An Episode of Remnants.

Content Warnings

• Discussion of death
• Mentions of memory loss
• Discussions of trauma
• References to drug use
• References to implied PTSD
• Implications of suicidal ideation

Transcript

[THUD]

APPRENTICE
Ugh. 

[MOVEMENT]

APPRENTICE
You have to stop doing that. Whatever you are, if you’re listening to me, you have stop flinging us— around. 

[FOOTSTEPS ECHO] 

APPRENTICE
The hallway with the furnaces. 

Sir? 

SIR
Yes? 

APPRENTICE
When we moved did you— did you perceive anything? 

SIR
No. And we didn’t. 

APPRENTICE
What? 

SIR
Move. It’s everything else that changed. 

APPRENTICE
Right, but it looks different now. 

SIR
Yes. The dust has shifted. 

APPRENTICE
But where… The shelves are gone. 

SIR
Ah. 

APPRENTICE
Why?  I thought I was on to something, that putting Alice back might mean I could follow those connections I could see between… I still see them. I can’t see any remnants, but the threads, I— I can still see them. 

SIR
Ah. 

APPRENTICE
There was a stone, or a box, or— Ages ago, I threw it in a pit and it came back, different. 

SIR
Yes. 

APPRENTICE
It was a stone with a heart painted on it, then a stone shaped like a heart and then… 

The first few times I touched it, nothing happened, and then once, it bled. But I didn’t read it, none of those times. But you said everything here is made of the same stuff. Everything. So why are some things remnants and other things not? That stone, the shovel I used to dig those holes. I threw the stone, it came back, different. The shovel, I tossed them it,  and then it was in my hand again. 

SIR
You tried to discard yourself, too. And you did not go.

APPRENTICE
But everything else was gone. 

SIR
Including me, as I was before, or so you say. 

APPRENTICE
Yeah. 

SIR
What do you suppose is the significance of that? 

APPRENTICE
I don’t know, I don’t… know. 

SIR
What do you see?

APPRENTICE
The statue. It’s inside one of the furnaces. 

[CLUNK. FLAMES] 

APPRENTICE
No, no don’t, don’t—

[CREAKY METAL HINGES] 

APPRENTICE
Fuck that’s hot!

SIR
It is a furnace. 

APPRENTICE
Ach, my hands. Ah. 

SIR
Let me look. 

APPRENTICE
You’ve pointed out so many times you can’t— ah!

SIR
Better? 

APPRENTICE
I— oh my god, oh my god— 

SIR
What?

APPRENTICE
My hands, where they were burned, where you touched them or— whatever that was it’s— it’s glass, it’s glass, I’m— I can see my bones, what is— ah!

SIR
I just wanted to stop you from hurting. 

APPRENTICE
Don’t fucking touch me again, christ! Stay back, stay way, way back. 

SIR
Alright. 

APPRENTICE
Ah, my god, my god. 

[SKITTERING] 

APPRENTICE
What was that? 

SIR
Something else. 

APPRENTICE
What?!

SIR
I don’t know. 

[ECHOING FOOTSTEPS] 

APPRENTICE
A pair of gloves? 

SIR
Yes. I think so. 

APPRENTICE
You normally know. You can normally tell what the remnants are. So why didn’t you? 

SIR
I did, as soon as you decided. 

APPRENTICE
I— decided? No. They just appeared here, a pair of gloves. 

SIR
So you don’t have to look at your bones. 

APPRENTICE
You think it— you think that’s why it gave them to me? 

SIR
I can only assume. You are not naked, are you, according to your own vision? 

APPRENTICE
N—no? No, I’m not. 

SIR
So you cannot see the hole that was in you after you read George Peterson’s remnant. Nor the nail that rammed through your foot. Nor the shard of glass left in your arm, after you read a piece of what we assume must be my memories. 

APPRENTICE
So? 

SIR
I cannot see. I do not know. But I understand this place when you describe it. You shape it. Your desire. Your needs. 

APPRENTICE
Ha. Right. Yeah. Which is why I’m caught in an endless maze that keeps shifting under my feet. 

SIR
Exactly. 

APPRENTICE
What do you mean ‘exactly?’ 

SIR
I mean, from what I know of you, it makes perfect sense that this would be the place that you would go. 

APPRENTICE
What?

SIR
You hold onto things. Always looking for a way out, but not sure what would be on the other side. Running, but not towards something. Only so you do not have to stand still. 

APPRENTICE
What’s that supposed to mean?!

SIR
You did not look at yourself in the room of mirrors. 

APPRENTICE
I was kind of preoccupied by the shard of glass in my fucking arm!

SIR
You won’t look at me. 

APPRENTICE
Yes I— I look at you all the time!

SIR
Not very hard. 

APPRENTICE
Very hard actually, it’s just difficult to explain what I see when I do!

SIR
Why? 

APPRENTICE
Because you’re not a person?! You’re not exactly— a shape or— anything! You can’t, you— it’s easier to just let it be and accept it, and get on with it. 

SIR
Except in those moments when I ask, you do not look. 

APPRENTICE
It’s difficult. 

SIR
Why?

APPRENTICE
I don’t know, you tell me! You’re the one who didn’t want me to see you. You kept saying it’d make me fall apart or whatever and you kept wiping my memory over and over! And it hurts, when I look, so I guess you were right to do it.

SIR
But you didn’t fall apart. 

APPRENTICE
No. 

SIR
So why don’t you look? 

APPRENTICE
I don’t— 

SIR
Why, Apprentice? 

APPRENTICE
Because I can’t! Because it’s too fucking hard! Because you’re— you’re impossible and if I do it for too long I— I start to. I start to. 

SIR
What do you start to do? 

APPRENTICE
I don’t want to talk about this anymore. 

SIR
What happens if you look at me too long? 

APPRENTICE
I— I don’t know. 

SIR
When you look at me for more than a moment, when you let yourself comprehend it all, what happens?! 

APPRENTICE
I don’t know! I don’t know. 

SIR
Why did you fall asleep? Why couldn’t I wake you? 

APPRENTICE
Shut up!

SIR
What is it that hurts so much when you look at me?

APPRENTICE
I see it. The dust, all of it. 

SIR
And what does it mean, Apprentice? 

APPRENTICE
I don’t know! I don’t fucking know.

SIR
I’m not sure that’s true. 

APPRENTICE
Yes it is. 

SIR
You’re just one of them. 

APPRENTICE
Shut up. 

SIR
Made of the same stuff as everything else in this place. 

APPRENTICE
Shut up. 

SIR
No better or worse. A remnant of someone who has lived and died. 

APPRENTICE
Shut up. I know. I know, I get it, I— I’m one of them, I was alive and now I’m dead and there’s nothing I can do that will change anything I did. There’s nothing I can do about any of the consequences of any of my fucking actions. I can’t fix a single thing. And this place, it’s all here to show me that, over and over. To prove the same point again and again. I’ve asked you before, so many fucking times. So many. Over and over. Thousands of times, maybe! Why am I here? Why do I speak? I don’t have any right to— I don’t! I hurt people, I made mistakes, I—

SIR
You were also hurt by the actions of others. 

APPRENTICE
So why am I the one that is being punished? 

SIR
Because you think it is what you deserve. 

APPRENTICE
So what, you— you think I’m doing this to myself?! You think it’s somehow my fault that—

SIR
No. You think it’s your fault. I am the way I am because this is what you thought you needed me to be. 

APPRENTICE
What I needed—? I don’t need someone waxing poetic about the nature of the fucking universe, I need to— I need. I don’t know! Not this! Not you, not this place, not any of this. 

SIR
I am a part of this place. I once could see things from a different perspective than the one I see them from now. I was torn from that thing, made singular, manifest before you. I know, somehow, I chose you. I do not know why. But the choosing is the thing that did the tearing, I think. But what I am, I became in answer to some need inside of you, the same way you dreamed those gloves into existence to hide your hands. 

Did you put them on, or did they simply become that way? 

APPRENTICE
I didn’t put them— well they’re on me now. 

SIR
Exactly. So, tell me. Why are you here, Apprentice? 

APPRENTICE
I don’t know!

[WHOOSH] 

[QUIET] 

APPRENTICE
Sir? 

Sir?!

[FOOTSTEPS] 

APPRENTICE
Sir. 

[FOOTSTEPS] 

APPRENTICE
The furnaces. They’re not burning anymore. They’re not— the statue! 

[CLANG, COUGHING] 

APPRENTICE
It’s gone, it’s— it’s gone. But there’s something else, here. Pages, they’re all burned at the edges. Pages of writing. It’s barely legible, I can’t even— ah!

[WHOOSH] 

Elio stands in the doorway, his back to me. His shirt is hanging open, fabric catching in the breeze wafting in over the city. Elio raises his head, but he does not turn to me. I know something is wrong though, just from the set of his shoulders. 

‘I went to the market,’ I say. 

‘I know,’ says Elio. ‘You told me.’ 

‘Yeah, I. I know.’ 

Elio drops his head again. 

I set the groceries on the table. ‘They had some Italian wine. I don’t know if it’s any good, but I got it anyway.’ 

‘We have enough wine.’ 

‘I just thought maybe you’d like it.’

‘You prefer French.’ 

‘I know, but—’ 

‘We don’t need any more wine!’ Elio turns. His eyes are ringed red. He’s been crying. 

‘What happened?’ 

Elio shakes his head. He crosses the apartment, opens the door to the study, and immediately, my stomach drops. 

‘You’ve been going through my things.’ 

‘Can you blame me? You’ve been shutting yourself in your study for hours. The only thing we’ve spoken about besides work in the last month is fucking wine.’ 

‘I— I’m sorry.’ 

‘I don’t want— you think that’s what I want?’ Elio laughs. ‘I don’t know why I’m asking you that. It’s pretty clear you think I want your apologies.’ 

My guts are tying themselves in knots. ‘It’s not what you think,’ I say, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.  

‘What do I think, Eddie?! What do I think! Do enlighten me!’ 

‘I— I don’t—‘ 

Elio pushes past me, stepping over the books strewn over the parquet floor. My bureau is on its side, back panel torn off. My letters are laid carefully across the floor around it. And my little tin of heroin sits open, needles catching in the afternoon sun. 

It is a moment before I can force any words out of my narrowed throat. ‘I haven’t been using.’ 

‘I know you haven’t, I’ve seen you high, I know what that looks like.’ 

‘I— I just, I know how all of this must look.’ 

‘Oh do you? What does it look like, Eddie?’ 

‘I’m not— it’s just something I do when I. It helps.’ 

‘Writing goodbye notes to everyone you’ve ever met helps you how?’ 

‘I don’t know, it just does.’ 

Elio growls. He marches into the room, picks up one of the letters. ‘To my dear Harry Dhariya, I never meant for you to get hurt. I should never have gone back with you to your apartment all those years ago. It was cruel of me. I could see you wanted me, and I hoped if I could get close enough to you that maybe you would—’ 

’Stop it.’ 

‘—show me more about this family I never got to have. That is the worst of it, Harry. It was never about you. Not even a little. And now—’ 

‘Elio, please.’ 

Elio sighs. ‘Harry Dhariya Standish-Coombes is dead, Eddie.’ 

‘I know! I know he’s fucking— did you not read it to the end?!’ 

‘You have written to him thirteen times. There are hundreds of these, Eddie, hundreds.’ 

‘You think I don’t know?!’ 

‘What are you hoping to achieve here.’ 

I sink to the floor, without really meaning to. I can’t breathe. ‘Elio.’ 

‘So many of them are addressed to me, Eddie.’ 

‘Elio.’ 

‘More than twenty letters, and in all of them you’re apologising for— for what?! For what?’ 

‘I don’t— I’m sorry.’ 

‘What for! Christ, do you not understand?! I thought we were building something here. I thought we were starting a new life.’

‘We are.’ 

’So why is it—‘ Elio puts his head in his hands. ‘Explain to me what all of this is? Because almost all of these letters, they end the same way.’ 

‘I know.’ 

‘Do you want to die?’ 

‘I don’t— I don’t know what I want.’ 

‘So where does that leave me? Where does it leave us?!’  

‘I don’t know.’ 

Elio sighs. ‘Eddie. You didn’t trick me into being here. Do you understand that?’ 

The feeling in my chest is huge and impossible. ‘I’m sorry, please. I won’t write them anymore. I’ll get rid of all of them, and— and the heroin, I will. Just. Please.’ 

‘Eddie! Stop!’ 

‘I can fix this, I can, I’m sorry.’ 

‘You don’t need to fix it, Jesus Christ, why did you keep them all in the first place?!’ 

‘Proof!’ 

‘Of what?!’ 

‘That it— that when the feeling comes I can write this out and. I won’t do it. I’m too coward to.’ 

‘You think you’re a coward?’ Elio whispers. 

‘I’m sorry.’ 

‘If you apologise one more time, I swear to God.’ 

I clench my jaw shut. Elio lets the letter in his hand fall to the floor. He crosses the room to the spot where I have fallen, slowly gets down to his knees. He takes my face in his hands. His fingers are so absurdly warm. ‘I just want to understand,’ he says. 

I close my eyes, let the weight of my head rest against his palms. ‘So do I.’ 

‘Eddie. You’re not—‘ Elio sighs, his thumbs smoothing over my cheekbones. ‘You can tell me when things get dark. Please. Please tell me. You don’t need to write me letters, I’m not dead. I’m right here. I can tell you what I think, what I feel, what I mean.’ 

‘But I don’t want you to hate me.’ The words slip out of me unbidden. They come out small and pathetic, like everything else about me, hunched on the floor. 

Elio kisses me, soft and light. I lean in, hungry, desperate to show him that this is not all I am. Those letters, I lock them up for a reason,because I can be something else, if I do. I can be what he needs. I run my hands down his chest, careful across his scars, slip my fingers under his waistband. 

Elio grabs my wrists, pushes my hands to my chest. ‘Eddie.’ 

‘Let me, please, I—’ 

Elio hangs his head. ‘Stop.’ 

He gets up. My wrists are freezing cold where his hands had been wrapped around them. After a moment, the apartment door slams shut. 

[WHOOSH] 

APPRENTICE

Elio. No. Come back. Elio. I— 

[PAPER MOVES] 

APPRENTICE
They’re letters, they’re just stupid letters, I can’t even read my own fucking handwriting and there are parts where the ink is smudged like I was crying when I wrote them and. Let me see it again, let me see it! Let me see it again! LET ME SEE IT AGAIN. 

Tell me he came back, tell me he came BACK. 

[HE SOBS] 

Tell me he came back. 

SIR
You had already left by the time he did.

APPRENTICE
No, no. No. 

SIR
I am sorry. 

APPRENTICE
I don’t want you, I don’t want you.

SIR
I know. 

APPRENTICE
I want him to come back. I want him to come back.

SIR
I know. 

[END]