Fau. How comes it then that thou art out of hell?

Meph. Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.

Marlowe, Dr. Faustus

The actor playing 1 is a man.

The actor playing 2 is a woman.

The following is heard on tape

a girl’s voice

coming from an old tape recorder

playing in the corner of the theater.

These are the rules for the conjuration:

this play must be performed indoors if it is to be effective

perform it exactly as written and

in thirty minutes

you will have summoned the devil out of hell

and bound him in a magic circle

as the audience enters they see:

on a stage as bare as open to the investigative eye as possible:

a candle burning on a little table center stage

the candle is a severed left hand

covered over with an amalgam of virgin wax

horse dung

and various mixed herbs

there are wicks stuck in the ends of the fingers

below this

a circle is drawn in white chalk on the black floor

in the center of the circle

two bodies lie under a large white sheet

they are motionless

a tape player plays in a corner of the room

mechanical ghost voices

sharp and angry

emanating from the tape player

rapidly overlapping they say:

You want to talk about a tragedy? / Serious though, fuck that little bitch / plays aint that scary I’ve seen worst in life I mean just look at those horror movies they got out today / are you kidding me? are you seriously telling her to rest in peace / I wish people would stop connecting a whole country race with this tragedy / Give me some bullshit about Jesus and forgiveness / that guy coulda died a long time ago / you’re an asshole / that guy was destined to be a killer since birth / delusional, paranoid schizophrenic, homicidal maniacs / we then attribute it to “evil” / you make me sick / His relatives say he was “cold” as a child / she should burn in hell extra crispy / R.I.P. to everyone who died / you can’t help yourself / and for that I am deeply saddened / But like I said, since her creation, this one was not meant to live a happy life / Even though I’m sorry for the deaths / GO suck ur mum u fuckin freak / That is also a fucking tragedy / mercy / a stressful environment . . . basically children away from their mentally abusive parents for the first time / What handful of greedy people or political movement does this benefit / But no one took it seriously / However I do grieve for the family they lost a mother too / What Strange Thing Happened? / condolences to the bereavers / a terrible ordeal, is there any live video footage? / Only Jesus Can Save Us . . . / what was that sound / what is he saying? / ur a fukin cunt have some respect / I wonder what
. . . had experienced or what made . . . became a killer / i wish there was something i could do to fix all of the terrible things that have happened / just think, one person with a ccw could have stopped it all / Let go of fear and spread good like an infection and it will spread / Things tragic like this can happen and its the devils weird way of getting through to people. I dont think that there is any reason to b angry with God. / I’m not religious at all, but if there’s a Hell, she’s surely in it now,

writing more shitty plays

and getting exactly what she deserves.

The lights are out.