Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.
~Margaret Atwood, from THE PENELOPIAD
Two African American women, one older and one younger, stand on opposite banks of a river. They are doing laundry, seemingly endless quantities of it. In fact, there are two large mounds of dirty clothes, linens, towels, and other odds and ends trailing off stage left and stage right. There is also a set of drying lines that operates in a system of pulleys. These two lines (running parallel) form a circle around the audience.
The river is exactly center stage and flows downstage toward the audience. We hear its voice as a constant din. The women are at least ten feet apart and have to speak loudly in order to hear each other.
As the lights come up we observe the two women as they occupy themselves with the task at hand. Once they finish an item of laundry, they ring it out and throw it into a basket. When the basket gets filled, they hang it on their drying line. At the top, the older woman’s basket is full and the younger woman’s basket is empty.
Dark clouds overhead. A storm is on its way.
OLD WOMAN: Sediment, they say.
YOUNG WOMAN: WHAT?
OLD WOMAN: Sediment! Silt! Mud!
YOUNG WOMAN: What about it?
OLD WOMAN: Got nutrients in it.
YOUNG WOMAN: Nutrients?
OLD WOMAN: Yep.
YOUNG WOMAN: You saying you can eat it?
OLD WOMAN: What, the sediment?
YOUNG WOMAN: Yeah.
OLD WOMAN: No, you can’t eat it! Nutrients in it for plants, they say.
YOUNG WOMAN: Who says?
OLD WOMAN: Sediment’s going out to deep water. Does no good, they say.
YOUNG WOMAN: WHO SAYS?
OLD WOMAN: SCIENTISTS!
YOUNG WOMAN: Scientists say that?
OLD WOMAN: Coastline needs sediment. Mud.
The young woman sticks her hand into the river mud.
YOUNG WOMAN: Looks like plenty of mud to me.
OLD WOMAN: WHAT?
YOUNG WOMAN: Plenty o’ goddamn mud here!
OLD WOMAN: They talking about di-verting the river.
YOUNG WOMAN: What?
OLD WOMAN: Di-verting the river. Moving it.
YOUNG WOMAN: Moving the river? Shit.
OLD WOMAN: To get the sediment back.
YOUNG WOMAN: Now, how the hell does that work?
OLD WOMAN: Not sure.
YOUNG WOMAN: What’s so damn interesting about sediment? Ain’t nothing but dirty old mud.
OLD WOMAN: They done messed with the river when they built those levees.
YOUNG WOMAN: Levees broke.
OLD WOMAN: That they did.
YOUNG WOMAN: You can’t mess with the river. Gonna flow no matter what.
OLD WOMAN: I ain’t gonna argue with you.
They continue to work in silence for a while.
YOUNG WOMAN: I hear Ana Livia got herself in a situation.
OLD WOMAN: Six months now. Getting bigger every day.
YOUNG WOMAN: That Henri fella?
OLD WOMAN: Henri Couture Enchante. On the reconstruction committee.
YOUNG WOMAN: Hear he got some kind of powers over her. Put her to work.
OLD WOMAN: Washes his socks every day, I know that. Sets up right over there, early morning.
YOUNG WOMAN: How many young fishies you think she go collecting for him?
OLD WOMAN: Hard to say. Hard to say.
YOUNG WOMAN: Reconstruction committee, my Black ass!
OLD WOMAN: Now she with child. Young Ana.
YOUNG WOMAN: Ana P.! Ana P.! What she going by now, Enchante?
OLD WOMAN: Nah, no wedding bells for her, I’m afraid.
YOUNG WOMAN: Used to play the Barbie dolls together. My, how time flies.
OLD WOMAN: Sad state of affairs, these parts. Nothin’ but pains. Used to be a community back before...
YOUNG WOMAN: Uh huh. I hear you. No decent men is the problem.
OLD WOMAN: They just lost they focus is all.
YOUNG WOMAN: Lost they minds is more like it! That old one down Bird Foot Delta. He’s always got some young mulatto washing clothes for him!
OLD WOMAN: Old Michele Arklow. Yeah, I know the one. He can’t help himself much.
YOUNG WOMAN: Then those two young ones over Atchafalaya Bay.
OLD WOMAN: Yes, yes, that’s true...
YOUNG WOMAN: And that devil of a man out by the spillway.
OLD WOMAN: You right, I swear he has horns.
YOUNG WOMAN: Unsightly creature. But that Enchante. Henri Couture. He do have the looks, wouldn’t you say?
OLD WOMAN: Oh for sure.
YOUNG WOMAN: Baptize me father, for I have sinned!
Beat.
YOUNG WOMAN: Six months along you say?
OLD WOMAN: And then some.
Beat.
OLD WOMAN; Look like another storm coming. Better get a move on. River’s talkin to me.
YOUNG WOMAN: Can’t hear much of anything with all that chatter. Chitter chatter all day long. Can’t get a word in edgewise.
OLD WOMAN: I feel old. Like her. Can’t even move my legs no more.
YOUNG WOMAN: You ain’t old. You just tired. Never seen anyone do as much laundry as you, woman.
OLD WOMAN: Just like to keep busy. Gotta do what’s necessary.
YOUNG WOMAN: Why then most folks sittin around all day doin nothin but talkin shit.
OLD WOMAN: Lotta shit to be talked about. No roof over your head’s no small business.
YOUNG WOMAN: Still, they some lazy ass folks in this town. With busy mouths and busy pussys.
OLD WOMAN: Don’t be too hard now. We gotta look after our own. Ain’t that what the good lord want us to do?
YOUNG WOMAN: Well, you a saint compare to most everybody else round these parts.
OLD WOMAN: Just doing the laundry.
YOUNG WOMAN: Some say you a witch.
OLD WOMAN: What’s that now?
YOUNG WOMAN: All them incantations and shit you be doing. I hear folks talkin.
OLD WOMAN: Let em talk.
YOUNG WOMAN: That time them flies was swarming and you started with that voodoo and all them flies just up and died! How you do that?
OLD WOMAN: Just nature. Sometimes all you got to do is make friends with mom nature and she take care of you.
YOUNG WOMAN: Maybe you mom nature. That what I’m gonna call you from now on. Mom Nature!
OLD WOMAN: You think I’m a witch?
YOUNG WOMAN: Nah. They say you was responsible for the storm.
OLD WOMAN: You believe that?
YOUNG WOMAN: I don’t know.
OLD WOMAN: Damn! That’s just foolish shit! Why would I wish this kinda destruction on anyone?
YOUNG WOMAN: Maybe you thought those levees was no good.
OLD WOMAN: They ain’t no good! Maybe folks just done underestimated the force of nature is all. Maybe the folks who built those levees got no respect for its power and they most likely wished we all got swept away in them flood waters. But we still here! The damage is done, true, but we ain’t gonna let them forget we still here!
YOUNG WOMAN: We still ain’t got no homes.
OLD WOMAN: We got plenty to be thankful for. Plenty!
YOUNG WOMAN: How so?
OLD WOMAN: We got each other and we got our pride. Ain’t gonna let nothin take that away. And we got this here ole river, she still flowin strong.
YOUNG WOMAN: Can’t even get to the other side. My children still over there. Haven’t even brushed up on they skin in nine months.
OLD WOMAN: Have faith now, have faith.
YOUNG WOMAN: They still workin on that bridge. I don’t think I can wait much longer. I miss my family. I want to go home.
She weeps quietly. The old woman mutters something under her breath, an incantation.
YOUNG WOMAN: What’s that you doing?
OLD WOMAN: Hush now. It gettin dark. We best be finishin up. Gotta rest our roots.
YOUNG WOMAN: Drink up some of that silt, huh?
OLD WOMAN: For sure. Drink deep. Drink long.
They gather up their loads in silence and set them aside. The two woman stand firmly on the ground and take root in the muddy soil. Trees on the banks of the Mississippi.
The old woman tree delivers a prayer as the last vestige of daylight falls away and night takes over.
OLD WOMAN: Death’s presence is like the night, swallowing all our pain. Disaster has struck, yes, that’s true. Yet we can’t help but feel delight in the very rays of the sun. Each day brings new fragrances of cherry blossoms. Crops come and go with the seasons. Constellations appear and reappear with each revolution. Seeds replenish the earth. Among the ruins, the devastation, something grows. Something we all can see. Something we all can feel. And this something gives us reason to carry on. To carry on. Good night for now. Tomorrow we will open our eyes again. Wider maybe. Maybe even wider.
The storm begins. Thunder and rain.
END OF PLAY