31:T950,CHORUS
Inanna stops at a road-side bar.
Picks at her honey loaf, downs a beer, breaks the cup.
The regulars try to ignore her.
Restless, she tells the bartender:
INANNA
There’s a pressure in my ears is there something wrong with the electricity here?
It’s like, skullburning.
Radio signal buzz.
~
CHORUS
Star-sung and dense she turns through the shining door. The light has pressed the color out of the day. Disrupting waves like crystal, everything diffracting around her in imperatives, gigantic and incandescent, she explodes away, fast.
As evening falls she reaches the blue gates. She’s wearing carnelian beads like fresh salmon, lines of fat and rusting blood webbed across the furrows of her chest, her collarbone under their heavy weight like a trapped bird’s wingstrokes.
Lapis lazuli gates and the dusk falling and her arm dark and gold against them. Sand and waters, earth and sky, these colors together are a horizon. An edge place. She is certain as she reaches home.
At home she calls her friend, An.
INANNA
An. AN
Mm. Yeah? INANNA
Remember when we used to go fuck shit up - AN
No. INANNA
Come on. When we’d go set fire to shit and eat hot dogs. AN
What about it. Is this about Ereshkigal again? INANNA
No! Remember when we’d drink til- AN
I don’t want to remember. Time has passed. I’ve changed. I eat carrots now. No more hot dogs. INANNA
Carrots. What is this. AN
How was your day? INANNA
Fine. Shot cans in the desert. There’s a mountain out there, though. Pretty flowers. Little deers. Fruit trees. Some asshole who doesn’t know who I am. AN
So? INANNA
Everyone used to know us. AN
You can’t go and burn everything down. And anyway, this seems like it’s beautiful. Fruit trees? Peaceful gazelles? Blossoms perfuming the air? Why you gotta go fight anything that seems strong? INANNA
You wanna eat peaches now? AN
Yes! You can’t just oppose everything beautiful. You're beautiful! Come on. Take a bath, put some of those damn petals in, oils, leave those wild deserts behind. Lighten your mind. ~
CHORUS
Inanna’s wet kohl-rimmed eyes blink dark gold. She carefully places the receiver down. She walks out into her garage. She is filled with rage. Dawn breaks over her. 32:[] 2f:{"title":"Scene 2","cells":[{"id":0,"value":"# Scene 2","pinned":false,"hidden":false,"mode":"md"},{"id":3,"value":"$31","pinned":false,"hidden":false,"mode":"md"},{"id":14,"value":"[NEXT SCENE](https://observablehq.com/@florencewallis/ei3)","pinned":false,"hidden":false,"mode":"md"}],"files":"$W32","stdlib":"1","titling":"auto"}