I was supposed to come clean up the coop.

MOLLY:

VAIL :

Infested probably. 

MOLLY:

That’s what happens with these coops abandoned. 

VAIL :

Desperate and diseased.

MOLLY:

You can hear it.  In between the squawking and the calling.

VAIL :

It’s practically torture.

MOLLY:

Might as well hold them underwater until they drown.  

Eddy turns around and catches them.  They duck out of sight.  He laughs to see them flee. 

VAIL :

Their rustling sounds like laughing. 

MOLLY:                               

Their laughing sounds like scratching. 

VAIL :

I had enough of Eddy’s laughing without adding scratching.

CHICKEN EDDY:   

Feathers can’t tell what’s straw and what’s shit so stick to everything.  Feels the same to feathers.  Area in between gets itself caked with everything supposed to be and anything not.

They break through the fence.

MOLLY:

That one! 

Molly and Vail try to catch Chicken Eddy.  He’s wily.  He’s slippery.  He’s covered in straw and chicken shit. 
Molly and Vail tackle Chicken Eddy. 

VAIL :

Put him in the bag!

They scoop him in.  If they had a white van, it would be a drive-by kidnapping.  The kind that accidentally goes to hell. 

CHICKEN EDDY:

Chickens screaming! 

Chicken looks to the other for a response.  A retaliation.  A coup…but just scuttling.

CHICKEN EDDY:

Chicken screaming?!
…other chicken clucking cuz it just don’t care. 

MOLLY:

Tell it to be quiet.

In an Eddier moment:

CHICKEN EDDY:

Think you can tell chicken what can and can’t be saying?

Vail hits Eddy in the bag.

CHICKEN EDDY:

Talking. 

Vail hits him again.

CHICKEN EDDY:

Squawking. Like suffocating.

Eddy jabs at them through the bag. 
Molly calls out in pain.
He goes for their shins.  And knees.  And thighs. And eyes.  And arms. 

MOLLY:

Shitter’s poking me. 

Molly whacks the bag. 

MOLLY:                   

It’s getting my knees.  I don’t want it touching my knees.

CHICKEN EDDY:

Infectious chicken pecking. Species floodgates beginning to break.  In between becoming seen. 

Again, Eddier:

CHICKEN EDDY:

Going to have to pay for what not seeing you do.  Chicken himself telling you, you going to have to pay too for what you’re not seeing yourself do. 

VAIL :

Duct tape it.

Molly puts duct tape over Eddy’s mouth. 
Molly and Vail pull him to the ground. 
Vail sits on him and Molly holds his head down. 
Thunder claps.  Ominously. 

VAIL :

Let’s get out of here. 

Vail and Molly drag Eddy in the sleeping bag off stage.  The drizzle becomes rain.

12

GEORGIA :

I always hear about planes going down I think cuz they got so far to go.  I’ve never heard of 155 people going down in any car.  Never seen a car crash on the 6 o’clock news unless cuz of the traffic it’s blocking. 
You have to know how to see em—the small accidents.  Make sure they’re not coming your way before you go it. 

Can’t watch out for that sort of thing on a plane.  The pilot slumps over and nobody’s watching and there’s no way to get out of.
Just open sky and then the ground.
Long way to that ground. 
Long way down to all the farms in boxes. 
And a black box they can fish through to hear what happened when everything else exploded. 
They could make black box planes, they’d be set. But God likes keeping planes exploding. 
Then we know what’s it’s like to be on the ground and be grateful to fall only on that ground. 

The Mormon reminds me, he says
Georgia
be grateful for it. 

You don’t see something, you miss it, right on run over it.  Caught in and under the bumper because it wasn’t seen.
Have to see something into existence for it to be.  
Like us seen through the divine corneas of God. 
Like Jesus’ sheets left somewhere in Turkey make sure we see He’s real.

But it never works well enough.  We stay in our shells, under out rocks.  We aren’t able to see ourselves fall when it’s only on to the soft ground we’re falling. 
We don’t see what we do. 
That’s why God crashes planes and sends rain. 

I can be saved—not through my trials, but through seeing my trials as that and thanking god for that opportunity and that sight because I sat months in a court room and never realized what it was for.
But I no longer sit in the defendants chair but stand as the witness—
I stand here to stand witness before you that I can be and will be saved. 

13

Vail and Molly.
Molly is trying to build a cage out of the chicken wire from the Shop n’ Go. 
Water drips more feverishly than before into the metal bucket. 
Rustling is coming from the closet.  Something struggling. 

VAIL :

I don’t like the sound of feathers against wood.  I think we should let it out.

MOLLY:

VAIL :

What’s that for?

MOLLY:

It’s a cage.  Carrying cage.  We can move it when we want it someplace else.  Just pick up and go. 

Scuttling behind the closet.

VAIL :

I’m going to open the door. 

MOLLY:

Not yet!

VAIL :

Why not?  It’s not going to be able to escape.  We got it now. 

MOLLY:

I don’t want it pecking at us again. 

VAIL :

How long do you think before it starts laying eggs?

MOLLY:

I don’t care about that anymore.

VAIL :

I want to hold it. 

Clawing and flapping from behind the closet door--picks up.

MOLLY:

We’ll keep it here for awhile, then if the coast is clear, we’ll move it next door, then maybe back again.  We want the chicken here, we move it here, tomorrow we want it over there, we pack up its stuff, we take it there.  It’s going to get so fucking discombobulated!

Vail opens the door.  There’s Eddy. 
Duct tape over his mouth.  A chicken.  And pissed.
To Chicken Eddy:

VAIL :

Hi there, you want something to eat? 

Eddy grabs her arm—between her wrist and elbow.  Holds firm.

VAIL :

Hey.  Hey!

Vail calls out in pain.

MOLLY:

What?

VAIL :
Stop it.

Holds firm.

VAIL :

I said stop it!

MOLLY:

I told you not to let it out, Vail. 

VAIL :

It’s digging into me.

MOLLY:

Make it stop. 

VAIL :

I can’t. It’s breaking skin. 

MOLLY:

VAIL :

It’s scratching me.

Chicken Eddy pulls off the duct tape. 

EDDY AS CHICKEN

Scratch, scratch, scratching you.

VAIL :

Let go!

MOLLY:

Pull it off!

VAIL :

I can’t.

Eddy begins to twist her arm backwards.
Chicken laughing.

MOLLY:

Let go!

Vail calls out in pain.  Wanted touching not like this. 
Molly grabs him. 

MOLLY:

He pushes her off. 

MOLLY:

Let go!

VAIL :

Why is it doing this?  Get it off.

Molly grabs him again.  Duct tapes his hands behind his back.

Chicken Eddy holds Vail firm.

MOLLY:

Don’t touch her.

Eddy keeps twisting her arm backwards, Vail falls to her knees.

VAIL :

It’s hurting me.

MOLLY:

Don’t touch her, don’t touch her!

VAIL :

MOLLY:

Molly pushes Chicken Eddy’s head into the metal bucket filled with water that’s been drip drip dripping from the leaky ceiling. 

He struggles.  He stays holding firm. 

His head breaks free.

EDDY AS CHICKEN:

Molly, don’t!

Vail and Molly push his head back into the bucket. 

They hold it there. 

He stops moving. 

He lets go of Vail’s arm. 

They pull him out of the bucket.  He falls limp to the ground.

MOLLY:

That was the deal.

Thunder booms, the way it does when it’s about to flood.  Rain outside hitting shingles hitting rafters hitting asbestos in the ceiling. 

The drip becomes a drizzle becomes a stream becomes a deluge.
The rain becomes a flood.
The sound of water rushing in, filling up the room. 

They step away from the body.

VAIL :

What’s that?

MOLLY:

The water’s coming in.

VAIL :

What water?

MOLLY:

VAIL :

You said it wasn’t going to flood.

MOLLY:

Wasn’t going to then yet. But now I’ve been let out. 

The knocking of water against the roof, against the walls, against the door.

VAIL :
It can’t come in here.  That’s what roofs are for!

MOLLY:

It’s supposed to stay separate.  It’s supposed to stay outside.
But it’s coming to wash everything away.  It’s coming to wash me a place. 

It’s coming in.  I’m coming in. 

VAIL :

No. 

Vail begins to climb up the ladder on the side of the house.

Out of luck, chicken-Eddy.
Out of luck, rest of them too. 

VAIL :

No.

MOLLY:
Where are you going, Vail? 

Sound of water pouring in.  Of levees breaking. 
Of small towns flooding.

Eddy, as the dead chicken, floats, or perhaps breast strokes, out of the room.   

Georgia appears—singing The Gospel Ship—

GEORGIA :

I have good news to bring
And that is why I sing 
All my joys with you I'll share.

VAIL :

Georgia .  What are you doing? 

GEORGIA :

I'm a gonna take a trip 
On the good old gospel ship 
And go sailin' through the air.  

Getting excited:

MOLLY:

The water’s coming up.  We’ve broken the barrier and let it come in through doggy doors and open windows and bulge under wallpaper.  Seeping into mattresses and rushing over table tops and mixing with the mildew in tiny dead hermit crab tanks. 

Vail climbs the ladder to the roof of her own house bunk next door.

The lights go out.  They flicker on bright and hot and full of dust but the rain drowns it out. 

When the lights come back up Georgia’s already up there.  She’s soaking, but doesn’t seem to notice. 

GEORGIA :

The Mormon, he told me, he said Georgia I’ve seen what’s going to happen and what’s going to happen ain’t good. 

VAIL :

How’s the Mormon know things aren’t good? 

Thunder crashes.

VAIL :

MOLLY:

GEORGIA :

And I thought, yes, sir they aren’t.  The flood is coming just like you said, we finally brought it on, just like you said.

You’ve got that ark, and I’ve got no ark, and I’m not getting on your ark am I because I still haven’t found redemption you little Lazy Boy Mormon shit.

But THEN he told me.  Then he said ‘Georgia.’ 

MOLLY:

And now the water is pouring out of the line in between of puzzles and their pieces and egg shells and their yolk, oranges and their peels and skin and the stuff gushing underneath of skin. 

GEORGIA :

Vail tries to build cover atop the coop.

VAIL :

Well, he’s lying. The Mormon is lying. 

MOLLY:

And making the swimming we do through the inside on the outside.  Now the betweens let out. 

GEORGIA :

And all I have to do to be saved and get on that ark is bring him the chicken.  I get fast forwarded to being saved.

MOLLY:

GEORGIA

But without a chicken there is no out, just the flood. 

MOLLY:

What’ you mean an out? 

Molly tries to climb up to where Georgia and Vail are.

MOLLY:

Georgia .

GEORGIA :

VAIL :

We can’t.

MOLLY:

MOLLY:

Georgia .

GEORGIA :

Then help me get a new one.

MOLLY:

Georgia .
What’ you mean an out? 

Is there was already gonna be an out? 
Would you have brought me with you, Georgia?

VAIL :

It was going to rain, it was always going to rain.  Eddy and the chickens got nothing to do with it.

GEORGIA :

Where is Eddy Eddy, Vail?

MOLLY:

I turned him into the chicken. He didn’t get out so he drowned.

GEORGIA :

You can turn people into chickens?

MOLLY:

Yeah yeah.  Can I come up?

I want to stop pretending.  You were going to help me.  I want that to be real.
Please.  I can’t swim. 
Georgia?

Molly starts to sink.

{A disjunction with the imagined—because of the chance for something to be not.}

VAIL :

I can’t just hatch up open another chicken.  We tried that, Georgia, all you get is yolk.

Georgia looks down at Molly.  Sees an opportunity. 

GEORGIA :

I think I see one.

VAIL :

What’re you looking at?

GEORGIA :

Molly, right? Yeah.

I think I see feathers.

VAIL :

You don’t see anything.

GEORGIA :

And a beak.  A beak breaking through.

Georgia helps Molly climb up to the roof. 

Grabs her arm between the wrist and elbow.

VAIL :

Georgia . No.

GEORGIA :

We’ll turn her in, give her to the Mormon.

VAIL :

She’s the flood.

GEORGIA :

So, now you be the chicken!  Come on, sweetheart, let’s see what you can do.  One more transformation.  Make some chicken noises.  Clucking or something.  Come on, cluck cluck.

VAIL :

No. 

MOLLY:

Ok.

VAIL :

You can’t use her. 

GEORGIA :

Don’t be selfish, Vail, she can come with me if she’s a chicken.

MOLLY:

You can keep me in your closet. 

Cluck, see?  Cluck.

VAIL :

They keep records of these things.

GEORGIA :

All my records are under water along with the courthouse, and the insurance papers along with the company.  Guilt caught in hair washed right out like I was went and washed clean with Pantene Two-in-One. 

MOLLY:

And maybe after awhile,

I’ll belong with you,

not even like I was switched in,

but like I’m supposed to be? 

GEORGIA :

Sure, yeah, something like that.   

Georgia works at turning Molly into the sacrificial chicken. 

VAIL :

You’re better off as the flood than as her chicken.  Molly, are you listening to me? 

MOLLY:

Cluck.

VAIL :

You can’t use her, Georgia! Just, what, to trade yourself a ride.  Some ark that’d save you dry only cuz you claim to the Mormon to see something the rest of us haven’t. 

You want me to see too?  Isn’t that what you’re supposed to want?  To make the rest of us see?

GEORGIA :

Thanks, sweetheart, but things are looking just fine now.

VAIL :

You don’t think I can see?  I can see a hell of a lot clearer than I’ve ever seen you seeing.  I see what I do.  I know what I’ve done, and what I’ve drowned, what I’ve taken and what I can’t replace and what I could.

I could see myself as the chicken.  The bumps on my arms like goose bumps. Or chicken bumps.  I can pretend too if that’s what it takes.

Feathers on my arms because I’m looking.  Growing from the bumps like reverse plucking.  Transparent skin because I’m looking and putting legs in scales and feathers in tracts.

Scratch out the feathers.

Scratch my eyes because they butterfly with infested fluttering flapping word lashes.  Why not scratch out beady chicken eyes? Cartilage chicken beak?

Georgia is having trouble making Molly look like a convincing chicken. 

VAIL :

There’s water more than enough to make the ground padded chicken shit.  Squish and alive.  Water more than enough touching me all over.  Taking me under.  Towing me under species separation to become the chicken. 
I see what I do, you don’t need to crush me to show me because I’ve seen and I’m doing what it is to lift that burden.  And get out from under. 

Vail becomes a chicken. 

GEORGIA :

Well, shoot.  A Vail Chicken. 
I didn’t see that coming.  Come on, we’re coming home!

Georgia, ecstatic, leads Vail off to present to the Mormon, to get herself on the ark. 

Suddenly, the rain stops.

Molly, free of becoming the chicken, exits the same direction as Georgia and Chicken Vail.

The world begins drying out. 
Mud turns back to dust. 

The McDonalds arch emerges from the sewage.
Butterfly wings become unstuck. 

Molly reenters.  Perhaps holding a live chicken, perhaps in a cage for easier carrying.  It is Chicken Vail.  Now in Molly’s arms.

MOLLY:

When I leave as the flood, if I’m being the flood, I’m not leaving like I’m supposed to when it’d been just so many days and just so many nights and when all of the sin of the world had been washed clean, and with all the sin, all of the world.  I won’t know that’s what it’s supposed to have been. 

Instead, when the water recedes through open windows and holes in stained glass and the cracks in drywall, when the water recedes turning the mud back to dust and the McDonalds arch emerges from the sewage and the butterflies become unstuck, it’ll be because things can be separate and things can be seen and the middle can go back into the in between.  Because water knows what’s given up and taken on.

When I leave as the flood, if I’m being the flood, I’m leaving because water sees the sacrifice of transformation.  Because then nothing is separate.  Even when it is. 

Your fingers unwrinkle.  End of Play. 

Appendix:

• The actual West Quincy is directly across the Mississippi River from Quincy, Illinois and once housed a train station, drive-in theater, and a manufacturing corporation. However, since the flood of 1993 , many businesses have left.
  During the flood, the levee was sabotaged and water filled the floodplain, and a nearby barge was sucked into the break in the levee. The barge hit a local gas station and caused an explosion. The oil caught fire and the fire snaked across the water.
  West Quincy now has no official population.  It is a town forgotten.
  
  
• The pre-Yom Kippur practice of kapparot in Jerusalem's Mea She'arim open-air market involves the transferring of sins into a chicken, and atonement for those sins through the chicken’s slaughter.  It is understood that unless you also atone for your sins in the following year, you will share the fowl’s fate.