EMILY SHEARER

THE ROSTER

 

Charter Members of the Map And Kite Club

 

Odin    - Viking god    

Munnin, or Memory- one of Odin’s two ravens  See Huggin

Huggin, or Thought - one of Odin’s two ravens  See Munnin

Vili and Ve-  along with Odin, the creation gods with the power to create life by breathing into inanimate objects

Ask - first man; Norse version of Adam; born when Odin, Vili and Ve form him by breathing into a log

Embla - first woman; Norse version of Eve; also borne from a log and the breath of the gods

Luminous - a waitress

Radio - a tender-hearted radio repairman

Alice - an explorer

Yggdrasil - (1) Odin’s horse  (2)  also the name of the World Tree

 

Their Therapist 

 

The Poet

 

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A Small Party Among Comfortable Strangers:  A Single Scene in which We Are All Enlightened by Odin’s Intention

 

Setting:  Therapist’s Office, Group Support Room 

Present:  The Therapist, Vili, Ve, Ask, Embla, Luminous, Radio, Alice

 

Throw pillows of various shapes and sizes are scattered around on couches and armchairs and in small disheveled mountains on the floor.  Turkish rugs with faded fibers are strewn pell-mell.  Hanging high on rods suspended above the windows are scrim-thin white curtains that neither entirely block nor fully admit the light filtering in through the afternoon clouds.  The effect is that of a comfortable bohemian street bazaar, or casbah meets early 21st century rec room.   The textured cushions don’t match the patterned upholstery, and the blue-dotted Polish plates and hand-fired ceramic coffee mugs don’t match each other.  There are cheap reproductions of Klimt prints and unimposing black and white architectural photography on the walls.  No one smokes.  No one eats doughnuts.  Everyone drinks coffee, some of it laced.   If Picasso and Gertie Stein had had kids and lived in a four bedroom, split-level they would have gathered here to drink absinthe.  They would have pushed the furniture out of the way to make room for Hemingway to box with unsuspecting neighbors who heard the low, murmuring, glass-clinking, covert-laughing sounds of a small party among comfortable strangers.  

 

Odin enters and looks around the room.  No one rises to offer him a cup of coffee.

 

The Therapist speaks. . . 

 

“Look at us, this rag-tag assembly of human beings and demi-gods, broken and lonely, addicted, restless, and unwilling to settle.  In steps Odin, poised to recount his tales of Viking godliness.  Let’s remember that, aside from his divinity and our humanity, we still have some things in common.  Motivations, sufferings, empathies and sympathies.  So let’s accept him, because, well, because one) He looks like a 200-year old Ryan Gosling in a Viking tunic and two) he IS a god.”