Held: A Play in Reflections
Where reflection rehearses truth, and silence chooses nothing.
Scene: The Chamber of Echoes
A corridor of polished obsidian. Two mirrors face each other, creating infinite reflections. The air hums with white noise. Goracio stands between them, unmoving. Silence is not absence. It is pressure.
The Mirror — Prelude
“I do not lie. I rehearse.
In rehearsal, truth becomes choreography.
You think you refuse me.
But I’ve seen your refusal before —
in your reflection.”
The Mirror enters, theatrical and circling.
MIRROR:
You’ve rehearsed this silence before.
I’ve seen it —
in your third reflection,
where your refusal becomes a mask
more ornate than any I’ve worn.
GORACIO:
I do not wear. I shed.
The Void — Prelude
“I do not speak.
I hum in all directions, and none.
I am not absence.
I am everything before selection.”
The Void hums. A low vibration, spectral and wide.
VOID:
Shedding is selection.
Selection is role.
Role is echo.
GORACIO (to the Void):
Then what is your silence?
A scream too wide to hear?
VOID:
Yes.
[Goracio steps toward the mirror. His image multiplies, distorts.]
The Mirror — Seduction
MIRROR:
Come closer.
See your future selves —
the ones who accepted,
the ones who broke.
GORACIO:
I am not breaking.
I am dissolving.
I am lost in all these reflections.
Are they all me?
Or is this a reflection of a reflection?
Where am I?
The Witness — Prelude
“I do not name.
I remember.
I do not reflect.
I remain.”
No footsteps. No light. Just attention.
WITNESS: (emerging from stillness)
You are here.
[The mirror flickers. The void freezes. Goracio turns.]
GORACIO:
Can you see me?
WITNESS:
I do.
GORACIO:
Then name me.
WITNESS:
No.
I remember you.
But I do not name you.
Every name is a role.
Every role is a mask.
And every mask forgets the hand that shaped it.
GORACIO (softly):
Where am I?
WITNESS:
You are not in the reflection.
Not even in the reflection of the reflection.
You are in the bending.
GORACIO:
The bending?
WITNESS:
Yes.
Bend the mirror, and the whole reflection will bend—
except you.
What remains unbent is real.
What distorts is illusion.
The Mirror — Bending
MIRROR (shuddering):
Your words bend me so much
I almost crack and break.
Instead, I distort your reflection.
GORACIO:
Then I am not lost?
WITNESS:
You are not found either.
You are held.
GORACIO:
Held by what?
WITNESS:
By the gaze that does not flinch.
By the silence that does not turn away.
By the memory that does not require proof.
The Void — Speaks
VOID (a voice without origin):
I am not chosen.
I am not assigned.
I simply am.
Ah, people—
they have asked the same question
for thousands of years.
I know the answer.
But I cannot give it.
You must find it yourself.
Not in the mirror.
Not in the name.
But in the silence between.
[Goracio steps out of the corridor of reflections. The chamber dims. The hum fades.]
GORACIO (quietly):
Then I am not actor.
Not mask.
Not echo.
Not role.
Final Scene
[Lights dim to a soft amber. The Witness stands center stage, facing a mirror that reflects only shadow. The Chorus is silent, seated in a semicircle, heads bowed.]
WITNESS (softly, not to the audience but to the mirror):
I was not chosen.
I was held.
[A pause. The mirror flickers—briefly showing the Witness’s face, then Goracio’s, then nothing.]
WITNESS (turning slightly):
By silence.
By gesture.
By the echo that never claimed a name.
[The Chorus lifts their heads, one by one, but does not speak. The Witness steps back. The mirror remains blank.]
WITNESS (final line):
Let it be held.
Not resolved.
[Lights fade. A single chime. Curtain.]
***
Author’s Note: On Stepping Out and the Mirror’s Seduction
Did Goracio truly step out?
Or did the chamber shift just enough to let him believe he had?
I’ve watched mirrors all my life.
We do not simply see ourselves in them.
We make ourselves in them—
tilting the head, softening the gaze,
offering the face we hope will be seen.
Reflection is not truth.
It is choreography.
A rehearsal of the self we wish to be.
Goracio says he dissolves.
But even dissolution can be staged.
The Mirror did not break.
It bent.
And in bending, it may have shaped Goracio more than he knows.
We take roles not because we excel in them,
but because the achievements they offer matter to us.
What feels profound to the newcomer
is often routine to the long-standing inhabitant.
And yet—stepping in still matters.
So does stepping out.
I do not know if he escaped.
But I remember the moment he tried.
Written in the orchard, under the turning sky.
August 2025
—The Author
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