ACT THREE. PROLOGUE

[PROLOGUE appears. She is exactly as before. Except she has withdrawn her favor.]

PROLOGUE:

The SMIRK is groaning like a leaky kettle

like a laptop rank with STD’s that cannot cool itself

its fan huffing, its motherboard melting

its hair limp,

like a lymphomic teen in hospice

on the death rattle. Hummmm. It’s drowning

as it’s droning. It’s seeping slow cargo.

It drains. It sings a hott sonnette,

a sonatina. It terre hautes. BUZZ.

But is it day or night?

Does the firmament move?

I have the curiosity of a scientist.

I have the curiosity of a 1950’s clinician.

But I have no mercy.

Nothing can exhaust me,

but nothing can feel what I feel.

I am become immortal,

and I have withdrawn my favor.

O SUSPENSION!

O grace withdrawn!

Ask the trilobite, he knows

what it’s like to be suspended in media

To have the knowledge of centuries and no freedom

The prairie used to be a sea

but now its bed

is blocked in upright limestone

and has to supervise the foodcourt at the

Coral Ridge Mall

in Coralville, Iowa

shift after shift

it has to tolerate AC forever

Or hold up the Old Capitol walls

overseeing the 4H speech competition

drone drone forever and can never clock out

and can never sleep

and is suffered no Ambien.

Poor trilobite. You have suffered a sea change!

Immortalitee makes you fitful

it makes you petty as a queen.

I will not move this vessel

until its inmates find a way of moving me.

Act Three.