The trigger

by Carmen Aguirre

When I was thirteen I was raped by the Paper Bag Rapist. I was with my younger cousin at the time, and neither one of us ever saw him he used a paper bag to cover his own head or those of his victims. Not that we would have seen him anyway; a gun was held to the backs of our heads and if we turned around he'd kill us. He only had one bullet left, he said, so he'd have to chop up my cousin while I watched, then shoot me. By the time the attack was over and we were left lying in the mud, we were both different people. I had wanted to write a play about this experience for years; propelled by my anger at how often rape was portrayed in a titillating, shocking, gratuitous way on screen or stage. Rapists were evil and the victims were only that: victims. But, how would I stage it? How would I tell the story? Why would I tell this story? After a decade of chewing over these questions, the image of a young tree lying on its side came to me. A man was chopping an axe through its centre. A girl