戲劇演出 Histrionics

我的朋友活在獨裁政權底下 人們滿腦子只有他們自己以及從一數到十 孩童到君主，農奴到官僚 直至騷動蜂擁而起，就在你的指尖 恰恰是玩笑的成分改變了它自身，那諸般的可能 眾人議論紛紛但沒人知道將會往何處去 爾後更嚮往起美好的舊日時光 那時每個季節都在進步演化之中 而現在，你走進某些房間誓言保守祕密—— 一種抑制效應緩和了突發的危機 將末日的傳染病控制在海灣附近 地平線上有第三黨的發言人指出了方向 有如走出抑鬱，翻到下一頁 一個新的誓約，莊嚴肅穆 為了那完善的標準，如此美好而安靜 我們越來越富有男子氣概 在無線對講機的護送下，興高采烈地 讓行李接受X光檢測出表裡不一 和任何被夾帶進入我們的故事的成分 彷彿我們無意中聽到的比我們原本知道的還多 原文／Dean Brink 翻譯／江敏甄 My friend's lived under a dictatorship, men full of themselves and their countings to ten, child to lord, serf to the bureaus until a hubbub wells up and at your fingertips the very sport of it alters it, possibilities everyone talks about but nobody really knows where it will lead, later longing for the good old days evolving each season. For now, you enter certain rooms sworn to secrecy— a dampening effect lulling the interim crisis to hold at bay a doomsday epidemic over a horizon where third-party spokespersons point to it as if to turn the page out of the blue to a new oath, solemnity for good measure, such quiet good we grow more mannish in walkie-talkie convoys, happy to have our luggage x-rayed for inconsistencies, anything piggy-backed to our story as if we'd overheard more than we knew.