Lights up.

The stage is split in two halves by an invisible barrier. On Stage Left, a young girl wearing large sunglasses sits on a patch of grass, remaining absolutely still, aside from a few small, jerking movements with her right hand every few minutes. She stares intently at what is, in her mind, a group of trees. In reality, however, she is staring at absolutely nothing. On Stage Right, a doctor and a father are standing behind a small, empty metal hospital bed that is furnished with a mess of 8 wires, as if the bed itself is hooked up to hospital machines. Throughout the play, the doctor slowly, methodically cuts all of the wires, in time with the girl’s sporadic hand movements. Each of these moments should feel like a hiccup: powerful enough to serve as an interruption, but unimportant enough that life continues on as normal once it’s over. After each of these hiccups, however, the girl’s mobility increases slightly.

Suddenly, the girl begins to speak, talking directly to the audience, as if she sharing her world with them.

GIRL
It sometimes seems like the trees move as infrequently as I do. Like no matter how hard the wind blows, we are never swept off our feet, and although I pity the trees, in a way, I don’t pity myself whatsoever. Movement makes me nauseous, you see, so I stay still. You could say I am stuck to the ground, but to me it’s more of a choice than an obligation. I could very easily peel myself out of this picture perfect postcard I’ve created, like I was only ever one of those removable stickers, like how I sometimes peel glue off my fingers once it’s dried. I’ve recently decided this is my favorite activity. Peeling glue off my fingers. It’s so simple, yet so symbolic, although I’ve never been one to think philosophically. I have often thought about, though, how easy it is to peel glue off of my skin, and maybe it could be even easier to keep peeling after the glue is all gone. It concerns me slightly that I’ll never get a chance to see my bones, unless I - (She pauses for an instant as her right hand slightly jerks, while, at the same time, the doctor cuts one of the wires, and the father grips the hospital bed) - I perform surgery on myself. But I was informed very early on in my life that this was not an option. I have settled, instead, on observing the trees -- the only Olympic sport I could ever succeed at -- because maybe they are kind of what my skeleton looks like; with their limited range of horizontal motion, they keep moving upwards. And think about how easy it is to peel off their bark! It’s harmful for them, this I admit, but I bet they can’t feel anything, anyway, and using this as my justification, I long ago forgave all my little playmates who used to raid through the park in search of a tree to peel away at. This was at a time when they were naive enough to believe the rumor that trees had an infinite amount of skeletons. You could keep peeling and peeling and never reach the center. Nature’s tootsie pop. That’s what they were called, and upon further - (She pauses again, as her right hand jerks and another wire is cut) - further reflection, I can safely say they were wrong, and I was right to pursue my anti-social tendencies, refusing to peel trees in favor of reading a book and writing my favorite words all over my hands so I’d never forget them. I later sectioned off entire portions of my body to shove all my memories into. My brain wasn’t large enough and my skin wasn’t permanent enough, you see, and I wasn’t a fan of forgetting, so my body became my road map, although I admit I have never been able to find my way back to where I started. I do have a confession to make, though to - (She pauses again, as her right hand jerks and another wire is cut; the father breaks down in silent sobs, and the doctor comforts him, while also flipping through the papers on his clipboard, as if trying to remember something he had made a note of somewhere) - to those of you who care to listen: I cannot function without the constant protection of my sunglasses. They were a gift from a distant cousin living in Mexico whose skin peels as I wish mine would because he is allergic to sunscreen and therefore is completely unprotected. I once told myself that these sunglasses contained all the sun rays shining on my cousin in Mexico and thus could counteract the sun shining here on me right now, like multiplying two negative numbers to make a positive one. And though the sun will never burn my skin to a crisp and let me finally see my skeleton, at least it will spare my eyes from the same fate. Because everyone knows that there are no bones behind your eyes, just empty sockets that serve - (She pauses again, as her right hand jerks and another wire is cut) - serve solely as one more storage compartment. Each memory behind my eyes is tinted blue, not because it’s sad but because it is among the group of memories from a very long time ago, and as science goes, the deeper you go below sea level, or in this case, back in time, the fewer colors there are. You start by losing greens and reds and then are completely surrounded in blue for a very long time, until you become so antiquated and forgotten that everything goes black - (She pauses again, as her right hand jerks and another wire is cut; a nurse enters the hospital room on Stage Right and begins cleaning up the wires on the bed. The father tries to prevent the nurse from cleaning up, but the doctor holds him back and whispers something to the nurse. The nurse nods and leaves the room. All of this action occurs while the girl on Stage Left, who has begun to stand up, is speaking.) - black, either the absence of color, or all of the colors mushed together into one, depending on how you look at it. I tend to be a glass-half-full type of girl, but just because I feel lucky to have gotten stuck in a place as beautiful as this. Just look at the daylilies; wouldn’t you say they’re calling to me? Wouldn’t you say I almost blend in with them, with my jaundiced skin and my hair that spreads away from my head with a staticky kind of jubilance; my whole body just screams daylily! - (She pauses again, as her right hand jerks and another wire is cut; she now can’t contain her movement and is bouncing all around the stage as she speaks; she seems to have gained an understanding of where she is and what is happening to her) - daylily, screaming daylilies are crawling around me, don’t you see them? I could so easily pick at their petals, “he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me,” but wouldn’t that ruin the point of me being here, surrounded by them and the rest of this untouched world as they call out to me! Their yellow hair flits past my eyes like a hummingbird who has been rooted down its whole life, and wouldn’t you say that I’m flitting by as well? And maybe if you peeled this excess weight away from me, I’d go even faster and be home sooner, and don’t they want that? Don’t they miss me? - (She pauses again, as her whole body jerks and the doctor cuts another wire; the father slowly crouches on the floor, unable to hold himself up any longer) - me, the flat tire; me, the broken finger; me, the lost puppy; I once dreamt of myself as a cloud made of stained glass and cotton candy, which prompted me to think about how easy it would be to lie to myself and say that I don’t really need these sunglasses, and if I sat by idly as they fell, I could watch as they grew spiderweb cracks because my eyes would still function. And so today, I am lying to myself because I don’t think it’s worth it to go on living in a cocoon spun so many years before my arrival, its woven fibers spread wide like a mother welcoming her child back home.

The doctor cuts the final wire, and the girl jerks slightly as she takes off her sunglasses and looks directly into the sunlight without shielding her eyes. A loud, steady beeping noise is heard as the doctor helps the father off the floor and they both start to roll the hospital bed offstage. The father pauses, though, and faces Stage Left just as the girl collapses on the floor.

Blackout.