Part 1 Gladhand Dreamer and I Don't Believe Her

[GladHand Dreamer] 

Where to begin and when to end? My heart is on fire with curiosity and love, but I don’t know the answers yet, and not sure I ever will…

 

[Narrator]

Gladhand clasps his own ample hands in a prayer like gesture while he lays, like a runner, frozen mid step, and mumbles his worries to a God he hopes can hear.

 

Also on the dark side of this gyroscopic orb is;

 

[I Don’t Believe Her] 

I Don’t Believe Her, but my friends call be Beux. I have one life to live and only one left to go. I see what I see and touch what a can, although the preacher told me I shouldn’t run away with that man. I did though you see, he was brawn and was kind… when I met him he was… and it felt like the right time at the time… but time has moved on…

 

[Narrator]

…as it is time’s job to do, slice a second away and then again two. And still we go on me and then you. Gladhand is shaped by his youth, his culture and his parent’s truth. He’s kind and quick and selfish and thick, too easily swayed and not easily stayed.

 

[GladHand Dreamer] 

She ran away with the truth. And the truth was tested in the courts

 

[Narrator]

The kangaroo courts of supple social home-made, anything-goes-media and public ‘I once heard’ opinion. 

 

His eyes snap awake - wide with panic and shame and righteous indignation. He can see, in his just awake mind, the fish silver shoal, murmurating a dance of follow-the-leader. But there is no choreographer in this undersea flow, Brownian motion tow, the pervading pull on the collective mind of the forgetful throng seems to emanate from centre mass of the mob itself. The self-serving are led from within and haunted by their sin. 

 

[SM Voice One]

Urgh, the neighbours are at it again

 

[SM Voice Two]

What’s up hun? I’ll bite, what’s the crack?

 

[SM Voice One]

They’re living their lives

 

[SM Voice Two]

Disgusting!

 

[Narrator]

This always-on audience is ready to be heard (and herded) and charge into the breach with their cheap, imported, self important, improvised, unadvised, sanitised opinions. Don’t be fooled though, their passion and belief is real as the world. Our minds are set up to get stuck in the ruts we plough for ourselves 

 

[SM Voice One]

I have heard up is down

 

[SM Voice Two]

I’ve heard the world is flat - we ride on turtles and elephants…

 

[SM Voice One]

Research it and see for yourself!

 

[SM Voice Two]

It’s coming. The great raging elephant and we’re the only ones that can see! It makes sense, doesn’t it? Our book says there’s an end and the end is nigh.

 

[SM Voice One]

Did you hear what Gladhand did? All the secrets that he hid?

 

[SM Voice One]

I heard and I believed (even though I didn’t see). But I don’t need to see, I just need to be told, that’s enough for me. 

 

[Narrator]

And a faux truth is born while a real one dies and Gladhand is left to bury it - or, if the effort is not too much, to tempt it from the dead. But dig as he might, the true truth has been tossed into quick sinking sand and the more he digs at it, the further it falls

 

The good neighbours watch with vinegar eyes that front shallow minds. 

 

[SM Voice One]

Look at the effort he goes to

 

[Narrator]

Sneers one, while the others peer on

 

[SM Voice One]

He must be hiding something to be sweating that much

 

[Narrator]

And they throw a bucketful of sand onto Galdhand’s back, and he falls to his knees and sobs

 

[GladHand Dreamer] 

How can the truth be killed like this? In front of all these eyes. 

 

[Narrator]

And the watchers watch on, like the crowds did for their Christ as he cried his last. Unconscious of the stark hypocrisy of their position as they revel and jeer at the crucifixion of reality. 

 

[GladHand Dreamer] 

I need a new truth now…

 

[I Don’t Believe Her] 

I can help with that

 

[Narrator]

That’s I Don’t Believe Her, now here is a peach - beauty beyond words, figure for the beach all the magazines crow, chased and then left by the men she has known and she doesn’t know why. 

 

[I Don’t Believe Her] 

Gladhand, we’re the same yet so different. We’re in the same place but came via polar opposite roads. 

 

You stood in the cathedral 

I stood on the hills

You followed his ways

I lived life for today

I did not live not for tomorrow or the promise after faith

You know those who tell you about the far side of life’s line

Are not there to answer for the truth of their lies?

And you’ll only find out when it is too late 

The proverbial horse has bolted - so don’t shut the gate

The preachers and teachers voices just echo now, fading and fading - and some of them so filled with hate it’s unthinkable the sheep don’t rebel. But they don’t. The follow and baa. 

 

[Narrator] 

I Don’t Believe Her takes a deep breath. The fires of rage stir deep within her. 

 

[I Don’t Believe Her] 

Your mother and father’s love was safe and was kind

Mine was broken and bent

Not always dark and bereft - there were moments of tenderness 

 

[Narrator] 

She pauses 

 

[I Don’t Believe Her] 

But they were swallowed by the wide mouthed whale, surging up from the depths 

Like Jonah, consumed while and all that was left

Was the bile and acid darkness that eats at my soul 

And corrodes my future and hacks away at my whole

 

[GladHand Dreamer] 

I can help with that

 

[I Don’t Believe Her] 

I believe that you can GladHand the man

We are puzzles you and me

 

[GladHand Dreamer] 

Fit like a glove

 

[I Don’t Believe Her] 

We fit like a glove.  

 

[I Don’t Believe Her] [GladHand Dreamer] Together

We’re so different, but the same

 

[Narrator] 

And a new story is started. This is a story of love. Tried again.

 

Think, now, about yourself and your loves. The glory and golden of passion and woe. Remember the paths you have trod and chances and choices that came out of future’s mist and caught you by surprise. Think of the times that love has worked its magic and your heart sang - where your soul was in tune with nature. When the wind seemed to whisper your name, or the cold, biting, December fog didn’t make you numb, just the opposite, it made you feel alive with the white hot icicle tingle of new love’s dawn. 

 

Can you recall darkened, damp fenced, foliage lined alleys, between the houses of the sleeping, these were not places of dread and uncertainty! No, they were halls of wonder! The shadows did not contain fears and wraiths, but were full of promise and solace. The darkest horrors of your night’s mind were banished by the soaring music, crashing down and washing through you like the southern sea tide.

 

Colours were brighter and at the same time softer. Oh young love dawning over the virgin soul has the power to transform reality for passion’s brief beneficiary.

 

Can you also remember Eros’s cooling coals? 

Can you observe in your memory mind’s eye the dulling power of time passing on bright eyed love?

Do you remember your complacency? 

Can you take ownership of the hand you played?

The day you strayed for another lover? 

More money, more time, this dream or that, but a dream for just one?

 

Will you shoulder your part in the love you gave and gave away?

 

Gladhand Dreamer and I Don’t Believe Her both reflect on their broken past and take less responsibility than they should, but more than they deserve. 

 

[I Don’t Believe Her] 

On reflection, I know better now what to do. I will build on the rubble and rust of lost love and apply my learnings and yearnings to a new friendship with you

 

[GladHand Dreamer] 

I will look for the signs and scrutinise passing time - I will rail against entropy’s affect on our love. It won’t dissolve into dust, but will evolve and refine like a nebular cloud condenses, over time, into a new stunning star.

 

Our love will be the source of life and energy for five green and happy, rough shod, blood shot planets. And they will visit us when they are old

 

[I Don’t Believe Her] 

And they will visit us when they are old