AT THE DARK DOORS (A Play)

A. Abner
B. Ben

Doors open.

A. Welcome,Ben.

B. You know my name.

A. We have all names in the living pile and the dead letter file.

B. I want to be assured that I'm in the Lamb's book of life.

A. Sign on the dotted line in our yellow book. Here's a quill pen, now sign in the registry in

this castle of dreams.

B. Is everything dated here for fellow believers and non believers. We sign our own death

warrants where in dreams man becomes his own god, that is the darkness of his soul, but you

may also release yourself when you wake up and see the light.Your history is in human fate.

A. Dated but not outmoded, coded and rated and then promoted; you see our sign on the wall.

B. What is along this dark hallway.

A. See all the diaries, ships logs, catalogs, mug shots. We have absconded them all.

B. What is this dark place, with all  these skull masks, swords, potions, poisons, axes,sheets,

chains ,swords, forbidden torture devices, waterboards, and electric chairs hidden away in the

cobwebs. Where am I? Is this really me at the dark doors in that place among the lost and now

accosted among the once favored now dead. I thought I escaped my casket in my night dream.

A. No one escapes to here but you are welcome.

B. I feel faint and shaking as if I fell out of a wellspring and came into a hell of my own making.

A. Well, Ben, sign a letter of complaint; I am your witness on staff at the desk.

B. Does everything seem to go incognito here.

A. Ditto. It's a transit stop for our train of thoughts but after your nightmare you may exit.

B. And who are you the curator of this museum or mausoleum, or an inquisitor behind these huge

dark doors. This is hell one hell of a nightmare.

A. You can go back to your old life of dry bones; just touch these touchstones and a film will

emerge of yourself in all your high and low points of your life. You will see the film clips of our

likes and dislikes, of your traumas and dramas, and how you merged with them and are alive.

B. I want to live but not here displaced from my past which cannot outlast in memory.

A. No it is a place in your tour of religious intolerance.

B. I spent my life searching. Am I cast out of the land of the living.

A. You are found not wanting in our counting and accounting.

B. But why did it take a nightmare to bring me here among the living dead.

A. Search no more the catacombs of the past. Take your steps through long corridors. You will

find it interesting .You may speak on micro film to the shepherd psalmist David , recite the

Odyssey with Homer, be a guide with Virgil, take a nine circled walk with Dante, quote his own

sonnets to Shakespeare, meet the Puritan poet Milton for sure, have a novel time with James or

share a mystery with Poe.

B. I must still be having a fearful nightmare. Maybe I should go now.

A. We are reasonable and rational here, having put our robes and cassocks away.

B.  This is a sleep house where we dispense with censorship and worship with an assembly to

congregate and celebrate with our visitors, somnambulist writers, and innovative artists.

A. I see all these sculptures and reference to different cultures.

B. We have on film the Bible with Moses where you can take or break tablets and commandments

or enter a promised land with Joshua, charge over to the gambling tables as Dostoyevsky,

chose or do great miracles with Jesus outside the gate. It is your own free will that landed and

commanded you here. Sleep does not damage any demands that you journey here.

A. I hesitate to ask if those masks are really authentic.

B. Ben are you a critic.

A. How do you know my name.

B. Look at this fishbowl of names from centuries and centurions of which will outlast a historical

past.

A. Is this an end game you are asking me to play amid a rhetorical cast.

B. I hesitate to ask if these are ghosts who boast here.

A. No one addresses the dead if that is what you infer or are afraid of.

B. I feel insecure here.

A. We are near the hypnosis room. Watch this metronome.

B.Yes. I am hearing the tick tock.

A. Watch the witch and wizard clock. Go back to your nightmare.

B. I am in a sleep house weeping for the failings in my life, my marriage, my kids, my

belief when my disconnected failings turned religious when I did not feel righteous.

A. Watch the screen with the ghosts of your past,here is your life and witness as you have

passed beyond interrogation in your imagination to see what you are made of.

B. May I leave here.

A. Any time. I am Abner, here are the keys to history being related to all of literature and

high culture. It is a place of a glorious past.

B. I am familiar with many family stories in literature and culture.

A. It's because you are family that you are here. Your subconscious thoughts in dreams brought

you over here. As you can see every torture for truth in every century is represented here, every

middle age even at the enlightenment when men and women sought to change their status in

government, we can show you by film the Caesar's census taken in the first year the common era

or the Kaisar's rule followed by Hitler,or of the Czar's assassination death and burial or Lenin's

tomb.

B. Is this the grave of the nation's souls or some sort of purgatory.

A. Some of these people died on live coals.

B. For what?

A. Their beliefs.

B. I was always looking for answers.

A. Here are more questionable ways as you are a seeker.

B. I'd like some bread, water or wine.

A. For your communion we extend our hand to your fellowship.

B. What is the adjacent room like.

A. It is our sun room, all light, all sweetness, all happiness, sincerity without sin.

B. I want my behavior to reflect my Savior, my desire to reflect the Messiah.

The door opens to a great light. Ben wakes up and walks out the door.