ANGELS IN AMERICA
Written By Tony Kushner
HARPER
I feel better, I do, I…feel better. There are ice crystals in my lungs, wonderful and sharp. And the snow smells like cold, crushed peaches. And there’s something… some current of blood in the wind, how strange, it has that iron taste. Where am I? (Looking around, then realizing) Antarctica. This is Antarctica! Oh boy oh boy, LOOK at this, I… Wow, I must’ve really snapped the tether, huh? I want to stay here forever. Set up camp. Build things. Build a city, an enormous city made up of frontier forts, dark wood and green roofs and high gates made of pointed logs and bonfires burning on every street corner. I should build by a river. Where are the forests? I’ll plant them and grow them. I’ll live off caribou fat, I’ll melt it over the bonfires and drink it from long, curved goat-horn cups. It’ll be great. I want to make a new world here. So that I never have to go home again. I can have anything I want here–maybe even companionship, someone who has…desire for me. There isn’t anyone…maybe an Eskimo. Who could ice-fish for food. And help me build a nest for when the baby comes. Here, I can be pregnant. And I can have any kind of baby I want.
I’m going to like this place. It’s my own National Geographic Special! Oh! Oh! (She holds her stomach) I think… I think I felt her kicking. Maybe I’ll give birth to a baby covered with thick white fur, and that way she won’t be cold. My breasts will be full of hot cocoa so she doesn’t get chilly. And if it gets really cold, she’ll have a pouch I can crawl into. Like a marsupial. We’ll mend together. That’s what we’ll do; we’ll mend.