Featuring Bryan Groenjes
Witty and Profound, Best Selling novelist, Stephen King is a master of suspense and renowned for his bone chillingly scary contemporary tales of horror, science fiction and fantasy. He started writing Short Stories when he was 18 years old and returns to the genre periodically, to flex his writing muscles. Prolific author King has written over 200 Short Stories and says: “…a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger. That is not, of course, the same thing as an affair or a marriage, but kisses can be sweet, and their very brevity forms their own attraction.”
Silence and fear…
What could possibly be more terrifying than forced isolation; being alone with one’s self, to confront one’s own personal demons, worst fears and nightmares?
Well, being stranded on a tiny deserted island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean will certainly increase the misery!
The short story SURVIVOR TYPE is written as the diary of a disgraced surgeon, Richard Pine (real name Richard Pinzetti), who, while attempting to smuggle a large amount of heroin on a cruise ship, on a round trip from the USA to Thailand and back, finds himself marooned on a tiny island in the Pacific with very limited supplies and no food. A self-proclaimed “survivor” type, his diary entries documenting his day-to-day activities become more and more disjointed and raving (similar to the writing technique used in Flowers for Algernon), revealing his slow mental decay and eventual insanity caused by starvation, isolation, and drug use. Determined to hold out for rescue, he goes to horrifying lengths to survive. After breaking his ankle while attempting to draw attention to himself when he sees a plane passing by, he amputates his foot, then realizes he has to eat it to survive. He continues to amputate his own limbs to use as a food source, ingesting the heroin as a crude anesthetic during the operations. Although he initially keeps track of the dates (the entries begin January 26), his increasing mental instability causes him to lose perception of days passed (finally ending his entries with “Febba” and “Fe/40?“). His last few diary entries, barely comprehensible, indicate that he has cut off and eaten everything below his waist, as well as his ears, and drools uncontrollably as he ponders which body part to consume next. The diary entries end when he cuts off his left hand to eat. (“lady fingers they taste just like lady fingers”).
The ending implies Richard would later be found dead, probably the result of self-cannibalism, since the diary was apparently found and read, and Richard mentioned he would have destroyed it right before being rescued.
Silence…
Silence and fear… Darkness and a full imagery of terrifying emotions.
It’s just me and my thoughts
Just me and my fears, my monsters, my nightmares.
And then…
Silence…
Performance –
SURVIVOR TYPE by Stephen King
Friday, October 30 at 20:00 hrs in THEATER AM OLGAECK
New English American Theater Stuttgart 