Final Scene from
My Nose and Me
[A TragedyLite or TragiDelight in 33 Scenes]
NARRATOR
Scene 33: Follow Up. In which life goes on.
ME
Joy has slipped away, water through fingers.
Those sublime blue skies have been pushed aside.
Floods recede, leaving fishes stuck in mud.
There’s an end to gushing, overflowing.
You know, it really lasts only so long,
This new reappreciation of life.
Even the fear of death is a twitching
In a barely remembered dream. What stays,
What takes the place of brilliance and color
Is everyday gray. What happens? What makes
Us fall from those excited states? Is it
Fatigue? Is it we’re uncomfortable
With too much pure energy and wonder?
Instead of dread: discomfort. Instead of
Joy: a gray happiness, a small gray smile,
Not anything too reminiscent of pain.
Time to go then, into the evening, gray,
Grayer, grayest. One gets used to it.
It’s not so bad really. I mean, joy is
Kind of an unreal sensation, almost
Well, artificial. Give me the real thing
Any day. Nothing fancy. I don’t need
Much, a nice day, a wren singing, a cat,
A walk to the post office, shrimp scampi,
A vodka at four, a good film or book,
Some good friends, a good night’s sleep. I don’t need
The world to move. All I need is the world.
The cast of “My Nose and Me” produced at the AWP Convention on February 2, 2008. Holding the nose is director Bernie Sahlins. “My Nose and Me” appears in the June 2010 edition of Midway Journal.
The cast in rehearsal for a production of “My Nose and Me” at the University of Connecticut, November 13, 2008.