Traveling Theater is a project where the students create a variety of performance about the social impact of Cambodia culture. It will include a short play about important topics such as the problem in society, sanitation, and climate change. The bus and performers will travel around once a month to perform to different rural areas and share our short story to Cambodian.
In our class, we started with an understanding of how to write the play. Our facilitator would always start with script reading and analyze the concept, character, plots, and some writing techniques that make the script flow. We also look at photos or read the starting sentence of the script, then write a new script for it.
Last few weeks, we divided ourselves into a small team to write the play with a variety of topics: society, peer, family, relationship. My group chose to write about society impact on body image.
The story below is one of my writing exercises which inspired by the photo.
Name: Hana (flower in Japan)
Job: Flower seller
Age: 50
They are beautiful and velvety. The representative of the body, eyes, mouth, nose, and words. They grow from my feet, drink my tears, sleep on the palm of my hands, and cover by the blanket of wind.
But because I don’t have a word to spread them out, I sell those loves to everyone with 10% discount every twelve days, three months, New year, and valentine’s day
My customers usually ask for one specific type, color, shape, age, amount, and cost. People with the same face, different face, buy red for love, white for the dead, black for death, yellow for keep breathing. However, they always pack in the same way, grow on the same land, the same nutrition, and they are all the languages.
Everyone has their own best, But no one really keeps the dead unless they are more important than the human themselves.
But flowers are alive. They alive. They smile, and cry, and beg for a living. They will fade, but not fade, stays in memories of the differences.
My flowers are alive. Once live as a human. Hundreds, thousand, I mean hundred thousand flowers I bread, sell, I can’t find you. The one I need to make myself beautiful than the half-dead pedal.
I need your morning sun smile like a hydrangea.
“……” I can’t speak, but my flowers speak to me that I wait for a man, that vanish before my eyes on a flower farm. The man who makes me become a widow for 30 years, hugs his flower shop, and never travel to another farm than his.
Ring Ring Ring
“…” A man shows up and pulls a pink rose out of its pot
“I want ten of this rose.” He puts the flower on the counter while lifting his ten fingers on the air.
“….” I nod
I handed him ten yellow roses and one white. He looked at me and handed me with an extra dollar for the small white rose.
“…” I shake my head
“….” He smiles and pronounces the words thank you slowly.
“…” I give him a bright grin and wave when he opens the door and leaves
“…”
Happy Death’s Day! Alia….
“Hana! See this blue rose? I made them this morning.”
“Yes, Honey! It is beautiful,”
A melancholy rose was squishing my breath. My hand on the man who’s putting a ring on my fingers.
Bam! Bam!
“Ahhhh!” I screamed after hearing a sound of short gun crushing through the house
“Alia! Run! You have to run!” I whisper to Alia while the men outside trying to break the door and windows
“No! I can’t run anymore Hana. I can’t put you in danger.” He releases my hand and walks to the door.
“Alia! Stupid Alia, come back, No! No!!!!!!!!!”
Bam!
The last sound I heard after the song of the death singing around my ears. Alia is gone. A good criminal that kills his own father for mother, his friend for the strangers, and break the universe law for the dead one. So I sacrifice my voice for his sin and keep his flower on the tattoo at the left shoulder of mind.
The Alia, the sun, I can’t keep my breath any longer. I want to say goodbye, but I am not, but I will. Wait for me, the cancer of mine will be my train to get to you. Today, Tomorrow, next months, and next year.
