SQN - Sine Qua Non - Issue Two - Journal - Page 47
SINE QUA NON
|eir eyes locked, their faces a breath's space away. Moments from now, a falling curtain
would eclipse the world. |e dark maw on the other side would erupt with applause, then the
house lights would come on as if daylight were pouring into everything. |e curtain would
rise again and the unseen hundreds would be there, people in their seats with shining faces,
blurring and clapping hands, maybe even rising to stand up in row after row in a cascade
from the orst rows all the way to the back, and he would grab his co-star's hand and they
would raise their free arms and then drop together into waist-deep bows and rise up again
and show each other their smiling, exhausted, genuine faces, and the light of the eyeball/
moon sign would be lost amid the wash of house lights even as all the extras in their costumes
streamed onstage to take their measure of applause. |ey would drop into their own deep
bows, showing their nushed and beatioc faces, genuine faces, and he would meet eyes with
the Gauguin girl in the paint-spattered Docs, sending her a zing of a smile, the knowledge
that they'd share tequila shots and pass around Guitar Girl's joints at the afterparty, and
hopefully there'd be cheese and charcuterie and not just crackers and chips like last weekend,
and the dancing might just lead to hooking up again, that delicious licorice taste of the vape
smoke on her lips, and what was her name—Pauline? Pilar? And then whatever this thing was
with the actress of Dr. Luz—he'd apologize for his nub, thank her for the rescue, and then
what? Had he just shown her his vulnerability, or his weakness? Could he make her smile
when there was no script involved, no stage direction but the real space between them and all
the ways they might bridge it? |ere really was a gravity there, a glow. Christ, he was turning
into a moth for real.
But before all that, for this last moment of performance, he needed to refocus and push
through to the end. Sustain the character just one more beat like a moth bumping on the
glass before onding the open window and slipping out into the night. For this last moment
before the curtain fell, Darius the Moth stood with Dr. Luz in their glowing spot, darkness all
around except for the warm light of the sign above them, Dr. Luz's eyes shining and expectant
while her last words hung between them: Why would you come to me when I don't have what
you need?
He let himself appear to think about that as a sense of sharpened attention exuded from
the unseen souls out in the darkness who all watched and waited. Darius spoke the last line in
his practiced tone of naked sincerity, the words that would bring the curtain down.
