Dialogue with the Soul, part I

(Smoke, cold. Clarice, dressed only in a white night gown with flowers, walking around with sudden movements among the few, broken furniture pieces. In the middle of the room a torn carpet. On the ceiling, a small, blue, flickering light.)

“What did you see, Clarice?”
“Who is it Clarice?”
“I… You… Us…”
“I is another… I is another…”
“And what did you see, Clarice?”
“Lambs… they were screaming…”
“And what did you hear, Clarice?”
“The white whale, the living ghost, with 100 human harpoons in the back… and still swimming… and still swimming…”
“What are you talking about, Clarice?”
“About me…”
“?!?”
“About you…”
“?!?”
(Clarice sits down on the carpet, with her knees tight in her arms. She sighs from time to time. The silence continues for a few moments.)
“About me… Just about me… Since I have been following it…”
“Following who, Clarice?”
“Me…”
“Who is this me, Clarice?”
“Today I argued with myself, Soul! And I hate what I have seen!”
“And what did you see, Clarice?”
(Clarice props her chin against her knee, sighs. She suddenly stands up, raises her hands towards the light and shouts.)
“… the time as it was passing… I saw it with my own eyes… I heard it with my own ears…”
(A sight. She runs to the left corner of the room.)
“What did you hear, Clarice?”
(She runs to the other corner of the room.)
“… as the seasons change…”
(She comes back in the center of the room.)
“Where did you see this, Clarice?”
(She sits down on the carpet. She sighs and talks nostalgically.)
“In myself… in you… in us…”
“There is no us, Clarice!”
“And we climbed up the mountain… and it was so good…”
“What mountain, child?”
“And it was so good… I asked it to take me back to God… and it lifted up its peak and I saw him…”
“Who did you see, Clarice?”
“The poet… he was depicting her with a quill in his hand for eternity…”
“Whom, suffering?”
“Her, the poetry… Her, the spring… Her, the life…”
“You, Clarice!”
“No, I is another! I is the last hour… I is whoever you want…”
“I want to leave, Clarice!”
“Leave your key if you go… To be able to open the rusty lock… Forgive me for my sin… But leave me the key…”
“Never, do you hear me, Clarice? Never!”
(Clarice disappears from the scene. She is heard, slowly in the background.)
“I is you… And you is I…”
“Childhood… childhood… childho… chil… c…”