The sky is flame. Crimson with cerulean clouds. White edges between them.

In the far distance, beyond the frame of our scene, in the uncontrollable dark of corporeality and its many backstage distractions, a slow and effusive indigo seeps in.

Something is filling everything up. Unseen, but decisive. A deterministic flow, becoming heavier with every passing timestamp, thickening on the sides of walls until they engorge all of it. Somewhere, it has to be coming. Somewhere, it has to be leaving.

And that place is the spark.

But back on our stage, where Lina is and where she wanders, a return to structure and coordination seems to be enveloping—or rather, is it entropying?

Like things falling apart. Lina knows this. She’s heard the music play and then be deafened to silence. She’s seen the look of a lover that has lost their affection and interest, turning their head away for the last time.

Just another play, she often thought, and she could change that. Just another play at it and she could change everything.

As she strikes a match and fires up her cigarette, she wonders who uses matches anymore. Such an antique thing to do. History is not an idle plaything, but an old toy you still know how to handle out of habit. While habit is the history of our things and how we play with them. What is—a circle?

”Are you ready to do the scene?”

How funny to Lina, who thinks to herself, has the scene not already started? As she strokes away on smoke, standing there in spotlight, hooves glistening on stage, body constricting in a flower dress that threatens to wilt. Who was the genius that decided to do this so close to the heat of death?

“Lina, are you ready?” a stern voice asks again.

“Yes, I think so.” Lina replies.

“We don’t need you thinking. We need you acting.”

So, with that said, Lina discards the thought of taking her cigarette and shoving it in the eye of the Director barking at her, and she prepares to portray a version of herself she has never seen but which exists only in habit and simulacra.

A bit of hesitation. Can I stop this? She understands she can’t, so she forgets it. Then she’s off.

Lina looks up at the sky, its flames darkening, some kind of violet force pushing through them, itself becoming burdened by shadow with every drop of sky blood it consumes. A shy piano plays, somewhat spectral and lonely. Then the lights center, dim.

Looking up, Lina speaks, “Today is the day...”

A pause. Then she speaks again. “Of all the days in all the essence of time, today is the one I’ve been waiting for.”

In a nervous thrust she lifts her arms up, hands pointing to the sky, shaking. It is almost like her body is unsure if it should be doing this or not, but her anxiousness is channeled into energy, animating her movement in spite of her wavering.

“Today is the day!”

She says this with more electricity. Frenetic yet committed. A declaration yet also a request.

Silence from the Director. This must mean she’s doing well. So she continues.

“The days are soon to end—but I am here! Of all the places in all the essence of space, here is the place I’ve been waiting to be. To begin again!”

Lina twirls. Over and over. A somewhat mesmerizing circle. Feverish, fanatic. Like a ballerina in full moon rage. Until suddenly she stops, mid-action, arms still hanging, leg still suspended, her head facing a darkness offstage. She can feel that breath of hers straining.

“Again—another twirl.” the Director demands.

So she does another twirl.

“Another.” the Director demands.

Clenching her teeth, trying oh so desperately not to sigh or lash out, she does another twirl.

“I want it again.” the Director demands.

Stuck in pose, her back turned to the audience, her arms and leg caught in suspension, Lina ever so slightly turns her head to look at the Director, trying to confirm if that’s truly what they want. Without breaking pose, her vision doesn’t quite reach the shroud of the Director’s form. But a demand is a demand.

She twirls again, the mechanics of it getting loose now. Unstable. Like she’s thrashing instead of twirling.

“You’re not doing enough. Go again.” the Director demands.

Panting now, she contracts her chest muscles. She knows if they see her breathing in and out too much it will ruin the scene. Her movements have to be perfect and passionate, while also being repeatable. She has to articulate the habit completely or the illusion breaks entirely.

But she can feel her limbs tiring. That feeling of heaviness is on her now. Even her bones are sharpening, threatening to cut open her soft skin at any moment. This cannot be stopped, however—an actress is an actress, a director is a director, a demand is a demand.

So Lina does another twirl. Only to misstep.

As her foot touches the floor, her ankle snaps. Her whole body, falsely believing its leverage is still there, directs its momentum to the ankle anyway. So her body follows her downward, all into that one spot, all into the location of her sideways foot.

One after one, every bone in her body shatters against this focal point of force. It splits and sunders. Tendons pull as far as they can, like straps of hardened tar, until they too rip, despoiling her nerves in a million different bursts of agony. All the skin on her limbs smothers beneath a convulsive curtain of blood and bone. Everything wraps into this impact, no matter where it belongs, rending.

And there she finally stops—breaking herself.

Lina shrieks. Only half of a shriek, though, as her lower throat caves in on itself. With no other option—every nerve still connected to her brain stabbing it in staccatos of pain, and every nerve disconnected now a phantom freak of misery—she just cries.

Her face, miraculously, remains rendered. Like a flower perched upon thorns. Then, when there are no tears left, her eyes twitch—the only expressible motion any part of her is still capable of.

A period of silence follows.

Until, at last, the Director rises from their seat. Another pause. Then, the applause starts. Others join in. A whole cavalcade of clapping comes over the stage, developing into glorious cheers.

“Bravo! Bravo! You are so beautiful!”

Lina cannot even process what is happening. None of her senses function. She has lapsed into the corporeal numbness that is prelude to death. Awaiting.

The sky is overtaken by indigo.

Little fuchsia stars twinkling are all that remain of the old shades. No clouds. No gods. No nothing. Just endless expanse—deep, voracious void. All amounting to nothing, ultimately, but the amount of which could crush anything.

Before the dust can settle, the Director’s voice interrupts—“Get up.”

Dust is dust. And a demand is a demand.

Altogether, Lina is restored. Reborn. Her whole body is normal again. Clean, upright, full of pulse and pump. The pain subsides but impressions of it linger.

“Another take.” the Director demands.

“Maybe we can try another scene? Please?” Lina asks, voice trembling.

The Director says nothing, then sits. They stare at her in an almost nihilist gaze.

“Only one more time, maybe?” Lina pleads, a tear falling from her eye.

“You sound like you’re begging—that’s not what your character is supposed to be doing.”

The Director’s word is final.

Lina looks up, hiding her terror. She thinks a brief thought of desperate death that never comes, an inkling of hopefulness that everything can end but nothing does, then proclaims, “Today is the day...”

A pause. Then she speaks again. “Of all the days in all the essence of time, today is the one I’ve been waiting for.”

In a nervous thrust she lifts her arms up, hands pointing to the sky, shaking. So fervently she does this parts of the sky seem to swirl away from the force of her fingers. Then they trickle back toward her. A magnetism calls to them.

Under this indigo sea, she becomes so swathed in its shadow her body is nothing but a silhouette. She is so forceful now. This time, she’ll be able to hit the notes even harder. A gorgeous hole she has become, punctured by habit, a black hole frame holding up the sky like it will never come down.

But it will. Because a demand is a demand.