Erik Ehn

GIRL: This was a protestant region. The killings were political, not religious. Why –

BROADCASTER: The story must be told by means of every truth there is. Radio plays through you, my one. You tell.

GIRL: When they were killing the children, they threw the loud ones down a well. The children filled a deep well. The children are in the aquifer. Although you cannot hear them, their blood comes up roses; the blood of 75,000 martyrs rises, every weed a rose. I awake with a fist’s worth of dirt from El Mozote in my pocket, now bright red. (She pulls dirt from her pocket and scatters it.)

DAD: Where’s Miss Mouse? Where’s my Mouse Knuckles? (Lights on. The flayed and burned corpse of his daughter in among stuffed animals on the white lace coverlet of her bed. Lights off.) Where’s Miss Mouse? Where’s Mouse Knuckles? (Lights up. The corpse is gone. He calls off.) Honey, we must have a word about Liz. I can’t – I can’t keep – Lights off, lights on. I could swear she was there. Face in the lamp shade. Body in the chair. Walk through these halls, lights off, lights on. Every shape in the shadows, tells me she’s gone. Light off, lights on, doesn’t matter to me. Every flick of the switch dumps eternity.

NARRATOR: Barbara was locked in a tower by her father when she had her first period. Her father believed that if she was grounded, if she was on the ground and her blood was allowed to enter the earth, that she would conduct electricity, that she would attract powerful forces. So her father suspended her between heaven and earth. But she required neither heaven nor the earth. Barbara learned genius from secret women. From Jo Arrington, the wife of the Indian who built the world’s first radio in Barbara’s tower. Barbara’s hair grew at a fantastic rate during her time of the month, and this is how Jo climbed up.