Title: “Boat People”      Â
How the piece would work: This piece would be contained in a very small room. The ceiling would be just over 7 feet high and it could fit only two people stretching there arms out finger tip to finger tip. Dangling from the ceiling a foot down would be jars of Tiger Balm. The room would be kept at a relatively warm temperature, enough for the tiger balm to be slightly melted and the scent of it to fill the room as well as for the audience to begin to sweat. The room would be dark with sparse track lighting along the ceiling in between the balms to simulate wooden boards. The audience would be invited to stand, sit, or lay down to listen as the room fills to its capacity. Then the recording would begin.
 Story Object Piece:
Young female voice: It has begun to sting when I put it on. The skin beneath my nose feels dry. My finger runs over bits of it, stretched, torn apart, and then peeled back. A mountain range running with rivers of blood when I smile. But I don’t smile anymore. I lie in the dark next to my mother and I stay quiet.
Male voice: They don’t tell you about the smell. They tell you about what you’ll see. The bodies heaped on bodies. The dead always outnumber the living in the end. The sores, the bloatedness. But they don’t tell you about the smell…maybe because it’s so closely related to taste. Nobody wants to taste this.
Young Female Voice: When we first set out, I counted the days by the rays of light that managed to squeeze their way down into the dark. Those rays would be my eyes. Each one illuminating a new piece of the landscape, of my situation. A brown eye, like mine, following the ray up and up to its point of access, a flash of coloured clothing as someone turns over to try and find some comfort, a small child’s hand reaching out as if to grab the light for itself. I’d stay awake until they disappeared, imagining creatures in the whorls of dust that played all along their path. Not creatures like we had back home, but those that I had read so much about. Monkeys with their tails in loops hanging from trees, elephants with their long noses and slow, ambling gait, and tigers with their sleek orange and black fur and paws the size of my head. These creatures all made it onto the boat with me and shared my happiness on those first sunny days. On the days it rained I missed the creatures almost as much as I missed the sun rays. I would whisper stories into my mother’s ear I’d heard from my friends about the vast ship that took all the animals two by two to protect them from the great rain so that maybe the rays would become jealous of the rains stories and come back.
Male voice: My first day I was eager to get there. To help. It wasn’t just anyone who was trusted with this job. No one was there when I arrived at the docks, but I could see the big ship that we would be unloading. I sat on the edge of the dock, dangling my legs over the side and waited.
Young female Voice: I sleep through most of the day as well as the night now. I no longer know if it is the same sun I see portioned down to slivers above me when I wake, or a new one. The sun is indifferent to my stories.
Male Voice: After that first day I knew why no one was ever there early for this job. I sit in a café across from the docks holding a steaming cup of coffee that I don’t even bother to drink just to give myself one more thing to do before having to go there now.
Young female Voice: It wasn’t long after I stopped counting the days that a sickness arrived. I found it harder to stay still and to stay quiet. I could hear the buckets in the corners upset onto the floor regularly. I could smell its contents as it moved with the waves. I cried into my shoulder and tried to lift my head up enough to keep my hair off the ground. My mother whispered to breathe slowly and focus on sucking in the air the rays brought, rather than the air that surrounded us. She pressed a small glass container into the palm of my hand. The men on the ship had been handing them out as we boarded the ship back home. I traced its six sides with my thumb, ran it up and along the ridges of the lid, and felt the familiar impression of the tiger upon its top. I brought my other hand over to slowly twist off the top, being careful to not draw attention to my movements as many had used the entirety of their containers up already and there was little to share, but many to share with. I dipped my one finger into the container. I slid it slowly across the silky inside and imagined its white flesh, unbroken and unyielding. I brought my finger up to my nose and gently rubbed the oily substance beneath my nostrils. The air cleared. The smell of eucalyptus filled my mind and I fell asleep against my mother’s chest.
Male Voice: The crew gives us ways around the smell when they arrive. Little containers of relief. I used to be greedy with it. Smearing a sturdy shelf below my nose. Anything to rid my mind of that smell. After hours of working with it, your lip goes numb, then it cracks and bleeds. I didn’t realize the blood until I got home that first night. A slow stream mixed in with the opaque balm. I could still smell the bodies.
Young female Voice: Mother fell ill. I could hear her personal timbre as it mingled in with the stifled coughs of those around us. Her skin felt cold and clammy next to mine one minute, then hot and sticky the next. She rubbed the balm on her chest as well as beneath her nose. It was the only scent I focused on. I imagined it rising and falling with each of her breaths. I imagined it cooling her burning skin. I imagined a growing blanket from her chest to her outer extremities to where her hand joined with mine, the little container pressed between our palms. I dreamed that blanket would save her.
Male Voice: Men come and go all the time. Young, like I was, they think they have been chosen to be part of some secret society. Their status and pay has just jumped exponentially. They are part of something bigger and underground. Then they realize the hard reality of what they have to do each time a ship rolls in. Though there are months between jobs like this one, most don’t last past their first encounter with it, the majority don’t last past two.
Young Female Voice: The smell no longer just comes from the buckets. I have developed a rash from the constant dampness and mess. My hair lies in mats around my head. There is a corner where bodies are huddled. Cold. Blue. No matter the amount of bodies, there is no warmth there. I open the container and slowly bring it to my face to breath in the scent of pine and honey. I stick my tongue out and lick the edge. It burns momentarily, my mouth full with the cool, fresh taste of it, then it fades to a numbness. I breathe in deeply, imagining water running down over my tongue rather than the air that briefly chills the spot. I take my finger and run it along the inside of the container. I feel the soothing skin of the ointment as well as for a brief moment the polished bottom. I bring my finger up and to my nose, wincing as I run it along my broken skin. My finger comes away red. I wipe it clean on my clothing and reach down into the container once more.
Male Voice: Then there are the ones we have to let go. I’ve been doing this long enough now to recognize them right away. They’re the ones who keep arriving early after that first time. They’re excited by the work, by the bodies. We can’t have that here. (Long Pause) There are children.
Young Female Voice: My mother is sleeping. Her skin is once again cold against mine, but I am lying in a pool of my own sweat and my body burns from the inside out. I have replaced her voice in the cacophony of silent bodies around us. My chest aches. I reach over with a freshly anointed finger and rub beneath her nose for her. I imagine I see her chest rise as she inhales clearly for the first time in days. I imagine she dreams of fresh mint and cool air. I twist the cap back on placing the container once more between my mother and I’s palms. I turn my head to the side and begin to whisper in her ear as drops of rain begin to fall. I imagine I see my mother smile. Â
