'The Mind'

This is a scene from my play 'Vegetable Universe'. I will soon be posting videos of the play.

Edward: The scene is set in the only room of the house of a young couple, Mary Lou and Junipus. It is an average enough looking room.

Mary Lou: Mary Lou sits on a rocking chair at stage right, knitting something woolly.

Junipus: Whilst Junipus sits at the table stage left, reading the Sunday Times.

Edward: Their three year old daughter Edward sits on the floor between them, her face screwed up in tortured concentration...

Very brief pause.

Edward: My mind is like two convergent plates of gravity, a duo of separate realities, colliding on a slender edge, a disk, a galaxy of infinite thinness. The problem is, it isn't as fun as it sounds, for one's mind to be like this. I mean, it's painful. I'm constantly falling backwards ... and forwards ... in both directions! Up and down ... or is it left and right? I cannot tell, at least, not whilst this condition continues to afflict me! Anyway, what's important is what you should know, and that is that I am in pain, and someone ought do something about it!

Junipus: Please, be quiet Edward. It's nothing but non-stop complaints falling out of your mouth. Complaints which sprout wings even before they've hit the ground, just so as they can peck me in the face and shit in my soft, clean, fragrant hair! That's right! You heard me! I have had enough! Your pseudo-intellectual, egotistical bullshit has my head wrecked!

Edward: Sorry Junipus, but I just thought that I ought let you know of the fragile condition of my critical state of existence and that. I didn't think it'd upset you. I mean, you usually encourage me not to bottle that shit up. I thought you'd be proud, and well it is really difficult for me you know, what with being such a particularly clever three year old ... and with the name and genitalia of a middle-aged man to boot!

Mary Lou momentarily stops knitting and looks kindly up at Junipus.

Mary Lou: Guess what Juno, she's playing the 'everyone feel sorry for Ed' card again.

Junipus: Indeed she is. Isn't it all she ever plays.

Mary Lou: You're right there I guess. Look at her now, thinking of yet more ways to make a nuisance of herself. She's a loony! A mad child! I reckon the fairies must have taken away our Eddie at birth and swapped her with this changeling, this toothed beast, this disgusting piece of ugghh!

Junipus: You mean 'piece of crap'?

Mary Lou: No, I mean, 'piece of the Killer's horrifyingly, atrociously awful new album Day & Age'.

Junipus: There's a difference between that album and the stuff that comes out of my arse?

Mary Lou: Apparently.

Edward's expression becomes agitated.

Edward: Shut up and listen to me you pair of delirious old behemoths! You know how much I love the Killer's! How can you dis such great artists in so grotesque a manner? It's all just because you like Fall Out Boy better isn't it! I hate you! Both of you! And now my headaches gotten even worse. Thanks a lot you pair of insufferable twat-bags!

Junipus: Yo just chill for a minute madam. We all know that Fall Out Boy are the only real band on the Island Records label. Please, refrain from disillusioning yourself in that most petulant of fashions. Your behaviour will do nothing but grant you a one way ticket to bed and back if your not careful.

Mary Lou: Enough of the cheese laden references already. There's only so far you can go, what with those cheese-board ads promoting the stuff and all.

Edward: (grinning insanely) 'Cheese it, into something special.'

Junipus: (motioning towards Edward) I thought you were in a state of psycho-physiological agony. Now your quoting those God forsaken anoraks over at the cheese-board. What are you, schizophrenic?

Edward: (Smiling sweetly) You know I am daddy.

Mary Lou: Juno, you know I don't like it when you make fun of her condition...

Edward: It's okay mummy, I don't mind.

Mary Lou: ...It's cruel and unnecessary. There are other more acceptable forms of bullying to first be considered.

Edward: Hey!

Junipus: I get ya Mary-Lou my sweet little bunny of sex, cheap cigarettes, armpit sweat, woolly jumpers and custard. (Jumping up excitedly) Let's burn the bitch! Together!

Edward: Please don't take my soul away again! I've got so much to give. And I mean, there are so many wonderful things in life, thing's I've yet to experience!

Mary Lou: Don't worry love. You just hand us a list of all those things you want to experience and we'll experience them for you.

Junipus: Let the burning commence!

Junipus runs at Edward and grabs her.

Edward: Aaaaahhhhhhh!

Mary Lou throws her knitting aside, jumps off her rocking chair and pulls Junipus away. Edward writhes, wounded, on the floor.

Mary Lou: Hold on Juno, one step at a time. We have to initiate the ceremony first. Such a savage act must involve an equally savage ritual.

Junipus: What do you suggest? That we offer the Lord a goat? Crucify an inflatable pig? Chant 'we will, we will rock you' whilst dancing a heathen jig? Bite indiscriminately at each others tattooed limbs? Feast on an alligator perhaps?

Mary Lou: (to the heavens) Would you like a goat Lord?

The Lord: No thanks child. And please, don't harm the inflatable pig, the alligator or each other. The gates of heaven are getting pretty rusty and I don't want anyone else up here today, pestering to get in, not with the gates in such a terrible condition. I've told Peter again and again that maintenance too is an important part of the job.

Junipus: But Lord, can we still burn the child?

The Lord: Burn away my son! That child's goin' straight to hell anyway! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! You know why, it's because of her Edwardian genitalia. Ah ha ha ha ha!

Junipus: Ha ha! I get it! Edwardian, that guys a genius. You'd think he was all powerful and all knowing or something?

Mary Lou: Omniscient and Omnipotent? That's 'cause he is.

Junipus: He's hardly a case of perfect goodness though is he. Oh well, I guess that's the problem of evil solved then.

Edward: Bwaaalaraganiiiaaaaaalooobenstuuuuuumother!

Edward seems to be in some kind of insane state of possession. Her writhing around on the floor has become intense and cyclical. Mary Lou and Junipus try to ignore her.

Mary Lou: The Lord forbade us from crucifying the pig, biting each others tattooed limbs and feasting on an alligator.

Junipus: (chuckling) The latter being a favourite past time of Gerry Ryan's I hear.

Mary Lou: He didn't accept the goat either. That leaves us with just one option.

Junipus: We will, we will rock you!

Mary Lou: I'm gonna rock ya baby!

The couple continue the chant to a strange heathen dance involving the waving of legs and arms. Meanwhile, Edward begins to arise from her writhing condition. She gets up, slowly off the floor, dancing to the rhythm of her parents chanting. Then she stands there, in the middle of the room. All becomes still and quiet.

Edward: I have been outspoken too many times before. I am the one who deserves to be sick and tired. You see, my parents are crazy! It's hardly my fault I came out the way I am. It's their fault, all theirs! Mary Lou and Junipus, that such sweet names could cover such inglorious rot! I dare not even glance beneath their slimy, skin deep pretense, their pathetic excuse for humanity! They are rational beings of an unnaturally evil kind.

Edward walks slowly to the front of the stage and stares out at the crowd, a sad, haunted look in her eyes. Strange music begins to play. Mary Lou and Junipus writhe rhythmically on the floor to the music, they move slowly together, and as they meet they rise and embrace, passionately, exploring one another. When the track ends Mary Lou and Junipus grab Edward and pull her into the centre of the room. The lights go down to the sound of Edward's screams, Junipus's shouts of 'burn her' and Mary Lou's high pitched laughs. All then goes silent as the characters return to their starting positions. The lights come back on.

Edward: The scene is set in the only room of the house of a young couple, Mary Lou and Junipus. It is an average enough looking room.

Mary Lou: Mary Lou sits on a rocking chair at stage right, knitting something woolly.

Junipus: Whilst Junipus sits at the table stage left, reading the Sunday Times.

Edward: Their three year old daughter Edward sits on the floor between them, her face screwed up in tortured concentration...

Very brief pause.

Edward: The mind is like two convergent plates of gravity, a duo of separate realities, colliding on a slender edge, a disk, a galaxy of infinite thinness...