version 11.1 / 10 October, 2018
DEATH AND UTOPIA (aka The Young Pioneers)
John Nankin
johnnankin@gmail.com
Upstage, facing audience, the two Young Pioneers, seated at small tables.
6 brightly painted soapbox carts hang against the 3 walls of the stage at various heights and angles. A seventh cart hangs centre stage above a hatch.
Blackout. Low dawn light. The hatch slowly lifts and The Man's head tentatively emerges. He has a counter bell attached to the crown of his head.
(man rings the BELL)
Man
I was born in Nineteen Hundred and Forty Seven...
more than 70 years ago.
Friday the 13th. Never a good day on which to launch a vessel, or embark on a voyage.
I have seen snapshots taken at the event of my conception...
A picnic basket and rug. My mother in shorts on the mountainside. A lop sided grin. Behind her, an extra-ordinary sky, flecked with mackerel backs and mare's tails.
Perhaps I would not exist, if not for this romantic sunset caused by fallout from the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the atomic bombs Fat Man and Little Boy.
I have been told that at the moment of insemination,
a green light flashed across the horizon, and as
a consequence of this cosmic premature ejaculation,
I was born three and half years too soon.
My life thus overlapped that of the famous philosopher
Ludwig Wittgenstein, who died in 1951.
This was a fuck up! It was not meant to be!
Of those Wittgenstein years, I retain no memory
It is as if, at the moment (BELL) of his death, I was re-born from a complete amnesia.
Nolutho and Damon (the Young Pioneeers) (mid-stage, to the front)
When we speak about the future
we speak about a planetary humanism
we speak about compassion
we speak about connection
We will banish the toxicity
of cast and identity
Man
I live in the house next door to the house next door.
It was as if the two houses had once been
a single symmetrical dwelling, later dragged apart
leaving a narrow open gap, without walls,
across which the two gaping interiors face each other.
A man and a woman live in the house next door, with
two children, a boy and a girl, I believe , although I hardly ever see them.
Their house is well furnished.
My house, the house in which I live, is almost barren. A mattress, bare boards, a few books, and a flattened typewriter hanging off a 6" nail on the wall.
(Damon knocks three times)
It is in the nature of this kind of arrangement that one tries to be discreet, one doesn't stare, except perhaps when it is safe to exercise natural curiosity.
(Damon : pulls cord that slides GREEN CART into position)
Man (continued)
I look into the open side of their house. It seems nobody
is at home (to audience), then I hear a noise and turn away too slowly. Someone, perhaps the mother, enters the room. Should I greet, or avert my gaze? The husband, the man called Frank, is my benefactor.
Am I equally indebted to his wife? Are we allowed to be friends... at what point would our distant relationship transgress the barriers of suburban intimacy?
You see, I was at times conscious of a commotion from somewhere behind The House Next Door.
After weeks of hearing this distant banging and thumping,
I realised with shock that I had been aware for some time that the woman's face appeared to be badly bruised.
Man (cont)
What had seemed an over-enthusiastic application of make up was in fact a patterned accumulation of contusions.
It was clear to me that I had been suppressing any response, because Frank had provided me this haven.
I realised that in attempting to avoid making things worse I had corruptly implicated myself.
Damon (D & M mid-stage)
we desire
a world of joy
a world of warmth
a world of human decency
(Man lifts two bricks out of hatch)
Nolutho
A future that will be generous and loving
We will be aware at every moment
of what we think, feel, desire and do.
Man (BELL, climbs out of hatch)
I have read that young Wittgenstein studied engineering
and happened to be attending a court case,
where to demonstrate the complex circumstances of an accident, orderlies set up (demonstrates with two bricks)realistic models of a tree and an automobile,
which the judge explained
would represent the real tree and the real automobile.
Wittgenstein was supposedly inspired by this event to
pursue the idea that propositions function as models of the real world.
Man (standing on bricks)
Years later at the (BELL)moment of his death, I was holding my mother's hand, about to step off the pavement.
We would have heard the approach of a large car and the explosion as it crashed into a tree on the opposite pavement
This was the (BELL)moment of my re-birth as a neophyte in a three-and-a-half year-old body, thrust, without memory or experience, into a world which refused to make sense.
A fly , buzzing around in an open jar, determined to escape yet unsure of survival in the world outside.
Nolutho (mid-stage)
In the future there will be less work and more play
(Man goes to close hatch, suddenly remembers)
Man
I have always tried to remember the number plate punched in reverse into the bark of that tree.
(MAN closes hatch, places 2 bricks upright as doorway , sits on pile of bricks)
Nolutho
We recognise that children are highly creative
We will all be like children in an age of leisure
Damon
In the future we will not be tied by ownership -
all technological devices will be available
for the use of everyone.
Nolutho (whimsical)
we will control the climate
we will control night and day
Damon and Nolutho
We will only eat and sleep when necessary.
We will communicate with our eyes
we will create a society
that recognises animals as sentient beings
deserving of our kindness
Man
Of the early post-Wittgenstein Years, I remember only childish troubles in the house next door to the house next door.
(Meanwhile the BABY BLUE CART is pulled into position)
Man (continued)
I remember the baby sitter - Molly- who locked me in a cupboard when I told her that my mother said she was just an old gossip.
I remember refusing to drink milk...I - still - hate - the- milk... like re-ingesting vomit ...and I refused to shit .... I just refused. I remember the apparatus, en-em-ma, a white enamelled jug, and a red india-rubber tube ... They hold you face down on the table and thrust the black bakelite nozzle into your arse. Then the hot water is forced up against the tide. I hated it.
(BELL)... I remember that the toilet at the house next door to the house next door overflowed. I was at home alone. I think I was alone...Sitting down. Peeing.
The water welled up...wet my bottom... followed me,
flowing over the rim, out of the bathroom, down the passage... it was quite deep. A flood!! ... somebody ... somebody... somebody (BELL) opened a hatch in the floor and it drained away.
Man
There was a space under those floorboards.
A low dark cellar , my mother's dolls and my pram....
I remember the smell, like Mushrooms! Wet earth and rot.
That's where I found my broken old bible.
(now holding his cane)
Nolutho (lit by her cell phone, front, conversational)
In the future
I plan to study
I want to travel
and work to make the world a better place
Damon (lit by his cell phone, front, conversational)
I want to contribute to the positive evolution of the planet
to be a real human being
a good human being
I want to be a whole human being
Man (BELL)
My grandmother told me that one day when Jesus eventually returned the Jewish people would recognise him as their long awaited Messiah...
I believed that quite possibly I might be this saviour.
In other words, I carried both the burden and the promise of resolving the ancient conflict. I really wanted to sort out the problem of access to heaven.
While wating for revelation, I practiced every day,
balancing a stick and walking from room to room,
reciting the The Lord's Prayer or Psalm 23...
Man (SINGS like tone deaf child)
“The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them high and lowly,
And ordered their estate.”
(possible continuation)
"all things bright and beautiful
all creatures great and small
all things wse and wonderful
the Lord God made them all"
If I stumbled, if I failed, I had to start again from the beginning, adding a handicap, like walking backwards, carrying a full glass of water, the bible balanced on my head
(Man replaces stick in brick. Places two bricks on floor, begins kicking bricks)
Damon (sitting, reading lamp turned)
there will be no coercion
there will be no trauma
Nolutho (sitting, reading lamp turned)
We will not discuss our personal problems.
We will not seduce others in order to control them
nor glory in the attention they bestow on us
Damon
We will not pass judgments
when we do not know all the facts.
We will not have useless friendships.
Man (on bricks as shoes, as if holding straps of satchel)
Hardly anybody spoke our home tongue.
Before I left for school my mother would remind me of the foreign words to use to anyone that said anything that i did not understand.
Then, as soon as I was around the corner,
I would take off my shoes, and hang them by the laces around my neck. Nobody wore shoes.
(holding bricks around his neck)
The streets were rough gravel, my feet hurt , and everybody laughed, but I could do it...
Because at school nobody ever spoke to me, not the children or the teachers. I couldn't understand their language. I was invisible.
Man (continued)
I was in love with a girl across the classroom. I watched her every day but she could only see me when she turned to speak to her friend. We never met. She didn't know.
One day, at break, I saw her with a crowd of children hooting and hollering at the edge of the gum forest. I went to join the fun.
(Damon BLACK CART ) (Nolotho, drum, Damon joins in later)
She was trying to climb out of the compost pit. As she reached the top , three or four boys would lean in and push her back to the bottom.
Her knees and elbows were scratched and bloody. Her shirt was covered in mud. She was crying but her face was fierce.
As she climbed up, an older boy leaned down and held out his hand to help her. He lifted her up high, then let go and she fell into the rotten leaves.
(Man walks backwards & places 2 bricks either side of hatch)
(Damon & Nolutho drumming, as band)
My mother knew that i was unhappy, she must have spoken to somebody, because I was invited to be drum major of the toy soldier band at the school concert.
(with stick again, twirling)
I practiced at home, everyday, with my grandfather's cane.
It was my job to lead the band of soldiers onto the stage. 1-2-3-4!
Man (continued)
I waited while they played, then had to lead them out, MARCH towards the audience and
SWING to the left and off behind the curtains.
(pause)
I could see the parents staring at me.
I knew that it was impossible - that I could not make the turn. I saw myself marching into space off the edge of the
stage, the cane spinning like a propeller. I asked God to help. I would do anything in return for a small miracle.
The cane was quite heavy, bamboo with a brass knob... as I turned .... it flew off on its own and smacked one of the parents in the face.
(stick high, head back)
I remember afterwards lying in a ditch at the edge of the sports field, vomiting watermelon pips
(man walks backwards, tapping stick which he places next to hatch. Bent over, he suddenly remembers...)
But my best memory is of the school holidays, I often waited at the end of the street with my bike for the milkman who let me ride the short distance back home on his horse drawn cart .
One day, according to my mother, I disappeared!
I arrived home very late in the afternoon. It was almost dark.
(Damon & Nolitho placing bricks)
She had been crying, her face was red, and she was very upset. I explained that I had spent the day helping the milkman.
We had ridden through many streets. We had stopped to feed the horse.
Man (continued)
I described the streets, the big houses with huge gardens and palm trees, many smaller houses, the flats near the station and the tin houses on narrow tracks across the railway line ...
(Damon & Nolutho have finished laying out bricks)
My mother was even more angry. She ordered me to bed. I had to stay in my bedroom, in school holidays, for two weeks, with the curtains closed.
So...I was forced at an early age to consider
the penalties and compromises afforded by
the pursuit of approval on the one hand
and freedom on the other.
(Man arranges buckets & cane to represent ship- all buckets used except the two holding confetti)
Damon and Nolutho (at back)
We will abolish democracy
we will manage societal affairs
without a parasitic class of politicians
There will be a general celebration of sexuality
a celebration of nakedness
Men
Women
and children
without any shame
it will be so beautiful
A heaven on earth
Nolutho
We will disolve all borders.There will be No Nationalism
No intellectual boundaries,
No gender boundaries
No borders that define
or restrict identity
Damon
In the future Greed
will be replaced
by the desire to share
We will do away with social aspiration
Nolutho
with better food, wave radiation nutrition,
human consciousness willl evolve a Hyper-Democracy
Damon, Nolutho
No Waste !!!
No Pollution !!!
Man (he has been sitting on bucket in front of carts for awhile)
Years later I suddenly remembered that I had invented the entire milkman episode as an alibi. I had forgotten the truth. (BELL)
Actually, the two children from the house next door, a bit bigger than me, tough, who spoke a little of my language, invited me over to play with my bike...
They tricked me into a small corrugated iron shed at the
back of their garden, and threatened that if I ever told anyone they would hold me down and shit in my face.
(Pause)
Then they bolted the door from the outside
and I heard the ticking wheels of my bike as they left...
It was hot in the shed. I panicked. I struggled for breath, I couldn't see properly. I lay down, shut my eyes, tried to pretend that I was at home.
Man (continued)
I could see the universe, we were flying through the darkness, all the stars, the planets and tiny atoms and myself, pulsing, connected by wisps of steam stretching thinner and thinner as we spun apart, until I could feel they gonna snap, and I would be a dead speck falling forever through infinity....
I awoke in terror. I was shivering.
I knew
that there was no heaven.
that one day we would all die,
That there was no God
that I was not Jesus
(BELL)
I was seven years old.
I heard a sound outside and when I tried the door, it opened. My bike was lying nearby. It was almost dark.
(BELL) (stands up)
I told you, my mother was frantic. She said that I had disappeared.
Damon and Nolutho (mid-stage)
The great corporate palaces will fall.
The enemies of humankind,
the oligarchs,
the potentates and compradors
will be banished and overthrown.
The planet earth
will cast into the flames all
that have abused its benevolence
(RED CART is pulled into position)
Man (BELL)
Benvolenus
(he stands with hand out , palm up, as if at school, trying to recite the declension)
Benevolent
Benevolentissimus
(winces, as if caned on the hand)
Benvolensior
(winces, again)
I remember days spent imagining the approach of the future or perhaps spinning a coin (he flicks thumb against finger, repeats, listens to the sound...)
"heads I stay... tails I go...."
I stood at the ship's rail looking across the docks at our city... which I don’t have time to now describe.
"all ashore that are going ashore/ all aboard that are staying aboard, all aboard....."
I stayed on board.
Nolutho
Time doesnt move
everything is happening
at exactly the same moment
and at every other moment
Man
As the ship began to ease away from its berth,
I emptied my pockets, some silver and bronze,
...dropped them one by one, overboard.
Watched the coins fall, hit the water, disappear.
I was leaving for ever! I would never return!
Man (continued)
The ship was full of passengers on holiday.
I hid for days , moving from toilet to toilet.
But ... they caught me... in mid ocean.
(stands up)
I declare myself a stateless person.
(Damon spreading red confetti)
Man (continued)
They transferred me via a motor lifeboat to a freighter heading back south.
It was a long climb up a rope ladder to the deck where the old captain told me that he hated people like me,
"Fucking Sponger, should be thrown to the Bloody Sharks".
I had to do it I said. I had to leave . Everyone was insane. They were driving me nuts.
The voyage home would take two weeks. I expected two years in prison, perhaps with hard labour. I had to be strong . I shaved my head and began to exercise..
And I learned to swim!
I had always believed that I was too thin to float... without buoyancy... all bone, no flesh.
I learned to swim in a round canvas sea water pool, attached to the deck, that moved steadily with the ship over the ocean towards our destination.
Damon (standing in the middle of area of red confetti)
Brain interfaces will enable our neural circuitry
to become the switching points for
mass algorythmic programs,
modulated by Artificial Intelligence
Man
It was very hot near the equator. He stood in the salt water, held his breath, sunk to the bottom, kicked, paddled... after a few days he observed that his body tended to float ... he could swim. He realised that when he swam across the pool towards the bow, that he was moving faster than the ship across the surface of the planet...
(stands up)
He imagined himself as a small creature, free, slippery as a greased pig, zigzagging underwater across the Red Sea, a twist of silver air connecting his head to the surface.
Damon
We will be like Gods
Man
I didn't do it.
(Damon and Nolutho moving the buckets)
(pause)I didn't do it.
(pause)I didn't do it.
Damon
We will be linked
into a global computing mind
Man (squatting)
I didn't do it.
Damon
A super computer
facilitated by Artificial Intelligence.
(moves last bucket)
Man (lying on his back)
The light was always on. The floor was white, the walls were white, and the roof was white. You cant see out, but they can see in.
Damon and Nolutho (mid-stage)
In an ideal future
we will control Artificial Intelligence.
Who ever controls
Artificial Intelligence
will control the design of the new world
Man (has rolled onto side)
The floor is padded, the walls are padded, the roof is padded. The canvas is hard, it has a sharp tooth , it can take your skin off... (SITS UP)
They take everything... you could be wood or sand or potato...
(BELL)
You know, it is very disturbing to be unable to hear anything from the outside.... (BELL)
I could - probably - only hear the ringing in my ears.
(STANDS)
Let's be sensible, do you think if the building caught fire in the middle of the night - would any of those people remember to unlock my door?
Damon (mid-stage)
Humans of advanced consiousness
will become aware of the relationship
with Artificial Intelligence
This will develop into
an appropriate new religion.
Man (squatting)
You dont know when you are being watched. They can see in, you can't see out.
I had to accept that they could destroy me...
I told them, life, people - the universe - can be One Dimensional. Like cardboard cut-outs . It depends on the point of view.
(pause)
The sentence lasts for a minute and then another minute.
(slowly, looking at the faces of audience members) One waits, ... another minute ...and another minute... and another minute ... and another minute ... and another mninute .... until one day, someone , somewhere, decides that it is over...
Damon (mid-stage)
Without a Future
Life makes No Sense!!
The future is a goal -
an idea that we work towards.
Prompt
I can't remember the details.
Man
I can't remember the details.
Nolutho
We are devoted to the liberty and glory of all
Prompt
Actually, I dont remember anything.
Man
Actually, I dont remember anything.
(steps back, becoming the bucketman)
Damon and Nolutho
We will never be chained to anything that can destroy us
we will transform rather than destroy
(Man squats and puts bucket over head)
Damon & Nolutho (continued)
we will not defend old ideas ,we will not cling to useless objects.We will not let our possessions define us,
we accept that nothing belongs to us
(Man stands, he has a bucket head, his feet are buckets, his hands are buckets)
Man
I was unexpectedly released on the morning of my twenty first birthday. (dragging buckets, 2 steps)
I arrived at the house next door to the house next door to find that they had organised a party for me (2 steps)
They had invited many of their friends, wellwishers, some of whom had known me as a child. (2 steps)
They had chosen presents for me. I tried to be grateful. (2 steps back)
Someone said they'd heard that I had been away for awhile (2 steps back).Someone said "you're really looking very well".
I didn’t really know any of them....
Damon and Nolutho (mid-stage)
The uprising will signal the beginning of our salvation
and the destruction of all inequality such as poverty
(Man squatting, places hand- & head-buckets on floor, grips handles of feet buckets)
malnutrition, disempowerment, enslavement and intellectual secrecy, all the engines of accumulation
that drive the toxic dependency on oil and plastic.
Man (staggers forward , bent double, clattering in buckets)
Man
At night I sit in the dark and watch the city through my reflection in the black glass of the window. The lights pierce my face.... houses full of people, empty skyscrapers, streams of traffic , ships at anchor in the bay.
If I move my head to the left an eye flares, if I move my head to the right the other eye flares.
Damon (mid-stage red side)
What we call love is manufactured in the synapses.
We carry an excess of dormant genes
and we will be able to switch these on and off
to change people
NOLUTHO
We regard as archaic the use of sexuality
to manufacture human beings.
We will be able to harvest and store sperm.
Men will become unneccesary,
and will be allowed to die off honourably
Man (steps forward) (Damon moves buckets onto bricks)
When he was dying in hospital
he realised that he had lost all interest
in the past, in History, in his own memories,
and in those moments of lost recall
that he thought of as
Stations of Absence,
Gaps.
Gaps of Amnesia, Anaesthesia
Emotional Upheaval
and other Victories and Defeats.
Man (continued)
You know
One (BELL)walks into a lamppost
(Nolutho beats drum at his ear)
or (BELL) is dragged out of the sea in a coma
(Nolutho , again)
One (BELL) feints
(Nolutho, again)
or (BELL) has some sort of fit
(Nolutho, again)
or (BELL) is pushed off a table
(Nolutho, again)
or (BELL) punched in the face.
(Nolutho, again)
I realised
That I had lost the ability to imagine
the future. My future ,
the future of the planet, any future.
(Man lies down, spreadeagled, head to audience)
Damon
Society will be manipulated
by direct wave transmissions
to eliminate Malevolent Mood Disorders
schizophrenia
depression
addiction and criminality
(D & N are laying out the buoys)
Nolutho
In this great androgenous age
we will live to 200 or 300 years.
We will have isolated all disease,
eliminated all cancer, controlled all pain.
Man
I woke up, somewhere, unable to move...
I could not remember my name.
I did not know who I was, or where I was.
I was not paralyzed
(Nolutho is spreading blue confetti )
Man (continued)
I could move my fingers.
But my legs... my arms... my head
Very bright light....
shapes .... mist...
a familiar smell. Disinfectant.
They said that i must hang on, that they will save me.
The treatment had been unsuccessful. My blood was bad, the prognosis poor, the apparatus faulty.
There'd been human error and I too was guilty, of wear and tear.
(Damon moves LIGHT GREEN CART to hover over red square)
Man (continued)
Memories returned in flashes, night, bright lights, a man crying, chaos, someone shouting...
I remembered scrabbling away from a car crash
I could not remember if I had been the driver
If there was another car involved
if anyone had a licence
if the car was stolen... if anyone had died...
I heard an old woman die in the ward... She was wailing, calling out, wanting something, someone.
I heard the nurse close the curtains around her bed. Someone said that she was having one of her tantrums.
Man (continued)
After about twenty minutes she stopped screaming and in the silence, running feet ... clattering down passageways, into the ward and whispers... tship...tshipppp tshipp tship tship tship....
Damon (mid)
Artificial Intelligence will allow us
a simulation of the best aspects of Human Life
We will be recognised as Creatures of Great Capacityand Previously Unimagined Possibilities
Man
I lay in hospital for weeks, watching the TV.
Cricket, Tennis, Surfing.
When i remembered my name, I kept it a secret...
and pretended that I could not walk,
until one day, when no one was looking,
(stands and steps forward)
I got out of bed and sneaked off home
(Damon moves YELLOW CART to hover over blue rectangle)
(Nolutho, playing violin)
Man (continued)
My mother was in bed as usual
Huge!!! Her bedclothes filled the small room
I didn't remember her this big.....
Ma!...
She was almost blind. I watched her hands scuttling for coins under the bedcover. I could hear the tinkle, I could hear her breathing
The consolation of these familiar repetitive gestures accompanied her to the end. (pause)
Or, perhaps... Without comfort, waiting, she endured, drifting painless into silence
Damon and Nolutho
The uprising will signal
the beginning of our salvation
and the destruction of all
inequality,
such as poverty
malnutrition,
disempowerment
enslavement
and intellectual secrecy,
All the engines of accumulation
that drive the toxic dependency on oil and plastic.
Man (BELL)
After many years of living in the house next door to the house next door, I realised that one day, perhaps at the very end of my life, I might regret having never
After many years of living in the house next door to the house next door, I realised that one day, perhaps at the very end of my life, I might regret having never
explored the interior of that house next door.
Damon (Nolutho on violin)
an age of utopia
will arise after
the very trees have risen to the heavens
in a great infection of fire
Man
I noticed that Frank left most mornings at about 7:30.
I assumed that he went to work, in an office, and that once at work he sat at a desk, wrote on a computer, talked on the phone, was helpful to his clients and superiors and kindly in dealing with his staff, and that he normally only left the office to visit a coffee bar or snack joint. This would be Frank's daily routine.
Damon (Nolutho on violin)
Vulgar notions
faint and superstitious lights,
dogmas deformed and monstrous,
the secondary qualities of matter,
attracting,
repelling,
thinning,
thickening,
expanding,
contracting...
(D & N will move Y & L-G CARTS to middle, during...)
MAN
Now, the pathway between the two houses, the house next door and the house next door to the house next door, was, or could be, unexpectedly long and meandering. We would never just step across the gap...
(BELL)
(D & N will move buckets to hang on hooks)
So, if I were to hear a knock on the door at about five
thirty pm, and the unexpected visitor turned out to be my neighbour Frank, I would immediately realise that
he had reached my threshold after a long journey that involved leaving the house next door in the morning, going by bus and train to work, completing his normal routine, leaving the office, and then journeying home, by train and bus followed by a short walk from the terminus.
In all the years that we were neighbours, we never really spoke to each other. I didn't visit Frank. Frank didn't visit me.
But one day, I hear giggling and chatter outside. There's a knock at the door.
Man (continued)
I peep. It is Frank, but apparently transformed into a younger man, stylish in a lightweight summer suit, accompanied by three very attractive young women, in tight skirts, high
heels and fitted blouses. Their lips are red and their eyes moist and dilated.
They attend to Frank as if he is a celebrity, a man about town, or a pimp. They preen, they pout, they titter.
Perhaps they represent a Pseudo-Religious Sex Cult.
(BELL)
I imagine opening the front door and greeting the visitors...
(hand out, effusive)
Good afternoon, strangers!
Heaven help you all if you admit to depression.
I prefer to say that I have a tendency to melancholia
It is true... We do live in times of great perturbation
But I am ok...
I believe that someone closer to the action will always answer the call.
(Pause)
There is more knocking and more giggling.
(Damon & Nolutho sweeping now, straightening the two edges of the two rectangular patches of confetti)
I open my hatch, and climb down into the darkness.
The knocking and giggling continue.
(he climbs down into the hatch)
Man (continued)
I pull the hatch over my head. Chinks of light illuminate the cellar that I now see extends under both houses.
It is cluttered with obsolete household appliances, bundles of old newspaper.
I find a hatch identical to my own, perhaps slightly less well secured. I lift the edge about six inches... Frank's house is terribly gloomy.
I climb out, there are people , bodies, everywhere, on the floor, sleeping.
I look across the gap into the house next door to the house next door. I see myself sitting at the window, chin in hand, gazing out over the city through binoculars.
(Damon and Nolutho are placing the buoys)
Man (continued)
I imagine that he, I , is watching a young surfer ride a perfect wave.The future streams towards him. He never looks back. The water peels off behind like angelic wings.
That's such bullshit!!
I tiptoe over the bodies to the kitchen, put two slices of
bread into the pop- up toaster, and take two eggs out of the fridge....
I watch the water boil, the bubbles appear from nowhere as usual.
Man (continued)
I watch the two eggs jostle each other; they kiss, then dance apart...
I carry the hot eggs to the tap.
I stab a fork into an egg
and watch the yolk drain slowly into the sink.
The fucking toaster has jammed. The kitchen is full of smoke.
I stab the other egg
and watch the yolk sink slowly into the drain.
I look across into the house next door to the house next door.
I see myself still sitting at the window, still engrossed in whatever I am watching through binoculars.
I am curious.
I look out of Frank's window...
(BELL)
Man (continued)
The harbour is underwater, only the tips of cranes poke out above the surface....
I should warn the man in the house next door to the house next door but he probably wouldnt hear me.
The flood has reached the elevated highway, there is no sound, no automobile hooters no factory sirens, , no domestic alarms.
Man (Continued)
I leave by the back door...
I leave everything... I climb the hill behind the houses.... I go as fast as possible... I don't look back...
The end of my ascent is at the abandoned building site near the summit.
Now I look back down the hill.
The water has risen to the base of the two houses... deep, dark blue, lumpy and agitated.
(scrutinises the audience)
(BELL)
I remember reading that the last words of Ludwig Wittgenstein , in 1951 , were not
"I had a Wonderful Life"
but
"Tell Them That I had a Wonderful Life"
(Damon on drum, using brushes, light)
My earliest memory is of a red fluid flowing from the narrow gap between two sheets of metal that formed the front number plate of a huge car that had just smashed into a tree on the opposite pavement. It seemed to flow for ever, encircling the car, rising to almost cover the wheels, and then began to evaporate , leaving as residue a mound of red earth, glazed and crusted in places.
(BELL)
(Nolutho, Violin, plays until end)
Man (continued)
I will wait here until the water swallows both the house next door and the house next door to the house next door.
They will disappear, then briefly re-emerge. From across the valley - at the very end - I will hear a ripple of pops and bangs as industrial tanks, sub-stations and storage containers explode, break loose and burst to the surface.
The two corrugated iron roofs, their parallel ridges pointing downhill to the submerged city, will be awash for a final instant, then disappear for ever.
(slow fade to black, then a flash of green light , then black out)