Dani:
I’m really sorry, Pelle. Thank you for inviting me, but I really need to go. Can someone maybe drive me?
Pelle:
I did warn you this time. I know it looks extreme, but we only do this once every ninety years. It’s - what’s the word...?
Dani:
I understand that it’s momentous.
Pelle:
Right! Exactly!
Dani:
I don’t know why we’re here, Pelle! I don’t know why you invited us!
Pelle:
Okay: Here: Sit down. Please. I invited my friends because this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing and I wanted to share it. Especially with my friends who I knew would appreciate it, because I am proud of this place.
Dani:
But I’m not an anthropologist. I don’t have the foundation to understand this.
Pelle:
And yet I was the most excited for you to come. Here: smell this.
Dani:
What is it?
Pelle:
It calms you down. Go on. Inhale. I will, too. Isn’t that nice?... I know what you’re going through, Dani.
Dani:
What am I going through? I’m scared. I can’t breathe.
Pelle:
You’re going through a lot. I know you are, and I’m gonna say something now, because my birth parents are both gone, too--
Dani:
What?! [crying] That’s not what I’m talking about!
Pelle:
I know, and that’s fine, but please... My birth-parents both died when I was a little boy. They burned up in a fire, and I became - technically - an orphan. So believe me when I say I know what that is, because I do. Yet my difference is: I didn’t get a chance to feel lost. Because I had a family - here - where everyone embraced me and swept me up and I was raised by a community that doesn’t distinguish between what is theirs and what is not theirs. That’s what you were sacrificed to. But I - have always felt...held. By a family. A real family. Which everyone deserves. And you deserve.
Dani:
[looks down at Pelle’s hands holding hers] Christian could walk in.
Pelle:
He’s what I’m talking about. And he’s my good friend and I like him... But do you feel held by him, Dani? Does he feel like a home to you? My pilgrimage has been fun. New York is fun... But I also find it terrifying how people live. As if it’s necessary and even good to be lost and drifting...and I haven’t spent one night over there that I haven’t longed to be back here...in the lap of the Hårgas. Stay, Dani. Please. It will be good... And I swear we’re all finished sacrificing animals.
