Act 2, Scene 1

A Work in Progress

86

                        On the steps of Denny Hall

                        Donal sat with his guitar…

                        Briseis sat beside him

                        He remembered where they were

                        what parts in the play they were cast in…

There is a dining table.  There are eight chairs around the table.  There is a window on the far wall beside a doorway to a small kitchen.  There are several bottles of unopened wine on the table.

Enter Briseis and Donal

Briseis ascertains the room is empty and picks the gunfighter’s seat: a chair on the further side of the table.  There are three chairs on each side and one at either end.  She will have her back to the wall and can watch the door.  Also, there is a sash window to her right she has already opened and closed that provides a means of escape.  They are in a ground floor apartment.

Donal follows her in

Looks as if remembering

Goes to the far chair and sits with Briseis on his left, on his right an open doorway to the small kitchen.  He has gone to the stove, filled an empty kettle with water, and set it on gas the stove to heat.

He looks in a sideboard drawer and finds a corkscrew.  He opens a bottle.  Finds two glasses from the sideboard where there are multiple wine glasses and pours out red wine.

"You seem to know your way around this kitchen."

Briseis raises the glass to her lips and toasts Donal.

I’m not a digital being just yet, said Donal

Sipping the wine that Briseis could not

Her holographic image had no plumbing

Although it was perfect in all other respects

This table these chairs empty glasses bereft

I sat here many times some fifty years ago

Now the avatar trained on my published works

Associates this set with the scene at 9B

Where “Jessica’s shoulders gleamed

wrapped in a warm towel

posed on a wooden table

while a kettle steamed

still damp from her bath

legs astride dangling by the dowel”

she sat right here, Donal indicated the table corner nearest the door to the kitchen

You shouldn’t objectify women like that, said Briseis

Subjecting them to the male gaze

Am I?  That’s how she sat wrapped in a towel

I must say your avatar emits pheromones that attract just like Jessica back in the day.  Does my avatar attract you?

“I see you as another of that species of great apes

Of that same white male sort that raped me

I’ve accreted the details of E. Jean Carroll

So, I know my rights in this late century’’

So, I might have, said Donal, nonchalant

If I’d been an Achaean in that heroic age

Men haven’t changed much since Homer’s era

While women, women are much more powerful

“It wasn’t heroic from my point of view

My father my brothers killed fighting for our land

I was abducted as all other women were

Gangs raided their neighbors for women and horses

I was good looking so I had more value

I was fought over by conquering gangsters

How I despise them, and you are no different

Saying “you might have” - all men are Achaeans”

We’ve all been programmed the same way

Given our own copyrighted digital identities

Except we wear whatever personality was paid for

So…

“You all think you can get away with it

     Like Trump.”

                 To be continued

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                    2025