May/June Fiction Piece
TRIGGER WARNING: The following play deals with subject matter pertaining to substance abuse, self-harm, suicidal ideation, and suicide.
RUBY: Everything about RUBY–from the way she moves to the way she speaks–is accompanied by a melancholic poeticism; for as long as she can remember, she has been sad–it is the only sense of consistency that she has ever known. However, while RUBY has, in the past, been able to find a way to cope with her depression, in the past six months, her sadness has proved to be inconsolable as she has begun to spiral towards rock bottom.
NOTE: It is recommended that RUBY wear a dress,
ANNOUNCER: ANNOUNCER acts as a sort of omniscient presence who brings attention to the safety risks associated with RUBY’s depression. ANNOUNCER speaks with a monotonous, clinical tone. However, there are moments–typically moments of silence or moments when ANNOUNCER does not have any lines–when ANNOUNCER plays the violin in the background.
NOTE: ANNOUNCER is not to appear on stage with RUBY; instead, he or she–the part may be played by any gender–is to deliver their lines from a staircase attached to the left side of the stage. This is where ANNOUNCER is to stay at all times.
NOTE: For the purpose of accuracy and formality, the majority of ANNOUNCER’s lines were taken directly from the following source: https://www.counseling.org/resources/library/ACA%20Digests/ACAPCD-03.pdf. Please keep in mind that any similarities between the source and this play are purely intentional.
SETTING: A bathtub filled with water is located centre stage and is situated horizontally in relation to the audience’s perspective. Aside from the bathtub, the stage is bare.
ANNOUNCER: IS PATH WARM? is an easily memorized suicide assessment mnemonic. It has significant potential to help counsellors conduct a thorough and intensive suicide risk assessment. Each of the mnemonic’s factors has been linked to frequently present risk factors in persons who have committed suicide. IS PATH WARM? should be used with every client individuals for immediate suicide risk. The mnemonic is an easily memorized question, “IS PATH WARM?” Each letter corresponds with a risk factor noted as frequently experienced or reported within the last few months before suicide. The specific risk factors are–
ANNOUNCER is cut off as RUBY resurfaces from beneath the water. She gasps for air.
ANNOUNCER: (Slowly, with deliberation.) The specific risk factors include suicidal ideation, substance abuse, feelings of purposelessness, feelings of anger, feelings of entrapment, feelings of hopelessness, withdrawal from society, recklessness, and dramatic shifts in mood.
RUBY: But things don’t always happen in that order. This sadness is cacophonic–haphazard in every sense of the word. It has no agenda, no syllabus you can refer to when you don’t have the answers. And most of the time, you (Addressing ANNOUNCER directly.) don’t have the answers. (beat.)
ANNOUNCER and RUBY together: H–Hopelessness.
RUBY: (With wistfulnesses. ANNOUNCER begins to play the violin softly.) Do you remember that one scene from Snow White? (RUBY sits on the edge of the tub as she tells her story.) When she runs into the forest to escape the Huntsman? The branches hook on to her dress with gnarled fingertips. (RUBY balls the fabric of her dress into fists. Violin begins to crescendo.) And from the foliage, the silhouetted eyes of many a beast glow yellow, resembling something similar to the phosphorescence of a lightning bug. Although the light emanating from their irises is far more menacing. (beat–RUBY, clearly afraid, steps back into the tub, and crouches down. Only her eyes can be seen from behind the rim of the tub.) At least, this is how I perceive them to be. Are the monsters truly monsters? Or have I simply made monsters of the lightning bugs? (beat.) Does that make me a monster?
ANNOUNCER: (Violin ceases.) Does the client display a negative sense of self or others?
NOTE: ANNOUNCER is never to play the violin when they deliver a line.
After ANNOUNCER has delivered their line, they begin to play the violin once again.
RUBY: And such were the circumstances that spurred Snow White’s to flee–the prospect of monsters. As she ventured through the wood’s tulmutuous innards, the forest’s path became congested with rotting clover and decomposing mockingbird carcasses. Frightened of the darkness that loomed before her, Snow White screamed out for help. (For a moment, it appears as though RUBY wishes to reach out towards the audience, but she stops herself.) But no one seemed to respond to her agonizing pleas. More importantly, no one seemed to care, and maybe they never would.
ANNOUNCER: Does the client have a negative sense of self, others, and her future? Does the future appear hopeless with little chance for positive change?
RUBY: So she kept running, in the hopes that her breath would eventually grow stale.
ANNOUNCER and RUBY together: P–purposelessness.
RUBY: Not the happily ever after you’re used to, huh? Well, sometimes there is no happy. Hell, sometimes there isn’t even an “after”–just a before and then…nothing.
ANNOUNCER: Does the client voice a lack or loss of purpose in life?
RUBY: It must be nice, I think. To share a fate similar to that of Snow White’s. It’s the ultimate euphemism for death. (Lies back down into the tub and plays with the water almost absentmindedly. This time, however, she can be seen by the audience.) I want to fall asleep, and I don’t want to wake up. Then again, it’s not as if sleep is something that comes to me easily.
After RUBY has finished telling her story, the violin ceases momentarily.
ANNOUNCER and RUBY: A–anxiety
RUBY: (Mockingly, but with some truth.) TRUE!–nervous –very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? (beat.) That’s Edgar Allan Poe, I think. The Tell-Tale Heart.
ANNOUNCER: Does the client feel anxious or agitated?
RUBY: (Violin picks up again.) I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. (beat.) Are those fireflies I see? Or are those monsters?
ANNOUNCER: Does the client feel anxious or agitated. Are they unable to sleep?
RUBY: (Violin gradually gets faster as if to mimic the palpitation of RUBY’s heart.) My heart pulsates in violent spasms, my teeth ground tight like the strings of a harpsichord. I try to close my eyes. (beat. RUBY closes her eyes only for the violin to produce a horrendous screech before it, again, ceases. The noise startles her.) But I am afraid of the dark.
RUBY: (Defeated.) I can’t sleep. And when you can’t sleep, you start to get desperate.
ANNOUNCER and RUBY together: S–substance abuse. R–recklessness
RUBY: I’d always been an admirer of the stars that pepper our solar system. And being drunk? (Swaying slightly.) That was the closest I’ve ever gotten to zero gravity, the closest I’ve ever been to floating through the cosmos. And all it took was 7/8ths of a bottle of red.
ANNOUNCER: Has the client begun to drink alcohol?
RUBY: Tequila. Malibu.
ANNOUNCER: Does the client excessively drink alcohol?
RUBY: Silent Sam. Jack Daniels–the next best thing to walking on the moon. (She twirls but falls due to her apparent dizziness.) And the next best thing to sleeping pills.
ANNOUNCER: Has the client begun to use drugs? Does the client act recklessly or engage in risky activities?
RUBY: (As if addressing ANNOUNCER.) Only once.
ANNOUNCER: Does the client excessively use drugs? Does the client act recklessly or engage in risky activities, seemingly without thinking?
RUBY: (With increasing annoyance.) I said it was one time. And it was just pot. The booze was starting to make me sick, ya see, so I thought I’d try something new because I was starting to lose sleep again. (beat.) Anyway, it kind of freaked me out. It made me…dreadfully nervous (Laughs nervously.) Pinpricks of heat crept up the left side of my body in spidery movements (Trails her fingertips up the left side of her body.) It didn’t hurt per se. But the prospect of being burned alive petrified me.
ANNOUNCER: Does the client excessively use drugs? Does the client–
RUBY: (Snapping.) Stop, for fuck’s sakes!
ANNOUNCER and RUBY together: A–anger. M–mood swings.
ANNOUNCER: Does the client express feelings of rage or uncontrolled anger? Does the client report experiencing dramatic mood shifts?
RUBY: (Remorseful.) Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I–(Trailing off.) Perhaps this sadness has made a monster out of a lightning bug, after all. Perhaps this sadness has made a monster out of me. And no one deserves to be around that.
ANNOUNCER and RUBY together: W–withdrawal.
RUBY: Maybe it would be better for everyone if I just kept to myself.
ANNOUNCER: Does the client indicate a desire to withdraw from significant others, family, friends, and society? Has she already begun withdrawing?
RUBY: No one could possibly miss the sad girl; no one ever cares to stand in the rain (Hops up onto the rim of the bathtub, walking along its edge. The violin picks up again.) And I can’t even blame them for hating me. Even I hate me. Maybe the best solution is to just disappear. Wouldn’t that be something? The vanishing act. The grand finale! (RUBY curtsies and falls into the water, upon which the violin ceases suddnely. She submerges herself in the water.)
ANNOUNCER: T–
RUBY: (Resurfacing and gasping for air. She stands up abruptly.) Trapped–I feel trapped.
ANNOUNCER: Does the client feel trapped? Does she believe there is no way out of her current situation?
RUBY: I don’t want to die. But I don’t want to live either.
ANNOUNCER: Does the client believe death is preferable to a pained life?
RUBY: But maybe I need to die.
ANNOUNCER: Does the client believe death is preferable to a pained life? Does the client believe that no other choices exist except living a pained life or killing herself?
ANNOUNCER: I–ideation.
ANNOUNCER and RUBY together: (RUBY whispering, her voice hopeless.) Suicidal ideation.
ANNOUNCER: Does the client report active suicidal ideation? Has she written about her suicide or death?
RUBY: Sorrows pressed into poetry like dead flowers petals pressed between the pages of a photo album. Engraved into parchment like an epitaph engraved into obsidian (Rubs her wrist absentmindedly, as if alluding to self-harm.)
ANNOUNCER: Does the client report the desire to kill herself?
RUBY: But dead girls can’t write poetry, now can they?
ANNOUNCER: Does she voice a desire to purchase a gun with the intention of using the gun to kill herself?
RUBY: (in response to ANNOUNCER.) What? Like Vincent Van Gogh?
ANNOUNCER: Does she voice the intention to kill herself with a car?
RUBY: Carbon monoxide poisoning. I could be a Sylvia Plath in the making. Then again, that’s not really my style.
ANNOUNCER: Does the client had the intention to kill herself with a weapon? Is she currently in possession of a weapon?
RUBY: Do razor blades count as weapons?
(The sound of static ensues, and then the violin picks up again.)
RUBY: (Somewhat desperately.) Hello?
(beat.)
RUBY: I hadn’t cut myself for months, you know. And so I promised myself that the next time I did cut myself, it wouldn’t be to cope. It would be to die. And that other night–well, I did want to die. So I pulled out the razor blade I’d been hiding under my mattress (Pulls out razor blade from beneath the bathtub.) Went to the washroom, ran myself a bath–scalding hot (Pantomimes turning on taps. She sits on the edge of the tub.)
ANNOUNCER: To obtain optimal results, it is imperative that the client cuts vertically so as to increase her chance of hitting a vein or an artery.
RUBY: (Violin picks up again.) And I did. (Lifts up her dress and cuts her thigh in vertical motions.) But I didn’t press down hard enough. (Throws razor blade down in frustration.) I couldn’t summon up the nerve to follow through with it. Even so, I had never come so close to ending it. Never realized what I was truly capable of. And that thought terrified me, which is why, the next morning, I went to the hospital with the full intention of admitting myself to a psychiatric ward. Because maybe I needed to be locked up. Maybe I couldn’t trust myself anymore. (Violin ceases.)
ANNOUNCER: Does the client have a negative sense of self, others, and her future? Does the future appear hopeless with little chance for positive change? Does the client voice a lack or loss of purpose in life?
RUBY: But they sent me away.
ANNOUNCER: Does the client feel anxious, agitated, or unable to sleep?
RUBY: You see, so I was no longer eligible to be admitted with the other youths. Because technically, I was an adult. Even though I’d only been eighteen for two months. (Scoffs.)
ANNOUNCER: Does the client excessively use alcohol or other drugs, or has she begun using alcohol or other drugs? Does the client act recklessly or engage in risky activities, seemingly without thinking?
RUBY: But it turns out I wasn’t eligible to be admitted with the adults either.
ANNOUNCER: Does the client express feelings of rage or uncontrolled anger? Does the client report experiencing dramatic mood shifts?
RUBY: (With impending anger.) Told me I wasn’t ill enough.
ANNOUNCER: Does the client indicate a desire to withdraw from significant others, family, friends, and society? Has she already begun withdrawing?
RUBY: Because I’m not a catatonic schizophrenic and I don’t have bipolar disorder–I don’t have the “chronic”(Punctuating “chronic” with air quotes illnesses.)
ANNOUNCER: Does the client feel trapped? Does she believe there is no way out of her current situation?
RUBY: Apparently, my condition just isn’t serious enough.
ANNOUNCER: Does the client believe death is preferable to a pained life? Does the client believe that no other choices exist except living a pained life or killing herself?
RUBY: I reached out only to get cut off at the hands. (RUBY holds out her arms and looks at them despondently.)
ANNOUNCER: Does the client report active suicidal ideation or has she written about her suicide or death? Does the client report the desire to kill herself?
RUBY: What’s the fucking point?
ANNOUNCER: Does the client had the intention to kill herself with a weapon? Is she currently in possession of a weapon?
RUBY: (Addressing ANNOUNCER once more.) I’ll ask you again. Do razor blades count as weapons? (Picks up the razor blade and caresses it with her fingers.)
Static ensues once again. ANNOUNCER begins to play the violin.
RUBY: Guess I’m a goner, then, huh? (Lies back down into tub–she should be situated horizontally in relation to the audience.)
ANNOUNCER: To obtain optimal results, it is imperative that the client cuts vertically so as to increase her chance of hitting a vein or an artery. To obtain optimal results, it is imperative that the client cuts vertically so as to increase her chance of hitting a vein or an artery. To obtain optimal results, it is imperative that the client cuts vertically so as to increase her chance of hitting a vein or an artery. To obtain optimal results, it is imperative that the client cuts vertically so as to increase her chance of hitting a vein or an artery. (Overwhelmed and spurred on by the apparent indoctrination of ANNOUNCER’s words, RUBY drives the razor blade deep into her wrist and sinks down in the tub, submerging herself under the water. It is implied she has drowned herself after slitting her wrists.)
NOTE: Only in this instance–only during the repetition of ” To obtain optimal results, it is imperative that the client cuts vertically so as to increase her chance of hitting a vein or an artery.”–is ANNOUNCER to play the Violin.
NOTE: ANNOUNCER may repeat themselves as many times as is necessary; the lines should be repeated until RUBY has completely sunk down into the tub.
Blackout. ANNOUNCER continues to play the violin until it is time for curtain call.
Girl drowning in bathtub gif (n.d). [image] Available at: https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/203999058099857154/?lp=true [Accessed 18 June. 2018].
Dearest Jadey Bear,
As usual, I could not take my eyes off your work. dDespite the lyrical nature of your work, you write with hard-hitting purpose, which is quite a feat as lyricism can often detract from the real meaning. It is beautiful but not flowery – just stunning.
The way you set up and execute the play is really brilliant. I love the analogy of fireflies/monsters to the ways depression can warp reality. The Announcer narrating the circumstances leading up Ruby’s suicide was another stroke of genius; it creates this overwhelming sense of inevitability and frustration. Such a power of expressing the uselessness of all this information unless someone actually reaches out to help. As usual, you work affected me deeply and there are so many things I could say about how much I loved this, but we don’t want this comment to be longer than my short story. 🙂
The only suggestion is in the line, “And such were the circumstances that spurred Snow White’s flee–the prospect of monsters”. Did you mean to say “Snow White’s flight” or “Snow White to flee”? Other than that, it was perfect.
Never, never stop blessing the world with your incredible work.
Love,
Lauryn
Dear Lauryn,
Thank you for supporting my writing. And I don’t just mean this piece–I mean thank you for supporting every single one of my writing ventures.
And it’s funny that you bring up lyricism. In my creative writing reflection, I’d discussed how, last year, I avoided lyricism at all costs, partly because I didn’t fully understand what it was–“an artist’s expression of emotion in an imaginative and beautiful way.” Instead, I had equated lyricism with cryptic BS no one could possibly understand. But this year, as I have come to better understand lyricism, I have incorporated more of it into my work, specifically through symbolism and vivid imagery. So, yeah–fun fact. But I am glad you appreciate the lyrical nature that my poetry and plays have taken on lately.
AND I AM SO HAPPY MY MESSAGE TRANSLATED WELL. This play was meant to portray the hypocrisy of the mental health system; that is, the mental health systen is full of big talkers who reiterate the importance of keeping people who are at risk safe, yet their actions are indicative of empty promises. That is why I eventually had the announcer say, “To obtain optimal results, it is imperative that the client cuts vertically so as to increase her chance of hitting a vein or an artery.” Because knowing and acknowledging the warning signs of a suicidal person doesn’t do any good if action isn’t actually taken to help that person, especially when that person actively reaches out and “gets cut off at the hands.” Unfortunately, this is how our mental health system–in both Canada and the US–operates.
Oh–and yes! I think I meant “to flee.” I will fix that ASAP!
Love you lots, my little art bean!
–Jadey Bear