SCENE TWO (Pt. 3)
(To view Part 1 of Heaven is for Sharks, https://www.theodysseyonline.com/heaven-sharks-part-1click here)
(To view Part 2 of Heaven is for Sharks, https://www.theodysseyonline.com/heaven-sharks-part-2click here.)
PREVIOUSLY:
POET: People always look up to be comforted by the stars. The moon. Birds. God. There’s no difference between up and down anymore. I've always thought that Hell wouldn't have poetry and moonlight. But, it's here that I don’t have poetry and moonlight. (tense and upset) Is this comfort? Is this Heaven? Or is this all just a sick joke?
SHARK: Calm, my friend. You are in the presence of an angel. What can be more comforting than that? Guardian angels share the earth just as much as they share the sky, just as much as they share the sea. Let me guide you. (beat) Please, let us continue.
POET: No! I don’t want to go with you! (tries to swim upward but is stuck on stage)
SHARK: Please.
POET: No! I’ll be just fine without you! I will figure this all out on my own. I need what makes me beautiful, what gives me purpose. This can’t be real. If there are no trees to love, no wind to kiss me, no stars to wish upon, no moon to tell my secrets to, what kind of Heaven is this? What will give me meaning? Who am I? What do I have to live for?
SHARK: That’s the thing. Nothing. You have nothing to live for, no matter where you are.
POET: (beat) Right…
SHARK: Come. Let’s continue. (SHARK gestures; POET follows)
POET: (stops sharply) Look! (points up) He’s starting to sink! He’s being welcomed into Heaven!
SHARK: No. He’s not.
POET: He is! He is.
SHARK: (boldly; meanly) Enough! (everything goes still) I think it’s time for you to understand that there’s more to this than you want to believe. For a poet, your naivety is disrupting your transition into this realm.
POET: (defensively) So… What does it take to get into Heaven?
SHARK: If I tell you, I’d have to kill you.
POET: (sarcastically) That’s real funny. Then I ask, what refrains him from making it? Has he sinned?
SHARK: You have sinned, and you are here.
POET: If it’s not sin –
SHARK: Did you believe in Heaven before making it here?
POET: (beat; thinking deeply) No.
SHARK: Exactly. No preconceived notions. No expectations. We weren’t worried about pleasing you or disappointing you. You are here. We are here. Simple as that.
POET: So, he (beat) believes in Heaven?
SHARK: Yes.
POET: Does he believe in Hell?
SHARK: Do you?
POET: I don’t know anymore. If I do, it won’t exist. If I don’t, somehow it will manifest. But, I'll never now because I'm here. Is that how it works?
SHARK: Is that how you want it to work?
POET: Apparently it doesn’t matter what I want. I want to save this man. I want there to be more than Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and whatever it is I've been living in. I want to write. I want to have a purpose.
SHARK: You don’t know what you want. That’s why you are open-minded. That’s why you are here.
POET: Oh, I see. You are going to tell me what I want. Who I am. What I am living… dying… for. What I will be stuck thinking, doing, hoping for the rest of eternity. Right?
SHARK: Right.
POET: This is why I didn’t believe in Heaven. There’s always a catch to what’s supposed to be perfect.
SHARK: Do you believe in Heaven now?
POET: I am here, aren’t I?
SHARK: Are you? (beat; sassy) Then let us do what we do here.
POET: (defensive) If I can’t live to be a poet, and I can’t live for anything I want to live for (beat) then what does it matter? Please, let me help him! Please… just let me keep sinking. Either way, I won’t have to deal with any of this. Maybe I will sink far enough to make it back to the sky. What if I don’t belong here? What if I was supposed to go to Hell?
SHARK: You are supposed to be here. This is where you belong.
POET: It doesn’t feel like it.
SHARK: If it’s so awful down here, why do you want to save the man? Why do you feel for him?
POET: (beat; nostalgic again; closes eyes) She always said that feeling is the language of the soul. Sometimes we wish those feelings could be ignored, and sometimes we won’t be happy until they are acted upon. Just like we wish to ignore the truth and often as we wish to know it. He is the only thing I know to be true.
SHARK: There is not such thing.
POET: (frustrated) You’re supposed to tell me the opposite. You’re supposed to tell me that this is the ultimate truth and that I have achieved what only a selective group of others have.
SHARK: And where are these “others”?
POET: (pauses; realizes he's the only human there) There’s no way I am the only one. Where are the other Heaven-dwellers? (beat) I saw the other angels, the swordfish guardians, the school of fish. Why haven’t I seen anyone else in the same situation as me? Why haven’t I seen God?
SHARK: Because you keep interrupting me. I will not show you anyone else like you. I cannot. But I can take you to meet God. Yes?
POET: Yes. (excitedly) Yes, I must meet God to understand!
(POET follows SHARK offstage. Lights fade.)
BLACKOUT
END OF SCENE
