Dance for Baghdad

Hey guys, guys, if I may, without imposing, or taking away from our Kumbaya moment—which I’m in love with, seriously, you don’t even know—I’ve been waiting for this since joining the company—but as I’m vibing that we’re all kind of generously inclined towards each other right now, if I’m any judge of human behavior, I’m gonna go ahead and snatch this opportunity, while the good mood’s in the air, to ask, in way of a favor, if I could get some constructive feedback on ideas I’ve been working with in a screenplay I’m writing. (All look at him.) All in? (Nothing.) Great. You guys are awesome. It’s about a guy who’s reached an emotional, mental, spiritual, and as a dancer and choreographer, physical impasse, a virtual dead end. He’s repulsed with himself and the work he generates and asks others to partake in. He wants to withdraw into misanthropic isolation where he can systematically destroy his old self, imbibe the thick stew of emptiness in murky silence until it is bearable no more, and then, only then, begin to trek back up the forbidding mount of existence as a useful artist and member of this, our retrograde society. That, my dear friends and colleagues, should give you a clear picture of the inner world of the movie’s protagonist, who’s obviously, I won’t lie, based on myself, and his primary motivation for advancing the plot. In the movie, my character is the artistic director and choreographer of the En-Knapp Dance Company. The company is thriving. We’re accomplishing goals, traveling extensively, darlings of audiences round the globe, awards, Best This, Best That, commissions for new work, invitations to collaborate with famous artists, etcetera. We expand, hire additional dancers—like Jeffrey, like Lada—our future looks bright and endless, our place in performance art history rock solid. So what do we do? We bite the hands that feed us like an ungrateful feral cat. We turn down new commissions, return funds already advanced to us, and cancel future tour dates. We leave the spotlight, and in the shadows, top-secretly, while the world believes we’ve disappeared from the scene for good, we work tirelessly, and set out on a perilous path to reinvent how the company functions and what kind of work it makes. Then, rejuvenated with an ungraded sense of purpose, we book a gig in Baghdad, Republic of Iraq. We arrive at Baghdad International Airport in the cargo hold of a Christian humanitarian relief jet along with medical supplies, canned food, plastic tubs of personal-sized crucifixes and rosaries, cute mini-Bibles, and vast quantities of Red Bull energy drink, which, we soon learn, is the primary, if not the sole source of nutrition for both NATO troops and Iraqi insurgents. In fact, the way we are transported from the airport directly to the desert theatre of war is in a gaudily marked Red Bull delivery truck, evidently the safest way to travel anywhere in the conflict-ravaged Middle East. There is virtually zero chance of getting fired upon if you’re in any way associated with the Red Bull brand or are anywhere within the relative vicinity of its product. Fighters on both sides are physically addicted to the stimulating beverage and there is a tacit agreement to under no circumstances endanger the Red Bull Mobile. We drive through an auxiliary but still hyperactive battle zone. There are massive explosions all around. But our leisurely moving vehicle seems to be impermeable, its own mobile oasis of mollifying serenity. We pass by burning upturned cars, civilian and military, dead and wounded animals and people, who manage feeble smiles and wave at us like we are a parade float. There is a powderized house and a girl playing with her deceased family members like they’re oversized dolls. I’ve watched similar sights on TV at home for entertainment, always at an appropriate emotional remove, and strangely, it still feels that way, even though I’m only a pane of glass away from the actual horrors. The rest of the company dozes off, tranquilized by the purring and gentle rocking of the Red Bull Mobile, née RBM, and the lullaby-type tune that percolates from speakers inside and outside the vehicle. Our driver, a jolly Austrian with a Styrian accent, quietly hums along. Our first stop is the NATO outpost. The dancers wake up with a start as the truck’s hydraulics flatulate, the door folds open, and lets in the sound of actual postmodern warfare. But it’s safe within the perimeter of the RBM’s bubble of peace. The chubby Styrian driver starts offloading case upon case of the mediciny sweet, Austrian-made boundless energy-nectar, and NATO soldiers drop their weapons, abandon posts, and skip with carefree dewy-eyed smiles toward us. They can smell the mighty beverage even through aluminum and cardboard and help stack the cases with gleeful grins of anticipation, emitting involuntary moans of future pleasure. Meanwhile, we dancers are the definition of stupefaction. Some grab their luggage and ready themselves to disembark, but I quickly order them to simmer back down—not yet—which they obey, albeit with annoyed attitude. The driver hops back in behind the wheel—he does everything with enviable lightness despite his corpulence—and apologizes for neglecting to offer us complimentary Red Bull, neé RB, earlier. We help ourselves and immediately, thanks to the elixir, the atmosphere improves radically. On the cans it says: “military-grade, experimental, not for civilian consumption.” We feel privileged. The door queefs shut and we drive on, taking our magical orb of invincibility with us, towards the Iraqi insurgency zone. Tweaked out NATO soldiers run after us like a throng of obese prediabetic children after an ice cream truck, but we lose them in a cloud of sand raised by our wheels. More visual misery along the road; the road gradually vanishes inside potholes and craters caused by explosions. Approximately midpoint between NATO and Iraqi positions, I tap the shoulder of the kind driver, and request a stop. He obliges. The door hisses open. I grab the showbag full of costumes, and my personal baggage, physical and emotional, and back out of RBM onto hot desert sand. I wait for the others but no one’s emerging. I peek my head back in. The company is terrified. Determined not to let anything diminish my enthusiasm to finally do something with my heretofore pointless artsy-fartsy life, I assume an unquestionable tenor of authority and sternly order the dancers to grab their shit and get the fuck off the truck. They whimper and do as I say, intimidated into submissiveness by the sights and sounds of war. Before the last one out, the driver gifts us two full cases of the experimental military grade not-for-civilian-consumption RB, for which I profusely thank him and give him one of our souvenir company t-shirts, which we bring everywhere for just this type of occasion. He yodels with glee, immediately dons it over his RB uniform, blows us a kiss tschüssi, and drives on towards the Iraqis, who have ceased fire in anticipation of the imminent delivery. This temporary truce affords us a window of time to catch our bearings and situate ourselves. I ID the perfect location to set up the dressing-slash-greenroom, a large crater freshly made by a powerful bomb, no debris at the bottom, a pristine inviting hole, and lead the way. We descend into safety just as bullets resume screaming at each other up above. Fear is natural in this situation and the dancers withdraw inside themselves, unaccustomed to real, non-self-generated drama, but I work in turbo mode to mobilize the troupe and boost our team spirit. We can pull off this mission only if our hearts beat in unison. My efforts are for naught until everyone quenches their dry mouth with RB. Subsequently there’s no resistance to my over-the-top cheerleading; in fact, I myself must kick it into higher gear to keep up with the rest of the company, which I relish. I stow the second case of the potent performance-enhancing potion of courage and distilled fighting spirit in my personal baggage for a future refresher. We urgently don our flamboyant color-coordinated costumes and elaborate headdresses, and help each other overapply self-consciously tacky makeup designed to be noticeable from a great distance. The atmosphere in the hole is akin to the giddy nervous hustle and bustle backstage before the first elementary school dance recital. We’re all able to access the original pure impulse which made us choose to pursue this tenuous artform, intoxicated on adrenaline and the secret ingredient in military grade RB. We are doing what we love and finally putting it to good use, or any use at all. One of the dancers leads an abbreviated group warmup, we break a little sweat, and finish off singing our company anthem more triumphantly than ever. I’m not the only one who has goosebumps. Then our customary pre-show group hug, followed by a bit of one-on-one mock sexual molestation for good luck, some additional individual rituals, and we’re at places. The stakes have never been higher. Baghdad needs us. The entire world needs Baghdad. Therefore, the world needs us. A straightforward equation. It’s all on our shoulders. Showtime. We check each other’s hair and makeup, fix costumes. Everyone charged up, overeager. I count down. Three, two, one, GO. We explode out of the crater and make our grand entrée. Shit! We seem to have forgotten what bullets do to people. They whistle maliciously around us and mess up our hair and the expensive tinted ostrich feathers in our headdresses. Those are irreplaceable. Our self-preservation instinct kicks in and we follow it back into the relative safety of our hole, all atremble with primal fright. I reach for the extra case of RB, quickly divvy up the cans, and over the deafening sounds of artillery shout: “Chug! Chug! Chug!” And chug we do, the empty cans in our engorged palms we crush, our courage and fighting spirit surge back with a vengeance. I call places everyone, count down, three, two, one, GO, and up we clamber again, a reprise of our well-rehearsed show-stopper entrance. We look strong, we feel invincible. Is it perhaps this confidence and clarity of purpose heretofore absent from the history of modern dance, which makes the seemingly indiscriminate shelling from both sides of the conflict finally … stop? Only the hot desert wind is heard, carrying the echo of suddenly muzzled artillery farther and farther away, mixed in with the swooshes and whooshes of our feet stirring up sand, arms cutting through thick air, and our precisely timed inhales and exhales. Soldiers on both sides, I imagine with an arrogant smile, must be dumbstruck by the queer mirage of our bedazzled, befeathered, garishly colorful dance troupe appearing right in their crosshairs. I am drunk on missionary zeal and RB. It is exhilarating. Here we are, putting our fragile dancer necks on the actual line, risking our only lives. My heart dances more vigorously than my limbs will ever be able to. Five, six, seven, eight, we throw ourselves into the opening number in perfect undismissable unison. No one is firing at us, which I consider our first success, and we’re encouraged into even fuller extension of our extremities, taller jumps and longer leaps, in fact three times the recommended height and length, and lifts of exquisite beauty and duration. And one and two and three and four, we fan out into a straight line, and each do individual but related choreography based on a famous heroic rhymed poem; one’s movements, like the rhythmically metered stanzas, folding into the neighbor’s, and so forth down the line. Five, six and seven and eight, one, two, we break into seemingly disorganized chaos. There appears to be no intelligence at work in our dynamic, constantly morphing formation, but I assure you, there’s nothing chancy about our signature En-Knapp choreography. We’re always über-organized, every move is calibrated and recalibrated and absolutely integral. If a single element fails, the entire sophisticated but precarious structure falls apart. And this particular performance, I daresay, is a veritable apotheosis of the artform. We’re getting down, solos, duets, trios, all permutational combos, really digging it, suddenly doing with ease sequences we could never master in rehearsal. Then, as fully expected, both sides of our captive audience send out recon teams. We see them approaching cautiously, weapons pointed at us, lubricated eager index fingers on triggers. I feel the RB liquid courage slowing down its race through the obstacle course of my bloodstream, and it’s safe to assume the juice is wearing off in others too, but I outdo myself as a motivator: Hell no we don’t stop in fear! We intensify! We’re dancing for world peace! I remind everyone, and we give the performance of our lives. The over-weaponized soldiers are so close I can read individual emotions on their insufficiently camouflaged faces. This is invaluable feedback that impacts our performance. We see ourselves reflected in our audience, and if we do our job right, they see themselves in us. None of the soldiers is interested in their mortal enemy across the performance area. They’re busy deciphering and interpreting the abstract patterns in our sophisticated choreography, full of hidden meanings, metaphors, allusions, direct as well as oblique references to both classical and pop culture. We did not dumb it down for them. The lack of a unifying narrative does not seem to bother them. These soldiers, heroes all, are the most intelligent audience we’ve ever performed for. It must be the complexity of their life at the very extremes of human experience that makes it possible for them to appreciate radical art. Nearby, an unexploded bomb goes off at the perfect moment—a cool effect; no one gets injured. Our next section consists of jerks, twitches, broken doll poses, tableaux based on extensive research of human and animal suffering through the ages, sudden collapses to the ground, and reenactments of every sort of seizure. I notice embryonic stages of movement on both sides of the narrow performance corridor. It quickly intensifies and soon all soldiers, infected by our purposely awkward expressive convulsions, are dancing along with us. Rigorous military drills, I surmise, have prepared them to pick up our choreography swiftly. What took us months of work, they’re able to master quite effortlessly without any of the ferocious frustration that characterizes all our rehearsals. They step onto the sandy dancefloor and freely mingle among us. One moment I’m dancing a duet with an Iraqi rebel and next I’m an ancillary part of a trio with two NATO soldiers. I’m lost, most enjoyably, inside a babel of languages. American, Czech, Danish or Dutch—they sound the same—Gibberish, Georgian, Pidgin, Jewish, Gerbil, and German, but mostly Arabic and Mexican—the two official languages of this war. I’m thinking the financial security of our company is practically guaranteed. We’ve hit the motherload, a bona fide gold mine, what with all the workshops we’re sure to be invited to conduct all over the war-torn world. I hear ka-ching and feel the irises of my eyes roll into Euro and dollar signs respectively. But alas, our piece is approaching finale. The dancers look to me with panicked expressions. We all know it’s the dancing alone keeping us alive. What happens when we run out of choreographed steps? We have unanimously voted that under no circumstances would we resort to the vulgarities of improvisation. But before I’m able to think of a suitable solution to our potentially deadly predicament, our scheduled exeunt omni arrives, five, six, seven, eight, and off we leap like gazelles into virtual wings, leaving NATOans and Iraqis facing off against each other, limp weapons dangling from shoulders. It wouldn’t take much to reinsert the now-flaccid, but ever so easily arousable index fingers into the still moist trigger openings. A shootout of cataclysmic consequences could ensue any moment. However, instead, while we pant on the sidelines, the fighters continue dancing on their own. We’re spectating a classic dance-off. First NATO soldiers show off their moves, playfully taunting the Iraqis, who retort with an equally virtuoso combination. There’s aggressive male posturing, innocuous ruffling of feathers, but also displays of effeminacy, almost bordering on courtship. There are intermittent explosions of laughter. I’m proud to see them incorporate elements and even entire sequences they’ve learned from us into their routines. There is no obvious winner, but that doesn’t seem to be the objective, as subsequently the soldiers pair up, one NATO and one Iraqi per couple, and spin each other round and round with vertiginous velocity. Then this awesome intercourse decelerates considerably into classic slow dance, which gradually melts into your basic frottage. Each man’s personal amount of gay shyly pokes its rainbow head out, exposing latent homosexual tendencies in all mano-a-mano male encounters such as mortal combat. Soldiers are a pitiful lonesome species, starved most of all for the gentle touch of another, and must capitalize on every rare opportunity for carnal contact. But suddenly the ground throws up small puffs of sand in quick succession accompanied by a rat-a-tat sound from above. A pair of necking soldiers emit in unison a stifled scream, fold to the ground, and twitch there, still embracing, moribund. In the sky I descry a giant four-legged bird of pray, a griffin, or more likely, given our location, the legendary Arabian Roc, spitting sizable stones down at us, putting all terpsichorean activities on pause. None of “the show must go on” spirit here, since it turns out it’s not a bird, but an unidentified unmanned drone, carpet-shelling what it interprets to be some alien life-form—which coincidentally the contemporary dancer resembles the most—and which must be exterminated. I hit the ground and bury my head in the sand as a well-known escape strategy. But what my eyes can’t see, my ears perceive all the more vividly. There go the soldiers’ index fingers becoming erect, being lubricated in mouths, their slurpy insertions into tight-fitting trigger openings, the pumping of round after round, the penetration of flesh, the ejaculation of blood, the primal moaning, the groaning. With my head in the sand I lose the reins of my imagination and it runs wild and away from me. Then. A sharp pain in my right ass cheek forces me above ground. I’ve been shot. No surprise here. I was asking for it. The dancefloor is once again an echt battlefield, strewn with unmanned feather boas, headdresses, wigs, shredded bedazzled leotards, sequins, and fake jewels. The accountant in me tries to tabulate the damage, but it’s difficult to manage in my frazzled state. While art may feast on misery and murder, accounting must have languor for creative juices to flow. Nevertheless, I manage to account for all my dancers. They’re squealing like pigs at slaughter, dragging themselves back into our hole-cum-dressing-slash-greenroom. Some are injured. Ass pain saps my math skills and I can’t count the dead and dying soldiers. There are too many. Those who still have one or more limbs retreat back to their respective camps, abandoning us dancers to fend for ourselves against the anonymous third-party drone. I too begin to crawl towards the supposed safety hole, gritting my teeth, pushing through pain. Now. A large shadow overtakes me. The merciless monster is hovering directly above my quadruped form. I’m going to die within milliseconds unless I attempt to soften its steel heart. I dig deep and clamber up to my feet. I can hardly stand, but I’m fighting for my life, which suddenly, for the first time, seems worth fighting for. I man up and perform a modified version of the most audience-friendly sequence of our choreography. But. The dragon misreads my intentions, feels threatened, and fires a single exploratory bullet at me. I’m hit in the right groin, i.e., too close to my preciouses. First the ass, now the genitalia? Come on, man! The drone seems to be programmed to target erogenous zones. I try to think positive. Maybe the drone doesn’t want to kill, only to humiliate. But pain spreads through my entire body, my knees buckle, and I hit the ground like an adult diaper full of crap. I resume crawling. The bitch shoots me again, this time in the back of my neck, dispelling my positive humors. I roll over and give her a dirty look. She drops mere feet above me. I grope for rocks to throw but there’s only sand. She pivots to get a fuller picture of me. I find a boot with a warm foot inside and hurl it at her. She makes a funny sound I don’t know how to describe, does a backflip, and flies away. I’m proud of myself. The last bullet must have severed a major nerve because the right half of my body goes limp. I drag it with my able half back to the hole, hopeful the drone’s never coming back. I almost make it, but thank god I don’t. There’s a buzzing behind me and getting louder. I look over my dead shoulder and see a swarm of mad drones flying in formation toward us. Flashback. This reminds me of a childhood memory when I once insulted a wasp, she flew away, and moments later brought back a whole nestful of pissed off buddies intent on revenge. They stung me till I was swollen beyond even my mother’s recognition. End flashback. The drones get to the hole before I do, but not before some of my company has found shelter within. It’s too late to warn them. The drones fire in unison straight into the hole, which explodes in a milkshake of sand, dancer chunks, private and company property, and a swirl of blood. The material foams over the edge and settles back down. A spectacular effect. The drones ascend high above the desert, most likely to regroup and strategize. I look in the crater, now much deeper. It is a mass grave of bodies brutally dismembered and or eviscerated, unrecognizable. I must avert my eyes or else lose my mind. Where is the rest of the company? I focus my sight at infinity and scan the horizon. One dancer, I believe it’s Jeffrey, is bouncing on one leg away from the scene of the massacre, blood spurting from where his left arm used to be, screaming his boyfriend’s name. Two others, Ana and Luke, arms around each other, are crawling in the opposite direction. Where is Ida? I can’t find her and conclude the worst. Lada, sadly, I already saw dead in the crater. Above, soaring in high altitude, the impregnable, artif-intelligent techno-vultures are prospecting for further provender. NATO and Iraqis resume shooting at each other. I don’t know the exact definition of the word mayhem, but this could well be it. I keep my head down, and in case I only have moments to live, I try to induce a screening of a movie of my entire life in one of the cinemas in the cineplex of my mind. The independent fleet of rogue drones, fighting for their own territorial gains, drops an overkill of bombs on the area. I roll up into a ball and pray, amateurishly. The explosions cause an earthquake. I am buried under an avalanche of sand. When at last I manage to doggy-paddle up to the surface coughing my lungs out, I don’t recognize the reconfigured landscape. The two enemy teams of fighters appear to have been lifted up and placed much closer to each other. They’re firing with their eyes closed and with more hate than before we came to dance for them. This is our fault! Oh God! We’ve done more harm than good! I weep. There is nothing familiar for me to hold onto. Events far beyond my intellectual grasp are occurring around me. I pray again, now with slightly less desperate fervor but more genuine faith. My prayer is answered. I hear the Red Bull Mobile approaching, the bass of its bubbly ice cream tune aggressively cranked up. Unfortunately drones do not feed on RB, hence make no concessions for its disbursal. They continue their systematic offensive bombing. This leaves the soldiers on the ground no choice but to also keep up their defensive brainless barrage. The truck skids, pivots hundred eighty degrees, and comes to a sudden stop, swirling dust around itself like a fancy shawl. The door opens and the corpulent but healthy Austrian emerges. I can’t tell if he’s purposely moving in slow motion, or I’m losing grip on real time due to heavy blood loss. He quaffs a can of RB, crushes the empty, and histrionically tosses it high in the air, where it is immediately pulverized by bullets. Then the Styrian hero hops up and throws himself over his own heft, attempting a front-flip. In my professional opinion, unsuccessful, but who am I to set standards. At this moment I consider myself a colossal failure, a tofu tortilla salad. It takes him a few clumsy seconds to disentangle his limbs. I wave at him in case he doesn’t see me. He waves back effeminately and skips toward me. Bullets buzz around his head like ovulating mosquitoes. But RB gives him wiings®. I try to think of some Austrian words to impress him with but come up with zilch. He taunts the bullets, come and get me, evidently feeling immortal from the vim juice he vends. He endeavors another variety of front-flip, even less successful, but he clearly feels he’s improving. He’s performing some kind of well-rehearsed routine, I realize. Almost like he’s auditioning—I recognize that intense, hungry-jazz-face look. But it only enrages the waspish bullets more. He is shot. He goes down. On his way to the ground, he is shot again. In the stomach, in the chest, in the leg, and in the head. The multiple bullets poison him with imminent death. He bleeds everywhere. Gracefully he places himself in the warm, silken bed of sand, slowly, still in full command of his expiring hulky body, looks up at me, and thanks me with a smile, through tears much like mine now, in his adorable accent, for inspiring him, admits that he’s always dreamed of being a dancer, but never felt adequate enough until he met and saw us, and realized he too can do this, he can finally quit his shitty Red Fucking Bull delivery fucking job, where his boss is a moneygrubbing asshole, and devote himself exclusively to doing what he secretly loves. He knows he’s dying, but these few brief, and at the same time eternal, moments are worth dying for. And his eyes roll over, and he gargles his own blood, and dies. Thank you Fritzi, or whatever your name is, you magnificent specimen of manhood. You will forever live on in my heart. R.I.P. Now. I still have to get the fuck out of butthole Baghdad and salvage whoever’s left of the company. The engine of the Red Bull Mobile is still running. I make a move towards it with all available strength. Mind over matter, I yell at myself. Come on, you pussy, mind over fucking matter! It helps me haul my dead conjoined twin to the truck and together we climb behind the steering wheel. I hear a human moan, look back over my shoulder, and see poor injured Ida pinned under a pile of intermittently exploding cases of RB. Good, at least she’s alive, I say to myself. Fritzi must have picked her up. I chug a can of RB for extra oomph. The windshield is gone and bullets are ricocheting within the vehicle like in a pinball machine. I feel no fear, goaded by the fumes from the exploding beverages behind me. The sinister ice cream truck song is blaring. I max out the bass and feel invincible. All my insecurities evaporate. I locate the lone fugitive Jeffrey in the distance, bouncing deeper into the forbidding desert on the pogostick of his one remaining leg. Not a smart move, but one to be expected from Jeffrey; he’s new. I head toward him. On my way I pass an injured NATO soldier waving me down. I have other priorities and can’t stop. To assuage my conscience, I reach behind me, grab a can of RB, and toss it out the window to the poor groveling youth, thinking to give him enough energy to make it to safety. How was I supposed to know that cans of Red Bull double as grenades? Following this unfortunate contretemps, I drive up alongside Jeffrey and turn down the music. He looks deranged and doesn’t want to get in. I beg him. He says he doesn’t trust me. I say I understand. He says fuck you. I say he’s stupid. He says I’m stupider and fuck you. I say fuck yourself. He gives me the silent treatment. I think. I apologize and say I didn’t mean what I said, that he’s by far the best dancer in the company, a rarefied corporeal poet, talent grande, potential up the wazoo, etcetera etcetera, and I love him like a brother. His demeanor flips one eighty and he pogoes into the passenger seat. He notices Ida moaning in the back and nods. She waves at him. One of Jeffrey’s eyes is completely out of service and the other is dangling off its optic nerve. Coincidentally, I’m in the same predicament. We each hold our eyeballs between two fingers and manually direct them where to look. He’s the first to spot Luke and Ana crawling away. I step on the gas before I lose all sensation in my lower extremities. The drones are relentless, claiming ever more real estate while performing their own impressive aerial choreography. There is no use for us humans in their rapidly evolving macrocosm. We’re vermin to them, an annoying pest that must be exterminated. The Iraqi and NATO fighters, handicapped by RB withdrawal symptoms, are shooting blindly, mostly mercy-killing their own, or committing suicide. We reach Luke and Ana. They’re unrecognizable. The extent of their combined injuries makes them monstrous. If I didn’t know better, I’d think we’ve run into a giant desert crab. The sight makes my eye bleed. I point it away and instruct mi amigo Jeffrey to deal with them. Luke and Ana miraculously clamber up into the cargo area and off we go at maximum velocity away from this mistake of a place. The floor of the truck is a kiddie pool of Red Bull, blood, and feces—no doubt its secret ingredient. I hear Luke slurping up this almighty formula with the remainder of his slipshod lips, perhaps the sole reason he survives the bumpy eternal ride to the Baghdad International Airport. We leave Lada behind, a hero fallen for a magna cum laude cause. Rest in peace. Your time with us was short, but you gave it your all, literally. You’re our very own true Španski Borac. Back in Ljubljana. It turns out our injuries are not as serious as we feared. We all get back to normal, physically. Mentally and emotionally, however, the narrative is very different. I have night terrors once a night, guaranteed, and wet the bed regularly. Loud noises make me dry-heave, I get grand mal seizures at the slightest intimation of danger, and I’ve defecated myself in public on at least seven occasions. The other survivors also suffer from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. My ex-wife, hoping to get back together now that our kid has run away from home with our car and all our savings at age eleven, has been campaigning for us to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, which we doubtless deserve, at least for trying, but I intend to turn it down in protest of domestic violence in Slovenia, which has reached pandemic scale. (Bence alone on stage from now on.) No one can truly understand how really really sad it is to conclude this project is a failure. I’m disappointed to the core, in myself, in the company, and in the universe, where only such a minuscule amount of what humans imagine is actually possible. I’m beyond consolation. My crippling melancholy is compounded by the fact that I haven’t heard from any of my fellow survivors since coming back, even though I’ve reached out to them. Who was it that single-handedly saved their pathetic microlives? The least I deserve is an SMS, even one composed of only emojis. Oh how painfully lonely I am. What magical ointment would I not rub on this spreading rash of usamljenost. I am devoid of dignity. Nothing could restrain me if I saw a mere hint of a friendly hand outstretched toward me. I would choke it near death with my own needy paws and drown it in grateful kisses. But then, my character resurrects, and climbs back up to the peak of his artistic prime again. While bitches and motherfuckers are asleep, he is toiling hard, oiling his pistons, working out by candle light. He gets in the best shape of his life. Whether you still want him or you’ve had enough, he’ll keep showing up long past when either your progeny has sucked you dry of drive, or you’ve burned out. And in his copious spare time he’s rehearsing a solo he’ll dance on your graves. The end. Long heavy pause. Dear patient audience, this gut-wrenching manifesto of my idealism, valor, friendship, love, and ultimate betrayal, this eternal story, my most valuable and only possession, is for sale. My disastrous financial straits leave me no alternative. No! Please! No. Put your coin-purses and billfolds back in your pockets. This is not the place. There’s a fantastic Brazilian restaurant, Rodizio Do Brasil, famous for salad bar orgies and meat feasts. I’ll be there after the show, happy to negotiate motion picture rights, and grateful for companionship. Thank you. Ciao. (He drops the mic and exits.)