In the Time of Smoke

 It was the last time we would all meet and debate.  It was something of an anti-climax.  My time a University had been a mixed affair being both pleasant and terrible.  I was glad it was ending.  We sat in a room in our pub that we always used to go in and was always only reserved for us.  It was a special privilege that the debating society used to enjoy.  I was glad it was ending but I would miss it.  The speakers were coming to a close complimenting to those who took part in the debating competitions and preparing the ground for next years committee.  All in all I think we were satisfied. I never really took part in the debating, was never really that good at it but I enjoyed the pretence at being intellectual though in reality I was no wiser than when I came. 

  I was aching to get home.  I finished my pint ages ago and I was ready for bed.  After three years I had become tired and was not looking forward to the next part.  It was all finishing and with it felt that so was my life.  Now on the drudgery, to full-time work and full-time boredom.  Really what was the purpose?  I had come with a coat but as the heat had come in the last month this piece of clothing was unnecessary.  That could have been a motion, is it better to be practical or to be fashionable?  I knew I would lose the argument for either side being neither.  There was applause and I joined in only vaguely listening but then something unusual happened.  We could stay if we wanted to, said the speaker, and since the owner’s daughter was a member of the society we were allowed, if we wanted to, to open a pack of cigarettes and smoke.  I didn’t smoke but I was excited by this prospect.  Smoking had become outlawed some years ago, at least indoors, so this private disobedience was something liberating.  

  Different brands of cigarettes were brought out, brands that I used to know but no longer recognised due to the covering and hiding of packets in newsagents.  Some had borrowed (cadged they call it) and others had given with that in-crowd familiarity and generosity that I had often noticed between comrade smokers.  Soon there was smoke in the air, wonderful floating bands of the stuff.  No one talked, we smoked and passive smoked in silence.  I was reminded of bonfires as a child looking into the fire and becoming suffused with smoke.  It was tribal, the need to smoke and I felt included in an ancient rite before law, before health and safety and political correctness, a time perhaps even before civilisation and I wondered what was the good of it when what we only needed was our natural instinct.  Ash fell from the tar and nicotine stem that was smoked by a woman I used to fancy.  More or less I had gone through all the woman in terms of fancying and more or less in turn I had given up without really trying.

  That was disappointing about Uni, the myth that you would meet someone, a partner, a like-mind, when actually you had spent most of your time on your own, going to lectures without talking to anyone, going to seminars with people you didn’t meet up after coffee, only speaking in the most rudimentary of terms to the people of the one society you did bother to join, but sometimes you might as well think that it would be easier to do without.  Still you did your best and there’s no need to feel bitter about it, though you do find it uncomfortable and it even hurts a bit.  You had one close friend who disagreed with everything you believed in and never stopped criticising but that was something.

  Here you felt strangely close to everyone as if all you ever were was a close knit family.  It was as illusive as the smoke you breathed in and easier to believe in when you were all breaking the law.  Why smoking was banned indoors was beyond me and I missed the smoke in the pubs.  It’s the lack of freedom that I hated and I thought that there really should be a better way for consenting adults to organise their differences but I had come to the conclusion that difference between people was fundamental to their relations.  I studied politics in the hope of uniting people for a more peaceful world but my ambitions are not so high anymore.  All I wish for now is a quiet desk job where I am allowed to keep my opinions no matter how unfavourable.

  When Margaret Thatcher, the subject of my disseration, died me and my friend argued over her funeral, me for, him against, and although it had costed a lot I don’t see the matter in terms of money.  For me it was really a sign that the old life was really coming to an end and that it was time for me to move on even though I’m not sure I’m ready for it.

  People coughed and began to stub their left overs of their cigarettes in the prelude of leaving.  I knew it was late and I knew I had to go home but I just wanted to stay for a little longer, just for a minute more, just let me be a student, don’t send me home.  I thought about asking someone for a fag, as they call them, but the time had passed.  I got my coat and walked out of the door.         

Razor's Glint

 The sun shone on the knive and it reflected onto the Ricardo’s eyes.  He knew what was coming and was quick to react.  While he stood to his feet I stepped forward and put the knive to his throat.

“Do you want to die like a rat?”  I said.  He didn’t, it was obvious that a more peaceful way he wanted.  He had done me a great wrong.  He had killed someone who was close to me and I wanted to make him pay.  “What do you know of knives?  Do you know how they feel when they cut into you?”  I could feel that he wanted to struggle but knew I wouldn’t hesistate to cut him if he did.  I wanted to give him a taste of terror, to let him know that he has done wrong and that he was a bad man.  It was a hot day and our skin, sticky and dry, touched with tension.  My shadow was cast against his pale skin and sweat ran from his forehead down to his vest.  I could kill him now but I wouldn’t, I would let him sweat some more.  I began to cut his neck knowing that he was waiting for an opportunity to break out and run away.  I wouldn’t let him.  He breathed with pain and slow wet blood covered the edge of the knive.  I kneed him in the gut and he doubled over.  I stood over him and began to cut the back of his neck lightly.  It would be slow work.  I made it so that it was slow.  The sun was high in the sky and was no cooler in the shade than under it.  Sand blow at our feet.  The breeze was teasing.  Blood ran to the ground.  It dripped down from Ricardo’s body.  An Eagle flew overhead. 

“You make it easy for me.  It’s as if you want to die.”  I could not imagine that he would be sorry for what he had done and I spared him no forgiveness.  This was a day to kill.  This was my day.  After the killing had been done I would go back home and grieve then after the grieving I would go back to work.  I had not forgotten the feeling of that day.  The memory lay within the senses of touch and sound.  I muffled his screams while I dug that knive into him.  At the end I was covered in blood but I did not mind.  It was simple revenge one life for another.  He had robbed me of my heart and I could not cry over him.  I could not care less for what the authorities would think about it.  They had failed in their duty but I promised that I would not in mine.  His body was covered in sand.  At night the heat remained only cooling off later on.  I drank a bottle of whiskey and laid into a deep sleep.  I had no dreams.

My Ideal Library

My ideal library would be a private one located in a warm country like Spain.  It would be built on the side of a mountain and would house an enormous amount of books.  There would be large windows overlooking the sea or a river and ladders on castors to reach the top of the bookcases.  There would be large tables and sturdy chairs for writing, as well as deep seated comfortable chairs for reading, and it would be well lit.  Drinking water would be at hand constantly and a kitchen would be nearby but food would not be allowed into the library itself.  The library would be sloped and there would be spiral staircases leading to the top sections and levels.  There would be cool shady areas and warm sunlit areas.  There would be a roof garden full of pungent flowers and a chaise-long under a umbrella overlooking the countryside.  There would be a bird house containing tropical birds of many varieties.
  It would be planned and designed by me while enlisting the help of expert builders and craftsmen to bring a polished beauty to house my collection of books. 
  I would spend my time arranging and re-arranging the books to my every whim.  I would periodically invite a writer to come and look at my books and to talk about their work they would be currently writing.
  This is a basic idea and I may well come back to it and elaborate in detail at a later date.  It is, for now, an imaginary place but hopefully one that will become less so over time.   

Broad-Ways

 

I am Broad in many Ways

It’s how I want to spend my days

It is more than a passing phase

Theatre is what I want to make

Writer, actor, any role I’ll take

Any mold I’ll break

Worker for four years

And maybe a fifth soon

To say it gives me pleasure

Understatement.  Over the moon

I’ve worked with presidents

Adam the founder, great actor, learnt a lot

The second put us in the bandstand in winter, fuck you Scott

Gemma worked as several women

And Sab who gave as much as he was given

Each facing current fears

Leaving will give me cause for tears

Cut me, find the society in my blood

Where the best ideas start in a pub

So hip-hip to the Broad-Ways

Let it continue for as many days

Father Figures

ACT I

Scene 1

ANT MILES and STEPH COLE are at a door.  ANT rings the doorbell.

steph:

I have to say this is good of you, you know how I rate him, Peter Offenbach, the great novelist of ideas.  I can't believe you've grown up to become one of his friends
ANT:

yes, there are many perks to being a novelist

STEPH:

successful one at that.  Do you think he would care about you if you were a failure?

ANT:

always the contraian, but you better drop that act, as genuine as it is, today.  I don't want anything to spoil my friendship with Peter

STEPH:

I know my place

ANT:

I'm sure you must have read Richard Park's article about the evil of America.  He really has a chip on his shoulder, but he's your friend, your mentor, what do you think?

STEPH:

he's always held a grudge against America ever since his study, 'Eastern Exercise', of the Middle East but, yes, he has outdone himself.  He's always been a complex person, that's why we get on

The door is answered by PETER OFFENBACH with a newspaper in his hand.

peter:

Ant, very nice to see you, I've just put some coffee on, come in, I believe I've not met your friend

ANT:

you would have heard about him, this is Stephen Cole

PETER:

ah, the polemiscist friend from Oxford, yes I have read a few of your articles.  You're making quite an impression

STEPH:

that's nothing to the impression you've made on me

They shake hands.

PETER:

well it seems on both ends it is a pleasure

They go into the living room.  ANT takes a seat like it's his childhood home.  STEPH takes a look at the bookcase.

PETER:

I'll just go and get it

Exit PETER

STEPH:

well, well, here I am, in Peter Offenbach's living room.  And his prize possessions, his books, look he has a copy of everyone of his books.  There's 'Goldsmith, Retired', 'The Luck' and 'Common Ancestary'.  It's amazing

ANT:

yes, one would like to meet any number of writers, Doestoiesky, Dickens, but to meet a living writer...

STEPH:

particularly one so great

ANT:

...particularly, it is an enormous good fortune of being born at the right time

Enter PETER with a tray full of coffee stuff

PETER:

here we are, what time is it?  Just after five, well, I think I'll find a drop of whiskey, would you care?

ANT:

you know what drinking goes on in our Friday lunches

PETER:

what with Hilton, the critic, and Kensington, the poet?

ANT:

and Steph, the polemicist

PETER goes to the sidedraw to get the whiskey and then puts a drop in each of the cups

PETER:

you too?

STEPH:

yes, been having these Friday lunches since our graduate days.  It's a regular fixture

ANT:

well it was until you left for America

STEPH:

yes

PETER:

how do you like it, may I call you Steph?

STEPH:

(touched)  yes, you may.  Washington I like better than London.  I was bored in London

ANT:

so naturally he's bored with life

STEPH:

that may have been true in Samuel Johnson's day but now in the International world there's always something better in someone else's back yard.  The writers are better too.

PETER:

(laughs) of course

ANT:

now come on, we have J.G. Ballad, Harold Pinter...

STEPH:

yes but America has Gore Vidal, Philip Roth, John Cheever

PETER:

let's not start a fight, but then if you are going to than literature is a perfectly good battleground.  I actually prefer Indian writers, Rabinath Tagore is one of my favourite poets, I take a lot of inspiration from him

STEPH:

yes, I've noticed.  In your 'Garden of Two Swords' there is a lyrical robustness that usually springs from hot countries

PETER:

yes poetry that can do battle

STEPH:

but in 'The Crying Stone' you take a different tack, still concerned with ideas but is fluid in execution

PETER:

yes, my Buddist phase

STEPH:

I can see that you are interested in meditation but, tell me, do you practise it yourself?

PETER:

I have tried, but it is usually unsatisfactory as you have to empty your mind, well I don't want my mind emptied, I want it to be filled with interesting thoughts

ANT:

yes, an empty mind for Peter is a tragedy

PETER:

I read 'Mrs Samson's Lot' recently by the way Ant and I liked it very much, it's very much grounded in the here and now

ANT:

thank you, I tried my best.  I might go into a different direction

STEPH:

he wants to be the next Agatha Cristie, except that you're rooting for the criminal to get away with it

PETER:

you do know how to do the perverse with exactitude

ANT:

it is my forte.  And you, you must be ready to publish a new by now

PETER:

yes, I've nearly finished it, I'm rather pleased, would you care to take a glance at it?

ANT:

why certainly

Exit PETER

STEPH:

you get to see the old master's work before it's published?

ANT:

why yes, Steph, yes I do.  We're good friends, Peter and I, he looks after me well

Enter PETER

PETER:

well here it is

Goes to give it to ANT but stops

PETER:

actually, Steph, would you like to have first look?

STEPH:

first look?  Me?

PETER:

yes, go on

PETER gives the manuscript to STEPH

STEPH:

(reading)  'The Wailing Tenament'

PETER:

yes, have you ever thought of writing a novel Steph?

STEPH:

what?  Me?  No, I'm an essayist, I don't have the musical instinct to allow me to write such sentences as these

PETER:

oh Ant, I was meant to show you an article I found most interesting, it's an anti-American piece by Richard Parks

STEP stops and looks up, frozen with horror.  ANT becomes tense.

PETER:

have you read it?  It's completely mad, Richard has gone entirely off his rocker.  It's so one-sided that it's hard to believe its come from what used to be a respected scholar.  What he used to write was excellent, now it's worse than garbage.  Eh?  (laughs)

STEPH:

he's not mad

PETER:

sorry?

STEPH:

he's not off his rocker and he actually makes some rather good points

PETER:

you have to be joking

ANT:

Steph...

STEPH:

he still is a respected scholar, he's seeing a world in trouble and he's doing something about it.  He's making arguments, causing a stir, getting a debate going, because its badly needed

PETER:

how can you defend him?  Do you know him?

STEPH:

that's not important

PETER:

but it has its place

ANT:

please...

STEPH:

I am capable of developing my own independant thought

ANT:

indeed he often spoils a friendship for the sake of argument

PETER:

and you think he 'makes some good points'?  Does he not see that America creates wonderful culture?

STEPH:

it's the foregin policy that gets him, it's the imposing American culture onto other countries

PETER:

isn't that a good thing?  You said yourself that America has the best literature

STEPH:

doesn't give you polictical authority, even the Nazis listened to Mozart

ANT:

oh God...

PETER:

are you comparing Americans to Nazis?  You, sir, have offened me by such a crude comparision.  I think you should leave

ANT:

oh Peter, that's his job, to offend and he likes to bring his work home

PETER opens the door and ANT and STEPH reluctatnly walk out.  The door closes and PETER exits.

ANT:

did you have to do that?  Did you really?  After what I said?  You were always like this, always bitterly defending your position, you couldn't let it drop or slide you always have to attack, attack, attack!  God, you are infurienating.  To pick an argument with Peter Offenbach of all people.  He said I was pervese but you're an equal match

STEPH:

Richard did not deserve those comments, yes he's spikey but its well placed.  It keeps people from going soft.  I had to defend Richard whose 'Eastern Exercise' is still the classic text on the Middle East, he's just become slightly eccentric but he's no less the razor sharp mind that he always was

ANT:

you will always defend Richard no matter how ridculous his proposals.  It's because you've always looked up to him, you always needed him to hold your hand

STEPH:

at least he is politcally active unlike Peter

ANT:

what about Peter?

STEPH:

he's locked away in his fantasy worlds, he doesn't want to engage with the active world

ANT:

what about 'Mammon Created' wasn't that political?  Not all novelists have to be politcally active, some are dedicated to their art

STEPH:

providing dictators something to boast about

ANT:

oh enough, just enough Steph.  You always take it too far.  Learn when to stop, for God's sake.  Are you going to get a cab?

STEPH:

no I'll walk

STEPH exits, leaving ANT frustrated and exasarbated realeasing a small cry expressing this.

Foreign Film

I love foreign film but if you are new to it then here is a brief introduction to some of my favourites.

You can't go too wrong if you start with the Russians.  I'd recommend 'The Man With the Movie Camera' not just to foreign cinema but to to cinema itself.  Made at a time when people were experimenting with the new technology it shows a series of experiments displaying what can be done with film.  There is Sergei Eisenstein with his montages in films such as 'October', about the October Revolution and using people who were actually part of the historical event, and the ever classic 'Battleship Potemkin', although he can be difficult to understand if you are not au fai with Russian History.  Another Russian from much later in history shuns the montage technique for long, long slow shots and he is Andrei Tarvosky.  Making a number of great perfectionist films and delving into different genres to subvert them for his own purposes.  Meditating on God and Art his films meander and wander in a lost world with his characters struggling with spiritual matters.  But which film to start with?  I maintain that his best film is 'Ivan's Childhood' about a boy spy who has to grow up fast in a warring country as it has all the best elements of Tarvosky's work.  If you don't want any plot at all then watch 'Mirror' as that is more about the sensual direction of film elements and evokes memories you don't remember having.  'Stalker' is a great film about gaining access to a forbidden land in order to find a fabled 'wish granter' and is deeply strange.  'Solaris' is his one of his more plot driven films about the delusion of love aboard a space station.  'Nostalgia' was made when his output was less than perfect but still this is an intriguing film about homesickness and religious devotion.  With 'Sacrifice' I misunderstood the premise as I thought the main character was debating weather to sacrifice his life so as to save his country from a nuclear strike, it sort of is the premise but not exactly, this one is a bit like 'Nostalgia' as it is not as perfect as his other films but still worth a watch.  'Andrei Rublev'  is a film I regularly forget he has made possibly because each scene dissolves into your consciousness like an ice cube in hot water, an utterly amazing experience shot in wonderful black and white.
  Robert Bresson is a film-maker who had influenced Tarvosky and you can see why.  Bresson's character's are involved in spiritual dilemmas and are filmed with austerity, constriction.  He used non-professional actors and taught them to read their lines in a certain monotone way, to him they were not actors but models.  'L'argent' was the first Bresson film I watched and it is one of his best, the depths of depravity that the innocently arrested man goes to is harrowing and gut wrenching.  Equally dispiriting is 'The Devil, Probably' about a young man who is psychologically troubled by the modern world and looks for spiritual direction from his friends and psychiatrists.  'Lancelot Du Lac' is okay but because it is set in a medieval world I think it works less well than when Bresson sets his stories in contemporary France due to his alienating method.  Before 'Shawshank Redemption' there was 'A Man Escaped' about a man spending his life in prison plotting to escape through slow work, the DVD skipped at the end for me so I still don't know if he got out alive or not.  'Diary of a Country Priest' is as good and if not better than 'L'argent' only this has a more optimistic feel to it though it is still quite tough, this was made while Bresson was still developing his restricted style so the models have a bit of emotion to them.  Another Frenchman worth looking at is Jean Renoir, son of the famous painter, who made 'The Rules of the Game' and 'The Grand Illusion'.  'The Rules of the Game' is a comedy/tragedy about the class of rich people with their servants in the country containing some beautiful moments and wonderful poetry.  'The Grand Illusion' is the French 'Great Escape' but being French involves some philosophy about how though the prisoners dream of freedom they will never be free even in peacetime.
  It would be difficult to make a list of foreign film without the Swedish Ingmar Bergman, but where to start?  A good place would be 'Winter Light' as it is a short simple film with huge depth concerning the loss of a priest's faith in God.  'Wild Strawberries' is a lovely bitter-sweet film about a father travelling with his daughter and looking back on his life.  'The Seventh Seal' is of course the most classic of classic films with the extremely famous scene of the main character playing chess with Death.  'The Hour of the Wolf' is a harrowing look at a tormented artist and his long suffering wife.  'Shame' is even more harrowing dealing with a relationship during war trying to cope with the tensions and pressures that it produces.  'Persona' is a delve into an ill woman and her nurse's pysche and 'Smiles of a Summer Night' is that rarest of things a Bergman comedy.
  Moving to Italy and Michelangelo Antonioni is a top recommendation with his loose trilogy 'L'avventura ', 'La Notte' and  'L'eclisse'.  The first is about a woman who goes missing and then slowly becomes forgotten, the second about the deterioration of a couple's relationship and the third is about a writer who is unhappy with his life.  His films are wonderfully photographed and enigmatic.  'Red Desert' is about a woman trying to raise her child against the corruption of the modern world and 'The Passenger' shows Jack Nicholson as a man who takes the identity of an arms dealer.  Though not strictly a foreign film 'Blow Up' does deserve a mention as it was made in England during the '60s and is beautiful look at shallow counter culturalism.  My second Italian you should check out is Ferdinando Fellini and his film '8 1/2' about making films.  It is one of my all time favourite films that in a time of cinematic seriousness pokes fun at the business in a life enhancing and, at times, touching way.  Then there is 'La Dolce Vita' which to me is quite boring but does have some astounding moments that makes it just about worth while.     
  So there you have it a quick introduction to some of the best foreign film for you to look up and watch with pleasure.

Greek Influence

ACT I

Scene 1

Figment:

There's a guy, called Sisyphus.  He was Greek and he was bad so when he died he crossed the river Styx after paying the ferryman, and came to Hades.  He was punished for what he did.  His punishment was to push a boulder up a mountain until it got to the top where it would do nothing else but roll back down to the bottom.  Every day he had to do this and this was eternal.  Boulder pushers, that's what we are, every day inching the boulder up a little higher than the previous day, and every time we think we are finished we find we have to do it all over again and this is in the mortal realm.  Perhaps we are in Hades.  The punishment has to be eternal because what we do in life is so terrible that only torture should be our award.  Chasing the wind, that's all we do when it comes to meaning, pleasure, wisdom, wealth, all are acceptable answers to the pressing question.

A sax solo begins to play, softly, meandering.  Two spotlights appear.  FIGMENT steps into one.  CHOICE steps into another.

FIGMENT:

it's been a while, how've you been?

choice:

picky.  Unsatisfied.

FIGMENT:

now what's up?

CHOICE:

I dreamt that I was accused of being mentally ill.  I was saying what I thought was a reasonable argument when someone boldly said that I must have been under the strain of depression, or psychosis, or schizophrenia, or kleptomaniac, something that made me saying things that normal people wouldn't say.

FIGMENT:

It's too cliche to say no-one is normal.

CHOICE:

I'm normal.

FIGMENT:

who's to judge?

CHOICE:

it's the clear lights that unsettle.  You see everything too much.  Man cannot bear...

FIGMENT:

...too much reality.  I know it well.  Forget the source, some sort of party of some profoundness.  But reality is strange and getting stranger so maybe it is more accurate to say that man cannot bear to much strangeness.

CHOICE:

what is strange?  That our hearts never stop beating or our lungs never stop breathing?  I can't get excited over it.

FIGMENT:

what is astounding is not Adam's astonishment of being created but his lack of astonishment.

CHOICE:

He wasn't created with an imagination.

FIGMENT:

meaningless.  Newspapers are filled with terror, boring fear.  Ants work as soon as they are...hatched?  How are ants born?  I've never observed, but I know that they work from the first day.  They work in a group building a colony but it's not known if they ever truly understand what they are doing.  I can't trust an ant, that's why I never invite any to my house.

CHOICE:

Ants remind me of clocks, peculiar clocks that destroy time.

FIGMENT:

Ah yes...time.

Blackout.  Silence.

Scene 2

Lights.  Empty stage.  Soon COLOUR appears.

Colour:

time is hard when you wait.  You have to endure time when you are in anticipation.  Man is a prisoner in chains waiting for his moment to leave the room.  Time is eternal.

laughs.

COLOUR:

that's a good one.  Actually no-one knows.  It just goes on and on.  Some men contest that time is completely artificial while wearing two watches.  One analog, one digital.  Two types of time.  One going fast, one slow.  Time acts differently when you're being watched.  It's a performer trying to get a reaction.  A dancer moving with ease and complexity.  The sands drift down onto a beach where we are by the shore playing with seashells.  Burning sand is a setting of eternal punishment in a more well thought out system of Hell.  Pain stretches time as a person on a rack tied and pulled by both ends.  Time can be a form of punishment.

LUck(offstage):

tell them about Aaron.

COLOUR:

you tell them.  I'm tired.

LUCK enters.

LUCK:

Aaron was punished, first almost by hanging but he didn't care, he was damned and he loved it, eventually he was buried up to his neck and left to starve.  Presumably he died and was then punished for eternity for his many, many crimes.

COLOUR:

wasn't he your friend?

LUCK:

yes, all my friends are punished, it's why I love them.

COLOUR:

Love?  Oh dear...

HAPPY and JOY enter and shake LUCK and COLOUR's hands.

JOY:

We are so glad you brought it up.

happy:

We admire you, we really do.

JOY:

It's a skill we have.

COLOUR:

We've no time for you.

JOY:

No.  You were never able to create time.

LUCK:

one's a sociopath and one's a psychopath but I can never tell which is which.

HAPPY:

We never really liked you.

COLOUR:

Right.  I'm glad we got this cleared up.

JOY:

No pain?

LUCK:

No.  We have nothing to be punished for.

Exit LUCK and COLOUR.  A piano plays without technique but with feeling.

HAPPY:

pathological liars the pair of them.

JOY:

Yes, they know full well that they deserve to be tortured, I mean why shouldn't they be?

HAPPY:

If you were to prepare a punishment for them what would you choose.

JOY:

Present or eternal?

HAPPY:

Eternal of course.

JOY:

I think that when they die the should have to deal with every former self that they have created in their life.  They would be so divided and unhappy with themselves that chronic mental illness would be inevitable.  How about you?

HAPPY:

Lake of fire has always been a favourite of mine, traditional I am.

JOY:

I bet your married.

HAPPY:

Quite right, after all it is the normal thing to do.

JOY:

How many wives do you have?

HAPPY:

Enough, I think, to make me happy, but you never know, one more may do the trick.

JOY:

I'm married to myself, perfect companionship.  I did consider marrying a bridge, I mean after all you can depend on a bridge, makes a lot of sense really.

HAPPY:

If you always said the word love it would lose it's meaning.

They laugh long and hard.

JOY:

Law must govern love.

HAPPY:

Unquestionably.

JOY:

Glad you agree, if only we could convince them.

HAPPY:

agreed.

JOY:

I mean democratic absolutely consenting love is far too much to ask for, particularly with the people we deal with.

HAPPY:

Yes, it might be born of poverty and pleasure but no one is asking it to perform miracles.

JOY:

Funny you mention it but I do believe in miracles.

HAPPY:

Well everyone has their flaws, I can't blame you.

Enter SAFETY.

safety:

Sorry I'm late, the most terrific thing has just happened, I've fallen in love.

JOY:

Ah, wonderful, come with us we'll let you in on a little secret.  It's about God.

Scene 3

GLASS:

So I'm on my own.  Not completely on my own obviously.  God is with me.  I don't know if I'm chasing God or if they are chasing me.  Are God the villain or are they not?  I walk on staircases and then onto walls.  I open a door.  There's a corridor.  A door is at the end.  There are stairs leading down.  Another door on the floor, another corridor.  Door at the end.  It's in black and white and it's shot in slow detail.  I think it's great.  The dream is so real and it's beautiful.  It's what I imagine Heaven to be like.  I'm thankful that it was created.  God is a wonderful creator.  God offers you an experience of the senses, wonderful tingling senses that can feel piercing pain and exotic pleasure and you can feel confusion about how it all came about, embrace that confusion, God wanted you to.  God gets what God wants so God help us all. 

Enter TRYST.

tryst:

From what I've heard God is dead, we murdered him.

GLASS:

Yes, old news.

TRYST:

Aren't you sad?

GLASS:

God feels no pain.  There is no punishment for the Eternal.

TRYST:

We are God's punishment.

GLASS:

Can we still be friends?

TRYST:

We can try.

Scene 4

KING:

There I was finally on stage, they were staring, they were waiting, it was time to perform my joke.  I'd been preparing this joke for months.  I worded it, re-worded it, cut it, polished it to a standard that I thought to be good.  I was nervous.  The last joke I performed killed a man.  I only ever perform one joke in an evening.  It's an art that I have tried to perfect because I believe that if you are anything of a decent comedian you should be able to satisfy in one single go.  I start to sweat, only a little, the lights are hot, they remind me of the sun, I think that although I have seen the sun often and don't really think I know what the sun is, then there is light and I realise that I'm being distracted, I concentrate, I started the race and begun talking.  It started off well, so I kept going, kept at it, running as hard as I could.  I despise the audience.  It's my hatred of them that keeps me going for the joke is not only a long joke but an offensive one as well.  That's what I go for, a sharp stick in the eye of the cyclopes because that is how I think of the audience, of people in general.  Their tyrants.  Who could control anothers' life?  Who is born to rule?  The joke is still going on, more and more sentences pile on each other and I keep going.  To think that somebody is out to kill me.  I kept getting death threats from this one person.  They give me a date for my death and then when the date is past I get a letter saying how sorry they are that they did not kill like they said they would only such and such thing occurred and got in the way of my plans.  This happens often, so I'm not worried tonight as I perform my joke.  It's going well, I haven't stumbled or hesitated, just smooth continuous prose tumbling from my mouth.  The punchline is up ahead, I'm running like a Centaur after some lust and I see the finishing line in sight.  Then as I get to my last words someone in the front row reveals the barrel of a gun.  I got out like a light.

CUBE screams.

Scene Five

cube:

All of my family have died.  They died because I thought about it too much.  Morbid, they would say to me, you're all so bloody morbid.  I was there by all of their deathbeds.  Agonizing death each one.  I heard their screams.  I was like one of Job's friends, comforting, consolidating even when I didn't believe in what I was saying.  I pushed falsity into the laps of my family and the weight of guilt I now feel is overwhelming.  I've got to continue, to marry, to have children, passing on the successful genes.  I couldn't kill myself.  That would be against the will of the world, right?  I laugh in my sadness but it is a fake laugh.  I wonder what punishments they will be given as the earth reclaims their bodies, no longer occupied by their souls.  Is the soul a bird that flies out through death?  I have often thought so but I am now a little unsure.  The soul, if it is like anything, would have to be like mud getting a body stuck into it so it can cling and survive.  The light of the body is not the soul but the mind, the imagination capable of imagining a soul so powerfully.  I feel that I am ready to die.

FIGMENT and COLOUR enter.

FIGMENT:

What coffin would you like?  Wood, steel, Fiber optic or plastic?

COLOUR:

You don't have to be buried you can be burnt.

CUBE:

Or eaten.

FIGMENT:

Really we live in arrogant choice.

CUBE:

Maybe I'll flip a coin.

COLOUR:

Or ask a starfish.

FIGMENT:

Blow up a building.

COLOUR:

You can take an item of arrogant choice with you.

CUBE:

What could I possibly choose that would forever mean something to me?  After a while everything loses its meaning.  Semantic entropy.

FIGMENT:

As if you know what that means.

CUBE:

It's true not all meaning is present at the beginning.

FIGMENT:

I've picked out the perfect place for you to be buried.

COLOUR:

I've picked out the perfect place for you to be scattered.

CUBE:

I've picked out the animal I will be eaten by.

FIGMENT:

I'm sure we can talk about it, discuss it, at great length, after all we do have the rest of our lives to life as much as that scares us.

Scene Six

Enter JOY and CHOICE.

JOY:

I play a lot of tennis, something about competition that fires me up, knowing that somebody is about to lose.

CHOICE:

I've played against you but it was a tie.

JOY:

More training for the both of us.

CHOICE:

We always fight, can't help that.

JOY:

Sport is a type of war, acceptable but nothing is as great as real war.

CHOICE:

Blood on blood, shot tears and exploded hopes.

JOY:

I was in war.  I was a hero.  I was awarded medals for killing people, people we would have normally been kind to had it not been luckily for our leaders who decide to risk the lives of the young generation.  I had friends who died.  I don't think much about it now.  Another country.

CHOICE:

Fighting is essential.  We need the excitement.  I'm geared up for a war that I know will never come.  We're all too peaceful now, too humane, I'll never be able to grieve for my friends, my colleges, my lovers, I'll just die through boredom like everyone else.  Die young or face the living death.  That is a sort of punishment.

Scene Seven

Figment enters skipping with a skipping rope.

FIGMENT:

I knew a man who played on the harmonica.  He played a few tunes and asked me how long I thought he had been playing for.  I said "30 years?".  He said "No, three weeks".  I was astounded.  "How did you learn to play so well so quickly?" I asked, "Videos on the internet" he said.  He taught himself to play with self-help videos.  Anyone can learn to do anything nowadays.  You just need the will to do it.  If you want to do it badly enough than you will.  You might still be fucking shit at it but then you can't teach talent.  It's unfair that some people have all of the talent and end up in positions telling us what to do despite the fact that they might not have the moral authority to do so.  I believe I am born with a certain amount of moral talent.  I can tell what is good and what is bad.  I am a sort of King Solomon.  I give the child to the woman who doesn't want to cut them in half, but I wish I could do the opposite.  I don't wish to do good it's just what I do.  I am just, but God how I wish I was otherwise.  No-body cares for Justice, not even me, but we all want our own particular justice for ourselves and the people we love.  No one can care for the justice of a country.  It doesn't mean anything.  And the justice of a planet?  Forget it...We are only as good as the choices we make.  Luckily I make mistakes.

Joy and Glass come on with boxing gloves.  FIGMENT skips off.

JOY:

now it's easy to make statements of things larger than yourself, such as 'the earth is burning', or 'let the markets decide' but really what do you know of larger things?  You're trapped in your head and you only really know yourself and even then the mind is mysterious, we're only beginning to understand what goes on in that ivory box.  Of course we can do tests and conduct experiments and this all builds up a picture of our contexts.  Even still people claim to know more than they do, but I am not afraid to admit my ignorance.  I don't know what Keynesian economics is and I don't know why the watchman is blind and I don't understand why the weather forecasts are so technical.  I try to learn but I can only know so much, yet there are many important decisions to make.  What do you think?

GLASS punches JOY.

GLASS:

My dream is to build a labyrinth and use it to cure people of conspiracy theories.  Worried about the Georgia Stones?  Fearing chem trails, false flag operations and fluoridation?  Then come to 'Rational World' the purging of poisonous world views.  It's a type of therapy and entertainment combined.  The labyrinth, as espoused by modern authors deprived of the Nobel Prize, is a symbol of the world in all it's complexities, falsities and delusions, and it brings you face to face with the reality of life.  It's a God game played by people thinking their God spies.  There would be a number of challenges to confront the patient's theories and by the time they reach the centre their beliefs will be cast aside by evidence, logical thinking and rational argument.  After which they may be able to continue with live living more constructively and more healthy.  I would build this knowing that most customers would not be cured.  Rational argument does nothing to concrete faith.  People believe what confirms in them their own importance.  A person who believes that terrorists are personally out there to kill them are more likely to be suffering from loneliness and neglect.  It's a comfort to believe that somebody cares enough about you to harm you.  Mostly nothing happens.  What seems like an eventual history is nothing more than long stretches of boredom punctuated by stand alone events.  Conspiracy is just a way to cope with the indifferent world, an apathetic humanity.  The universe doesn't cry for you, at least you have tears and you can cry and think upon the absurdity of life.  It is, after all, a product of an evolving world to bring about a sentence such as 'the absurd can strike you around any corner'and yet such a product is a reward that you possess.  It's treasure that costs only effort of thought and imagination.

JOY:

yes, the only thing we can be certain about is our uncertainty.  We can strive for cultivation, knowledge, peace, though they might not all go in the same direction, and it is because of it's difficulty to gain this that makes us live.  Not being satisfied keeps the fires burning, even if it does burn up the whole Goddess, the earth.

GLASS:

We could be the last of our kind to understand profound statements regarding the world.

JOY:

We could be killed.

GLASS:

what a time to be alive, if only briefly.

JOY:

life is learning how to spend your time.

GLASS:

shall we make love?

JOY:

and in an apocalypse of ecstasy I will achieve orgasm in the death of the world.

Scene Eight

LUCK is standing on a chair with a megaphone.

LUCK:

Give me sex!  I need sex!  Sex, sex, sex!

LUCK puts the megaphone away from her mouth.

LUCK:

Oh I've had many lovers but I need many more.  I want to have sex with every man so that I can know for sure who is the greatest lover.  It's a serious hobby.  I want only the best and why not?  Isn't great sex the only purpose for living?  Many people don't understand me but then I think most people don't understand about living.  It's not about education merely reflection.  People don't take time to think about life.  They rush.  I discovered my calling while I was in a nunnery playing a nun.  I would pray and worship and fast and read the Bible, but while I was there I couldn't bring myself to really believe in God.  I knew I was missing something and I couldn't really go through with the mortgage, marriage, car and kids route as conventional as it is.  Then in the nunnery a man appeared, a visiting monk, a special monk who was only allowed in because he was so handsome.  When I saw him I knew what I needed and I was determined to have sex with him.  Unfortunately he really did believe in God and was devoutly celibate, so I left.  To this day I think he would have been the best sex I could have had and I mourn my loss.  Still having sex is the best way to keep my mind off it.

Enter TRYST with a bigger chair.  He sits on it.  LUCK looks at him.  He looks at her.

LUCK:

Give me sex!  I need sex!  Sex, sex, sex!

TRYST snatches the megaphone away from her.  LUCK slaps him and storms off.  CUBE enters and sits at the feet of TRYST.

cube:

let me serve you.

TRYST:

are you a good servant?

CUBE:

yes, I will do anything for you.

TRYST:

do you like being punished?

CUBE:

If you were to do the punishing I would.

TRYST:

then we have an agreement, sign here.

CUBE signs a paper.

TRYST:

then what I require of you is to sit here.

CUBE:

yes, my lord.

TRYST:

let me sit at your feet.

CUBE:

yes, my lord.

TRYST:

You are now responsible for ruling.  I don't want to think anymore.

CUBE:

but lord, I don't know how to think.

TRYST:

it's easier that way.

HAPPY enters with a gun and shoots TRYST and CUBE.

HAPPY:

I'm not good with endings.  Shouldn't been given this job.  Oh well.  Nobody can choose their end.  I mean you can but you shouldn't.  Or you should.  What I mean is it's difficult to get it right.  It either happens too early or it is very messy or humiliating.  I don't know what I'm doing.  Just make it through life until I can't anymore.  I've been given a gift even though I can't decipher it's message.  Oh well.  I was arguing with my friends in a cafe in the city.  I was talking about how gardening can rescue the doomed world.  They said I was talking nonsense.  Nuclear weapons is what we need they said.  I need flowers.  I need the animal life of insects.  I need the smell of overpowering oh I don't know what.  Concrete is what I hate more than all the wars the torture by democratically elected leaders the suicides.  I hate concrete.  It is a deep hatred that has informed my character more than any Oedipus or Electra complex, more than any mythological archetype or cognitive breakdown.  I have to deal with this hatred that does not go away and does not soften.  I've been to countless psychiatric all trying to persuade me of the goodness of concrete but I can't see it.  I am fundamentally opposed to it and am at odds with the rest of my country.  I dream of deserts and I believe that in the great sands I could create a magnificent garden to outshine all gardens and in it I would then be happy.  We all try to get back to our original Eden, our paradise dictatorship, but we struggle, we struggle.  All I can end with is my personal wish.  I don't know what to believe in but I can hope in a garden.  I don't know maybe that might be enough.  Maybe, finally maybe, we may even be rewarded.

All characters enter and stand behind Happy while he is talking.  They begin to clap.

THE END.