DIVINE

A: I saw him. Hideous.

B: Yes. Of course, I haven’t seen him, but the reports are not good.

A: Divine. Its an odd name for a man.

B: Not for him, somehow. Apt.

A: An odd man.

B: They say that he could heal wounds just by singing over them.

A: No. That’s the myth building. It wasn’t healing he did. His voice, it made you stop feeling pain. Nothing miraculous in that. Its just wonderful.

B: It doesn’t seem possible that its happening to him. A tragedy.

A: An upright, devout man destroyed.

B: He’s alive.

A: Alive but silent now. Ordinary.

B: Sad that such things happen. I remember my father telling me of a tall man with long hair and olive skin walking through the fields.....singing hymns and touching the workers. The pain left their backs.

A: My father was in one of those fields. I was too, though too young to do much work. I remember the feeling, like his voice filled you so full there wasn’t any room for cares or worry, they just spilled out onto the ground.

B: They hated him. Called him "Bolshevik".

A: Threw him in jail.

B: On a chain gang.

A: Sang to the rocks and asked them to break.

B: Yes. And they did.

A: They cut out his tongue.

B: They say he hummed his pain away and the birds tried to nest in his hair.

A: Seems so odd. Do you believe any of it?

B: Well, you’ve seen him.

A: I saw him today. Hollow eyed. He didn’t make a sound. A guard spat on him and he didn’t move.

B: People treat badly what they fear.

A: He’s nothing to be afraid of. A broken old man they tell wild stories about.

B: Stories he can neither confirm nor deny.

A: So. Divine is alone in the world.

Lights out