script: says the corpse to the coroner

SAYS THE CORPSE TO THE CORONER by addison

[At Rise: CORONER sits above JOHN DOE lying face up on the metal table. The room is dark. He talks aloud overtop the body. JOHN DOE talks back, but CORONER can’t hear him.]

CORONER

Okay, John. Let’s get started. Tell me your story. I’m trying to help. We’re friends, get it? Take your time, but, please, tell me everything you can.

JOHN DOE

What would you like to know? There are so many things that’ll die with me unless you listen.

CORONER

What about your hair, huh? What can that tell me?

(CORONER takes a hair sample.)

JOHN DOE

Don’t cut it too short. My mother never liked my hair short. My ears always stuck out, she said. They’d call me Dumbo, she said. My mother always had an opinion about what the kids would call me. Nobody ever called me anything but my name. What was my name again? Maybe I’ll remember it. My mother, though, she loved me. Can’t you see it coroner? Can’t you see she only wanted me to be happy while I was here?

CORONER

No blood. No dirt. Maybe toxicology will find something worthwhile.

(CORONER puts the hair sample in a plastic bag. He rolls to the side on his chair, picks up JOHN DOE’S hand.)

CORONER

Short nails. Rough skin. Probably worked with his hands. Not dirty, though.

(CORONER clips JOHN DOE’S fingernails and zips them in a bag too.)

JOHN DOE

When I was eight, my father took me to the ocean to fish. All day, he kept casting out his line. All day, I sat bored, staring at the water as it sloshed against our boat. It looked so strong, that water. Felt like it could swallow me. When he was re-doing his bait, I leaned over the side and reached my hands out. My tiny, tiny hands. I scooped up that water in my little hands. I held all that water and all that power. My father panicked, seeing me over the side like that and yanked me back by my waistband. Said I could’ve died. I grinned at him, staring at my hands. I didn’t know I could hold all that strength, I said to him. I’ve never forgotten how it felt to hold the ocean in my palms. Can’t you see how strong these hands are? Can’t you see they held the ocean and touched the sky and rested on the back of the woman I love? I forgot about all the things those hands have touched. I forgot about so many things I wanted to say.

CORONER

What else can you tell me, John?

JOHN DOE

I’m trying to tell you. Everything. All of it. Look at my arms. Look at my throat. Cut my heart out. You’ll see.

CORONER

Wound on the left elbow. Discoloration and placement make me think it’s not the cause of death. Anything to say for yourself John?

JOHN DOE

Sometimes things hurt. What else is there to say?

CORONER

Bruise on right elbow. Few days old.

JOHN DOE

Another’s waiting for you on my left knee. I’ve got a scar on my ankle from breaking it last year. Few screws in there too, though I don’t know if you look for that sort of thing. You’ll find a surgery scar on my right foot, too. Between the toes. Got a nasty tumor on the nerves in there. Now, it’s all numbness. I suppose that’s all of me now.

CORONER

Bruise on left knee. Scar on ankle. Scar on right foot between third and fourth toe. All old wounds.

JOHN DOE

Is that all you see? A list of things that happened to me?

CORONER

What happened, huh? What happened? I still don’t know what happened.

JOHN DOE

Look inside. Dig deeper. I’m trying.

CORONER

Time to cut.

(CORONER goes through process of cleaning, weighing the body, and measuring his parts. He lists the general description aloud while he does this.)

CORONER

John Doe. Fifty to sixty-year-old male, brown hair, brown eyes. Scar on right ankle and right foot between third and fourth toes. Mole on left temple. Tattoo of Saturn on his back between his shoulder blades…

(CORONER still listing, but it fades as JOHN DOE begins to speak.)

JOHN DOE

Got that Saturn tattoo in college a few months before I met my husband. At the time, I was taking astronomy. My professor was something special. He cried the day the Cubs won the world series. Once, he ducked beneath his desk and came up with a rainbow clown wig on. Anyway, he told us one day out of the blue, he said Saturn would float if there were a swimming pool big enough for it. Float. Can you imagine? A planet so large and the thing would float. I thought about it all day. I couldn’t help but marvel at the idea of something so grand, but light inside. Saturn became something of a symbol for me. Learn to be light. Learn to float no matter how heavy everything looks. It kept me alive. But, you don’t see that. It’s all just lines on my skin to you.

CORONER

What’ll we find inside, John? Help me find out who you are.

JOHN DOE

Even if I told you my whole story, you’d never hear a word. I loved, can’t you see? I lost. I hurt. I ache. I used to, anyway. I held oranges in my hand and devoured them. I laughed at the sky and the sky laughed back. I made fists and learned how to put them away. I never told anyone I wanted to die all those years ago. Never mentioned that I loved the color of red wine the most. I’m trying to tell you my story, coroner. Trying to tell someone so they know all the things I didn’t say. Can’t you hear me?

JOHN DOE (desperate and yelling)

Can’t you hear me?

(CORONER pauses singing mid-word, frowning down at JOHN DOE. He shakes his head and keeps singing, working. JOHN DOE goes quiet until he is emptied and put back together.)

CORONER (muttering)

Who were you?

JOHN DOE

All anyone will ever know is me in parts.

(CORONER continues to work and mutter. JOHN DOE begins to weep.)

THE END