7/05/2007

Notes from an imaginary drama

Satan the Accursed
Satan the Accursed, self-described "man of wealth and taste," is the narrator of the play. (While he is an unreliable narrator, the alternative is prohibitively inconvenient to attempt to stage.)

Satan the Accursed is a firm believer in total human depravity, and has held this opinion since humanity first came into existence. (On occasion, Satan the Accursed will state that the actions of somebody, not necessarily a character in the play, have been added to the list of case studies that he is accumulating to prove his point. As the play begins, he has accumulated six trillion and three.)

As a being predating humanity, Satan the Accursed is capable of easily stepping sideways into the Absence, and perceives Presence and Absence equally well. He occasionally stops one conversation to engage in another with an Absent being; since other characters are unable to perceive the Absent under most circumstances, the rest of the cast assumes Satan to be unfathomably alien and possibly insane, a misconception he makes no effort to correct.

Despite his open hostility towards humans, Satan the Accursed is nonetheless quite willing to provide assistance to anybody who asks politely. In all cases, this assistance is taken as further proof of the irredeemably flawed nature of humans....

Author's Note: Further points will be added to the Sternbilden as they are discerned.

1 comment:

kwave said...

I think this is well written and I can see it on stage. It caused me to wonder how I would behave if I believed in a world of total human depravity. This morning I saw a picture in a paper, I think it was a Jehovah's Witness give away, that caught my attention. In it, a young woman's hands covered her mouth while her eyes were wide with shock and horror. The headline was "Will it ever end?"

Unbidden, the thought came, "No, it will never end. The wars, rapes, starvation, it will never end.

But I am living in the best of times in a safe country... Why does the social contract fall apart in some places? Historians should ask this question more. So should politicians. Are we all just greedy beasts? Finally, will I be strong enough to stand up to depravity next time I encounter it.