“There is nothing more to be done!” exclaimed Gogo, dramatically plopping himself into a pile of ashes in the middle of the stage. The noxious dust, displaced by the weight of his body, exploded into a large cloud engulfing his wife, Didi, and his three friends, Vlad, Pozzo, and Lucky, who having come to comfort him in a time of distress, were standing nearby. A cacophony of coughing and hacking drowned out some of the swearing, as a half-dozen-or-so hands swatted at the cloudy air. When the dust settled and the commotion ceased, Didi, slowly and purposefully, shuffled closer and bent down beside Gogo. His three friends also stepped closer and leaned in to hear what she’d say.
“Do you still hold fast your integrity?” she said to Gogo.
“What do you mean?” said Gogo, scraping pus from a sore on his arm with a potsherd.
“Why don’t you curse God and die?” she said, excitedly.
“I’m beginning to come around to that opinion, myself,” Vlad interjected. “All my life I’ve tried to put it from me, saying, Vlad, ole’ chap, be reasonable, you haven’t tried everything. And I resumed the struggle—”
“Stop it!” Didi said to Vlad. “I’ve nothing to say to you.”
“You had something to say to me?” said Vlad.
“I’ve nothing to say to you,” said Didi.
“You’re angry?” said Lucky.
“She’s bitter,” said Pozzo.
“Forgive me. Embrace me. Don’t be stubborn,” Vlad inflected his voice, playfully, and flashed a sheepish grin. He stretched his arms toward Didi as if he would embrace her.
Wrinkling her nose and dismissively swatting the air in Vlad’s direction, Didi swore at him and said: “You smell like garlic!”
“It’s for the kidn—”
“Silence, foolish people!” cried Gogo, interrupting Vlad. “Didi, shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil, also?” Wrinkling his nose, also, he turned to Vlad: “And she’s right, Vlad. You smell like an old boot that ain’t been aired in years.”
“There’s man all over for you, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet.” Lucky raised his eyebrows and his index finger. He scanned their faces to see if anyone caught his meaning.
“This is getting alarming,” said Pozzo, looking toward the ground and rubbing his chin, contemplatively.
At this, Gogo, stretched out his arms toward heaven, and slowly rose back to his feet, opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth: “Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’ Let that day be darkness! May God above not seek it, nor light shine upon it. Let gloom and deep darkness claim it. Why did I not die at birth, come out from the womb and expire?” He plopped himself into the ashes and engulfed his comforters with the noxious dust again. As the cacophony of coughing and hacking and swearing waned, Gogo returned to scraping the pus from his sores.
Vlad, shaking his head in disgust, lamented, “It’s too much for one man… On the other hand… ” He perked up. “What’s the good of losing heart now, that’s what I say.”
“We should have killed ourselves years ago, Gogo, perhaps right after we married,” mused Didi with a romantic look in her eye. “Hand in hand from the top of the Tower of Babel. Among the first. We were respectable in those days,” she said. She paused and drew a compact from the pocket of her threadbare dress and began applying lipstick. “Now it’s too late. They wouldn’t even let us up.” She smacked her lips together a couple of times and rubbed them together to even the color.
Gogo shook his head, dejectedly. “You should have been a poet.”
“I had the chance, but I married you instead,” scoffed Didi, gesturing to her tattered dress as she dropped the compact and lipstick back into its pocket.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Gogo. He continued scraping his sores.
“Well? What do we do now?” asked Didi.
“Don’t do anything. It’s safer,” interjected Pozzo.
“Let’s wait and see what he says,” replied Gogo.
“Who?” asked Didi.
“God,” said Gogo in a frustrated tone.
“Good idea!” said Vlad and Lucky in unison.
“What exactly did we ask him for?” asked Didi.
“Were you not there?” said Gogo.
“I can’t have been listening,” she replied.
“Oh… nothing very definite, if I were a bettin’ man” said Lucky.
“A kind of prayer,” said Pozzo.
“Precisely,” said Gogo, pointing his potsherd at Pozzo.
“A vague supplication,” said Vlad.
“Exactly,” said Gogo, now pointing the potsherd at Vlad.
“And what did he reply?” said Didi.
“That he’d see, That he’d see!” said Gogo.
“That he couldn’t promise anything,” said Pozzo.
“That he’d have to think it over,” said Vlad.
“In the quiet of his home,” said Lucky.
“Consult his family,” said Pozzo.
“His friends,” said Vlad.
“His agents,” said Lucky.
“His correspondents,” said Pozzo
“His books,” said Vlad.
“His bank account,” said Lucky.
“Before taking a decision,” said Pozzo.
“It’s the normal thing,” said Vlad
“Is it not?” said Lucky.
“I think it is,” said Gogo not looking up from wiping the potsherd with a towel.
“And we?” said Didi.
“I beg your pardon?” said Gogo.
“I said, and we?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Where do we come in?”
“Come in?”
“Come in?”
“Come in? On our hands and knees, of course.”
“As bad as that?” said Didi.
“You wish to assert your prerogatives?” interjected Vlad.
“We’ve no rights anymore?” said Didi to Gogo, pretending to ignore Vlad.
“You’d make me laugh if it didn’t hurt so bad,” said Lucky.
“Hurt?” asked Pozzo. “What hurts, Lucky?”
“We’ve lost our rights?” said Didi, louder this time, to prevent Lucky from answering.
“We got rid of them,” said Gogo.
“Rid of them?” they all cried in unison stepping backward and covering their mouths in astonishment.
Gogo stood up again and raised his hands the way one does to quiet a large crowd. “Let me have silence, and I will speak, and let come on me what may. Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble. He comes out like a flower and withers; he flees like a shadow and continues not. Why should I take my flesh in my teeth and put my life in my hand? Though he slay me, I will hope in him; This will be my salvation, that the godless shall not come before him.” Gogo made as if he would plop into the ashes, again; but before he could, Didi and the others, like cockroaches having a light turned on them, scattered to the edge of the stage.
“Cut!” said a rough voice suddenly from offstage. All five actors turned and squinted toward the theatre seats, trying to envision their director in the darkness beyond the blinding stage lights. “What is it? Comedy? Tragedy? Something else?” said the voice.
“We’ve never been able to put it into any single category. We think of it, more or less, as a perennial human experience, Mr. Godot,” said Job, this time plopping down on a random chair nearby and poking at the ash pile in front of him with his toe. “Isn’t that right, guys?” The others shrugged and nodded in agreement.
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