(STAY TUNED TO THIS POST FOR MORE IMPORTANT INFO….SUCH AS:

“HOW TO BE PREPARED WHILE AT YOUR OFFICE OR WHILE STRANDED IN THE WILDERNESS” )

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AND…..now…..some more reading……

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“The HEALER”
by
Renee Ashley Baker
Copyright 2013 by Renee Ashley Baker
All Rights Reserved

The Year is 1929 and The City is New York….(maybe Brooklyn ?)

A woman sits inside a modest sparsely furnished apartment—a one floor “walk up”. The woman is Black. (We shall call this woman C.B.) C.B. sits “tired” as if “wearied by the ages”. (As if schooled by the ages?) She is sitting at a table that has been placed in front of a window. Her eyes like herself are “tired” (Are they “overseeing” eyes ?)….Her eyes gaze across the room to “two suitcases” and they are HERS. The suitcases are “travel weary” (like their owner) and they are packed and standing waiting and ready at the door. She (C.B.) is wearing a navy blue dress and a matching navy blue coat. (Is she leaving someplace or someone quickly—unexpectedly ?) SUDDENLY, she stands, strait and tall and stares uneasily out the window. She clinches then unclinches her fists—then she pounds both fists—simultaneously—on the table (three times….) (CUT TO: C.B. POV). Outside the window is another woman—this one more petite but she too is a “woman of color” –she is Black. She has “long, wild, frizzy” black hair that stands out from a face containing wild, excited black eyes. (Is she crazy?). She is in the street and she is pacing, strutting, jumping, flailing, and speaking something loud and undeciferable perhaps, another language…. (maybe “speaking in tongues” ?) With this second woman (whom we shall call F.N.) are people, a standing crowd, observers, followers (maybe worshippers). They are lining the streets –in droves—to be touched, helped, healed by this wild (and crazy ?) evangelist. F.N. moves speedily through and amongst the crowd– three lines deep. One by one –they submit themselves to her “miracles”. A blind man, a child on crutches with polio, a woman twisted from stroke. She (F.N.) approaches each one— touching, slapping, anointing foreheads with “holy water” from her tiny vial. She whirls and spins as she moves from one “BELIEVER” to the next. She is dancing, clogging and striking poses (poses to be chronicled for history). She winds up–winds her arm round and round– like a “baseball player” about to pitch a ball then flings HER “holy water” onto the crowd.
(VOCAL: “Fifteen——-”)
Fifteen Years Later: C.B. is still sitting “diligently” by the window. Her elbows are on the table and her hands are clasped together—her fingers interlaced, her fingers lightly brushing her cheek. Her hair is now streaked with grey. Her bones still strong and high, her determination and will unbroken….. SUDDENLY, she rises from her chair, standing STILL and tilting her head slightly (as if “listening for something” ?) Then—as if on cue—the loud SOUND. It is the screeching of a car tire, then a THUD as the car HITS something —or SOMEONE. Then—C.B.—like before—starts for the door. She grabs from an overstuffed easy chair her “cape” and she flings it around her shoulders. (ALL THIS DONE IN SLOW MOTION). Without touching the door, as if by magic —- it suddenly SLAMBS OPEN. Aided– by a gust of powerful “gael wind” the door remains open as C.B. “floats” through in slow motion (and bounds down one flight of stairs). C.B. (still in “slow motion”) exits-— breezes — out the last already open door. C.B. moves (wafts ?) through the crowd to the spot where F.N. lies LIFELESS on the ground. Then—as C.B. did back in 1915, 1905, 1890, 1875, 1850, 1829 she reaches both arms above her head AND CLINCHES both hands into a strong fist. She pounds ONCE. She pounds TWICE. She pounds THREE TIMES. And on the third time F.B. sits up—suddenly—and breaths. (She breathes in LIFE! LIFE! LIFE!). She–F.N.– jumps up and begins dancing—CLOGGING—as the crowd looks on.

(VOCAL: “All my days—–“)
C.B. rises, turns and walks slowly (in slow motion) back towards the apartment building….THE END.

THE PLAYERS (and THE MUSIC)
F.N./ Florence Nightingale (Renee Ashley Baker)
C.B./Clara Barton (Pam Grier?)
Proposed Music: by Alice McAfee Williams (click photo below to listen)