Big Joe’s Post-Modernist, Cubist, Existentialist, Summer Camp for Girls

(Their faces are lit eerily from the underside, they sit around the campfire, riveted, as one girl speaks.)
“Comrades!
I have seen the perfect woman!
I have seen her hand grazing packages of frozen food in the market.

I did not dare to meet her eyes.

She is out there somewhere. Truly.
Maybe close!
(Some girls wince.)

I have seen her profile.
I was sitting in my father’s car on the passenger’s side.
We were stopped at a red light.
And she was behind the wheel of the car to our right.
She did not seem to notice me as I stared and stared,
Nearly burning a hole in her exquisite cheek.

I turned away the moment she swiveled her head around!
(One girl cries out.)

Thank heaven she did not see me.

Before that too
I had heard her following me home from school.
Her heels clicking on the pavement.
I knew it was she. I can’t tell you how, exactly,
But I was sure. Positive in fact.
(Another girl inhales sharply.)

Let us not be angry with her, friends, she is an innocent creature,
A Frankenstein.
Her very existence proves our own.
Allows us our fiercely defended flaws.

Even still, as I am sure you realize,
She will not hesitate to destroy any one of us.

I only hope that now that you, my sisters,
Have witnessed my own testimony,
My own personal experience,
Of the Beast’s searing presence,
And terrible beauty,
That we will be able to stop,
Suspecting one another,
Of being the Hated One.
(One girl sheds a tear.)


Sisters! Gentlewomen!
You will recognize her as I have…
Only remember, she is much too clever
To reveal her true identity,
In the company of other women.
(The girls’ suspicious eyes dart from face to face.)