1001 Nights Cast

That was how he knew it would be. Dreamed it many times. Drawn to the edge. At the theatre the raked balcony, the raked stage, what chance have you got, the impulse, resistance useless, all nature pulls you, we are given our parts in life, we perform within their rim, actor or audience, our stage is raked, our head is in our feet, how much distance is needed between toe and edge, your foot must know what it can stand as well as where, what it can stand by way of gravity as strong as the moon

He had dreamed it many times. How many times before dreams come, the hypnagogic state, the sink to sleep not felt, fast and silent as an expensive lift, didn’t feel a thing, perhaps in future between planets, still as a bell, no warning, then the colossal catch, something grabs you to prevent the crashdown, you are flung up in a bungee harness, you gasp and arch from the bed, you are safe but why were you in danger

Race-memory of different times. The leaf-tops, the sun in the veins, pale fruits along the bough, the opposable thumbs of your feet, biting the heart, spitting the stone at your kin, hearing it bounce to the floor, a growl from below, not your kin, now a chatter from brothers, leaping, the leaves broken like water, a lynx’s long leg on the bough, a lynx too on the floor, your brothers have skipped, you descend, you miss a bough, what happened to your long once-upon-a-time opossum tail

Luther gazes at the doors of Rome. The baldaquino’s swelling stems like pregnant snakes, the dome upstaging heaven, who will pay, who will fall, who will answer for me, who will indulge me, lichened abbeys rolling over, bastard churches strutting fretting, popes aplenty, all our little languages, scraps of oraisons, shove me face down, layers under Papal crypts, into the appalled dust of St Peter, will there be colour again, when I rise, if I rise

Made a fortune, saw it coming, no holds barred now, what a junket, at the top now, who could fault me, not a step wrong, yes, admit it, CEO comes easy to me, five-year contract, exit clauses, going just as good as staying, what the hell, we’ve fixed KPMG, just a bit more ice and soda, no, no sweat, the PM always comes to the party, couldn’t fail to, too much in it, politics has never been so simple for us, ever since the bankers got to run the country, ’87, wasn’t it, yes

But he missed the plane, I think. Never mind, there’ll be another.

This is how he knew it would be. Dreamed it many times. Drawn to the edge. Our stage is raked. He was at the printer, that funding application, the paper stuck, supposed to be a new one, he couldn’t fix it, you need a pilot’s licence, he heard some shrilling over on the other side, office party, always some girl’s birthday, but then the men, falling through the office, incoherent, swimming with their arms, he turned, what was behind him they were so keen on, and then the printer rose to become the wall, the office turned to mountainside

Backwards through the glass, this is defenestration, the barrel of the vertical gun, the other barrels shooting past him, smoking, metal hot, in the clouds, he is just missed by panes of glass, and in a sudden silence knows, it isn’t that he fell from grace, maybe that once was true, but now, he is rising softer, higher, gravity like the moon, he’ll rise, until he hits the ground