Gates of Horn and Ivory

Written as a submission for the Mini Operas Competition - a Libretto.
S Courtney, 2012

From the Gates of Horn and Ivory

Three dreams cluster DSR, dressed in grey and faded rags. They are hollow eyed and wraith-like. Insubstantial but brittle. USC, a woman sleeps. As they sing, they whirl around the bedroom – raging like Bacchantes.

Dream One: He's coming, can you feel it? The wind. The brush. He's coming.

Dream Two: She's waking, can you see her? Moving, shifting. She's waking.

Dream Three: Her alarm is crying out. Can you hear it? Beeping every morning, beeping, beeping, always beeping, make it stop make it stop, it fills me, shatters me. Beeping…

Dream One: He's coming, I can feel him.

Dream Two: She's waking, I can see her.

Dream Three: Make it stop, make it stop, the beeping, the noise, make it stop make it stop. Will she take me with her? Don't leave me here to shatter.

Dreams Together: She's waking, he's coming don't leave me. Don't leave me here to shatter, shatter, shatter, to skitter, scatter the broken pieces of our world.

Coming.

Waking.

Beeping.

Morning.

Moving.

Coming, coming, coming. He's coming with his broom to take us away. Keep us. Save  us.

Woman Rises. The dreams retreat from their Bacchic dance, cling to the woman's bed. She cannot see them.

Woman: They beg me. Every morning they beg me. Hollow eyes and ragged clothes. They scream to me as they shatter across their universe. Bright shards of glass and dreams, shooting stars of possibility and fairy tales.

Dreams Together: faintly. Keep me. Don't leave me. Don't leave me here to die.

Woman: I can hear them. They break with the crashing of glass and china, falling to the floor. I can feel Him, too. A Stygian breeze – he comes through the Gate of Horn and Ivory, crosses Lethe, drinks from Styx, such a man to take them away.

I hear them. Their final cries drowned by the swish of the broom.

Hear them. They cry out to me, call my name, beg me.

I see him.

He's older than I remember. I don't always see him. When I was young he was handsome, a knight. Once he fought the dragons that lived in me. I begged him to take me with him, kissed him. Loved him.

His lance was silver, his helmet of gold.

He left me, and although I knew of his coming, heard his footsteps and the soft swish of his broom, I didn't see him.

Now I am old. The dragons are gone and the dreams are sharp. Brittle.

And now I see him. Old and tired, grainy and grey. His weapons a broom and a dustpan.

And still they fear him. And I still yearn for him.

I welcome him. I offer him my hand.

If he would stay, the world would spin faster. Take me with you. Take me.

Now he nods, dusty and grey. And sweeps them all, leaving me behind, a stray sliver of memory a bright spark of a dream. Shattered. Shards. Shards to cut you when unwary you step.

The day begins. As it always does. He turns to smile at me, and I watch him fade.

Sweeping, sweeping them away.

And tomorrow morning and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

Dream One: He's coming.

Dream Two: She's waking.

Dream Three: The alarm shatters.

Dreams Together: He's coming.

She's waking.

Make it stop, take me with you, don't leave me here to die again.

They cling to the woman, to her bed, to her legs as she stretches, makes motions to greet the day. The Dream Sweeper enters USL, pushing his broom. The dreams cling to her and wail as the Dream Sweeper begins to hum (a little out of tune) "You'll Never Walk Alone" as he makes his trek DSR, as the dreams flee before him, whirling and breaking.