Echo's Repetoire Scene 1: To Entertain, Beethoven's 5th
Chair in center stage. General low light wash with low house lights Echo walks out and sits down. Music starts
(Script needs editing and expanding possibly)
My lords, this mission was a bust from the beginning. Though it started out smoothly, I believe there was a rat and I think I know who.
The mission started out fine. When we got to the station, we were asked for the purpose of our trip and Ambassador Jx gave them her access code. After some deliberation and a yes from a commander we were able to dock. Once we got off the ship and exited the landing bay, there was a welcoming crew waiting to greet Ambassador Jx. As she walked down the line, each representative grasped her hand in trust and recognition. It was just how Ambassador Jx had informed us. They walked us down to the conference rooms with an AI unit in lead. We were told to sit in the waiting room outside as they set up for the meeting. They offered refreshments to Jx and refused to allow the crew to be served. When Jx didn’t correct the assumption, the Voyance seemed pleased that Jx still followed their customs.
When it came time for the meeting, they allowed only Jx and her assistant to enter the room. This wasn’t unusual but looking back it does seem strange that they wouldn’t allow at least one of us in as their guard. The meeting seemed to be taking longer than planned. I assumed there were still some wrinkles in the amended treaty, but we were told this was a formality mission. This is when things took a turn.
There was a shot, and then loud shuffling. I thought something must have gone wrong and Jx is moving to plan B. I stood to prepare our team for immediate evacuation when a Militia barged into the room from the door we came in from. They must have been waiting outside just in case we tried to make a run for it. We weren’t prepared to take a small army. We had no option but to let them lock us up and take it from there. I did not want my team caught up in a civil war.
While we waited for things to calm down, I tried to figure out how to get my crew and myself out of the holding cells. I had no idea what we were up against or how to get my crew out unscathed. Though the Voyance telepathy isn’t super effective on me, nearly half my crew was human. This is when the assistant popped up. I was so shocked and happy to have a way out, I didn’t process that there was no way the assistant could of gotten out of that room freely. How was it not locked up with us or worse, decommissioned? It told us Jx had been shot but it knew a back way out of the station and back to the ship. The assistant got us out of the holding cells. It did not come with us, just gave me the turns to make to get back to the ship unnoticed. The assistant told me it still had unfinished business on the ship. I figured this meant Jx was dead, and the assistant was going back to extract revenge as was expected of it to whatever cost of itself.
Now, I had paid attention when the militia had taken us to the holding cells and had a rough idea of how to get us back to our ship and with the assistant’s instructions it should be easy to navigate back. It wasn’t going to be the most direct route but we did not have time to find another path. We had to get back to our ship before anyone realized we had escaped. Before we even got back to the conference rooms, the alarms went off for escaped prisoners. The whole base was on high alert. We had run out of time. It became a blood bath to get back to the hangar. There were guards posted at every turn, armed to the teeth. It was as though they had planned this from the start. By the time we made it to the loading bay it was just me, my second in command, and the deck boy.
My second in command ran ahead to draw attention from the loading bay, almost sacrificing his life. We thought we were going to make it. We thought we were going to fly free, battered and scared but we should have escaped. We had gotten off the station and were flying in open air.
They had their guns primed and ready. There was no warning before half of my ship was blasted away.
I lost my crew, I lost my second in command, I lost my best friend. And worst of all, I lost my ship.
And I believe someone in this room knows why.
See there’s a reason I thought Jx had moved to plan B. It was your type of gun that had gone off, not one of the Voyance’s. Their weapons sound different from yours. If I didn’t realize it before, I definitely did as we were leaving.
And the prison break, now that was just too convenient. Even if the Voyance had taken Jx’s or the assistant’s gun and shot her with it, they would never have let the assistant escape. They know your customs just as well as we know theirs. They would have known the assistant would self-detonate in the event of their accolade being assassinated.
No. Us getting out was planned. They wanted us to get to our ship or they would have had preventative measures up to make sure our ship couldn’t take off or at least closed the hangar.
I think those alarms going off was the signal to prime the guns, and I think the assistant set them off.
See, if the Voyance wanted us dead, they could of shot us right in that conference room.
No. I think someone wanted to make a show of this mission. This was a message. A call to war and I don’t think they planned it. It was the Voyance who originally called for peace. They may have the social hierarchy, but they revere peace over all. Now you, your standing is built on internal conflict.
Everything had gone according to plan hadn’t it. Everything except my rescue.
Now JX’s assistant had just recently replaced. For this exact mission if I recall. So, who authorized this transfer?
Who wanted this mission to fail?
Anyone want to speak up and explain to me why I lost my crew?
I have no problem giving my life to get answers.
Granddaughter of The Yellow Wallpaper
I don’t think my grandma was schizophrenic, for the record. I know that’s what my father told you when he sent me here, but I know now more than ever there was nothing wrong with her. Not anything from her own volition.
Did I ever tell you I never knew who my grandmother was before her treatment, my father didn’t either. He was just a babe when her break down happened. Her break down. Such a strange way to describe what happened to her.
I’ve seen her journal from that time. I’ve read what she wrote about that wallpaper. It wasn’t the wallpaper that made her loose it you know. It was the isolation, the lack of activity and freedom. That’s why she never got better. She was never able to live her life again.
She spent 10 years in the state insane asylum. 10 years locked up. I think that’s why she doesn’t sleep. I know I don’t sleep anymore.
She was quiet. She didn’t talk much. I remember thinking she was just dumb till one night I woke up from a bad dream and I found her writing in her room. That’s when we really grew close.
My father had all her old writings. I guess his father did not want to deal her old stuff. I tried to show her the old journal that had tales of the wallpaper, but she just got upset. Father didn’t let me go into her room after. He warned me of her sickness. He told me what had happened. I think he blames her for mother.
I would wait till he would leave for patient’s house or when he would go to bed to visit with her. I never showed her that journal again.
You know its because of that journal that I was sent here? He found it in my room. I think it scared him. I think he thought I was going to lose it like she did. I don’t blame him. I must have read her entries a hundred times. It was just so strange considering a time when my grandmother had life in her.
I do not think anything was wrong with her. Not now anyway. I think it was just age that caused her to lash out sometimes. I do not know what they did to her when she was locked up. If they… (touch head)
I think it was the isolation that made her strange, quiet. I used to think she was dumb you know. Until I saw her writing one night.
The writings were pretty dull. She used to write about some poor lost little girl. I used to think she was talking about the women in the wallpaper or myself. One night she told me. She told me she had been pregnant when she was sent away. That she did not know what happened to the child. I always wanted to ask father about it. Whether he had some sister that I did not know about. I wondered if she was also mad. Then father would know that I talked to grandmother. I doubt he knew anyway.
Other nights she would write about her baby John who she had to leave behind. I used to show her photos of my father and tell her he’s grown. She would just shake her head and cry.
I don’t have to worry about children, do I. I have had that taken away from me, right? You took away my chance of children?! That’s’ what you do to us? Take us away and strip us of everything we have.
Maybe if I took after her, I would not be like this. If I just stayed quiet. Would that of stopped the treatments? Would I of been sent home. Do I even have a home?
I wonder if I am like her. If I have the madness. If father had not of sent me away, would I of killed my self like her. I know that is what happened. Mom killed herself. She could not take it. Take grandma staring at her. Take grandmother watching her so. Grandma told me. Well she did not tell me as much as I read it. Read how she missed watching the women. Missed how she reminded her of herself. How she did not like when she would yell in her face to leave.
Father blames grandmother for her death. I think that’s why he punishes her so. Why he was so afraid of that little book.
I think father is really who makes us all mad. He is the only one that ties us all together. Me, my mother, his mother. We are all tied to this one man. It was after he was born that grandma went mad. She mentions him, how she misses him. How being without him made her nervous. He was the one to make us mad! Not her! He is the reason I am here! Not her! She was dead and he sent me here!
He sent me here …. (touch head)
Bacchae transformed into a Nonbinary Allegory
Here I am, oh Dionysus, Zeus’s son, the god whom Semele birthed, with a bolt of lightning as a mid-wife. I honor your strength to go back where it began. To disguise your superhuman form beneath the trappings of a mortal man. But I do not have a lighting-blasted tomb to go back to, no sanctuary to escape to. Just a Rosegold brand that decided the first question on an application to collaborate should be an in bold, man or women
You passed through gold-rich countries, sun-struck plains, battlefields, and handsome circuit walls enclosing non-Greeks and Greeks alike. All I’ve been I see people ignorant of their own gender roles, blaming me for their own insecurities, and others like me who have broken societies rules. I came out first of all, cutting off all my hair, trying to find some balance between male and female so that people may recognize me with their own eyes.
I yelled and screamed, explained false biology, broke down the history of gender, and all because some transphobes friends felt the need to back his ignorance. One alleged that you are born either male or female, that gender is genital, and it is nothing but black and white. How can they believe such lies. The other faults me for not understanding how hate and harassment is based off of some poor high school education, that I should of known better than to try and explain it as I did. That’s why they side with Rosegold Marshi, because he doesn’t understand.
So I screenshotted the conversations and added them to a review of Rosegold Marshi saying they were transphobic and encouraged harassment. I blocked the harassers, so I no longer had to deal with their ignorance. In fact, the transphobes, all of them, everyone, has been blocked from my social media. I do not wish to try and fight a brick wall. Since people are still ignorant of my gender, they need to learn about it- even against their will. I defend the trans community by teaching mortals there are gods living about them.
What’s more, Rosegold Marshi felt the need to continuously harass me while talking bad about trans people. He does not believe in the separation of gender and sex and never calls me by my name. My identity must be driven home to him and every transphobe. I will live in peace when every trans and nonbinary person can exist in peace. If transprejudice tries to rout my fellow nonbinaries from the internet, I shall lead the queers against them like a general. To that end I no longer disguise my superhuman form beneath the trappings of what’s expected of me.
Dionysus, who has maddened the men who tried to disgrace your name. The god of transformation, madness, and performance. Take up your throne on Earth and show these people the truth. Make them regret the bias they’ve shared and know the pain we bare. Don’t stop until they understand! I meanwhile will go on tiktok, join my nonbinaries and enjoy their dances.
