Snow Glass Apples: A Play For Voices Read Online Free PDF Page A

manhood slid out of me. I reached out
and touched it, a tiny, slippery thing.
     
    QUEEN
    What’s wrong?
     
    PRINCE
    I told you. You must neither move, nor
speak.
    Just lie there on the stones, so cold and so
fair.
     
    QUEEN—INTIMATE
    I did my best, but he had lost whatever
force it was that had made him virile; and, some short while later,
I left the Prince’s room, his tears and curses still resounding in
my ears.
     
    PRINCE
    You evil witch! Monstrous evil lustful
creature.
     
    SFX: NEXT MORNING—WE CAN HEAR THE JINGLING OF
HARNESSES AND THE STAMPING OF HORSES, FAR, FAR, BELOW US.
     
    MAIDSERVANT
    So how was he, majesty?
     
    QUEEN
    Charming. But He. He does not like… live
women.
     
    MAIDSERVANT
    Do you think they will ever come back?
     
    QUEEN
    No, Jenna. He won’t be back.
     
    SFX: HORSES RIDE THROUGH A FOREST, HARNESSES
JANGLING.
     
    QUEEN—INTIMATE
    And what happened next? I do not know. But I
can guess. I imagine his loins, now, as he rode, a knot of
frustration at the base of his manhood. I imagine his pale lips
pressed so tightly together. Then I imagine his little troupe
riding through the forest, finally coming upon the
glass-and-crystal cairn of my stepdaughter. So pale. So cold.
Naked, beneath the glass, and little more than a girl, and
dead.
     
    PRINCE (to himself)
    Oh yes.
     
    SFX: HE DISMOUNTS.
     
    PRINCE (cont’d)
    Oh yes.
     
    QUEEN—INTIMATE
    In my fancy, I can almost feel the sudden
hardness of his manhood inside his britches, envision the lust that
took him then, the prayer she muttered beneath his breath in thanks
for his good fortune. Imagine him negotiating with the little hairy
men - offering them gold and spices for the lovely corpse under the
crystal mound.
     
    PRINCE
    I want her. I want her now.
     
    QUEEN—INTIMATE
    Did they take his gold willingly? Or did
they look up to see his men on their horses, with their sharp
swords and their spears, and realize they had no alternative?
    I do not know. I was not there; I was not
scrying.
    I can only imagine…
    Hands, pulling off the lumps of glass and
quartz from her cold body.
    Hands, gently caressing her cold cheek,
moving her cold arm, rejoicing to find the corpse still fresh and
pliable.
    Did he take her there, in front of them all?
Or did he have her carried to a secluded nook before he mounted
her?
    I cannot say.
    Did he shake the apple from her throat? Or
did her eyes slowly open as he pounded into her cold body; did her
mouth open, those red lips part, those sharp yellow teeth close on
his swarthy neck, as the blood, which is the life, trickled down
her throat, washing down and away the lump of apple, my own, my
poison?
    I imagine; I do not know.
     
    SFX: THE HEARTBEAT HAS BEGUN AGAIN DURING
THIS SPEACH, REALLY, REALLY QUIETLY. NOW IT’S SLOWLY GETTING
LOUDER.
     
    QUEEN—INTIMATE
    This I do know: I was woken in the night by
her heart pulsing and beating once more. Salt blood dripped onto my
face from above. I sat up. My hand burned and pounded as if I had
hit the base of my thumb with a rock.
     
    SFX: A BANGING ON A DOOR.
     
    SOLDIER
    Open up! Open up in there!
     
    QUEEN—INTIMATE
    There was a hammering on the door. I felt
afraid, but I am a queen, and I do not show fear. I opened the
door.
     
    SFX: MANY FOOTSTEPS. SCUFFLING. THE HEARTBEAT
IS CONTINUING …
     
    QUEEN—INTIMATE
    First his men walked in to my chamber, and
stood around me, with their sharp swords, and their long
spears.
    Then he came in; and he spat in my face.
     
    SFX: WE HEAR A SPIT, AND THE PRINCE’S
CHUCKLE.
     
    PRINCE
    There. You old witch.
     
    QUEEN—INTIMATE
    Finally, she walked into my chamber, as she
had when I was first a queen, and she was a child of six.
     
    PRINCESS
    Hello, stepmother.
     
    QUEEN
    Hello, stepdaughter. You have not
changed.
     
    PRINCESS
    Thank you, stepmother. Neither have you.
     
    SFX: THE HEARTBEAT IS THUDDING AND THUMPING
THROUGH THIS SPEECH.

    QUEEN—INTIMATE
    She pulled down the twine on which her heart
was