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The Rope That Binds
A One-Act Guide Out of the Aokigahara Forest
by conrad a. panganiban
CAST OF CHARACTERS
PAULO: Late 20s, early 30s. Male. A tortured soul trying to do the “right” thing.
NEMI: Early 20s. Female. Punk rock fashioned rebel left with nothing left to rebel against.
TIME
This morning. 7:12 am.
PLACE
In the vicinity of a bench at the base of a tall tree. Aokigahara Forest, Mt. Fuji, Japan.
PLAYWRIGHT’S NOTES
- The rope used in this play should NOT be tied into a noose. Thanks.
- You may listen to the Japanese pronunciation of “Leave Here” through Google Translate: http://translate.google.com/#en/ja/leave%20here Click on the speaker icon to hear in the translation box.
- The translation for “Are you there?” can be found here: http://translate.google.com/#en/ja/Are%20you%20there%3F
Lights fade up as NEMI, a woman in her 20s, dressed in punk black, is unsuccessfully trying to throw a rope over a branch above her. We notice that the other end is tied to a leg of the bench behind her. After two attempts, she stands on the bench for more height and continues her feeble throws. Her backpack is leaning against a side of the bench.
As she stands there, a dark figure with long hair and a white mask stands behind her and the bench and says in a gutteral low groan…
PAULO
Koko ni nokosu. [Leave here.]
(NEMI nonchalantly turns around to see the figure, turns back and throws the rope back up in the air and watches it fall back to earth. As NEMI steps off to retrieve the rope, PAULO, dressed as a Yūrei [ghost], moves from behind the bench with his hands outstretched…)
PAULO
Koko ni nokosu. [Leave here.]
(Pause.)
Wakarimasu ka? Koko ni nokosu! [Do you understand? Leave here!] (NEMI, annoyed, pushes past PAULO and again stands atop of the bench.)
J’ai di, fiche moi le camp! I said, get lost! ¡Fuera! Go away!
I said, BEAT IT! SCRAM!
NEMI
I’m trying to do something here, and you’re starting to piss me off. So, go away!
(PAULO pulls off his wig, mask, and drops his hoodie back to reveal a man in his 20s or early 30s.)
PAULO
Piss you off?! Piss you off?! I said, get outta here!
NEMI
I’m not done, yet.
(NEMI again tosses the rope in the air only to see it hit the ground. PAULO grabs the fallen end.)
NEMI
Hey! Let go!
PAULO
Not gonna happen.
NEMI
Let it go!
PAULO
Leave!
NEMI
Why should I? I was here first!
PAULO
No, I was here first!
NEMI
I said, let go! It’s my end of the rope. Not yours.
(A standstill occurs as both struggle over control of the rope. During a lull of this “stare-down tug-owar”, PAULO looks up at the branch above them.)
PAULO
You know, that branch isn’t gonna hold you. Go ahead. Take a look.
NEMI
Nice try. But I’m not falling for it.
PAULO
Really. You picked a bad time to come here — end of the rainy season. Bendy wood.
NEMI
I’m not here to enjoy the weather.
PAULO
Trust me. You throw this over that branch and you’ll come crashin’ down. I know.
NEMI
Me. Trust you? I don’t think so. Especially from someone pretending to be a Yūrei.
PAULO
Who’s pretending?
Pause.
NEMI
Then, what’s up with the fake hair and mask?
PAULO
Used to scare people out of here.
NEMI
Sorry to disappoint.
Let go.
PAULO
Didn’t you hear me? I’m a Yūrei. An honest to God, Ghost. Oooooo…..
NEMI
Ooooooo… I’m so scared. If you’re a real ghost, then how can you be pulling on this?
(NEMI gives the rope a tug.)
PAULO
Have you seen the movie, Ghost? It wasn’t that far off. And yes, this (PAULO tugs on the rope.) happens when someone gets us annoyed. Really annoyed.
NEMI
Well… I still don’t believe you.
PAULO
Okay. Fine. How many ghosts do you know?
NEMI
None. Because ghosts don’t exist.
PAULO
Hi. I’m Paulo. Your first existing ghost.
NEMI
Paulo? Paulo is… what difference does it make? I’m not done yet. And there’s nothing you can do to make me leave.
PAULO
I told you — that branch isn’t going to hold you.
(A counter bell, ‘DING!’ is heard and PAULO moves to a side of the stage, pulling NEMI with him and making sure that he doesn’t cross an imaginary line on the floor.)
PAULO
God Damn it!
(Realizing he shouldn’t have said ‘God’, PAULO looks up.)
Sorry.
NEMI
What was that?
PAULO
I swear, if that was Hiro… Hiro? Hiro!!! Koko ni imasu ka? [Are you there?] Hiro!
Damn it! Look, you really have to leave. Now! I’m not playing.
NEMI
Who said this was a game?
PAULO
It’s not! And that’s why I don’t want to be here any more.
NEMI
And you think I do?
PAULO
Perfect! Leave! The edge of the forest is right down that path!
NEMI
I wasn’t planning on leaving that way.
Silence.
PAULO
I know.
(Pause.)
I…
(Hopeless, PAULO lets go of the rope.) Know. Here. It’s yours. Do what you want, but can you do it somewhere else? Not here.
Please?
NEMI
Why should I?
PAULO
So, I could figure out what to do, now. Alone.
Silence.
NEMI
Who’s Hiro?
PAULO
Who?
NEMI
Hiro? The name you kept saying?
PAULO
He’s gone.
NEMI
Is he… a ghost? Like you?
PAULO
I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts?
NEMI
I don’t. But if I saw him, then I could tell him that I don’t believe in him either.
PAULO
Well, you don’t have to worry about bumping into him, because he’s really gone.
NEMI
Because of that bell?
PAULO
You heard it?
NEMI
Ding!
It’s something I didn’t think I’d ever hear in a place called the Sea of Trees.
Whatever… I’m not done yet.
(NEMI slowly takes the rope, measures it, and again looks up at the branch above them ready to toss it up.)
PAULO
Trust me, that bell is something you’ll really learn to hate hearing.
NEMI
You know the more you ask me to trust you, the more I won’t.
PAULO
Fine. Don’t.
(NEMI tosses the rope up and watches it as it falls down again.)
NEMI
Urgh! So, how did you… um… you know?
PAULO
Like I’m going to tell you? I want you to leave. And not by using that.
NEMI
What difference does it make if you tell me or not? I’ll be gone in either case.
PAULO
But I won’t be.
NEMI
Hey. I’m not forcing you to be here. Why don’t you just float away? Isn’t that something that you people… things do?
PAULO
If only it were that easy.
NEMI
Crap. Awe, crap!
You’re like one of those souls stuck here, aren’t you?
(PAULO shrugs an “I don’t know” and sits down on the bench.)
NEMI
But you said that your friend, Hiro, left. Can’t you do the same thing?
PAULO
Like I really want to be trapped here?
From what we’ve gathered, if you, or someone else in your position were to willingly leave, or if they’re scared off, which obviously isn’t going to happen with you, then I might finally have a chance of leaving this place.
NEMI
Might?
PAULO
There’s no guidebook to what happens to a person once they off themselves here, but it’s worked for the other ones. They scare off someone, and then “Ahhh!!!”, and then “Ding!” Just like that, we don’t hear from them again. I guess that by saving a soul, it’s supposed to, in theory, get us closer to Heaven.
NEMI
Or Hell.
PAULO
This is Hell. Being here… every day on this earth, living time over and over again… Stuck waiting for a stupid bell to ring. Trust… I mean, best believe that being stuck here is the very definition of Hell.
NEMI
So you’re telling me that your post-existence relies on the theory established in some Christmas movie…
PAULO
It’s a Wonderful Life.
NEMI
(Sarcastic tone) Yeah. Sure. Sure it is…
PAULO
Well, that “Bell Theory” is the only thing that makes sense. Hear a “Ding,” another Yūrei has made the ascent…
NEMI
Or descent.
PAULO
You’re a real downer, you know that?
NEMI
It’s part of my charm.
PAULO
At any rate, and in either direction, it’d still be better than here. What sucks is that Hiro, the only “person” who has been here longer than me, apparently has finally made the leap. I wonder who he had to scare away to score that ding. Why couldn’t that person have wandered into here instead of…
NEMI
Thanks. I’ll take that as a… sad compliment. What about… what about if I leave, and then hopefully you’ll hear your Ding!, say Adios, and then I can come back here and finish what I came to do… in peace?
PAULO
I don’t know. I’ve never tried that.
NEMI
Well, there’s always a first for everything.
PAULO
Or a last.
(Pause.)
Well, from what I’ve seen, it’s pretty quick. It’s like, there’s a border around each of us, and when someone living leaves that space after entering it then, Ding!
NEMI
That’s it? Then why don’t you just leave.
PAULO
I said, someone living. And I told you that it isn’t that easy.
(PAULO gives her an “I can’t believe, I’m doing this” shake of the head and takes a step past an imaginary line. Almost immediately, he looks as if the worst headache struck him like lightening and falls to the ground.)
NEMI
You’re right. That didn’t look easy.
Are you okay?
PAULO
No.
If one of us, spirits, tries to leave this space, then we get shocked into remembering the reason why we came here… and we wind up dying a little bit more.
NEMI
To die a little bit more than being already dead?
PAULO
Hence the name, Hell. Makes a person wish that they never… you know.
Pause.
NEMI
So, I’m going to walk right over there. By that tree. You think that’s far enough?
PAULO
Try going beyond those logs and we’ll see.
NEMI
Well. I’ll see you on the other side.
(NEMI exits.)
PAULO
Hopefully.
(NEMI is out of view. PAULO patiently looks up and waits. And waits…. And waits. No bell.
Frustrated and disappointed, he sits down on the bench and lets out a long exhale.)
(NEMI enters.)
NEMI
Sorry.
PAULO
Well. What can you do?
NEMI
It really is peaceful here.
PAULO
That’s what I thought when I found this spot. Quiet. Hidden. Out the way. Perfect place to…. you know, get away. Away from my job, which I lost. And my wife, who I lost. My child, taken away. Everything. Gone. All because I could not say no to a bet. A stupid wager on which American Football teams would win. Thing is, I was good at it, though.
The only thing I was good at apparently. I was picking the right teams at the right spreads. Winning more than I knew what to do with every week. A down payment on a new house. Done. New cars. Paid with cash. Life was perfect and I couldn’t lose.
Beat.
Until the day when I finally did. Lose it all. Seven-hundred and fifty grand in one weekend. Cheryl said the final straw was when I took all the money out of our daughter’s college fund and lost it all on McNeese versus Appalachian State. I don’t even know where McNeese is.
NEMI
Louisiana. It’s in Louisiana.
My father graduated from there.
PAULO
Louisiana.
So, when the bank foreclosed on our house, Cheryl took Kaylee and left me. I left the States with the $1000 I owed my bookee, and basically came here to leave everything else behind.
Beat.
NEMI
How’d you do it? I mean, if that branch wasn’t strong enough to hold you, then how? Or was all that just a lie so you could get me to leave?
PAULO
When you’re no longer one of the living, there really isn’t any use for lying anymore even if it is just to yourself. That branch won’t be able to hold you… but this bench will.
(PAULO gets up from the bench and circles around behind it to remove several branches. NEMI goes for a look at the surprise behind the bench.)
NEMI
Woah. That must be like 8 feet down there.
PAULO
Ten. I had to keep covering it because animals would occasionally fall in. How sad is that? I felt worse for those little critters than I did for the people that tried to kill themselves here.
NEMI
Why are you showing this to me?
PAULO
I don’t want to be here alone. So, if you were to… Then I wouldn’t be.
NEMI
That was pretty honest.
PAULO
No use for lying.
NEMI
Right.
(Pause.)
I killed my little sister. And that’s the truth I can’t live with.
PAULO
You don’t have to…
NEMI
I got into a fight with my parents about… Shit. I don’t even remember. Why can’t I remember? I can’t remember the stupid thing that made me jump into the car and peel out in reverse when I felt the… What the fuck was she doing back there? I thought it was just the wagon or a toy or a… but I didn’t know that she’d be… “NEMI STOP!!!” That was the last thing I heard… and I did. I swear I didn’t know Tess was back there. Why… why was she…? I opened the door and there was just so much… I didn’t know she was… PAULO
It was an accident. You didn’t mean to… NEMI
I killed her. It was my fault. My guilt. If I hadn’t been so mad. If I had only learned to keep my cool. If only I could fucking remember what it was I was mad about!
PAULO
It wasn’t your fault.
NEMI
No one else was driving that car! It was me and I killed her. After all that yelling that day, my parents haven’t said a word to me since. Nothing. I know they wished it was me instead, so… And the police. The police just wrote it off as a Tragic Accident. I can’t even go to prison for this. So, you know what? This? This right here? Is my punishment. I deserve this end.
PAULO
Killing yourself is not the end.
NEMI
And, you’ve set a mighty fine example of that.
PAULO
That’s exactly my point. You want the pain to stop? Guess what? It doesn’t. If you end the life, as you know it, you really don’t die. You’ll always stay stuck. Stuck with all of the guilt, anger, and isolation you thought you would leave behind. But, that’s what this forest represents. Under the green bushes, those trees, and those flowers, lie the remains of people who come from all over the world to “visit” the Infamous Suicide Forest of Japan in order to get away from everything, but in the end, and I mean, really at the end… everything stays with them in death as it did in life. And you never leave. It’s you, who remain.
NEMI
So, you’re telling me that this, all of this, is a complete waste of time?
(PAULO shakes his head in agreement.) NEMI
Well… crap. Now what do I do?
(Feeling defeated, NEMI sits on the bench.)
PAULO
The opposite of living in eternal Hell, aka here in the Aokigahara Forest, is that you can give life the bird and do something positive with it.
NEMI
As you’ve already noted, I don’t do “positive.” PAULO
Well, it’s never too late to learn. For me, yes, but that’s why I’m trying to tell you to go home and make your parents realize that they still have a daughter and that you still have a life. We’re all meant to do something with our lives… and you can only do that while you’re still living.
NEMI
And maybe when we’re not.
(Pause.)
Have you ever thought that the reason you’re still here isn’t to scare people off, but to convince them that whatever binds a person on earth will still bind them in death? And, that when a person leaves this life, whether unintentional or not, it will leave a hole in other people’s lives too. And, it’s up to each of us to find a way to fill that void with more life.
(SFX: DING!)
PAULO
Either you’re right and won a new car… or…?
(NEMI stands and walks past “the line.”)
NEMI
Want to show me how to get out of here?
(PAULO shoots her a skeptical look, but willing to entertain the idea moves towards her. With each step forward he takes, she takes another back until he is fully over the line, and nothing. Nothing has happened. He jumps back in and jumps back out. Waits. And then jumps back and forth.)
PAULO
I’m free. I’m FREE! I’M FREE!!!
(PAULO gives NEMI a hug.)
Thank you.
NEMI
And thank you. I guess it’s time I figure out what I’m going to do now.
PAULO
Trust me, you have your whole life to figure that part out.
NEMI
You really put a lot of stock in that trust of yours, don’t you? But what I meant was, how the hell am I going to get back home? I bought a one-way ticket here.
(PAULO flashes her a knowing smile and goes behind the bench, reaches down near one of its legs, pulls out a wad of Yen, and hands it to NEMI.)
PAULO
Insurance if I chickened out. That should be enough to get you back to the States.
NEMI
Uh… thanks. So, are you gonna like beam up or something?
PAULO
As fascinating as that sounds, Hiro said that he heard through the “ghost network” that after we cross our lines, we have to make our way to the Shiraito Waterfalls.
NEMI
And that’s where you’ll ascend?
PAULO
Now, who’s thinking positive? I hope so. The main road heading back into town is right near there, so I’ll be more than happy to show you the way.
NEMI
Sure. I’d like that.
(PAULO holds out his arm with a crook in it for NEMI to slide her arm through so as to leave. She does, and as BOTH start to exit, NEMI stops.)
NEMI
Shoot. I forgot my backpack with all my stuff. I’ll catch up.
PAULO
I can wait.
NEMI
I’m just going to grab it real quick, I’ll see you up ahead.
PAULO
All right. I’m just going to be up there.
(PAULO exits.)
(NEMI goes over to grab her backpack. She pauses a little longer to check if Paulo is watching her. She then goes to the space behind the bench, looks down the hole… and looks at the rope.)
Blackout.
END OF PLAY