Rimbaud
A dimly lit bowling alley in a vaguely Midwestern twilight. Half of a neon hot dog glows over the hoarse rumbles of an empty fridge. A beer-stained lane clock ticks without moving. Sam lines up a shot while Franz adjusts his rented shoes with the earnestness of a man checking for poison in his soup. Four empty glasses of beer, a wallet, a ring and a small shared basket of onion rings sit between them.
SAM SHEPARD (releasing the ball): You ever notice how bowling pins look like they’re waiting to be executed?
FRANZ KAFKA (nodding): Yes, like bureaucrats in a firing squad—except they volunteered for it.
The pins crash. A split. Sam wipes off the sweat of his palms on his jeans.
KAFKA: Sounds like marriage, I think.
SAM (grinning): Only if your wife can’t sleep and keeps you up all night mumbling at the ceiling fan.
A small hand—grimy and efficient—reaches up from beneath the table and swipes an onion ring from the basket. Neither man notices.
KAFKA (smirking): Marien used to pace the house with a glass of water. She claimed dreams were safer when you’re awake.
SAM: That’s something. Lan used to write haikus on the backs of cereal boxes at 2am. Once she mailed one to my agent by mistake.
KAFKA: Were they any good?
SAM: I liked the one about a spoon that couldn’t bear to lift milk anymore. Tragic stuff.
A red stool scoots two inches closer to the table. A child wearing only one bowling shoe, darts nervous stares at the onion rings.
KAFKA (picking up a bright green ball and studying it): It’s not the sleeplessness that gets you. It’s what they see in the dark. You know? The things they see when you’re just trying to dream about cows and dead relatives.
SAM (watching Kafka bowl a gutterball): I know. One night Lan said, “There’s a crow in my stomach and it sounds hungry.” What the hell do you do with that?
The tiny untied bowling shoe taps impatiently under the table. The onion rings basket is now half empty.
KAFKA: Nothing. You do nothing at all.
SAM: Is that what you did with Marien?
KAFKA (shrugs): Mostly. Though I tried to eat healthier too.
SAM (suddenly): Hey, what do you think happened to Rimbaud’s leg?
A quick snatch—one more onion ring disappears. The shoe laces from the child’s shoe bounce on the floor like raindrops. Kafka, raises one eyebrow, says nothing.
KAFKA (tilting his head): Gangrene. Officially. But I've always suspected it was metaphorical.
SAM: You mean like… he sawed it off to see better?
KAFKA: Or to get away from nothing.
SAM: You think the leg was the price for vision?
A gush of mustard lands on the basket’s greasy paper. The child waits for a reaction. There is none.
KAFKA (thinking): Maybe it rebelled. Maybe it just got tired of walking through deserts.
SAM (laughs): So you’re saying his leg staged a walkout.
KAFKA: Yes. A kind of divine gesture.
SAM: Damn.
A nearby teen bowls a strike and cheers. Neither man notices. Only one onion ring remains.
SAM: You ever wonder what Rimbaud would’ve bowled?
KAFKA: He would’ve rolled the ball backwards and declared the alley a coup.
SAM (smirking): And then seduced the manager with promises of rebellion.
KAFKA (addresses Sam again): Yes. While his amputated leg waited patiently in a coat check.
A small hand creeps up again. It hovers over the basket like a magnet. The crumbs disappear and just as the fingers close on the last onion ring…
KAFKA (catching the child’s wrist, lifts the last onion ring, examines it gravely, and places it in his shirt pocket.): It-is-poisoned.
The child uses the entire surface of his hand to wipe off mustard from the table and licks it, dripping yellow saliva on his bowling shoe. The pins reset themselves.
SAM (standing to take his shot): I don’t know if we’re cursed or just curious.
KAFKA (watching the ball roll, softly): Maybe it’s the same thing.
The hot-dog sign turns on fully and the snoring fridge stops working. No one cares who wins.
SAM (staring into the void behind the bowling pins): It’s a chrome desert.
Lan paces the room
a child’s hand meets Kafka’s palm.
Desert winds stand still.