TEXT: a solo LARP to be played near and in the water, 
  by Jeeyon Shim 
   
  CIRCLE ONE 
  Are you: 
  A mermaid 
  A selkie 
  A siren 
   
  ON THE SHORE, AT NIGHT 
   
  [The sea used to be your bower and 
  garden, your hearth and home; no longer, 
  not for a long time.] 
  How did you lose your place in the tide? 
   
   
   
  [Standing before it now, feeling the damp 
  crumble of the sand beneath your bare 
  feet, something inside you keens with 
  terrible longing.] 
  What do you yearn for? 
   
  [You sacrificed everything for them.] 
  Who did you cleave yourself in two for? 
   
  [In your hands you cradle something:] 
  Your skin 
  Your voice 
  Your lover, what is left of them 
   
   
   
  
  [It’s time. You have to release it. You have 
  to.] 
  When do you throw your cargo into the 
  water? 
   
   
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  IN A COMMUNITY SWIMMING 
  POOL, DAYTIME 
  [Physical therapy extended further and 
  further out the more you broke down, 
  until finally it led you here.] 
  What ailments seeped in to your body over 
  time? 
   
  [The pool is a hollow simulacrum of the 
  vast expanse you used to roam, but the 
  buoyancy you feel in the water comforts 
  you.] 
  When you close your eyes, what do you 
  imagine around you in the water? 
   
  [Tendon and muscle twinge in response 
  the new ways you gently work them. It is 
  not the same as when you streaked, sleek 
  and powerful, through the sea; but right 
  now it is enough.] 
  How do you settle in, just a little more, into 
  realizing what this body can do for you? 
   
  [You think about the humans you’ve seen, 
  from below, serenely floating on their 
  backs. You wonder what that feels like.] 
  You feel comfortable floating on your back. 
  You do not feel comfortable floating on your 
  back​. 
   
  IF YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE 
  FLOATING 
  [Let your feet leave the concrete floor. Lie 
  back, gently and wide. Feel your ribcage 
  swell and sink with the air you breathe.] 
  What holds you now, that only you can feel? 
   
  IF YOU DO NOT FEEL 
  COMFORTABLE FLOATING 
  [Let your feet find purchase on the 
  concrete floor. Hold your hands out in 
  front of you, cupping them as though you 
  are supporting something very, very 
  precious to you.] 
  What do you hold, that only you can see? 
   
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  EPILOGUE: IMMERSED IN A 
  BATHTUB WITH FRESH, HOT 
  WATER AND EPSOM SALT 
   
  The water should be very warm -- not hot, but 
  comfortable to the touch. Add the Epsom salt 
  while the water is running to help it dissolve. 
   
  For a standard-sized tub, use the amount 
  suggested on the package, usually 1 to 2 
  cups, or the amount recommended by 
  your doctor.”  
   
  [In this frank mammalian body you find 
  yourself craving warmth in a way that 
  your kin would find compromising. 
  You’ve come to enjoy it. The bathwater 
  covers you like a thick, heavy blanket.] 
  How did seasons pass in the sea you come 
  from? What did it feel like as the world 
  cooled and warmed around you?  
   
  [The sea did not constrain you. Its vistas 
  are limitless and you traversed them 
  without a thought for the meaning of 
  confinement. Everything on land is a plate 
  or a cup or a bowl; a cage, you used to 
  think, but you’ve learned to know the 
  difference between a prison and a vessel. 
  You feel the walls of the tub around your 
  body. They comfort you.] 
  How does the bath water feel as you feel it 
  soak into your skin? 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  [You add salt to all your baths. Your 
  physical therapist says it helps with muscle 
  tension. You like it because sometimes 
  you hold your breath and sink under the 
  surface, and the sting of the briny water at 
  your lash line reminds you of home. Your 
  home before where you will always live in 
  the truest part of yourself; and your home 
  here in this body, the home of this body.] 
   
  When do you know it is time to leave the 
  water? 
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Collections/LARP [multi]/First Lesson.pdf