Day 5
Singing an Iranian folk song, the woman– in a green coat– is sitting on a bench near the West Sands facing the sea. She has her coffee and cake. There are many seagulls, either flying or siting on the rocks. She is throwing small pieces of her cake for them. A man and a woman approach her. They are seagulls, but apart from some weird movements and attitudes, they show no other signs of being birds. They pick up the small pieces of cake that she is throwing. Then they sit on the bench next to her. The woman looks at them and throws some more pieces of cake for them. She is staring at the sea and seems to hear their words as bird calls not as words.
Seagull 1 (woman): What is this song?
Seagull 2 (Man): I don’t know.
Seagull1: What is this language?
Seagull 2: I have never heard anything like that…
Seagull 1: Let’s listen carefully.
Pause. She is still singing.
Seagull 2: The song is soft and captivating, but depressing. I guess she has been left behind or has left someone behind.
Seagull 1: I think she is lost.
Seagull 2: I wish I could understand the words.
Seagull 1: I guess these are magic words from a very ancient forgotten civilization. Do you notice how soft and simultaneously angry and moving the words are. They evoke a feeling of being lost, a feeling of unfulfilled love…
Seagull 2: … a kind of death wish, an unspecified or unfulfilled desire for demise …
Seagull 1: Now not that, you cannot use ‘unfulfilled’ there, ‘unfulfilled desire for demise!’ Freud does not mention such a thing; he just talks about ‘death wish’!
Seagull 1: I don’t think she is singing; she is chanting. And I assume she didn’t sleep last night. See her bloodshot eyes.
Seagull 2: Then, maybe, she is the Green Lady.
Seagull1: No, she is not! She is chanting in a magical language, but she is not in the Crathes castle. She has to be there to be the Green Lady. she is sitting here near the West Sands in St Andrews… And she is not a ghost, a ghost can’t be lost. She seems lost.
Seagull 2: Then, … she is a Selkie. She used to be a seal before transforming into human shape and become a woman. She has unearthed this magical song from the abyss of the North Sea.
Seagull1: Oh, you and your obsession with myths. No, she is not a Selkie. If she were, once you looked at her, you would become love sick for ever. Do you feel love sick?
Seagull 2: No! I don’t.
Seagull1: I know! Otherwise you would never want to leave me here near the North Sea and go to the Black sea for ever.
Seagull2: Perhaps, this would be the last chance to find my ancestral links and origins.
Seagull 1: I wish your feathers were the same colour as ours.
Seagull 2: But they are not. I am what I am and my feathers are blueish; yours are white. I have to go. Ever since my parents left, I have lost the sense of who I am, and with the new regulations coming into place from March, I will have to apply for citizenship.
Seagull 1: What if you see a Selkie on your way there?
Seagull 2: I will close my eyes to avoid seeing her and feeling love sick.
Seagull1: If you close your eyes, you may crash with an airplane.
Seagull 2: I won’t fly that high. I never do.
Seagull 1: What if the Green Lady puts a spell on you with her song?
Seagull 2: I am going east not north. I will not fly over the Crathes castle.
Seagull 1: Are you sure you want to go?
Sea gull2: Have you not read that part of the old testaments of Gulls?
Sea gull1:
“One day,
Not far from now,
Nets on the skies
Walls on the ground,
No one goes
No one comes”
They sing together. Their song is mingling with the woman’s song.
the conversation between the birds are fab! borders and departing are illustrated beautifully.