Lament for the Littlest Fellow

Edith L. Tiempo

The littlest fellow was a marmoset.

He held the bars and blinked his old man’s eyes.
You said he knew us, and took my arms and set
My fingers around the bars, with coaxing mimicries
Of squeak and twitter. “Now he thinks you are
Another marmoset in a cage.” A proud denial
Set you to laughing, shutting back a question far
Into my mind, something enormous and final.
The question was unasked but there is an answer.
Sometimes in your sleeping face upon the pillow,
I would catch our own little truant unaware;
He had fled from our pain and the dark room of our
rage,
But I would snatch him back from yesterday and
tomorrow.
You wake, and I bruise my hands on the living cage.

Characters:
Marmoset
Wife
Husband
Scene 1: Zoo
[C: on the right part, is a big cage with a marmoset inside, while on the left part are the couple facing the
cage]
Marmoset: (holding the bars of his cage while having eye-to-eye contact with the couple)
Husband: I think the marmoset knows us. Look he keeps on staring at us and keeps blinking his big wide
eyes.
Wife: What are you saying? That this small creepy creature knows us? How? And why? (She’s now
starting to get confuse on what her husband is saying)
Husband: (He holds his wife’s hands and forcefully put it around the bars)
Wife: (she’s now totally confused of what’s happening) Wait! What are you doing to me??? I’m not a
marmoset to treat me like that! Stop it! Will you?
Marmoset: (makes lots of noises, coaxing mimicries of squeak and twitter, as if he’s having a party
inside his cage because he now have a companion)
Husband: Now he thinks you are another marmoset in a cage.
Wife: What are you saying?! No! I’m not a marmoset! And never will!!! (Really confuse and problematic
at this point, her forehead wrinkles because of lots of confusions)
Husband: (laughing at her, as if he’s bullying his own wife)
Wife: (“Why he’s telling me I’m a marmoset? Why he keeps on forcing me that I’m a marmoset? Oh no, I
can’t really understand him.”)
[The couple will go home; however, the wife seems still in the zoo, because in her head she can’t erase
the big question mark that her husband made.]
Scene 2: Bedroom
[C: They will now enter the room, walking ahead is the husband, followed by his wife, as if the husband
is supreme over his wife. R: the cage with the marmoset inside, however, even though he’s at the stage,
he’s no longer part of the next scenes, he is just inside the mind of the wife, STILL thinking why her
husband told her that she’s a marmoset.]
Husband: (undresses himself, taking off his socks, shoes, accessories seriously, and just throw them
around)
Wife: (helps her husband undressing himself, collecting all the scattered belongings of her husband, like
his socks and shoes, as if she’s a slave working for him)
Marmoset: (quiet and just observing the actions of the couple)
[They are now going to bed, to have enough sleep, so the lights are dim, the sensuality and intensity of
heat inside the room rise, because we all know they are married couples and they are currently enjoying
their privacy]
Husband: (Taps “kinakalabit” his wife and asking for something. “Nangangalabit” means something
different here; we all know what it is)
Wife: Please not now, I’m very tired due to long hours of our trip and side-seeing in the Zoo today.
There’s still tomorrow, isn’t?
Husband: I WANT IT NOW… You can’t reject my request, you should obey me!
Wife: Please, I don’t want to argue with you tonight, we need to have rest.
Husband: No (now loosing his patience) you should not disobey me my littlest fellow, because you
rejected what I’m asking from you, you’ll suffer the consequences! (Now acting as if he’s
revenging to a person who did a terrible sin to him, because he now thinks that his masculinity
was offended and his wife is now gaining superiority over him.)
[A large black cloth was raised to cover the entire stage and to block the next scenes]
Wife: (screaming due to pain because she was forced by her husband to do a sexual intercourse or
“Marital Rape”)
Marmoset: (going crazy inside his cage, as if he also feels the pain of the wife)
[The cloth was being lowered slowly and then it will be completely removed.]
Husband: (as the cloth is being lowered the husband leaves the room for a while to attend his personal
needs and to escape from what he had done)
[A very slow and gloomy instrumental music is being played, to made the feelings of sadness and pain of
the wife more intense and to make it more realistic]
Wife: (is now at the center of the bed, her hair is disorganize and her clothes are scattered all over the
room; crying and staring at the air, as if she’s crazy and out of her mind; covered with blanket and
positioned like a baby, embracing her knees; due to the pain she suffered earlier)
Marmoset: (is now again quiet, but seems mourning or very sad and about to cry as if one of his family
or another marmoset died or suffering to an injury)