Even Odds

Even Odds

  By Yas Niger

  Copyright 2014 Yas Niger

  ***

  This is a work of fiction and it is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

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  * * *

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prologue: Synopsis

  The play

  The poem

  About the author

  Prologue: Synopsis

  This is both a play and a continuous poem. It is a tragedy with only two visible characters in its entirety. There is NE, a young disposed prince out to reclaim his family throne, and BI; his much younger sister and only sibling, who got tangled up in NE's struggles. The pair's dialogue unfolds the age old tale of belittled feminism and the over-hyped masculinity of the world that habitually swallows up all the laudable efforts of the women folk.

  The story emerges from their fast paced rhythmic exchanges within a small portion of a single day. Shrouded therein is the mischievous hypocritical malice of the many ordinary people surrounding the few notables ones and it all comes out as though it is true for everyone else, notable and ordinary folks alike.

  The struggles of people on the spot appears endless as everyone around them seems to wait to hear about their travails, desirous of finding out if they win their battles or not, if their wars can be classed as successful or disasters. People simply relish jeering at others when they fail and leer at them when they are triumphant.

  This is a tale that seemingly reassures that justice tends to resurrect subsequently, and put everything correct again. It is a poem that places destiny in both the hands of the particular individual and still puts fate in the unclear whirl and thrill of luck. Set in the embattled order of seemingly medieval times, when life ironically felt less insecure despite being certainly very unsure, the play asks more questions than it answers. The siblings' revealed experiences in the play, by extension hints of how everyone else appears to be at the mercy of chance, and yet living out a predestined order of events.

  Life feels unsafe because sometimes it turns out to vaguely be one instead of the assumed another or the expected other. It is odious to manage the simplest things and people can not really mend the silly holes of doubt they endlessly tend. Dubious questions appear to be posed for readied answers and answers altered to snugly suit unassailable queries as people continuously seek to even the odds life naturally throws at them. These answers appear to lurk in some exact and obscure faith, either or neither conventional or unorthodox. Still the logic of it does not fill the rational gaps that abound in ordinary human life, they simply confuse it farther.

  The play

  (Lights)

  (NE stands alone on a bare dimly lit stage, with his eyes fixed, wide open.)

  NE: (Shouts out loud suddenly)

  Father curse my grave not

  For tried have I to crack this nut.

  (BI walks in gracefully and glares at NE.)

  BI: (Smiling mischievously with a serious expression)

  Am I to be proud of your empty throne?

  Or grieve for my dearest brother, alone?

  NE:(Shouting even louder at her)

  You bleached witch!

  You’re a cursed bitch!

  (She eyes him)

  She has no tale to say

  Just poor hearts to slay.

  (He faces her sharply)

  And if I lie, say your tale, cat!

  Let us see if you own a heart.

  BI: (Turning away from him)

  A heart no different from yours.

  One just as weak, it even pours.

  It is hard as stone

  As it stands alone.

  It is as dry as heat

  As it exists to beat.

  It is a wound

  Another foot found,

  When it feels cheated.

  It is like a Dove

  Faultlessly out of love,

  When it is forcibly seated.

  (NE walks away thoughtfully, then. Stops and faces BI.)

  NE:

  No! It just weeps,

  Wails with tears.

  And that is all it keeps;

  Tears, like all its peers.

  BI: (Facing him too)

  But it suffers

  Like many waters.

  Its say isn’t first

  So it cries in hate.

  NE:

  But can’t you see,

  That’s how it must be?

  BI:

  A free soul knows no must.

  When it does, then it has lost.

  NE:

  Our nature made it so;

  Our fathers let us know.

  BI: (Shouting)

  Can’t you see it made me weak,

  It made me that feeble fault to seek?

  (Calmer)

  He has us where he wished,

  Ready and ripe to be dished.

  It was what he sought for

  And we all let him score.

  Can’t you see it is that said bit;

  ‘If you can’t have it, then kill it’?

  (Pauses)

  Can’t you just see?

  He wants to kill me!

  (BI starts to sob)

  NE: (Briefly waits for her to stop sobbing)

  No my sister, it is not you.

  Neither is it both of us too.

  Look at all the past, then into the future;

  You will see it is me he must puncture.

  (Their eyes meet)

  BI:

  Your meaning;

  It's still hidden?

  (NE moves closer to BI; giving her his hands. She ignores his hands and NE withdraws them, folding them across his bare chest.)

  NE:

  You look, but see you can’t;

  It never was really your grant,

  Destined to sit on a low stool

  And work like every other tool.

  To sit and milk,

  Not stand and think.

  To kneel and cry,

  Not pull and try.

  To weep when hurt,

  Not mend your hut.

  To sew old clothes,

  Not make new hoes.

  To wash the dirty,

  Not face the scary.

  To carry pots on the head,

  Not protect the whole herd.

  To sing at feasts,

  Not kill the beasts.

  To bring water home,

  Not blow the war horn.

  To hum kids to sleep,

  Not hold the firm grip.

  To stand-by always,

  Not seek your ways.

  To dance on merry days,

  Not caring who pays.

  To smoke the fish,

  Not provide the dish.

  To cook the meal,

  Not make the deal.

  To stay home and wait

  Not worry about a bait.

  (NE places his arms akimbo.)

  BI: (She lowers her eyes)

  You never miss an opportunity

  To question my sex and sanity.

  Is it because I’m the woman?

  Or because you are the man?

  (She lifts her face again, but their eyes do not meet)

  I was born many years after you

  And that the land knows is true.

  But if it were maybe the reverse,

  I still wouldn’t be better in this verse.

  (She hisses)

  NE: (Sternly)

  What is your meaning?


  What is it you’re saying?

  BI:

  Or is the meaning too hot

  That you choose to ask what?

  You don’t find it charming

  So you’re instead pretending.

  (Louder)

  I never fail to enrage you;

  Even with nothing yet new.

  NE: (Almost choking with rage)

  I think your outstretched madness

  Is beginning to double in hardness.

  BI: (Laughs curtly)

  Mine I believe is better.

  Better by much farther.

  And if you wish to know

  I am quite willing to show.

  (Raising her voice)

  I wouldn’t have let you have it easy,

  Like your betrothed so stupidly did.

  I would’ve made you really busy,

  You wouldn’t recall your every deed.

  You ran away quickly then;

  Hid your face like a Rabbit.

  Yet you claim to live in a den;

  And killing your inherited habit.

  I have always said she let you;

  She wasn’t anything like me.

  (She giggles)

  NE: (Looking dejected)

  If it was anything,

  It wasn’t my doing.

  She wasn’t as stupid,

  As was our culture's deed.

  (His expression hardens, anger lining his brows)

  I know the popular believes;

  Are that I cowardly gave in.

  For as the pressure conceives

  My lean guts simply went thin.

  Isn’t it?

  Wasn’t it?

  (He faces her)

  I was so scared of him.

  I just let him take her?

  I simply left her for him.

  Because I didn’t want her.

  Isn’t it?

  Wasn’t it?

  (He turns away from her)

  If I wasn’t hindered by the thought

  Of what her mean father would do,

  If I made him loose all he sought;

  I wouldn’t be stuck with just you.

  (His anger visibly increases)

  Because I wouldn’t take it cool

  She had drowned in her own pool.

  That feather was the prince by birth.

  To her father I was simply mere dirt.

  (His whole body shook with his anger)

  If our father hadn’t succumbed to his father

  And I was king today not that tiny feather;

  Not even the sun will reveal

  That I do choose to conceal.

  (She backs off as he faces her again)

  And this day my very own blood

  Stands in the wake of our sorrow

  As I try saving the flightless bird

  From schemes against her morrow.

  (He approaches her slowly)

  Not caring if it pains my honour

  That she managed to get involved

  In our eminent clash of armour,

  Or if she had me partly devoured.

  (She attempts to dash off but he grabs her arm)

  Of what use is