This story was originally performed at Kunstverein Bielefeld on July 30, 2022. Most recently, it appears in the film “Three of Cups” (2025) directed by Enotea and Mário Macedo, and produced by Morph Films, which is premiering October 2025 at Doclisboa International Film Festival.
We went into the basement, where it was cool.
And to get the right experience, we all agreed to shut the door behind us. A startling darkness followed. Only a pin-hole thin shaft of light trickled down from a clogged drain in the ceiling high above us. The only movement we perceived was of dust falling in the lights’ presence.
We were all in the light’s presence.
With oo’s and ah’s we agreed that we were mesmerised by the light. We told each other so. We said, “This is a sublime experience, this might be a holy experience, perhaps this is a holy light, and perhaps we are in the presence of god, or a god more ancient than god.”
In the light’s presence, we forgot that we were in a basement, and that there was a door. We forgot that we needed a door at all. The light became the centre of our existence. Nobody talked about anything else. All there was, was the light. In the light’s presence, we forgot that we had arms and legs. We forgot that we had heads, and hands, and feet, and genitals too. There was only the light.
And so to remind ourselves of our basic corporeality, we took turns waving our limbs in the light. We crowded around its shaft, our hands and feet reaching over shoulders and between legs in search of its brief anointment. In doing so, a few of us were hit quite badly in the face, and so we decided that sticking our limbs into the light was a bad idea.
And yet, some of us let our curiosity get the better of us, and could not repress our desire to stick our limbs into the light anyway. We did so surreptitiously in extra-slow motion, our facial expressions purposefully blank. We hoped the rest of us wouldn’t notice our transgressions, although of course, the rest of us did, and were enraged. We called it a perversion of our collective values. To avoid the burden of deciding upon a punishment for this perversion, we decided that sticking any appendages—any limbs, or anything at all—into the light was against the rules. We decided that touching the light was too holy an experience for some of us, because some of us can’t control our impulses. One of us suggested that some of us are just jerks, and that the jerks were ruining it—the experience of the light—for everyone else, and so as a result, none of us should be able to partake in the touching of the light, because all of us have a jerk who lives deep inside of us—the appearance of whom is unpredictable and possibly stress-induced.
We all continued staring at the light.
We stared at the light for long enough that we became enveloped in a darkness so total as to stop time and space. A fundamentalist contingent amongst us emerged, and declared that we no longer exist, that the only existence is of dust travelling through the shaft of light. At that point, many of us got on our hands and knees, and wept loudly. Others amongst us trembled in weakness, jealousy, or fear. Others of us audibly protested that some of us were bogarting the light, which wasn’t fair.
To those of us who were indeed bogarting the light, the rest of us were only distant sounds, for we believed ourselves to be the most pious and so the most worthy audience of the light.
Those of us who were only distant sounds remembered that we were, in fact, in a basement, and that a door existed that had once provided us entry into the basement—just as it could provide an exit. Those of us who remembered the existence of the door began to discuss its possible appearance, disappearance, and location in whispers. From these furtive discussions, a growing mistrust of the light emerged. Some of us reasoned that the presence of the door signalled the presence of a world beyond the light, and that in fact, more light may be all around us, but we just can’t see it yet, because we’re in such a dark basement. One of us pointed out that the reason our shaft of light is holy might be because it signals the presence of a true light. We discussed the possibility of a true light at length. Some of us agreed that the door must be the true passage to the true light, and that the door must be of a human size, otherwise how could we have gotten here in the first place? Others amongst us refuted the existence of the true light, saying that the true light is everywhere, also inside of us, and anyway, who are we to judge what is true and what is not true? Maybe we’re all liars. Still others amongst us retorted that the light could not, in fact, be holy, because it made us forget about the door, and so made us forget that we exist, because existence is what is on the other side of the door, and so the light could be neither holy nor precious but actually a dark and nefarious force sent to torment us. Still others amongst us exclaimed that the dubious existence of the door was actually a test of our love for the light.
One or two of us agreed co-dependently that there was no door at all, and that we’d always been in the presence of the light. At least one of us privately considered how much to charge for entry to the light once the door was found, including private audiences, VIP packages, and family days.
The trouble was, none of us could remember where the door was. Those of us who described ourselves as mavericks left the light in search of it. We tried different techniques to find it: Some of us closed our eyes, outstretched our arms, and fondled errant body-parts. Some of us tried echo-location by hooting into the void. Some of us joined hands, and shuffled around the basement in a tangled knot, until we fell over each other. None of us thought that that was a very good strategy to find the door, but those of us who remained holding hands began to fuck vigorously, and forgot which door we were looking for.
The rest of us returned sheepishly to the light, apologising in prostrate for turning our backs on it in the first place. Others amongst us had never left the light, and those of us who had remained, privately believed ourselves to be its only righteous and true believers. Those of us who believed that we were the only righteous and true believers of the light began to chant in tongues, swaying back and forth and intermittently weeping.
Then, one of us tripped on a step, and screamed out, “My knee!” in pain. Several of us remembered in unison that the staircase led to the door. We all froze in silence, our new knowledge in suspension—all of us, that is, except for those of us who were still fucking, and those of us who were chanting in tongues and intermittently weeping.
One of us reached the top of the staircase, and pushed open the door. A new light flooded the basement. The new light was all encompassing. We shielded our eyes from its sheer power. We were dazzled. A few of us fainted. The new light dimmed The Original Light considerably; in fact, the new light rendered the Original Light nearly imperceptible. Many of us scrambled toward the overwhelming abundance of the new light, pushing and shoving each other in order to be among the first to reach it. Others amongst us formed an orderly line at the foot of the staircase, and muttered that the jerks always find a way to ruin everything, and that everyone will get their turn to experience the new light if they just wait their turn. Some of us fell to the ground as we desperately lunged and vaulted over each other to reach the door. One or two of us were trampled. One of us may have died. But others of us passed into the new light, and could be heard screaming into its void before becoming enveloped by it, and never seen again.
Those of us who decided to stay in the presence of the Original Light cried out, “Close the door!” and “We must preserve the Original Light!”
Later, we remarked upon how peaceful things had become once the jerks and the charlatans and the nymphomaniacs and the mavericks had left, never to be seen again.
To celebrate, we took turns lying directly under the light, positioning our heads so that its beam would penetrate our third eyes. In doing so, we were all blinded.