PETUA: Do the script please.
DARREN: You made me drop my copy. What do I say?
PETUA: Is there a jack in your box.
DARREN: What box?
PETUA: The box I've got. You say "Is there a Jack in your box?" Say it.
DARREN: Oh that box.
PETUA: Oh come on Darren. I take your stuff seriously.
DARREN: I've never contrived for you to wrap your arms around me in any of my stuff.
(slight pause)
PETUA: Is that what you're afraid of?
DARREN: No.
PETUA: Well what about it?
DARREN: I need the script.
PETUA: I want you to get the feeling of it.
DARREN: You mean you want to get the feeling of it.
PETUA: Listen this is serious. I've got someone's ashes in this box! You're spoiling the moment. Why don't you just continue. Let's go from leave it out. Leave it out. You got no reason bein' sorry -
DARREN: What's on your mind?
PETUA: Short for Possum. That's his nicname.
DARREN: I'm not comfortable with this.
PETUA: But it's comedy. It's just a short play.
DARREN: What's it about?
PETUA: How will you know if you don't do it? Why are you so afraid to do it?
DARREN: I'm not afraid.
PETUA: Then instead of winding up for a dogma wad, read it. You tell me I can't interperet the Alien as a metaphor for HIV but you're ready to blow some huge pile of wad yourself just because I want you to physicalize something. It's screw ball. I want you to be funny. More poetic comedy, less of the Hitchcock mentality from you please. You do what I want, I'll do what you want, that's the only way we can work together.
DARREN: You make it sound so dramatic. I'll pick it up from; I can usually eavesdrop on the world at a safe distance from here; listen out for things that drift around, phrases and words. Things you can use.
PETUA: I still gotta trade somethin‚ for the belt Œey?
DARREN: Where did you loose your-
PETUA: You skipped some lines-
DARREN: Belt? Umm.. Where did-
PETUA: Just go from me saying, 'You ask a lot of questions don't ya Rocky?'
DARREN: Yes okay I -
PETUA: If all's ya write is adverts, you're just another capitalist sell-out feeding the multinationals.
DARREN: Trading with a Marxist am I? I give you a belt, you give me an insult.
PETUA: You're the one callin‚ yourself a writer. Writers tell excellent stories 'bout reincarnation an‚ invokin‚ spirits an‚ cool stuff, not bubble gum. You're just another sell-out. Turning creative trans-dimentional energies into dross. You got to keep energy pure Rocky. That's they only way to go. Fuck it all up if you sell out.
DARREN: Youth is wasted on the young.
PETUA: Nah Rocky, you're a sell-out. If you were a Nazi, you'd be designing weekend away brochures for Auschwitz!
DARREN: Fair go-
PETUA: That's why the planet‚s fallin‚ apart. You capitalists pretend everything's okay, but everything's chronic an‚ death is a handful of ashes.
DARREN: Listen kid-
PETUA: I'm no kid. I been around a long time.
DARREN: Not as long as I have.
PETUA: How long?
DARREN: Probably twice as long as you.
PETUA: I've always believed size was relative.
DARREN: What?
PETUA: I want you to unleash the depths below the surface.
DARREN: Oh?
PETUA: ALIENS the Musical needs depth like this.
DARREN: No, ALIENS the Musical needs to run for two years and put my kid through Uni.
PETUA: You're a sexy man, you should let people see it in your work.
DARREN: People don't want to see-
PETUA: Everyone wants to see it. ... Don't you know it‚s human nature to realise without knowing? Don't you know that? We kids realise that reality when we're, you know, kids, these days. It‚s all the collective unconscious shit. Yeah? You just know something‚s not right? Like, I knew this old dude when I was a baby an‚ I knew there was some thing wrong with him, you know? And then, when I was like, nine or ten, my dad told me he had a glass eye. That's when I realised I'd already realised it without knowing I did.
DARREN: You must know a lot?
PETUA: I see. It's okay, I can keep a secret. You don't want the world to know you're... you know... fair enough. But you should know they just look at you and realise anyway, so why not let it out in your work? Let it carry some meaning for them. Give it some deeper tones and hues. (pause)
I'll go from... I don't need your charity? I don‚t need your charity. Come on then, I suppose the belt‚s worth a blow job. All mammals suckle 'ey Rocky? I got nothin‚ else to trade with ya. How about I suckle ya?
DARREN: Oh, right. That's exotic.
PETUA: You want exotic, smell me armpit, I been livin' outta my panel van too long. Could ya fix me up with a hot shower?
DARREN: You take me for a suckle?
PETUA: That's a bit far fetched, I know.
DARREN: Have we missed something?
PETUA: Yeah you skipped a line before. You didn't ask me what was in the box. I've got the ashes of my father in the box, he died of AIDS see and I want to offer his ashes up to a goddess. That's why you're asking this question here.
DARREN: Tell me about this goddess?
PETUA: Marici. She's in the sunrise.
DARREN: If she's in every sunrise what are you waiting for? Scatter the ashes.
PETUA: It's not as simple as that. She needs a perfect sunrise over pure ground; The scene changes to the foot of a mountain.
DARREN: Just like that?
PETUA: That's right. It's okay, keep reading. My line again.. Where have you brought me to?
DARREN: I've brought you to Mount Warning. It‚s the first spot to be touched by the sun. Bangalow Palms, Rosewood 'n‚ Yellow Carrabeen. Strangler Fig weaving in and out of the canopy, holdin‚ it all together with the other vines. Whip-birds eating fruit off the Lilli Pillies. Kookaburras. Swallows darting through space, Shrikes, grey an' pink Galahs flocking, Mountain Lorries nattering away, Maggies. It's beautiful. The farms around here grow sugar-cane, that‚s what you can see burning.
PETUA: You're drivin‚ me so crazy I can't smell the hole in the ozone layer any more.
DARREN: What can you smell?
PETUA: Morning mist tempered with golden sun.
DARREN: You can do better than that can‚t you?
PETUA: Market gardens, flowers... Jasmine. Mmmm, I can taste wattle in the air.
DARREN: How are you feeling?
PETUA: You could give me a back rub. That'd be good.
DARREN: We've got a fair hike before the sun comes up.
PETUA: Then, you know. Whatever.
DARREN: That's all? What then?
PETUA: I'm not sure. What do you think so far?
DARREN: Are you sure it‚s not a film?
PETUA: I thought they may come together some way. Doesn't matter. It's obscure shit isn't it? I'm trying to say something deep but it's not working.
DARREN: Say it in one sentence.
PETUA: Between you and me there's this spark that flashes from time to time and I'm trying to nail it.
DARREN: I get that spark.
PETUA: Yeah?
DARREN: It's like a torch cutting through iron sometimes.
PETUA: Yeah right.
DARREN: I must have known without realising.
PETUA: I knew you would.
DARREN: Goes off like an alarm when I see you coming.
PETUA: Yeah, it's there isn't it? I thought it was something we had in common. I‚m not as good as a writer as you yet but I can squeeze meaning. Now you realise. I'm so glad you realised it at last. You don't have to hide anything.
DARREN: Nothing?
PETUA: See? Theatre can inscribe truth into anything.
DARREN: Whose truth?
PETUA: Well you get it don't you?
DARREN: This.
PETUA: Yeah?
DARREN: What should I get?
PETUA: Don't you get it?
DARREN: You'd realise if I did wouldn't you?
PETUA: Yeah of course.
DARREN: You'd understand. My position here is clear to me.
PETUA: How do you feel about it?
DARREN: My position?
PETUA: My play?
DARREN: What's it called?
PETUA: Oh I don't know. I gave it a name but I think I'm going to change it.

The End.

Copyright David Jobling 2000