and from the inside in

She slowly, sinuously leans towards the man and
blows. He blanches, startled. She keeps blowing
and slowly, with her breath, forces him to rise
and he rises and steps back, and further back till
her breath has forced him off stage.
GIRL
Naseema. Wind.
She turns to the audience.
GIRL
But earlier, first - the skin of my father gets me in.
If they saw the brown inside, the brown of my mother,
I’d be at the detention cell, at the airport with
everyone else who had brushed against brown in their
past or in their family or on the plane and the scent
lingers, did you know? That’s what the guards say. “We
know how to smell you.” They’re trained to
smell...roses. They’re trained to smell...attar. I hear
them whispering as if no one hears. But everyone hears.
Those smells carry.
The SOUND of low bells, the kind cattle wear
around their neck and a shepherd, NIDAL, about
sixteen, enters from the opposite side of the
stage. He wears a keffiyeh, a black and white
chequered scarf around his neck. He’s in a
reverie, as if following his cattle and not
noticing her at first.
NIDAL
I carry a new lamb. The sheep follow. We go to what is
left of grass. They eat what isn’t burnt. They eat what
is left of green. I swallow the sand. I love a girl who
I saw on a bus that went by very slowly so the people
inside, behind the glass, could take pictures. I stood
up straight when it passed. The minute you see anyone
shooting...a picture, you want to stand up straight. It
could be on the news. You have to think ahead. But that
girl, she put the camera down when she saw me, and the
sun hit her instead. It hit her through the glass as
she looked at me and then I saw her hair...
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