[the curtain rises on a totally light stage.  MAN is sitting CSR with some sort of hard liquor, he is around twenty.  GOD is leaning USL in a corner.  This corner should be more implied than anything else, and the look of naked brick would be good.  NARRATOR is never seen, but acts rather as the voice of the thoughts of MAN.]

NARRATOR: The room was dark, if I recall. [lights fade quickly off] Not dark enough I couldn’t see, mind you, but dark enough to be heavy in shadows. [lights come up a little bit]  It was the dark of lovers, the dark of parties.  [two people enter rather close to each other] It was a wonderful night for stealing a kiss [the two people engage in a passionate embrace], if any of the party-goers had any such thoughts on their minds.

MAN: [almost shouting; shoving the two apart] It is not a night for kissing!

GUY: Hey man, what’s your problem?

MAN: This is not a night for kissing.  It’s a night of … it’s a celebration. [pause]  But it’s still not a night for kissing.

GUY: Look, I don’t know what’s wrong with you—

GIRL: Come on; let’s leave him alone.  He’s obviously drunk. [beat] Besides, I think there’s an empty room upstairs. [starts leaving GUY away]

GUY: Sounds good. [to MAN] Hey, maybe you should take it easy on that bottle there. [they exit]

NARRATOR: I wondered if it would ever be a night for kissing ever again.

MAN: [moving to his chair; muttering to himself] Not a night for kissing.  A sad celebration. [sees GOD; stops moving]

NARRATOR: In a lonely corner sat God.  God incarnate in an eighteen-year-old boy. [GOD nods to MAN]  It was the Old Testament God—the God of Abraham, the God of Moses.  It was the God of a chosen people who had favored the Israelites and none other.  The same God that had sent his angel of death to Egypt to butcher the first born of that land, the very God the Spanish Inquisition had shouted out to over the screams.  With sulfur and brimstone this God had rained down a fiery death on the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. This God that has been painted on Medieval Catholic Cathedrals with two swords protruding from His mouth, the great judge of mankind without mercy or pity.  He would live by the sword and we would die by it.

GUY2: Hey man!  You want something to drink? [MAN holds up his bottle, not taking his eyes off of GOD.  GOD has ceased to consider MAN and looks around the rest of the party]  So you got it covered?  Awesome!

NARRATOR: God sat in the room and it was still dark.  He did not glow, did not radiate divine light.  He allowed the room to remain dark and not even a calm, comforting dark.  It was a dark of desire and rejection, reminiscent of the grave.  The more I thought about it, the darker it became.  A choking dark, suffocating my faith.

GIRL2: [moving towards GOD] You want some of this? [GOD holds up a hand]  You sure?  I mean, all of tonight is on the house [looking quickly at MAN], or something.  Anyway, it’s not costing you a cent. [pause] Hey, I understand.  Drinking alone in a dark corner isn’t your thing.  [suggestively] Maybe you’d like to go to the other room… [changing tactics] They’re playing a mad game of ‘God and Asshole’ [GOD gives GIRL2 a look] in the other room. [beat] Hey, no need to glare like that.  Okay, okay, I get the hint. [moves to exit] Asshole.

MAN: [to GIRL2] Hi, I— [she exits]  Um… [raises his bottle; calling after her] I have something to drink.  You want some?

NARRATOR: How I hate him.  Did I not have social skills?  Where my eyes not deep enough, my hands not tender enough?  Perhaps my walk did hold a little fear, but my stance held pride for humanity and my eyes held passion for earthly matters.  I thought I was attractive but with him around no one would ever look twice in my direction.

MAN: Are you sure?  I know I’m drinking it straight, but I wouldn’t be opposed to mixing something for you.  Or we could talk or something? [shouting] Don’t you want to talk?

VOICE: Shut up!

NARRATOR: I would scream and shout, make a complete fool of my self, and once I stopped no one would think upon me again.

MAN: Why don’t you shut up!

VOICE: Because I wasn’t shouting.

MAN: Huh?  If I bother you so much, why don’t you come and make me!

VOICE: Why don’t you just have another drink?

MAN: I don’t need another drink. [takes a big drink] I’m just having this because I’m in mourning. [sits]

NARRATOR: We were drinking that night, too.  That night, like all the others, he sat in a dark corner and watched.  He did not take part.  He never took part. [MAN drinks] He would watch us as we poured that foul tasting liquid down our throats; watched as we grimaced at every drop then raised the glass anew. [MAN drinks]  Control of our bodies and minds left us, beating into submission by the alcohol. We were all damned.  [GIRL enters in disarray; moving quickly]

GIRL: [to herself] What a jerk.

MAN: [grabbing her arm as she passes] Who’s a jerk?

GIRL: That guy.

MAN: What guy?

GIRL: You know what guy.

MAN: No, what’s him name?

GIRL: I don’t know.  He’s just that guy.  He’s a jerk is what he is.

MAN: Yeah, he’s a jerk. [suddenly MAN grabs GIRL and pulls her close, kissing her hard and roughly; she struggles, recoils and then slaps him; storms off] What?  Goddamn it, I was being comforting!  My sister told me that girls go for nice, aggressive guys; I was being nicely aggressive!

NARRATOR: We cursed him and His creations using his own name in the curse.  How could we know that He shared the room with us?  We didn’t even believe he existed.  We were damned for our ignorance, our ever-eager arrogance.  Damned for our humanity.  He remembered everything we did, I’m sure of it.  He wouldn’t stop us, wouldn’t tell us it was wrong.  Simply that he did not do it was enough.  As we killed ourselves he didn’t save us.  He didn’t save my sister either.

FRIEND: Hey man, what’s going on?

MAN: [soberly; sadly] I’m in mourning.

FRIEND: I know, we all are.

MAN: Everyone?

FRIEND: Yes, everyone.

MAN: [shouting out a toast] To my sis—

FRIEND: Shhh, shhh, it’s okay, not now.

MAN: Not now?

FRIEND: No, now isn’t the time.

MAN: Then when will be the time?

FRIEND: Soon.

MAN: Soon?

FRIEND: Very soon.  But just not now, you’re too grief stricken.

MAN: I am?

FRIEND: Yes, some people call it drunk.

MAN: But I’m not drunk.

FRIEND: Of course you’re not.  You’re in mourning.

MAN: Exactly.

FRIEND: For you sister.

MAN: Yes.

FRIEND: We all are.

MAN: [almost crying] I just don’t know what to do.

FRIEND: It’s okay.

MAN: Goddammit!  Godfuckingdammit!  Jesus fucking Christ!  It hurts so much!

FRIEND: I know.

MAN: Why did He have to take her?

FRIEND: I don’t know.

NARRATOR: She had died a week before.  Car accident.  Her wake, funeral and burial had come an gone in a flurry of relatives I didn’t know I had and most likely wouldn’t see until someone else died.  Which might not be too long, considering my mother had been in the car with my mother. [MAN moves away from FRIEND; and begins to struggle with a memorial home ATTENDANT]  Everything had been rushed, I had been told—

ATTENDANT: If you extend the shortly after death process in only increases the pain for the living.

MAN: [shrieking] That’s not my sister!

ATTENDANT: Of course it is.

NARRATOR: Looking into her coffin she didn’t look dead, she looked as if she’d never been alive. The golden waves of her hair had been maliciously placed to cover the gash in her forehead that had killed her.

MAN: Not my sister!  Let go of me.  Whoever that is in there isn’t my sister, what have you done with her?

NARRATOR: Her hair had looked white, an unnatural white.

ATTENDANT: It’s from the glue we use when preparing the body for public viewing.

MAN: My sister has blonde hair, not white!

ATTENDANT: I am sorry you do not approve, but that is no reason to desecrate the dead.

NARRATOR: Her white hair had made her look washed out.  Her face was powered with this stuff that made her flesh look like rotting porcelain.  Her arms were crossed over her chest, a false position, as if she had been trying to protect herself.  My sister had never crossed her arms in life, but in death anything goes.

MAN: And her arms!  My sister doesn’t cross her arms!  She’s not afraid of anything, she never feels the need to protect herself, because nothing could ever harm her… ever harm her… [ATTENDANT pats him on the head for a moment of silence] Don’t touch me! [pause] And those flowers!  Why was she holding those flowers?

ATTENDANT: It’s traditional for the deceased to hold daises when they have died young.

MAN: Who’s tradition?

NARRATOR: My sister hated those flowers.  I remember once she told me she hadn’t like them.  They were too weak, able to be blown over in a stiff breeze.  They were weak, she had said, and she had no patience for weak things, only that which fought for life, life above all.

ATTENDANT: [patting MAN’s head again; to himself] Poor grief-stricken boy.

MAN: I told you not to touch me!  [ATTENDANT exits]

FRIEND: I know, I know, you’ve told me all of this before.

MAN: [returning to his seat] Have I?

FRIEND: You have.

MAN: Well I just told you again.

FRIEND: Yes, you did.

MAN: Her eyes!  Her eyes!

FRIEND: I know, I know.

MAN: Her eyes were closed.  They were closed!  They looked like they were rotting too!  She had green eyes, that could always look right though me, like I wasn’t even there.  Like I wasn’t even there, but I knew that she always knew when I was there. [MAN sobs]

NARRATOR: Her beautiful green eyes had been closed, but she didn’t look as if she was sleeping.  Sleeping was something attributed to the living.  She looked as if she longed to see, longed to dream.  Longed to do anything other than hold her crossed arms over weak and dying flowers.  I couldn’t think of my sister alive without the foreshadowing of her death.  It was as if her light in my life had been dimmed.  The manikin-like body made me wonder if any life had ever inhabited that hollow shell, made me wonder if she was real.

MAN: I don’t know what I can trust anymore.  It’s hard to believe she was ever alive.

FRIEND: She was, man, she was.  Of course she was.  Who else would have bought us so much booze?  I mean, this whole party, you know, it’s a kind of purging.  Sure she didn’t drink much, but she was sure generous with her liquor, always giving it to us, you know.  That’s why this party’s going on.

NARRATOR: The party was for her.

MAN: That party is for her.

FRIEND: Yes, yes it is.

MAN: For my sister.

FRIEND: Right.

MAN: [louder] For my sister.

FRIEND: I think you’re getting it.

MAN: [louder] For my sister.

FRIEND: Good, good, now calm down.

MAN: [rising to his feet; staring at GOD; shouting out a toast]  For my sister! [He takes a big drink]

VOICES: Here here!

FRIEND: [without exuberance] Here here. [drinks]  Are you happy now?

MAN: No.

NARRATOR: He would not drink to her.  He never drank at all, but what did that matter?  It was just one drink, just one drink, for my sister.  In a sip He would say that He cared for my sister, or at the least, that He did not condemn her.  He would sit, and watch us, and judge us, but to drink was a sin.  And He did not dare let sin touch those divine lips.

FRIEND: [stopping MAN from walking to GOD] Where are you going?

MAN: Somewhere.

FRIEND: Where?

MAN: Somewhere that’s not right here.

FRIEND: And where would that be?

MAN: Across the moral divide.

FRIEND: What are you talking about?

MAN: He didn’t drink.

FRIEND: Who?

MAN: He didn’t toast to my sister.

FRIEND: Man, clam down, you’re drunk.

MAN: Just drunk enough to be angry.

FRIEND: Angry about what?

NARRATOR: The room had been dark enough, the people drunk enough; I would have been the only one to notice.  Just He and I and God.  And if the man drinking is God, does God not understand the circumstance?  Of course He would.  Perhaps I would be condemned, but He had nothing to fear, the divine creator.  He could have done it for my sister, my beautiful sister, stuck down before her time like all of the first born of Egypt.

FRIEND: Hey, he’s cool, man.  Let him be.

MAN: I will, I will. [GOD suddenly looks at FRIEND]  After I do something.

FRIEND: Look, I gotta use the bathroom.  You going to be here when I get back?

MAN: [looking at GOD] Yeah.

FRIEND: Okay, good.  Don’t do anything stupid. [exit]

NARRATOR: With a bottle in my right hand and a stained glass in my left I stumbled over to His corner.  My feet burned at every step, as if they had been pierced by an unseen force.  My hands ached from the inside out, making it difficult to grasp the bottle.  I felt pin pricks on my scalp.  He looked up to me, those steel gray eyes felt like a spear in my side, stealing my breath. [pause; MAN and GOD look at each other for a long time without moving] He would only speak if spoken to.  And then only make polite conversation with His creations, never revealing any part of his master plan.  He, so secure, would never tell us anything that would give us a glimmer of hope.

MAN: Hi.

GOD: Hello.

MAN: You haven’t toasted all night.

GOD: You’re drunk.

MAN: I’m sober enough to realize you haven’t taken a toast all night.

GOD: You’re drunk.

MAN: You already said that.  Here, toast to my sister.

GOD: I don’t drink.

MAN: Toast to her health.  She’s dead, you know.  Toast her good speed in the hereafter.

GOD: I don’t drink.

MAN: Does she not have good speed in the hereafter?

GOD: I don’t drink.

MAN: I know, toast anyway.

GOD: No.

NARRATOR: No?  No!  What right did He have to say no?  It was he that created her and He that had destroyed her.  It was He that had destroyed me, diving me to drown my soul in a bottle.  He would damn me for this night and He would not even drink to my sister?  He would not give me, one of His own children, any comfort.  He had chosen the forum.  Had He damned her?  Could such a soul burn?  Would He allow it?  He had allowed such a soul to perish.

MAN: [weeping] Why not?

GOD: I don’t drink.

MAN: You said that.

GOD: Well now I’m saying it again.

MAN: Make an exception, for my sister.

GOD: No.

NARRATOR: Again with that word.  How I hate that word.  I hate it as I hate him.  It is so simple, so absolute.  So … divine.

MAN: [screaming] Toast!

GOD: [firm] No.

NARRATOR: What happened next has surely been written, and He had read from the book.  [MAN empties his glass forcefully into GOD’s face]  If He would not drink it He would wear it.  He would smell of it.  He would take that stench back with Him to heaven. [MAN raises his liquor bottle and smashes it over GOD’s head, cutting him; GOD collapses] He didn’t cry out. [MAN kicks him] Maybe I hadn’t hurt Him enough, maybe I hadn’t hurt Him at all. [MAN kicks him] Maybe if I hurt Him more He’d cry out. [MAN kicks him in the face] If I hurt HIM [kick to the face] He’d cry out. [kick to the face] He’d scream for mercy. [kick]  Beg for the [kick] mercy He had never [kick] showed me. [kick]

MAN: [howling] Toast! [kick] Why will you not toast? [MAN howls this during NARRATOR’s previous line and continues to do so after the line ends; the repeated action of his kicking and howling continues until after GOD ceases to react to the blows; MAN eventually stops, and looks out at the audience]

NARRATOR: My friends stared at me with blank faces.  They were strangers to me.  Ashen people for whom the world has ceased to function properly.  None of them moved, a frozen tableau of confusion and disbelief. [beat; MAN looks down]  Blood.  Deep and rich, the color of old wine and the constancy of thin syrup.  His life blood was pouring from the gash my bottle had opened on his forehead.  My sister’s hair had been too perfect, she never combed it.  It was better to see the horrible disfiguration at her scalp than her artificial hair perfectly placed.  I had seen her wound and as I looked down, I saw it mirrored on the head of this boy.

MAN: Oh God.

NARRATOR: My sister.

MAN: Oh God.

NARRATOR: To remove that wound, what I wouldn’t do.  His scalp was cut, bearing a deep slash, like my sister.  I loved this boy, who was all too moral.

MAN: [bending down, lifting GOD’s head into his lap] Oh God. [weeps]

NARRATOR: My tears fell onto his ruined face, skipping around his wounds.  I turned my head up in a silent scream, knowing I could make no sound loud enough for this injustice.

[the lights have faded and a special directly overhead is seen, it forms a complete circle around MAN and GOD]

MAN: I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.  Forgive me.

NARRATOR: When the light went out I knew he was dead. [the special blinks out; it is total darkness]  Maybe God did glow after all.