Electra Orestes Scene

[You have the first line]

ORESTES

Is this the House?

ELECTRA

What house are you looking for?

ORESTES

I bring terrible news.

ELECTRA

This is the house.

ORESTES

Orestes, son of this house, is dead. I was his companion. Here are his ashes.

ELECTRA

Do you have a gun?

ORESTES
No. I’m not a soldier anymore.

ELECTRA

Then what use are you? You might at least have killed me.

ORESTES

Who are you?

ELECTRA

No one now. I used to be someone’s sister. First I was someone’s daughter, but that was over a long time ago. Then I was a sister. That was enough to get me up in the morning. Years and years. Now I’m, what? A thing of somesort, I suppose. Something you might hang up in a field to frighten the crows, I guess. There must be some use for such a large thing. I’m sure they’ll think of something.

ORESTES

Are you Electra?

ELECTRA

Well, I suppose we might as well name it. Pretty name.

ORESTES

I have his ashes.

ELECTRA

Oh, well, those will come in handy. Drainage for the tomatoes, filler for bad pie crust. How light he is. No heavier than an idea. Which is all he ever was, I guess. Nothing. He has come to nothing after all. Ashes. Is that a tooth? I remember his smile. His hair, bright and long in the summer. How it must have curled and fizzed in the furnace. This was a man once.

ORESTES

Yes.

ELECTRA

Hardly seems possible. Look at this. He was such a funny child. He used to imitate me, how clumsy I was. He’d stalk about the parlor, muttering to himself the way I do, pretend to trip, right himself, trip again. I can’t explain it. He made me laugh. Did he make you laugh?

ORESTES

Oh, yes. I laughed at him all the time. He struck me as… somewhat ludicrous. He was something of an actor.

ELECTRA

Was he?

ORESTES

Taking on parts. Pretending to be people he wasn’t

ELECTRA

Did he imitate you?

ORESTES

Yes. And I imitated him. We were a riot.

ELECTRA

Did you love him?

ORESTES

As much as he loved himself.

ELECTRA

Did you know him well?

ORESTES

No one did. He was always somewhat severed from his own life. An exile. It seemed he died many times. Perhaps, in a way, he was always dead.

ELECTRA

Did he ever speak of home? Of us? Of me?

ORESTES

He spoke of you. He spoke of duty and terror and guilt. He never spoke of home. Was this his home?

ELECTRA

No, not his. Mine either, for that matter. We both of us die in exile. What did he say about me?

ORESTES

That you were the one that saved him.

ELECTRA

Did he love me?

ORESTES

He didn’t know much about love. He knew something about blood. He was fearless and cruel in battle. He could look coolly at sights that made other men scream or vomit and he could do things to people… that don’t bear thinking about. We were afraid of him.

ELECTRA

You hated him.

ORESTES

A little. A lot. He seemed to be driven by a demon. He was utterly alone in the world and he never looked back. Because of that he was dangerous.

ELECTRA

He sounds very useful.

ORESTES

Efficient in battle. And he slept alone. He had terrible dreams.

ELECTRA

Nightmares.

ORESTES

They woke him screaming, teeth chattering, pants soiled.

ELECTRA

Did he tell you what he dreamed?

ORESTES

Something about being pushed down and endless, lightless tunnel that got smaller and smaller, forced to crawl with a knife in his teeth, pushed like rags into a gun barrel, and the walls getting tighter and tighter around him.

ELECTRA

What was at the end of the tunnel?

ORESTES

Something warm and dark and soft and enormous that he would have to climb inside of and slice and slice and… drown in the blood or maybe slither out of, crawl away from, blinded by blood, maddened by bats…

ELECTRA

What was it, did he say? What was it that was pushing him?

ORESTES

You.

ELECTRA

Ah. Terrible dream.

ORESTES

It made him what he was. It was what he saw when he closed his eyes. Always. Right there.

ELECTRA

Who is this in my hand?

ORESTES

Your brother.