Scene One: School Library

Some in Santeria tradition link the library to the Orisha Oya, in charge of the safe passage of the dead, and reincarnation.

A sign says ”Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.” Supernova enters, singing the children’s camp song “John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmidt, his name is my name too.” (S)He sits nearby and begins reading. John enters and begins making toe prints with the office ink pad.(I believe this was omitted in the WWC performance. I don’t think there was any significance except to convey the character's impulsivity.)

John: God-

HaShem: (from out of sight) What is it, John?

John: (looks around) Working in the library has gotten on my last nerve. It’s so quiet I’m starting to hallucinate. Sensory deprivation.

HaShem: That’s what you think.

John: Good Grief!

HaShem:-is the kind that leads to creative reparation!

John: AAAAAGH! (Puts on a walkman (headset) and picks up a book) Reincarnation. Far out. Well (laughs) this goes downstairs. I’m gonna ride down in the dumbwaiter!

John leaps, screams and dies. Cross lights up, crash sound. Neutron Star appears briefly.

I’m wondering about a correlation with Oya and Neutron Star. Oya is the Orisha who oversees the safe passage of the dead from one world to another, as well as wind and storms. Oya and the Orisha Oshun (fresh water, fertility, love, wealth and the arts) are sometimes seen as rivals.

SuperNova: Whoopsie baby!

HaShem: It figures. None of those schlemiels I created ever got around to repairing that dumb damwaiter. I sometimes think I over-delegated by giving humans Free Will. If you want something done right do it yourself!

John: (climbs out of dumbwaiter, holding “Reincarnation” book, shocked) Damn!

HaShem: I try to avoid doing that.

John: (Shakes his head, looks around) Where am I?

HaShem: HaShem.

John: What? (looks up the word in his book) That means “The Name” in Hebrew. Who are you?

HaShem: Ha Makom. The Place. Look it up. Studying is a Mitzvah.

John: I’m too hungry to study. Do you have a pizza?

HaShem: Don’t you remember when Bill Cosby drank wine in “Ghost Dad”? Food and drink goes straight through. Splosh! Face it, John. You’re dead as a doornail.

John: (reading book) Sh, please. I’m trying to find HaMakom. Aha! Hebrew name for God, meaning “The Place.” Now what did you say?

HaShem: You’re dead as a doornail.

John: But I’m so aware! I see You (looks at HaShem) I see my body down there! Ick! (Ick was removed for WWC performance. However I was probably tuning into the actual responses of a soul to a traumatic death. Reality is what it is.) If this is doornail dead I’ll never look at doornails in quite the same way again!

HaShem: We need to discuss that, John, about how you plan to look at doornails. You have not seen enough in twenty five years of doornails or anything else for that matter.

(to audience) Non-linear time allows John to simultaneously understand everything he is missing by being dead as a doornail.

John: Good grief!

HaShem: -is the kind that leads to creative reparation.

John: This sucks! When the hell am I going to graduate?!?

Supernova starts humming “12 Days of Christmas”

After five episodes of mania, four episodes of depression, three distracting relationships, two stays on a commune in the Azores Islands and a medical leave of absence due to a bout of salmonella contracted from a contaminated partridge in a pear tree I had finally reached the last semester of my third and final Senior year at Warren Wilson College and I just got done in by a dilapidated dumbwaiter!

HaShem: Well we just can’t have that now, can we?

John: No!

HaShem: No way?

John: (Chants protest style) No Way! I Won’t Stay! No Way! I Won’t Stay! Furthermore..(Withdraws a piece of paper from his pocket) I plan to get every last Cherub and Seraph in this Place to sign this petition to…..

HaShem: Hold it! No need for a tsimmes. I’ll let you go back. Oy! I hate it when my beings don’t reach their destinies but instead come back in an envelope stamped “Return to Sender”!

Neutron Star runs onstage and delivers a letter, then runs offstage.

SuperNova (reads letter) The answer exists in the act of questioning. Your loving siblings, Neutron Star and Black Hole. Dorks.

John: I’ll have to grow up again, won’t I?

HaShem: What’s this “again” crock? After all, your last action in your previous incarnation was trying to take a ride in a dumbwaiter.

John: You know what I mean! Diapers, drooling, spitting up…suckling I can deal with. (Suckling omitted for WWC performance)

HaShem: Yes, yes, yes…(and yes.)

John: Learning to read? Losing baby teeth? Learning not to punch and bite?

HaShem: Yes, yes and hopefully. Frankly you could use a little work on that last one.

John: (leans forward) High school? (Holds his head) Puberty?????

HaShem: I’ll guarantee you a sports car if you go back anyway.

John: Great! Can I see some of your available wombs?

HaShem: Sure. Just watch.

John: Oh, cool. Videos.

HaShem: If you check into this one you can live as a dumb waiter.

John: Forget it. He just put a booger in the salad.

SuperNova: Eeeeewwww!

HaShem: Good, John, take control. Take control! Do not lose it just because you died due to someone’s screw-up. Best not to reincarnate immediately. I’m really glad we have this time to confer. Here’s a chance of a lifetime: Successor to Jim Bakker. (Corrupt televangelist of the 1980s)

John: Good grief!

HaShem:-is the kind that leads to-

John: Excuse me but I’ve already gotten that message. That’s why I’m waiting for a more substantial existence than what You just offered. C’mon!

SuperNova: La-di-DAH!!

HaShem: Hotza Matzoh in a potza! I think by Myself he’s got it! Good going Johnny! You’re getting brighter every minute! Of course this is Divine Standard Time.

SuperNova looks at watch.

John: I like this Place, or Name, or whatever. Lots of advice and buttering up. But -there! That’s it! That’s the womb I want!

HaShem: But they’re not planning on having any more children.

John: Who cares? Let the sperm wiggle through the diaphragm. ( Supernova make wiggle motions) I’m going! (John jumps up.)

HaShem: It does look exceptionally good. This person works his way through college by repairing elevators and dumbwaiters.

John: Does he graduate?

HaShem: In four and a half years. He spends a semester on a commune in the Azores Islands.

John: Good grief!

HaShem: -is the kind-

John: Yes I agree totally, but this guy doesn’t contract salmonella from a contaminated partridge in a pear tree does he?

HaShem: No, but-

John: Whoopee! I’m going! (Jumps and lands in fetal position)

Supernova: It always begins with whoopee.

HaShem: But…but….

John: in fetal position, sings
John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmidt
His name is my name too!
Soon I will come out
The people all will shout
Hey! John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmidt!

“His name is my name too.” In ATR, people are often believed to have bloodline reincarnations, and to share the spirit of an Ancestor.

HaShem: But-

John: It’s time! (Changes position as in birth) I’m being borned!

I do not know why I chose to write “borned” in dialect. In retrospect this choice in interesting.

HaShem: But-

John: (Crawls forward on stomach) Hello again world!

SuperNova: Hey baby!

Oshun is the Orisha of childbirth as well as the things mentioned above. I wonder about a correlation between SuperNova and Oshun.

HaShem: -but this person is burdened with an all consuming sense of mission toward the accomplishment of a compelling purpose-

John: (stands and yells) Keep your dumbwaiters in good condition FOR GOD”S SAKE!!
runs off stage

Neutron Star: Good grief!

Lights out, Sweet Honey’s “Something Begins”
-Intermission-