Meltdown - the musical.
Scene One
(A brokers' office in London, with the usual desks, pcs, laptops, an office setee for visitors and a steel filing cabinet. Early hours of the morning.)
(Lights up. Alice is found working late, diligently searching through the contents of the steel filing cabinet, which are on the floor all around her in untidy heaps. A draw is stuck and she is tugging at it. The cleaning lady, Doris, comes by, gives her a hand, they get it out and she tips its contents on the floor and Alice starts rummaging again.)
DORIS
What you looking for, love?
ALICE
The plot. We seem to have lost it. I've checked my mobile, both drives on the laptop, and the external backup. It's gone. This is our last hope.
DORIS
Yeah, I know. Everyone is looking, in every office, but no luck.
(She points. The screen forming and covering the back of the stage behind lights up slowly, showing the offices in the skyscrapers across the street, all with people frantically looking in cabinets, shaking their laptops, peering under coffee machines, etc.)
ALICE
Any ideas?
DORIS
Nope.
(She wanders off, whistling the opening bars to "Madamoiselle from Armentieres." Alice for a while listens, looking puzzled. Then she goes to her laptop, opens Google, types in "The plot?" We see this in huge, on a keyboard and laptop screen, on the screen at the back of the stage. The laptop starts singing, in a fine baritone voice)
LAPTOP
Three German officers crossed the line, parley vous, ..
(And is then cut off by a prim female voice, which says:)
NETNANNY
Net Nanny has determined that this URL is not suitable for children under the age of eighty-five.
(It then switches to a pretty awful choir singing "Rule Britannia." Alice rummages again. Stops. Then she rummages some more, till she finds her mobile phone. She dials. The screen behind lights up again and we see that real-life Kenyan goatherd, who trades and checks goat prices with his satphone around his neck, and we hear the ring tone, which is of course the opening bars of "Mademoiselle" He is tall, black and handsome, of course. With a Kalashnikov over his shoulder, also of course. His name is Barack. He answers the phone.)
ALICE
That you, daddy? I'm held up at the office.
BARACK
Lady, with a voice like that, you can call me daddy any day. How many of them, and what are they carrying? I'll be right over.
(He steps out of the screen into the office, Kalashnikov ready to fire from the hip.)
ALICE
Oh, sorry, we got a crossed line. It's so annoying.
BARACK
(tosses the gun onto the office settee, sits down next to it)
Yeah, I know. They billed me forty-three dollars last month alone, for their crossed lines, they drive you nuts.
ALICE
If you ring them straight back, you know, you can get a refund. I got fifteen cents back, last year.
BARACK
That's good to know. Hey, why you ratting about like this, (he gestures) at this time of the morning?
ALICE
I work for a broking firm. We've lost the plot.
BARACK
(slumps a bit, looks weary)
You too? Must be everyone. The man who picks up my goats, same story. When he tried to land, air traffic control had lost the plot. All he got on the radio was
(sings)
Landlord, bring us your daughter fair, parley vous
(the satphone rings, he attends)
SATPHONE
with lilly white tits and auburn hair, parley vous.
BARACK
(turns it off quickly)
We lost a lot of goats.
(Alice is looking amused, tries not to.)
BARACK
What do you reckon the Dow will do tomorrow?
(Alice launches into some extremely hi-tech market babble, as the lights fade out.)
Scene Two
(Erik the Disconsolate Viking is sitting on the bow of his rusty whaler, the Plastik Kraken, next to his harpoon gun, looking disconsolate.)
ERIK
(sings, sadly and softly, sort of operatic)
I wish that all these numbers
would simply go away
or I'm not a fellow number
I'm a man.
I find I need x numbers
Just to go shopping for a wife
And x to the power of something huge
If I merely want a life
I heard that Chelsea scored some numbers
and Eventis scored some more
But that a serious lack of numbers
Has left Wall Street sad and sore."
(He walks across the deck to chat to the chief engineer, Kim not Ill,, who is from North Korea and is wearing his faded North Korean army uniform. With cap.)
ERIK
Man, the troll has dropped another two dollars against the greenback, in the last hour.
(Kim remains expressionless).
ERIK
Doesn’t that bother you, man?
KIM
(reluctantly)
I get paid in Euros.
(Erik eyes him. Silence. Erik keeps eyeing him)
KIM
(even more reluctantly)
I made them write that into the contract.
ERIK
Jeez, no wonder there is nothing left in the Bank of Iceland. You got paid
yesterday, didn't you?
(Kim looks suitably embarrased)
ERIK
I'm gonna text Gordon Brown and chew his ear off. The cheek of the man,
using anti-terrorist legislation to freeze our money. Who does he think I am?
Obama bin Ladin?
KIM
It's Osama. Obama is the Irishman.
ERIK
I thought Obama was black?
KIM
He may be, but the UN says, you shouldn't use racial criteria to judge a man. So I go on the linguistics. Anyway, the troll was frozen already.
ERIK
And there's still no sign of Greenpeace. Bloody slackers. That's three weeks
now. No wonder there are no tourists.
(Kim starts painting the superstructure below the bridge, with a tin that is clearly marked "Instant Rust")
KIM
I better get on with it anyway, in case someone turns up.
ERIK
I'll send that text.
(He starts tapping the numbers. A screen appears in the sky above, flickers a few times, a voice says "testing, testing" and the shades of blue on the screen shift rather coarsely through several variations, until the sky in the scene on the screen matches that over Iceland. Erik watches impatiently. Then it settles, the usual ring tones are heard. On the screen, a lady sitting at a bus stop in Harare, with piles of boxes stacked around her, hears the rings and answers the phone.)
ERIK
That you, Gordon? Have you lost the plot?
GEORGINA
It's Georgina. Who's Gordon?
(she listens)
Oh, him. Yeah well, if it's any help, he has. I rang yesterday. You lost it too?
ERIK
Looks like it. The troll has depreciated 300 percent against the dollar this year, never mind the pound or the euro. It’s a disaster.
GEORGINA
(Georgina falls over laughing and rolls on the roadside. You hear her explaining it in Sotho to the crowd around the busstop. They are paralytic with amusement, all of them. Eventually she gets her breath back, rolls on her side and reaches for the phone.)
You call that inflation? Man, here, we got 200 million percent last year. Then we lost the plot.
(The bus stop crowd starts singing, very skillfully, "Kind sirs, my daughter is far too young, parley vous..)
GEORGINA
(crossly)
Shut up, the lot of you. I am talking to a white man here. They have a different sense of humour.
(The crowd shuts up, looking suitably chastened. A toddler sings "Three German officers crossed the line" but his mother puts her hand over his mouth before he gets any further. Crowd very amused.)
TODDLER
(angelic smile)
Please Auntie Georgina, I have a more suitable song.
GEORGINA
I don't trust you, Inkosi. OK. What is it?
TODDLER
It is what the kids used to sing in London in the Blitz.
(sings)
Hitler, Hitler, the cops are after you,
If they catch you,
They'll give you a month or two
So ring your bell and peddle like hell
On your bicycle, built for two.
GEORGINA
That's very sweet, Inkosi. But your auntie is very busy.
TODDLER
(somewhat less angelicly)
We have a second verse, Auntie, for the current political impasse.
(sings angelically)
Cecil, Cecil, Zanu is after you
If they catch you,
There's no telling what they'll do
They may tie you up with writs
'til they drive you out of your wits
So keep up your prattlings and peddle your Gatlings,
And tell that to Gordon, too.
(An old Zanu-PF police Landrover screeches to a halt, men leap out and wrestle the toddler to the ground. A Harrier jump jet comes streaking in, the cockpit canopy is pushed back, and the toddler, now in a sack, is chucked unceremoniously into the back seat. The policemen stand rigidly to attention, the Harrier takes off, and Rule Britannia is played. The pilot, of course, looks remarkably like Gordon Brown.)
VOICEOVER
(sounds as much like David Attenborough as possible. If he will oblige, it is David Attenborough)
Dear playgoers, in case you didn't notice, that was a Harrier jump jet, and the pilot looked remarkably like Gordon Brown, our esteemed curent Prime Minister.
(two bars of God Save the Queen)
ERIK
Well, that explains why the slacker didn't text back. He's been playing politics again.
GEORGINA
(shakes her head, while clicking her tongue in mild disapproval)
Ai, that Inkosi.
(shakes her head again)
Well, kids will be kids.
(turns to Erik, still on the beck of the Plastik Kraken)
What you gonna do about the meltdown?
ERIK
No idea. What do you reckon the Nikei will do next?
GEORGINA
Hang on, this is costing a packet. I'll be right over.
(She appears on the deck of the whaler.)
ERIK
Did you switch to your landline? The rate per minute is almost the same here."
GEORGINA
Nah. They left an old BBC tardis in Harare. My second cousin works for the post office. If you drop a flat washer on a string in the slot and jiggle it, it costs nothing. Or three billion zim, whichever is less."
ERIK
Nice.
(The tune starts up. The harpoon gun starts to swivel about, dipping to the tune, as a white sperm whale, Maybe Dick, surfaces just next to the ship, singing)
VOICEOVER
(slightly breathless, hushed, awed tone, whispering into the mike. Take cue and style from Attenborough cuddling up to those mountain gorillas.)
That is a very rare white sperm whale. We are not absolutely sure of the identification, but it may be the famous Maybe Dick
MAYBE DICK
(sings)
They walked right up to a wayside inn, parley vous
ERIK
(throws a fire extinguisher at him, yelling)
Piss off, you silly bludger. There may be tourists about.
(The fire extinguisher fills a good part of the harbour with foam. The whale is seen, wearing an elegant cap of foam, gambolling off seawards, singing the anthem in enthusiastic whale tones.)
GEORGINA
I think I may have the version of the song you want. Part of it, anyway.
(sings)
Three British bankers sat down to dine.
Parlous view.
Three British bankers sat down to dine.,
To sink some whalers and dink some wine,
It's a bitsy, parlous view.
They chewed on the trotters of succulent swine,
they shared between them an octopus spine,
then shafted the very last phosphorus mine.
It's a bitsy, parlous view.
(Kim is doing the hornpipe, the whale is tail-walking in the background, in time to the music and Erik the Glum very slowly starts tapping with his harpoon on the deck, lightening up slightly as he does so. The lights fade.)
Scene Three
On the screen, Alice and Barack are sitting under an acacia tree in the Great Rift Valley, that has a social weaver nest in it. They are watching the goats and discussing their portfolios. Social weaver chicks, as the scene continues, sporadically fall out of the nest. Mice dash out of a tin trunk with a lid that is propped ajar, grab the weaver chicks and then dash back. A small snake goes past with one in its mouth, then a meerkat, ditto. No-one takes any notice. A goat wanders up, starts to nibble at the chair, under which the meerkat is stretched out, resting. The meerkat bites the goat on one of its low-hanging ears and it knocks the chair over the chair in its flight.
BARACK
Hey Asblik, you stop that.
ASBLIK THE MEERKAT
(Looks a touch sheepish. A pause, then)
Yeah. O.K.
(Walks back to the tipped chair, muttering)
Bloody goats, can't stand 'em. Those long floppy ears, .... disgraceful.
VOICEOVER
The correct English name for a meerkat is "suriname,"but that sounds quite absurd, so they are known as meerkats. "Asblik" is another Afrikaans word. It translates, approximately, as "Trashcan," but it sounds a touch politer in Afrikaans, so we will use that version.
(Barack rights the chair, Asblik goes to sleep under it.)
ALICE
Do you reckon maybe he knows what's going on?"
BARACK
Nah, not a chance. He never even sat his O levels.
ALICE
That's a shame, he seems sharp enough.
BARACK
The goats will back you on that.
(An old man wearing a slouch hat walks by. He is wearing a sort of faded Richard Leakey safari suit.)
BARACK
(calls out)
Hey Digger, how yer goin?
DIGGER
(without lifting his head or changing course)
O.K. How yer goin yerself, Barack? Hear you been hunting them cuddly bears, up in Alaska.
BARACK
(laughs)
Just the one. Care for a beer?
DIGGER
Bit early in the day for me, but OK, what the hell. I seem to have lost the plot today. (a pause).
And lately, generally.
DIGGER
(changes course and we see he is an elderly Australopithecine, of course wearing a satphone round his neck.)
BARACK
Digger, this is Alice. Alice, this is Digger.
DIGGER
How do you do?
ALICE
How do you do?"
VOICEOVER
Their shared class conventions dictate this inane exchange and prevent either from answering the question or from shaking hands, though Digger does give the required perfunctory slight head nod, or abbreviated bow.
ALICE
We also seem to have lost the plot. Have you any idea what the Footsie will do? Or what's to do, overall?
(The meerkat arrests a fair sized snake, bites it on the neck and then eats it, in a lesurely fashion. No-one takes any notice.)
DIGGER
The Footsie, no idea. But, ..
(Then he outlines some hugely complicated, jargon-drenched market play of staggering audacity.)
VOICEOVER
(fades in)
The australopithecine is outlining some hugely complicated, jargon-drenched market play of staggering audacity.
BARACK
Hey man, that's good.
ALICE
I like it. I really do.
DIGGER
But, it didn't really work for us.
(They lapse into quiet but companionable depression. The lights fade down as the sun sets. Asblik burps.)
Scene Four
(An interlude. Al Gore is sitting in the conning tower of his nuclear submarine, looking uncomfortable. The whale, a short way off, is singing)
MAYBE DICK
"Al, you inconvenient halfwit
What have you done with our pole?
Why don't you and your nuclear tin fish,
both of you, go on the dole?"
(Al looks even less comfortable. The whale sings on)
I asked a passing polar bear
(Here Bundy the polar bear wanders onto the stage)
if perhaps he'd seen the pole?
He said to me, he said G'day, mate,
Nah, it's no longer there.
BUNDY
(takes over the singing, style full operatic )
Since Al came up
in that great black crate
all the bloody tourists
now want a full rebate
MAYBE DICK
When the GPS said zero,
Al ordered the skipper to blow the tanks,
to square things with the Arctic Ice
for the drowning of innocent Yanks
For though the old Titanic
was packed to the gun'les with Poms
Though they were of course the last to panic.
there were some ice-hockey Moms
(Two bars play from the Star Spangled Banner. The bear stands stiffly to attention, then resumes his singing. Style now heavy rock)
Up went the tinfish
down went the pole
So there is no sea-ice now,
just a bloody great blowhole.
(The whale picks it up again)
MAYBE DICK
(folksy)
All the seals, he sighed,
have headed south
and even the plumper monkeys, well,
they barely fill yer mouth.
What will you do,
will you go on the dole?
I asked this sad
and troubled soul.?
He said he'd put in
on the Internet
to clean the Australia Zoo,
and just as soon
as Bindy wrote back,
that was what he would do.
And perhaps he could be
a part-time bear
when the staff were doing Bundy ads
and the seals were in foster care.
Scene Five
Olduvai Gorge, morning, just after sunup. Digger is washing the dishes. Alice and Barack appear out of their pup tent. Digger passes them each a plate of fried eggs, bacon and toast. The knives and forks are of chipped stone, lashed and resined onto wooden handles.
ALICE
Oh Digger, how sweet of you. Your finest cutlery.
DIGGER
(pleased)
It was Mum's best set, she made them herself and only used them for special occasions. May as well use it today, I say. Congrats.
ASBLIK
A formal wedding breakfast. How nausiatingly sweet.
(He goes over, formally offers his paw to Barack, kisses Alice politely on the cheek, turns, scratches furiously, throwing up something between his hind legs as meerkats do, and confetti rains down all over them both.)
DIGGER
Well, now we are over the formalities, I'll have a cuppa, then I'd best be off. I have to get to another climate change convention in Rio, by Friday."
ALICE
That's a shame.
BARACK
Probably a waste of time. Folk do love their four-wheel drives.
ALICE
Don't be so cynical, dear. If we don't try, we could end up extinct.
(Barack glares at her for the faux pas. Alice realizes and looks very embarrassed. Digger, ever the gentleman, pretends not to have noticed.)
VOICEOVER
Barack glares at her for the faux pas. Alice realizes and looks very embarrassed. Digger, ever the gentleman, pretends not to have noticed.
DIGGER
I did remember something, from way back. It goes like this: …."
(He starts humming the tune to the anthem. All three satphones on the folding kitchen table immediately start up, in enthusiastic chorus: "Three German officers crossed the line. …" Barack dives for them and quickly turns them all off. The goats keep up the chorus by bleating, however. When the pandemonium subsides, Digger resumes.)
DIGGER
I think it went like this:
Three indices went under the line,
Parlous view.
Three indices went under the line,
Parlous view.
Three indices went under the line,
All the girls left town and so did the wine
It's a bitsy, parlous view.
Freddie, asked Fannie, what should we do?
Can you stiffen a banker's back with glue?
Or should we just flush them down the loo?
It's a bitsy, parlous view.
ALICE
Go on. Do you know any more?"
DIGGER
Just one more verse
(He sings)
The Dow has gone to Davey Jones,
The kangaroo!
The Dow has gone to Davey Jones,
taking down all the mobile phones,
It's a bitsy, parlous view.
Wailing-Wall Street, wattle we do?
Send the marines and then have a review?
Inform Osama his contract's through?
It's a bitsy, parlous view.
(As he sings, the screen slowly lights up and Kim is seen on the deck of the whaler Plastik Kraken, listening to the faint singing. As they finish, he steps on to the stage, in the Olduvai Gorge camp, singing the next verse.)
KIM
The Nikkei nipped a geisha girl,
Parlous view.
The Nikkei nipped a geisha girl,
picked her pockets and gave her a whirl.
It's a bitsy, parlous view.
Nippon's in a divine wind swirl,
not a pork chop's left, never mind a pearl,
for a salaryman or a rural churl.
It's a bitsy, parlous view.
(They clap. Alice hands him a cup of coffee.)
BARACK
It all fits together, it’s the same tune, it's the same song. But what does it mean?
KIM
Someone lost the plot before us.
DIGGER
(looking rueful)
That we already know.
ALICE
No, long, long before us. Well, bash on regardless. I'd better get these goats down to the chopper pad.
DIGGER
I'd best be off to Rio or I'll be past my use-by date.
BARACK
Hey, tell them it's not the carbon, it's all being driven by geomagnetic flux shifts at the core-mantle boundary.
ALICE
(a touch impatiently)
Sure, we all know that. But will they listen?
DIGGER
Who? The goats? Sure. They're smart.
BARACK
Not them, humanity.
ALICE
(now looking doubtful)
It's not very likely. Warmism is a formal religion now. You can get a full tax rebate for your home as a place of worship, if it's carbon neutral.
DIGGER
I wonder if they think we were all driving Hummers the last eight times all the glaciers melted? Anyway. I'm off.
(He walks ten paces, lies down, the lights fade, come up shortly, fade again. He slowly turns into a fossil. Only Asblik notices. He looks sad and sheds a single tear. He was fond of Digger. He digs a hole next to him fetches Digger's forgotten satphone, carries it across and buries it. Then he goes and sits under his chair, still looking sad.
VOICEOVER
How touching.
ASBLIK
(peeved)
Shut up Eccles.
Scene Six
(The Olduvai social weaver camp, next morning. Everyone is at breakfast. Off stage, we hear an Aussie accent singing (to a tune not yet written), distant at first, but clear and getting nearer)
Kevin the Christian's caressing the banks,
while annoying Osama with under-sized tanks.
You'd think that maybe the carpenter,
Or maybe the virgin mother,
would have told young Kevin,
that even in heaven,
such stunts would trip over each other.
(They all listen, particularly Asblik, who listens intently. There is a short break, then nearer:)
While Kevin, old Oily, and Miz Penny Wong,
were happily singing their carbon song,
making computers compulsory,
for every kid over the age of three,
and their tanklets, punching way over their class,
were busily stoning the Khyber Pass …
Ev...ery...pension.... fell...flat...on...its....arse,
Ev...ery...pension.... fell...flat...on...its....arse,
(On the last line, Digger hoves into view. Asblik is beside himself with joy, racing around, then jumping at Digger, as happy meerkats do. Digger sits down with the offered cup of tea, tickles him behind the ears.)
ASBLIK
(barely able to speak)
But I thought ……
(the words trail away.)
DIGGER
(aside)
Yeah, I know, kid.
(Gives him a wink. Turns to the others)
I missed the conference, that’s what happened.
(aside, quietly, to ASBLIK)
I shook the sand out of the phone and its fine. Thanks. I needed it.
(They all discuss the day's Wall Street and banking woes. Very jargoned. Then the others go off with the goats. Asblik and Digger are left.)
ASBLIK
What did you need the phone for?
DIGGER
I had an idea for finding out what happened to the plot. Eventually, someone knows the bloke you want, six degrees of seperation, and all that. So, I rang a very old mate.
ASBLIK
In your case, I shudder to think who that might have been.
DIGGER
No, not him. Well. Not him exactly. Well, anyway, I'll introduce you. He's on his way
ASBLIK
Oh, hell, here we go.
(a pause)
Now?
DIGGER
Now.
(The screen behind lights up, goes dark, lightning flashes, thunder rolls, then an unimpressive, small muddy river or rivulet appears on the screen. A bunyip surfaces. To describe a bunyip is not difficult. Nothing else looks like a bunyip and they all look exactly the same. When it suits them.)
VOICEOVER
(hushed tones, whispering again)
Surfacing in the small muddy river or rivulet, you will see a bunyip. To describe one of these rare and semi-mythical creatures is not difficult. Nothing else looks like a bunyip and they all look exactly the same. When it suits them.
DIGGER
G'day, mate.
BUNYIP
Yeah, G'day Digger. How ya going?
DIGGER (laughs)
Lost the plot
BUNYIP
Geez, yer bloody hopeless. You'd lose your bloody gene code, if it wasn't bolted to yer jockstrap.
(Alice has returned and has been listening)
ALICE
(very casual)
Hello, I'm Alice. Judging by the fanfare, you must be Yahweh?
BUNYIP
How do you do. No, I'm his uncle. On his mother's side.
ALICE
Ah, right, gotcha. You do thunderstorms, I've heard. Just passing by?
BUNYIP
Not exactly. Digger rang me.
(Taps his satphone)
Said you had a problem.
BARACK
(just walking in, confidently)
Sure do. Barack
(offers to shake)
BUNYIP
Bunyip
BARACK
(jumps and shakes slightly, but not just his right hand. All of him)
Holy smoke!
BUNYIP
(with a kind of weary, here-we-go-again look)
Yeah, that too.
BARACK
(noticing the slightly pained expression, recovers his composure as best he can, but still very respectful and formal, shakes hands)
G'day, mate, how ya going?
(Then, after a pause, blinks, shakes his head and then, getting over it, asks politely)
Have you by any chance seen the plot?
BUNYIP
No damn luck, sorry. Me nephew Yowie may have, he does some limited omniscience, but me, I can't even handle the differential equations. So I stay right out of it.
(A pause. Then:)
You could try the Pope. He does infallible.
ALICE
Past tense. He recalled that line, just recently. O.K., never mind that, but what do you reckon the Dow and the climate will do? Just guessing, you know?
BUNYIP
(bunging on a BBC weatherman accent)
They will both show a lot of front, but the climate will win by a few dozen orders of magnitude.
(They all laugh).
DIGGER
Ever the evasive diplomat.
BUNYIP
But, if you ask me where I'm putting my funds, my guess is, the Dow and the Footsie … "
Market babble again. As they natter on sociably, Asblik walks to the table to look at an old photo album that Digger has dropped there and picks up a group photo of Bunyip, Alice and Digger, arms around each others' shoulders, smiling happily. The two lads are in nondescript, muddy, indeterminate WW1 uniforms. He looks carefully from Digger to Bunyip to Alice and back again, and then looks thoughtful. The portrait shows on the big screen.
DIGGER
So, you claim you've never lost the plot?
BUNYIP
Well, that's not quite what I said …
DIGGER
Confess, you blighter, did you or did you not do the Vogons?
BUNYIP
(slightly annoyed)
I never do Vogons, I told you before. Dougie the Hitchhiker did them, sometimes, and only on contract. And only if he had a hangover.
DIGGER
But you did George Bush
BUNYIP
(wearily)
Yeah, I know.
DIGGER
So what’s the difference?
BUNYIP
Just the IQ. And OK, the Vogons also have better manners. Give it a miss man, we all make mistakes.
(Sits quietly. Then he says, pensively)
I wrote a song for him, time of the First Gulf War. But it's not a marching song. Not much marching done there.
ALICE
Sing it for us.
BUNYIP
It's an antiwar song. It's a touch serious.
ALICE
Got a title?
BUNYIP
It's called, "When you turn old towns to wicker men "
DIGGER
Go on.
BUNYIP
It’s a bit dated now, but then, so are the people still hopping around. So I will.
(He sings, softly at first)
Mr Bush, Mr Blair, Mr Howard,
and you, Mrs Windsor too,
with your stamps and your May Queen crown,
remember, my friends, that John Barleycorn,
can be cut but can not be cut down.
When you send your reapers
and storms of steel
to steal children’s hopes and feet,
remember, my friends,
that John Barleycorn reaps
the souls of the sowers of sleet.
When you turn old towns to wicker men
and you burn and kill folks’ treasure,
understand, my friends,
that the guards of the past
will rise to take your measure.
The green man has not gone away.
The kaditcha is not dead.
When you daisy-cut all decency
one or the other, or the ghost of god,
will in time, possess your head.
The featherfoot’s tracks
and his hunting dogs’ too
have been noted in hospital grounds
by men who were sent to tidy the lawns
when the horsemen had finished their rounds.
The featherfoot’s tracks,
they say, have been seen,
on a dune that was lined with the dead.
And they say they lead back to democracy’s lair,
and your yarns, spun of shrapnel and dread.
But the featherfoot’s dogs are
the warrigul, dead wolves
and the hounds of hell,
and a scent they know well is the brown bag’s stench
and the stealth bomber’s oily smell.
John Barleycorn will stand again,
when water rains, they say, he’ll stand,
tall, and as straight as a lance.
He’ll walk the white feather-trail, searching for you
and high on his shoulders he’ll carry the kids
who can no longer manage to dance.
Mr Bush, Mr Blair, Mr Howard,
and you, Mrs Windsor too,
with your fading, diamond, May Queen crown,
remember, my friends, that decency,
can be cut but can not be cut down.
(There is a moment of silence.)
BARACK
Who's John Barleycorn?
BUNYIP
(looks at Barack steadily)
Don't ask. You really don't want to know. And you don't want to meet him either.
(A pause. Barack looks thoughtful.)
BUNYIP
OK. Enough of that.
DIGGER
Needed to be said, but. Stuff them.
VOICEOVER
The management would like you to know that this is, as advertised on all the commercial channels, a comedy. Do not change channels, the fault is with reality. If you want a refund, as you go out through the foyer, it’s the second door on the right, the one marked "Draft Board." See you at the top of the Khyber Pass.
(There is a companionable pause. As the saying goes.)
DIGGER
(to Bunyip)
Right, back to the present. So, when else did you lose the plot? I'm not hassling, we are trying to work this out. Maybe it's important.
BUNYIP
All right, I get your drift. O.K. …. Well, I got the timing wrong, one other time, with those small dinosaurs with feathers, what do you call them?
ASBLIK
Birds?
BUNYIP
That's it. See, they were supposed to cut in after the meteorite got here, but NASA gave me bodgy figures on the trajectory. They confused feet and metres, they keep doing it. So the Yucatan Bomber, as we used to call that little beauty, about 200 megatons she was, she clocked in a couple of million years too late. The dinosaurs were already history. The birds had, a million years before, simply flown to and dived on every ripening food supply in their thousands. They ate the lot before the old brontosaurs could get their necks under water or the herbivores could get across to the seed grass beds. They all starved, it was an awful mess. We had to spend ages moving the iridium layer to hide the facts.
(a pause)
Then there was the crash of 1873. That was a bit of a mess too.
(He goes on, then they all launch into heated historical market babble. See the long depression on Wikipedia for the drift of it. Asblik goes to sleep under his chair. Lights fade.)
Scene Seven
Harare vegetable market, Zimbabwe. Lots of people. There is one pumpkin for sale.
(Georgina is showing Erik and Kim around. Her satphone rings. The ring tone has changed to Rule Britannia. She answers).
GEORGINA
Cecil, I told you last week. Neither Chief Lobenguela nor Mr Mugabe want them. Yes, I'm quite sure. OK. Stay well.
ERIK
(a touch defensive)
Who's Cecil?
GEORGINA
Cecil John Rhodes. He's a sweet boy but he has the daftest notions. He wants to start a British empire in Africa. have you ever heard o such a thing? And, he will push arms deals. Says, this week, he has this top secret British Army thing called a Maxim gun, on special. Says it's a surefire winner.
BARACK
Holy cow, how would he get Maxim guns? They're top secret. Even we can't get them off the Brits.
ALICE
Who's we, exactly, dear?
BARACK
(looks embarrassed)
I meant to say, even George can't get them.
(Alice looks unconvinced.)
ERIK
Why does he need Maxim guns? I've seen a photo of Lobenguela. I could lend Cecil my harpoon gun, mounted on a drunken elephant. How could you miss? But he'd have to duck, on impact.
GEORGINA
Don't be rude, boy. Then she laughs: Yeah, with old Loby, how could he miss? Truth of the matter is, Cecil needs the arms deal to be able to pay the mechanic to fix his tardis, and needs the tardis to go get Ventolin for his asthma. I feel sorry for him, so I try to help him occasionally. I put him onto a diamond prospect near Kimberley a few years ago. He's been a confounded nuisance ever since. Can't win 'em all.
KIM
Hey, how do you like this? I just heard it on the windup radio, on Voice of America. It's called How Peace came to Fortress America. Goes like this:
Georgie was out in the desert
Jousting with sandstorms and dust
When a distant, plaintive margin call
came from the gang at the hole in the wall
who hollered, the bank is about to go bust.
So Georgie dashed down to the levee
To try to help shore up the banks
But on the way there
A large paper bear
Yanked him clean out of his tank.
GEORGINA
That wasn't on Voice of America.
KIM
OK. You got me. But at least it is a bit lighter than Bunyip's curse verse. It was on the soldiers' favorites program on North Korean Peoples' Public Radio. On last month's broadcast. First of the month, the radio runs for a whole hour, sometimes even for an hour and a half.
ERIK
Impressive.
(Contemplative silence.)
ERIK
In Iceland now, the radio only runs when the geysers blow.
KIM
Georgina, how do you all make a living here? Some folk look to be in a terrible way, but most people are not that thin.
GEORGINA
Not yet. …Ja, OK. Some folk use the greenback, some use rands. You can't actually use the zimdoll, our new voodoo toy, cause you need a 4-tonne tip-truck, minimum, to carry enough of them to buy a pumpkin. Can't afford the diesel. It's sad for Mr Mugabe; he works so hard, printing his new notes.
KIM
So what do you do about diesel?
GEORGINA
We were very lucky there. … Purely an historical accident. Long before Toyota came up with the Prius to save fuel and GM came up with the Hummer to save the Arab oil sheiks, people here used to make small trucks and helicopters and Volkswagens and Harley Davidsons and bicycles. We sold them to the tourists, but now there aren't any tourists, so we keep them.
ERIK
That's very impressive. I had no idea. What do they make them out of, I mean, how did you refine the steel, and so on?
GEORGINA
We make them out of fence wire.
KIM
(the engineer)
Fence wire?
(A pause.)
(the engineer tries again)
And how do you power them?
GEORGINA
Kids push them.
ERIK
(a slow smile spreading)
So the fuel savings ..?
GEORGINA
Are enormous. The kids are happy. They have a very important job, as they are in charge of the entire national transport network. Even if the schools are closed. And we don’t get so fat, anymore. We walk. Until the food runs out.
(A choir of church ladies dressed in purple robes, comes down the road, sweetly singing "They marched right up to a wayside inn, inky pinky parley vous." When they see our mob watching, the words change, without missing a beat)
The Footsie is fiddling, dark as night,
Out of view!
The Footsie is fiddling, dark as night,
Out of view!
The Footsie is fiddling, dark as night,
Nobody knows what it plans to do.
Hanky panky, out of view!
Though Georgie's surging with all his might,
it's all underground and off to the right,
where it seems to have caught potato blight.
It's a bitsy, parlous view.
(They march on, singing "We are marching to Pretoria," ever so sweetly. Erik's phone rings, the tone this time is British Grenadier, whistled.)
ERIK
(listening to the phone)
This sounds serious.
Lights fade.
Scene Eight
Indaba-slash-corroboree. All the Northern Hemisphere team is present and seated in a circle. The Zim team walks down the gangplank, off the African Queen, which is hanging, properly moored of course, about four feet off the ground. On the side of the hull is printed, in large clear letters, and the camera focuses for long enough so that the audience can read it, "Non cogliete fiori Non lasciate segni del vostro passaggio." Meerkats are resting under it in the shade. The team walks across to the circle. In the background, we see the meerkats march up the gangplank, one is seen on the bridge, two cast off the mooring lines in a seamanlike manner and she sets off, climbing steeply into the sky, all unnoticed.
Introductions all around. Asblik is in the chair. He looks up, gives the departing African Queen a quick, perfunctory salute, which no-one else notices, there is a faint toot on the steam whistle, also not noticed by the crowd. Then Asblik explains the reason for the summit.
ASBLIK
Friends, we are gathered here for this summit at the bottom of the Great Rift Valley, because, given the state of the banks and the markets, it seems the appropriate place to be. We are all in this together.
(On the screen overhead, there is a raucous screech. There's a sort of rebel yell, then "Remember the Alamo," and a pterodactyl that looks remarkably like John McCain, glides off a high cliff and plunges into a swamp.)
DIGGER
Suicide bombers, ignore them. They still think they can fly.
(A Sarah Palin look-alike follows, carrying an oversized hunting rifle, and so flying even more erratically, same outcome. They group ignores them. The discussion continues, and they politely pass the talking stick, as needed. Snippets of market jabber are heard. A variety of pterodactyls, decked out as US marines, Palestinian suicide bombers, Congolese generals, Australian SAS troopers, Taliban soldiers, Wall Street brokers and British cabinet ministers follows, at erratic intervals, all ploughing into the swamp. No one takes the faintest notice. A fully-fl
