ARTHUR ARCHIVES 8 - POQUELIN

(MUSIC)

1673. THREE WEEKS LATER

THE INTERVIEWER

(CLANG OF AN INK GLASS. QUILL ON PAPER)

27th of April, 1673. The past three weeks have been some of the longest of my life. I haven’t been sleeping properly. Food has lost its appeal. I keep dreaming of you. Powerfully vivid dreams that feel so real they make me salivate. I wake up in a state of euphoria, the memory of your taste still lingering in my mouth, before the sad realization hits me... it was just a dream. You’re gone, and you’re never coming back. And all I’m left with is an empty hole in my stomach and a

drool-drenched pillow.

(DENIAL)

But no! No I refuse to believe that you are gone for good. I can’t accept it! I won’t accept it!! I won’t stop trying to find you... I haven’t given up! I’ve been back every day since, looking for you. Searching for your likeness in the crowd. Searching for the man who handed you over to me. But he’s never there, he seems to have vanished! I search every corner, try every back alley establishment. You have to be out there somewhere! Eventually my patience wears thin and I... I’m ashamed of it… I go off with another. But it’s never the same. None can satisfy me the way you did. How can it be? Am I going mad?

(ANGER)

I mean what am I supposed to do now? Just live my life as if nothing ever happened? Just forget about you and move on? Knowing that I had you and can never have you again? How? How am I supposed to do that? How can something so sweet, turn out to be so wicked!? Oh but it’s typical isn’t it! Oh yes!! I bet you planned it all along didn’t you! Yes... “All seals and symbols of redeemed sin”! Acting as if butter wouldn’t melt, when in actual fact the butter was so hot that it burnt me to the very core!!!

(BARGAIN)

Oh... good lord... what’s come over me. I shouldn’t allow myself to get so out of sorts. Get a hold of yourself, man! I apologize. Forgive me, please. I know it’s not your fault. You can’t help your nature can you? After all, producing this kind of effect is, of course, is exactly what you were put on this earth to do... clearly. But... but I promise, if you come back to me, I’ll never lose my temper ever again! Never!! Well, except during the first three to four weeks in January! I reserve the right to be angry then, as they are without question the most boring weeks of the year! Unless... I could spend them with you! Not the exact you I had of course, I’m not a complete fool, I know that THAT would be impossible. The you I had is but a distant memory. But if I could only find another that could live up to the memory of you. Yes... Yes, I mean, that’s all I’m looking for. That’s what I crave! What I have been craving every day since the day our paths were fortunate enough to cross. Please... if you can hear me, if you can read this…

(ACCEPTANCE)

Oh for pity’s sake! Listen to yourself, man. Rambling on like a buffoon. No, no, I suppose I should be happy really. I did what I set out to do. I would have been doomed to a lifetime of second rate experiences, were it not for finding you. Yes… Yes, that’s it. You have set what would appear to be an unsurpassable standard of excellence and exquisiteness, and I shall never forget you. You will be, for always and forever, the best waffle I have ever tasted.

(SIGHS)

My waffle…

(SIGHS AGAIN)

Yours faithfully... um... actually, no, no, scratch that! Ha, uhm, good lord - Heavens no, I mean… No offense, but I have no intentions of being faithful, no, no, no! I mean - Waffles must be eaten, and plenty of them! Yes! Now. let me see now. Yours... truly? No, no, good lord, that doesn’t work either! Yours... Hm! Oh that is quite difficult really…

(BLOWS RASPBERRY)

Yours… I suppose, really… Yours,

(MUSIC)