Patient Light

Simon Longman

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781350310469
• eBook ISBN: 9781350310483
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: British Drama

We just wait. Old light. And new light. We just wait. For each other, patiently wait. Patient Light follows a day in the life of a young person in Peterborough and how their vision of the future is blinded by carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. It concerns the everyday, mundane things that we carry in our head and rarely, if ever, say out loud. Presented as a stream of consciousness, the play examines our need for aspiration, and how to use the world's frustrations to your advantage. This edition was published to coincide with the production by Eastern Angels in October 2021.

1. Morning

There’s a light in the corner of my eyes

There’s a light

It pushes through the window

This light

In my eyes

Through the open curtains

Trying to push through the closed curtains

I’ve dreamt again

I blink a bit against the morning light

I’ve dreamt a lot about weird stuff

I’ve not been asleep, I don’t think

I’ve slept but feels like I haven’t

Weird weird weird stuff

I always sleep

Stuff like

I always sleep well because it’s like being dead but not dead because you know you’ll wake up

I’ve not slept at all

Like this dream I sometimes have about this parrot that walks about and says weird stuff and it’s a parrot but it’s got the body of my dad

Like sleeping is like a small but really fun death. Like being fun dead

I’m still looking at this light

This light that floats just outside my window. I can see it behind the closed curtains. Like it’s just. Like. Waiting

I don’t know what day it is today

Patiently waiting for me to go and open the curtains and let it in

Like the parrot has a parrot head but my dad’s body and it just flaps a lot but can’t fly obviously because my dad doesn’t have wings he’s got arms

I think it’s another Tuesday

He’s got massive arms with some tattoos of flags on them

Another Tuesday in this empty town

I reach out and push the curtains open a little

This empty town with another Tuesday sitting on top of it like Tuesday is just about to take a shit on the town which, in my opinion, if you’re interested in that, would probably improve the whole place

The light hits my skin and I think about the summer and I think about hot pavements and even hotter glass and the sweat that will push through my skin. All that sweat that I don’t want to push through my skin

I never shut the curtains before I go to sleep

I think about getting up because I can hear my sister move about her room and if she gets the bathroom before me I’m fucked because I can’t be late again

I never shut the curtains because I fall asleep looking at the stars blinking themselves to life, pushing through the orange of the cracked, broken streetlight outside my window. All those stars hanging over this town

I get up and see the bathroom door close, very slowly and deliberately, and I knock

I get up and go to the bathroom

I knock and my sister shouts

− Fuck off dickhead.

Which I reckon is a bit aggressive for this early in the morning, so I shout back

− Fuck off yourself you fucking dickhead don’t take ages.

− I’ll take as long as I like.

− Gonna be late.

− Get up earlier then.

And I go back to my room and stare at the wall and a lump grows in my throat which I know will be there all day because it always is

It always is

It doesn’t go away

It’s like a scream that waits in my throat

It goes away when I count the stars before I go to sleep but comes back when the stars are gone

And in my dreams, sometimes, when I’m not thinking about my dad as a parrot, I have another dream that I’m in a classroom and it’s just me staring at this massive black crow that’s just standing staring at me and I stare back and this crow, this massive crow, has blood-red eyes and in its beak it’s holding my severed head and my head, my head that’s hanging out of its beak, is just staring at me and my severed head starts speaking and it says to me

− I don’t like being decapitated. You know? It’s sort of shit not having a head. And being in a bird’s mouth makes it even worse.

And I just look at this crow’s eyes and in them I can see the reflection of me but I’m old, so very very old, and I’m still in a classroom worrying about physics

In the bathroom I look at my face in the mirror

I kind of wish someone would tell me what that means

My face looks back at me out of the mirror

But I’m not telling anyone ever about that dream because it’s a bit weird and I would quite like more friends and you don’t make friends telling people about decapitated heads in crows’ mouths

I stand in the shower and close my eyes

My face looks back at me and I pull at my skin and push my nose into a place where I wish it would be but it’s not

I stand in the shower and think about the day

I pull the skin down from below my eyes and look at the red underneath

I’m lying in bed still thinking about the stars and thinking about that a dinosaur would have seen the same light as me from the same old stars

Think about what I have to learn and what I have to remember

Which makes me feel a bit weird so I get up. But I get up too fast and my head spins and spins and spins

I squeeze a spot that wasn’t ready to pop so now I’ve got a massive red patch near the corner of my mouth so it looks like my mouth is melting and I think, great that’s going to be there all day, another day spent thinking about my face and how much I sometimes wish I could rip it off and put a new one on

And spins until it stops

I go downstairs

I think about the stars spinning around the earth

I go downstairs and the dog is lying by the front door and it stinks and no one’s taken it for a walk in like six days

It takes me a while to go downstairs because I sit in a towel for a bit on my bed and look through pictures on my phone

I go downstairs and my dad is drinking tea and eating toast and the radio is on and I listen for a bit

Pictures of places I don’t think I’ll ever see and pictures of people I will never meet. I do this for a while. It’s hard to stop

I’m downstairs and I say to my dad

− The dog stinks.

And my dad says back

− Wash it then.

− Me?

− Yeah. I’ve no time.

− Ok.

− And take it for a walk. And go to the shops. We’ve nothing in. And make sure my dinner’s on the table when I’m back.

And then he leaves without looking at me and I look at the dog and the dog looks at me and I think I’m too young to look after a dog because I can’t really even look after myself yet

The radio says someone has been stabbed. They were a teenager in a city I dream about living in one day. They’ve been stabbed, now they’re dead

I’m dressed and downstairs and I eat some toast I look at the dog and think how much I miss my mum

I’m dressed and go downstairs in my kitchen and my little brother is playing a game on his phone

I say to my dad

− That’s sad isn’t it?

And he says

− What is?

− About that kid. Getting stabbed. On the radio. Just now.

− Oh right. Wasn’t listening.

− Kid got stabbed. He died. That’s sad isn’t it?

− Not really. Happens all the time. Besides, they’d just end up a crimi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Creative Team
• Simon Longman
• Contents
• Foreword
• Patient Light
• Notes on the text
• 1. Morning
• 2. Afternoon
• 3. Evening
• eCopyright