The Accumulated Weight of Experience

I’m the director of a high school play. The play is being held in an amazingly vast and spacious theatre, much bigger than any professional theater would accommodate. It’s very professional and high class. All or most of the seats are taken, despite the hugeness. I’m looking at this from above.

In the same wise as this detached hovering, I’m beginning to walk down a very long and spacious hallway. It’s equally well appointed with shiny hardwood floors. It’s here I consider myself as an actor rather than director. I remember trying out and acting for the high school play Working. I realize it’s not a matter of talent: talent is honed over many initiatory experiences. The ability to remember lines, itself, is something that an actor learns over the repeated exposure to the demand of memorization. So, it made sense for me to give a try for a little part and for a director to inquire about one’s resume as a matter of course to get a feel for whether the heft of experience meshes with the heft of the role.

I’m beginning to approach the front desk after walking, floating, down this long immaculate hallway. I feel myself become nervous as I hover towards it, anticipating a face to face with a beautiful clerk; yet, I abstain from going to the front desk. I go ahead past the desk right into the backroom where the hotel owner is. I disregard a feeling of entering into great danger. My brain seizes, processing what I’m about do to: I strangle the owner.