When I Arrived, Everything Was Already a Mess

You just read three texts.

Each one started from something I noticed: people overcomplicating the simple, people wanting karma for others but not themselves, everyone with their own personal God. At first, I thought they’d stay separate. I’d write one, think that was it, move on.

But then I saw the connection.

SOMEONE and Geraldo showed up in all three. Coffee showed up in all three. The same dynamic — complicating and simplifying — repeated. It wasn’t planned. It just happened.

I realized they worked together. As a play, even.

In the first text, I picture Geraldo facing the audience. SOMEONE as off-stage voice — I prefer a live actor who can interact during the piece, but recording works too — coming from a fixed spot. Direct intimacy.

In the second, Geraldo moves around the stage. SOMEONE still off-stage, but now coming from different speakers, stereo. The voice moves, giving the feeling of two distant kitchens talking. Same actor as the first, same dynamic, but spatialized.

In the third, sounds of different people. Multiple voices from various points (same actor with voice filters or different actors, depending on production). Geraldo still alone onstage, but now talking to many. SOMEONE fragments, multiplies.

Three scenes, three formats, same layered conversation.

And then the fourth appeared.

Not as a required addition — it might be too dense to work with the first three onstage — but as the conversation I still needed to have with myself. If the first three were me trying to understand the world through Geraldo and SOMEONE, the fourth is me trying to understand Geraldo and SOMEONE through myself.

You can stop here.

The three texts you just read work on their own. As a play, as reading, as whatever you want.

What follows is something else. Denser. Less theatrical. More internal.

It’s optional.

If you want to keep going, go ahead. If not, that’s fine too.

No right answer.

Enjoy. Or complicate. Or simplify. Whatever feels right.

GERALDO