and now you’ve been shaking me with this crying for months…
THE HEART: Eeh… I was numb… I guess I have to thank you for that, too. I was floating like this, teleguided, I could see myself from the outside walking, but I was dead somehow. And I knew if I started crying, I’d never stop.
THE BRAIN: Yeah, I can see that! Come on, we didn’t solve anything today, and you pissed me off. I was in great shape, you finished me, and I’m no good anymore. For now, let’s kill the killer with stones! And we resume another day, let me run now because you made me dizzy again and I’m not thinking clearly anymore!
7. We spin in square circle
(EXTERIOR. PARK. DAY. In the background we hear Miley Cyrus – Wrecking Ball)
THE BRAIN: Yeah, man, to conclude… that was it… you came in with the bulldozer and wrecked all the walls with your stories, but the beast found one last stone to hide behind. And when he saw that you were going to wreck that too, he threw it at your head and he leveled you. The bulldozer ran over himself. Case closed!
THE HEART: It’s not closed at all, it still hurts.
THE BRAIN: Okay, we resume, once and for all, that I can’t take it anymore, it’s like I’m spinning in circle, like in this park.
THE HEART: Square.
THE BRAIN: What?
THE HEART: The park is square…
THE BRAIN: Yeah, well, we spin in square circle.
THE HEART: How cool that sounds, I could write it down: We spin in square circle.
(She does some back shoulder extensions)
THE BRAIN: Wooow… That’s so good! I want to free myself like this, because I can’t stand you anymore, and I can’t stand carrying all these dilemmas of yours. So ballsless and dream killer. Save his contact like that on the phone, if he ever rings again, remember and don’t answer. So two flying balloons, a balloon wanted kids… sorry one balloon wanted little alien balloons, the other didn’t know if he wanted to, the balloons deflated and each flew in a different direction. Listen, but seriously, just between us, since when have you started want aliens? Cause we talked about it before when… with the other beast and the other one before him, and you didn’t seem to want to.
THE HEART: Well, I didn’t want to with the others, because they weren’t worthy of my child, but I wanted with him. I mean, with him I would have had the courage.
THE BRAIN: Well okay, but the man it’s not like he didn’t want with you, he just didn’t know if he wanted to with anyone, he didn’t want to reproduce himself… that the world sucks, that tragedies, that suffering… you know, I partially understand him.
THE HEART: Well, that’s what I was saying, if I wasn’t afraid because I loved him, and he was still afraid, it means he didn’t love me enough.
THE BRAIN: No, I don’t necessarily agree with that. You went around the world alone, he didn’t go alone to another country even though he was almost 40 years old. Do you realize what an act of courage it was for him when, just a week later, he threw from his car into yours, the keys to his house and said Mi casa es su casa or when he got himself on the plane and then on the ferry, in the unknown, to come and get his crazy woman off the island? You can’t compare your fear to his fear, they’re from different movies. This one was terrified by life until you got to him. Hell, he said he had a foot problem, that all the sneakers were too tight. You fought with him for 2 seasons to test a bigger measure, that no, that he wears 43. And when he finally dared to ask the saleswoman and put a 44 on his feet, he looked at you astonished, like that’s when he discovered that the earth was not flat and that his whole life as a grown man wore the wrong shoes. I told you… kid. Kids don’t have kids.
THE HEART: Yeah, well, we could have adopted, I told him that.
THE BRAIN: Well, I thought you wanted it with him. Now you’re saying you could have adopted…
THE HEART: Well, yeah, but no one was forcing him. I just asked him to find out what he wanted.
THE BRAIN: But adoption involves administrative work and responsibilities, just as great, maybe even greater than when it’s yours… that you’re fighting the system, bureaucracy, biological parents, hard work, bro!
THE HEART: Well, if he didn’t want to get involved in the administrative work, I’d have adopt her and raised her on my own, but we’d still be together without asking him to take any responsibility. Or maybe I would have chosen not to, not to have one at all.
THE BRAIN: Yeah, so you would have raised her alone with what money? That you quit your job to be a writer. No, so you don’t make sense… You wanted it with him, but not necessarily… you would have agreed to adopt, however, if he did not want to reproduce himself, if he wanted to remain in his original form, without copies… children. And if he didn’t want adoption either, you’d give up, too, but you’d be together, and how wonderful it would have been. So let’s change everything, but let nothing change. Well, then why did you ask him? Couldn’t you have just done this reasoning? Haven’t you learned to stop asking questions that you know the answer won’t suit? They say women are simple… (laughs out loud)… bro, men don’t stand a chance… the poor things are right when they say women are crazy and don’t understand them. Well, I don’t know if all women, but you for sure… I don’t understand you either. Tell me, why did you ask him?
THE HEART: But it’s not my job to understand. You’re the brain, that’s your job. I’m the heart, my job is to feel. And I felt… I feel pain.
THE BRAIN: Well, that’s what I’m trying to do, to understand, that I can’t stand you anymore, you’re short-circuiting me with your pain. Come on, one more lap, until I’m clear, I can’t take it anymore.
THE HEART: What do you want to understand? I would have even given up the idea of a baby to be with him, and he chose anything else but me, there, are you satisfied now? And the worst part is that he put up that wall, so we couldn’t talk… us who talked about anything. My best friend put up a wall. He chose a life without me and I lost my best friend.
THE BRAIN: Yeah well, very dramatic, what can I say. So the problem isn’t that he didn’t want kids with you.
THE HEART: No.
THE BRAIN: At least we’ve cleared that up. The problem is… you would have even given up the idea of a child to be with him, and he chose anything else but you and that you lost your best friend.
THE HEART: Yes.
CREIER: Aaah… Well, you see? Come on, we’re getting closer… That’s the problem, that you would have given up on yourself, on what you wanted. That’s not love or whatever you call it. Love is not self-sacrifice.
THE HEART: Yes, it’s also sacrifice.
CREIER: Nope, it’s anything but sacrifice. These are stories inherited from great-great-grandparents… Bullshit!
THE HEART: ?
CREIER: You said love is generosity. Generosity is about offering freedom. Let the other one be as he is, right? And first of all, to be generous to yourself, to let yourself be who you are, that you can’t be generous to someone else if you’re not with yourself in the first place. But you wanted to give up a piece of yourself, or that’s not very generous to yourself…
THE HEART: Well, then how can two different people build together, if none of them sacrifice something, none of them make a compromise?
CREIER: Like I said, ancient crap. Or if you want, relationships involve sacrifices, not love. It’s different stuff. Well, they’re not entirely mutual excluded, but that love you’re talking about, the love story you’ve had, has nothing to do with relationships. Relationship is the practical version of love, the real version of magic, the version in which magic is lost… a third balloon appears if you want the metaphor with the balloons, a third balloon that the other balloons work to keep it inflated and in constant balance… Do you realize how much work that is? That means that from their overflow they inflate this third balloon. And of course, if this one is inflated, the others two gradually deflate, maybe one of them more than the other and begins to hollow and sometimes one deflates completely and flies away, sometimes they both deflate and remains only the third one, fat as a Christmas… and it’s for nothing if the third gets fat if the other two are empty. Very rarely they can make the perfect exchange to keep all them inflated and balanced. So this man really did you a favor… all right, we’re not going to kill the killer with stones… (she makes shoulder extensions again) Woow… what a freedom, how light I feel… Is that how forgiveness feels like? I can’t believe I’m defending the beast, but you haven’t lost your best friend… he made the greatest gesture of friendship a man can make.
THE HEART: ?
CREIER: It got you out of a possible relationship and left you a love story. And he chose himself. And he set you free to choose yourself. You should thank him one day. But do you choose yourself?
III.
8. I can’t run away from myself even if I run to the ends of the earth.
(DAY. STREET. In the background we hear Naughty Boy ft. Beyoncé, Arrow Benjamin – Runnin’ (Lose It All)
THE HEART: Listen, that question haunts me.
THE BRAIN: Which one?
THE HEART: The one with… Did I choose myself? I chose us, he chose himself.
THE BRAIN: Oh, come on, just leave me alone for a lap. I swear to God I wish I could run away from the problems and from you, leave you two meters behind, not to hear you anymore! But I can’t seem to run away from myself even if I run to the ends of the earth. I see myself getting there and bumping into you. I’m stuck with you.
THE HEART: You see? You want to run away from me, too. You don’t choose me either.
THE BRAIN: Well, you have a lot of questions. Okay, look, I’m standing still until we figure it all out. But quicky, I don’t like to stand still.
THE HEART: Of course you don’t like it… you’re the mind… You like to run around, while I’m stuck and ragged…
THE BRAIN: Look, honey, I’m standing still, here! Go, why are you ragged? … Mom, how much drama… rags… pfff
THE HEART: Well, you said he got me out of a possible relationship and left me a love story.
THE BRAIN: Yes.
THE HEART: But it’s not like this. He didn’t leave me a love story, he took my story. It wasn’t over, he stole the ending.
THE BRAIN: Yeah, really? He is your story? A him?
THE HEART: –
THE BRAIN: Is that what you’re telling me? That’s all you’re capable of? That’s what a human comes down to?… to another? When nature, God, the universe… whatever you want to call it, leaves you as a whole being on earth, you cut yourself in half?… Is that what you’re reducing yourself to? To a he? Or a he to a she? That without him there’s nothing?
THE HEART: But I feel like I don’t want this life without him. That I can’t…
THE BRAIN: Listen! Come on, you’re boring me, let’s cut the bullshit. One day you’re going to wonder if this pain was real or you just made it up. You didn’t even like him, he was soft, that you don’t remember, do you? It took him seven years to pick out a T-shirt and he’d spin 100 times before you got on a road. You always had to push him forward.
THE HEART: No, but he was… He’s done so many wonderful things, coming from him…
THE BRAIN: Are you sure it all came from him or were you doing something before that triggered…?
THE HEART: What do you mean?
THE BRAIN: What do you mean… Pfff… Remember when you went to that crazy psychologist what she said? That it’s okay to manipulate people, that her husband… if it was up to him, they wouldn’t have a baby… that all men are scared of bombs like that, they have to be pushed from behind. You found it inadmissible and you left the cabinet wave-whirlwind…. Didn’t you think it was suspicious that you felt so outraged? Don’t you know that we judge in others what we actually judge in ourselves? And that we can’t forgive others what we can’t forgive ourselves? You left like the indignant moralizing authority, but that’s what you did too, right? When you asked him… you tried to manipulate, to force, that he was a weak character, you had to push him to do, to make the story go on… But people aren’t characters, they’re whole people, with good, with bad, with fears, with hopes, with the right to say no, with the right to take a different path if they want to… He wasn’t a character you could push where you wanted to, just to force the story to move forward… and you say you loved him. You hit him in the head, man, you didn’t give a shit about his fears and what he felt… You put him in a corner and beheaded him directly.
THE BRAIN: Do you remember what the second psychotherapist told you? You told him an unintelligible nonsense of yours and I’m surprised the man understood in the first place. Remember what you told him?
THE HEART: That …
THE BRAIN: That what? Say it louder while we’re at the moment of truth, so you can hear yourself and your non-sense.
THE HEART: I said… Doctor, the unborn baby hurts me…
THE BRAIN: And what did that man say? Lucky he was fucked up in his head too, which is why I think he understood you at that point.
THE HEART: He said… Miss, your imagination precedes reality.
THE BRAIN: Do you understand now?
THE HEART: No.
THE BRAIN: You don’t understand, do you? Wow… how good is sport to clear your mind. Let me tell you. But are you sure you can face what you did?
THE HEART: What I did?
THE BRAIN: The story didn’t move any further so you forced the character… That’s why you asked about the kids even though you knew the answer… to kill the story that didn’t want to go forward like you wrote it in your imagination. You killed the story! We should stone you to death! You’re the killer! Go and live with this truth!
THE HEART: Dude, now you’re blaming me?
THE BRAIN: I’m not blaming, it’s called taking responsibility… adult stuff, you don’t know these kind of things… you just want to quit your job and make three aliens… Where there are two, the blame is shared… or whatever, responsibility. He was a kid, he didn’t want to grow up. That’s the difference between boy and man…. Action… the man does, the boy does not. So he didn’t want to be a man, to act, to add to the story. And you wanted your story. All you cared about was your version. A story in two is written in two, not by one, and the other folds.
THE HEART: So in the end I chose myself too…
THE BRAIN: You finally got it… no one but you can kill your story. Only you. And I’m stuck with you, I can’t run away from you.
THE HEART: Woow… I’m writing this down. I can’t run away from myself even if I run to the ends of the earth.
THE BRAIN: Let’s not exaggerate! I’ve already chosen you, sucker, as you can see I’m standing still… Look, you can move forward by standing still… I’m not running away from you anymore, but that’s all… If you start again with your writing that got us into shit… I swear I’m going to go to the crazies and dump you.
9. The moment I realized that men had pulled me away from me
(EXTERIOR. PARK.DAY. In the background we can hear Florence & The Machine – Sky Full Of Song)
THE BRAIN: God, I never thought I’d get that quiet in my head again. Woow… and what muscular legs that boy has… Mmmm… well, I don’t understand exactly what drives men to wear tights glued to their… but whatever… Tananana… What’s that? Got you!
THE HEART: I’ve warmed up…
THE BRAIN: Moaaa… You’ve finally come to life. Yuhuuuu! Why didn’t you say that all you needed were some muscular legs? Look, calves, calves, calves!
THE HEART: Mmmm… calves!No!
THE BRAIN: No what? Oh yes!! Calves!
THE HEART: Mnmo!
THE BRAIN: Hell yes… why not?
THE HEART: That’s what you always do! Your hormones start to trot and then I fall in love… and no more, that’s it!
THE BRAIN: No, no, no… this time without love, no more emotional disorder… just… calves!
THE HEART: Yeah right, I know you… you said I was guilty, that I killed the story, that I… But you, where were you?
THE BRAIN: What?
THE HEART: Where were you? The lucid brain? I was with my heart in the clouds, but you? What did you guard while I was beheading and splattering the walls with blood?
THE BRAIN: Mmm… Well… I…. pfff… I….
THE HEART: Yes, you were with your head in… calves!
THE BRAIN: Yes, the beast had beautiful calves! Well, whatever… how do we call him now… we call him John 3. There were John 1, 2… and he is John 3.
THE HEART: Exactly… I accused him of betraying me, of abandoning me, but you…. you betrayed me, you abandoned me… every time you saw… calves and you stopped reasoned properly. What’s your role? Aren’t you supposed to protect me? Your role is to piss on me and say I’m a loser? Aren’t you supposed to be my best friend? Where were you? Every time I started writing and a he appeared… you lost your head and… men pulled me away from myself and I won’t accept it anymore. I want to write!
THE BRAIN: Fucking hell and fucking writing! You are not writing anything, we almost ended up on the streets and with my brain broken with your writing… You’re an adult and you have nothing… a house, a husband… No, you’re not writing anything! You’re going home right now!
THE HEART: Yeah? Okay, I’m going, but I’m writing this… Look, this is the moment I realized that men had pulled me away from myslef.
THE BRAIN: Don’t you understand you’re not writing anything?
10. It had been 9 months when I decided to listen to my heart.
(INTERIOR. BEDROOM. MORNING – In the background we can hear The Killers – Rut. Half asleep, in bed, she writes with her left hand. With the right hand she snatches the pencil)
THE BRAIN:? Ahh… No, you’re taking advantage of the fact that I didn’t fully wake up. What are you writing?
THE HEART: I wrote all your fears on paper. So you can see yourself. What? You think I can’t hear you? That I don’t have anything… that I’m a loser… But I think you forgot about the funerals.
THE BRAIN: ?(she lights a cigarette)
THE HEART: Yes, you forgot. When I was little and grandma would drag me to funerals and we saw the dead man being buried, but his car would stay outside. And the house. The houses… those who had more. Nothing he had accumulated went underground with the dead… nor the people. You forgot… I didn’t. How we wondered if he was aware of it, if he was afraid or if he could at least take his dreams with him. Here, read, they say that when you put them into words, your fears become smaller and lose their power.
THE BRAIN: Me? Fear? Pfff… I’m not reading anything.
THE HEART: Okay, then listen. I’ll read it.
I’ve been walking around the world with my heart dissected,
On the streets
Among the people
Who had no idea
They didn’t even notice
That my heart is out of my chest
1 year
Another half year
I caressed her
I patched her up with what I found.
And I put her back
Behind the sternum
Then
It took me another year just to get to the surface.
To be able to take another breath
2 and a half years
1 year – to crawl on the shore
And then to crawl like a child
To learn to walk again
Among the people
What a miracle!
3 and a half years later
I can stand up again
Straight,
On my own feet.
3 and a half years…
It only took me 3 and a half years.
Another year to learn to behave among them
It’s been 4 and a half years.
And I’ve just learned to behave among them again
To walk
Fly?
After 4 and a half years
Even the thought scares me
That I could ever think about flying again
I’m terrified of even the thought
That I could think again… to ever dream of flying
4 and a half years
When other people build families
And houses
I had to learn to breathe again
To crawl again
To walk on my own two feet
Again
I had to learn
To live again
I’m afraid I survived
I didn’t mean to.
Or did I?
I didn’t know how to die…
I didn’t know how to die, but I didn’t want to live
Here I am, smoking
Even now I’m not sure if I want to live
By Romanian and international standards
I’m a loser
I’m so old
And I do not have
A house in installments
I do not have
A car in installments
I do not have
a husband… in installments or not
I don’t have a baby
I don’t have a dog
I don’t have a book written
Or some great act of courage
I have a tree planted
A fir tree
Somewhere far away
With someone
Just as far away
I have some stories
Which now don’t even seem interesting anymore
By Romanian and international standards
I’m a loser
By my standards
I still believe
That I’m not
I think
I’m just a human
A human with a dream.
Another kind of dream.
THE BRAIN: –
THE HEART: You’re not saying anything? Okay, I’ve got another one. That I accused you of not being my friend, of losing your head as soon as you came across… calves… but it’s not like that, I know now… you tried to tell me every time, but I ignored you, that it was more cool to float in fantasies than in reality. I forced you to fulfill them for me, I wanted everything and on fast forward, I stretched you to the max to please me, I abused you in dozens of directions. I pushed your buttons like mom pushes them on the phone… in a total debandade. Sometimes she hits them right, just like sometimes I did. But you’re right, now I see, just like I saw all the things you did to save me: all these pieces of me that I threw into chaos and that you took one by one and glued them back together, you coordinated them not to go anywhere else. You put me back, piece by piece. You’re the control center and I’m going to listen to you, I’m never going to write again, this is the last poem. And it’s for you:
The friend is the eye
That shows you the way
When you don’t see anymore
The light
The hand that holds the pen straight
When you can’t write anymore
Your story
The ear that listens to the whisper
When you don’t want to hear how
Screams at you
The soul
The mouth that tells you
The truth when you want to lie
To yourself
The backbone that keeps you straight
When you fell and you don’t hope
to get up
The friend is YOU
When you think you’re ending
You’re just getting started
THE BRAIN: You’re exaggerating, as usual. 9 months. It’s been 9 months, not 4 and a half years! It had been 9 months when I decided to listen to my heart.
(She puts on her sneakers and goes for a run. In the background we can hear Canyon City – Wish List now that I let go of all I can’t touch, all that I have is so much)
11. I was a shadow when I decided to turn my face to the sun
( EXTERIOR. PARK. DAY. In the background we can hear The Killers – Rut. She is running with the sun behind)
THE BRAIN: The shadow… the fear
THE HEART: What?
THE BRAIN: Look, when I run with my back to the sun, the shadow leads me. I’m a shadow… I’ve become a shadow… a walking fear… How come we all run in the wrong direction?
(She suddenly turns in the opposite direction and starts running with the sun in her face. We can hear TRVSTFALL – Lifted)
THE BRAIN: Write this! I was a shadow when I decided to turn my face to the sun.
THE HEART: Write? Is that what you said?
THE BRAIN: Yes, you were right! I got scared. Not scared, outright horrified. After I lost everything, the horror was that I was starting to lose myself. That we’re going to stay alive, physically, but that I’m going to go crazy and I’m not going to know anything about me and you’re going to wander the streets alone. So I blocked everything. But I was spinning in that square circle, that I could argue to turn things around the way I want, in any direction, even in opposite directions, and always be right… you just saw that I can find arguments that he’s guilty, then that he’s not, he’s innocent and you’re guilty, and then that… anything… cause I’m the mind, I can run in a thousand directions and do what I want, I can go in any direction I want just to feel safe.
THE HEART: So I’m not guilty after all?
THE BRAIN: Where there are two… Or maybe no one is guilty, that’s how it was… or maybe he was… let’s sue him! Or maybe it wasn’t love… or maybe it was… or maybe destiny… maybe it had to happen to get here or… See? I can tell you anything that helps me sleep peacefully at night…
THE HEART: Pfff
THE BRAIN: But only you feel the truth, that’s why you always have to choose with your heart… and then we’ll figure things out. If you felt that and the other, you were alive. And if you felt gratitude and I know you felt… what do you want more from this life? Do you know what it’s like up here with me when you feel grateful? Pfff… you have no idea… all the connections light up and it’s a rainbow… God exists in those moments and everything makes sense. What do you want more? Maybe you’ll be lucky to feel that again… and all you have to do is leave the door ajar for the mystery of life. And if not, that’s fine too. You also felt right that I wasn’t your friend… I was the lucid brain. My role was not to pamper you, but to be your friend and protect you. I’m sorry I didn’t do it on time and I waited until you reached the edge of the abyss. Then I locked up everything… out of fear… but life in fear… what kind of life is this? Until then, you have made my life full of joy, beauty and adventure. I would never have been able to offer ourselves so much magic on my own, to flow in other dimensions with amazing synchronizations. You must be the center of command, not me. So you will write! Or you’re going to do tailoring or cartoons or you’re going to become a cook or an activist or a plumber or a doctor or a horticulturist or a politician (oh no, please not a politician) or a pilot or you’re going to work with children or whatever you want! You’re just a human with a dream… whatever the dream might be… you happen to be a writer, hell knows why… but if that’s it, you’ll write!
THE HEART: Yuhuu… So I can quit.
THE BRAIN: Oh, no, we’re not living the groundhog day anymore. No more, no resignations, we’re not kids anymore, we’ve moved on to the adult stage.
THE HEART: Well, then how?
THE BRAIN: Well, you’re secretly writing anyway until I wake up. You’re going to wake up at 4:00 in the morning and you’re going to write and then we’re going to come and run and then we’re going to work for the money.
THE HEART: Yo, I’m going to be exhausted. But it’s not fair, you just said I’m the command center.
THE BRAIN: Yes, you are, but you have to work so that a dream doesn’t remain just a dream. No one comes to work for you, for your dream… everyone has to deal with their own dream… everyone is responsible for their dream. And you’re not going to be exhausted, because from now on you’re a trained heart, and I’m a balanced mind. And we’re going to work together. I’m going to surrender to you and you’re going to surrender to me… synergy, not hierarchy. You will continue to dream, imagine new adventures and stories, and my role will be to find practical, logical and lucid ways to fulfill what you dream and set limits when we are in real danger, but not sooner.
THE HEART: What if we don’t make money from it?
THE BRAIN: We certainly won’t, where did you see money from writing? That’s why we keep the job, because you eat a lot.
THE HEART: But what do I have to say to the world?
THE BRAIN: I have no idea. Probably nothing. But what? You dream for the world? Your dream is about you, not the rest of the world. And then… dream sounds so big… I don’t even know if dream is the right word… what’s certain is you don’t see that if you don’t write, you don’t shut up, I don’t have peace? You follow me everywhere with this little voice inside, like a Chinese drop. I’m chased by all these words until you put them on paper and I get tired. Let them go free, where they belong and leave me alone! Come on, go home and write!
THE HEART: Well now I don’t even know what to write… what should I write?
THE BRAIN: Dude, you are something…! You rubbed me so hard with writing and now you don’t know what to write? Write this dialogue between us, I don’t know!
THE HEART: Yes, maybe a theatre play will come out!
THE BRAIN: Or not! I don’t know, leave me alone, you write there, that’s your job!
THE HEART: Anyway…I’m going to call it Running through my mind!
THE BRAIN: Better yet… A trained heart… Concrete! Or we can leave both titles… What do you think?
(We can hear TRVSTFALL – Lifted )
- Finally, the end! –
