Plays 1: Weird Time Blues by Colin Peterson, George O'Sullivan (smart books to read .TXT) 📕

we drain shit of fluid. Mineral water companies buy it. it’s the future. We’ve fucked our planet up. We have to get off Earth. This has to be an advert for it. The futurists need your skill.

Guinow: But I love Earth.

Valance: Look, we maybe the last, but we’re not the best. We need more help.

Guinow: Let’s make some androids!

Valance: And drugs! We need lots. For the pain of living. Will it blow our senses?

Guinow: It will be a sensory overload.

Valance: We should make our propaganda like that. But instead of a greedy cause, we’ll make people feel better about others!

Guinow: I love you. Let’s get the stuff. We know it’s in everyone’s food. It’s been in the filtering systems; the air is fucked as well. I really love you. Who are you? We still at the Garage? NO WAY! Factory? I’ll phone for a cab, FUCKIN' CHANGING NAMES, CHANGING SHIT ALL THE FUCKIN' TIME!

Valance:(unimpressed, goes to inject Guinow.) I wondered why we were feeling odd and not acting professionally. I will clean the window sill in the morning. Why we are stripping off, why we are kissing? Why are falling in love? it feels as if you were meant for me, but we are one, aren’t we? We are just here for each other. We might be after them, but those heading for colony 46 will be mutants by the time we get there. Tesco’ll get it, they’re too strong. Buy ten get a colony free.

Guinow: I don’t care. We will have to make do with this air. We will be burdened, but must get help.

Valance: I’ll send out a distress pod. They’ll track it. Don’t worry; it’s aside effect of space travel. You’re brain goes mushy and everyone thinks it’s psychological. That’s bull shit; it’s not. It is a simple function: you’re brain is not used to space travel. Thus you’ll have these hallucinations, which are all caused by the space vaccinations.

Pause. Guinow takes out some test tubes, frozen in liquid nitrogen, she hands them to Valance. He kisses them, but gets his lip stuck on the tubes. Guinow ignores this and takes a matchboxsized old Viewcam form her pocket and records a message (which is delivered as if to the audience). Meanwhile, Valance struggles in the back ground.

Guinow: (into psiViewcam.) This is no future. That’s why we left Earth; earth had no future.Who am I talking too? It was a nice place. For a bit, but you know what people are like form my earlier lectures. I hope you’re not hooked to space drugs and having dreams and seeing things. It can’t be good for you. I want you lot to be pure and unpolluted. I don’t know what you are yet, but when you are found, you will be able to explain why you are so far from earth. I know it’s a risk, but sometimes I feel as if I’m killing the future without realizing it. (Valance rips the tubes away, but pulls part of his tongue off; blood spurts, but he makes no sound. He drops the tubes. They smash. He kicks the remains to one side and picks up another tube and starts to masturbate it rapidly. Guinow is oblivious.) I can’t kill the future. It would be a crime. I wouldn’t want to burden you; I really can’t handle that. But enough doom and gloom, we’re free. We’re off the shit hole. We have to stop things getting out of our control and we’ll protect you at any cost; we really will. We’ll make sure you’ll have secure and stable futures . futures where you know what’s going to happen, and life is good. You would be called prosperous on earth, but here it just normal. And that’s what we want to maintain. We’re not normal, but at least you know your future.

Guinow turns suddenly, Valance come into a cup ,as well as a test tube. He drops the tube in fright, almost simultaneously. Guinow turns off the psiViewcam. She smacks Valance rapidly around the face. Then kisses his cheek.

Valance: I’m putting you on stronger medication.

Guinow: (takes the cup and downs the semen.) All I needed was a drink. That’s an acquired taste. I’ve tasted that before. Was it ouzo?

Valance: Don’t worry, it will be fine. Come on, let’s retreat to the holo deck and have some fun. We can create anything on this ship. It’s great , isn’t it?

Pause.

Guinow: I want you to kill me when we’re ready for the sleep.

Valance: But it might not have worked?

Guinow: I don’t care: I’m Earth sick.

Valance: Nothing can be done for this.

Valance goes to kiss Guinow, but Guinow rebukes him, bleeding.

Guinow: So we could be machines?

Valance: Don’t be silly; we’re people. We were never automatons - we expressed ourselves. We got rid of stamp duty. We had power over society.

Guinow: But we only had coupons. Our time had expired.

Valance: So, you see the girl too?

Guinow: Yes, I dream about her: her name is Tinnie. I’m not a lesbian; she’s my daughter.

Valance: Hah! The ghoul does not exist! I think I’ll lower your iodine and raise your Zopiclone, and your Melleril dosage.

Guinow: Not yet, they can’t do it yet! But she will…I see our child. Our unborn child, mutating with other kids, unwanted but needed; we’ve no society.

Valance: We must have enough power to stay in stasis. If we are under-powered we could thaw early and our brains could be damaged; we would have to kill our selves. (Pause.) Here’s the compromise: couldn’t we make some androids?

Guinow: I’m making Tinnie! TINNIE! TINNIE! TINNIE HAGEN MY FUCKIN KID! - Why did she leave me? I had a doll called Tinnie when I was younger; it was my favourite doll. You think I’m mad, don’t you? That’s fine, I think your a prick - It’s my right to think it, isn’t it?

Valance: Dammit woman! Yes, you’re right! ALWAYS FUCKIN RIGHT! Don’t lose it on me! I can’t be a hero; we don’t need another….I’m going to crack up, but I can’t have you babbling about a child that doesn’t exist. You can’t be pregnant. You have no womb. I have a limited amount of sperm. It’s kept in stasis, actually. I ejaculate a space-gunk. It started when the medication kicked in; I think we made errors by trying to make the food healthy. The opposite always happens when you do that! Don’t worry; we can’t have kids just yet, but soon; they‘ll be vacuum kids made of Titanium. Let’s get the ship all right first and get to the colony.

Guinow: You bastard! You bastard! I left the Viewcam on! It recorded! IT RECORDED THAT! The kids will hear it now.

Valance: There never will be any kids. We shouldn’t burden them with a shit world. We have not created it. At least leave specimens and if we get the androids running we can build something while in stasis. By that time, we’ll be past Pluto. Are we past Pluto yet?

There is a silence. Valance and Guinow hug. Tightly. We hear the sound of a child skipping, then playing hop-scotch, on a metallic floor. The hops get louder, as does the whip of skipping rope then deafening. It somehow becomes the sound off an engine; an engine struggling for power and at the same time gaining power. A blinding white light momentarily flashes and fades into:

Scene 1[a]Garish cardboard bar.
Moth and Colley are drunk, they sit in a cardboard booth with a sixties/seventies fake-retro feel.

Colley:(pukes into a paper bag, lobbing it at Moth, who pukes in the same paper bag and goes to throw it at Colley, who then makes a horrid gagging sound, then shouting; across the bar.) TABBY! TABS!

Tabby enters with Kascano and Mills, both are fondling her drunkenly and she’s loving it.
Tabby wears a revealing suit, as Kascano and Mills sneakily fondle her. However, she gropes them both frequently.

Tabby: (slurred.) Oh, Coll, Colleywog! How are you?

Colley: Fine, Howyouzadoin’?

Kascano: You know this guy?

Tabby: Yes, Toby, I do. I know him well. Can I call you Tobes?

Kascano: Whatever.

Colley: Do you want me -

Tabby: No, no, Officer Millie, here, was just goin’ to get me a drink!

Mills: Er…yeah. What d’you all want?

Colley: A gooey fanny and a painful fistino!

Tabby: You could be in luck there.

Mills: Oh, I know him - he’s the dick from the office suicide.

Kascano: Shame he doesn’t do himself in next.

Colley: (laughing, in hysterics.) Oh, don’t worry boys! I will - once you buy the cocktails! I’m thinking of drinking myself to death. (Moth laughs.) Moth, here, has been drinking them all day with me. We don’t want to mix our drinks, you know. (Moth laughs louder, Tabby joins them. Kascano and Mills look unimpressed.) It could be dangerous.

Tabby: Let them have their old-fashioned cocktails!

Moth: Hey, people. Shall we chill out. I’ll get the drinks, let’s just drink.

Mills: Actually, Moth - it is Moth?

Moth: Yeah. I use to work -

Kascano: We know - the MARTIAN LOTTERY WINNER!

Moth: Yeah, thanks for that.

Tabby: You won a lottery?

Moth: Yeah. It was only the -

Tabby: Sorry, Colley, you don’t mind I sit next to -

Colley: (getting up, moving.) Oh, no. I’ve got to take a piss anyway.

Colley exits. Tabby sits next to moth and Kascano moves into. Mills sits, picking up a phone near the table, sticking a microchip on his head, smiling..

Mills: (into phone.) I want two pints of hearts beer, and a Batman vodka. I also want some champagne and a plate of chips - with mayo, coke, and mustard. Yeah,…yeah…yeah. okay, oh, yeah, get me some cocktails - a gooey something…Yeah that was it…And a…er…yeah, I think that was it. Whatever, eh?…Cheers....uh, i'm buzzin.

Tabby: So you enjoy the win?

Moth: No, not really.

Kascano: I’ll have you’re money.

Moth: I don’t think you’re registered as a charity.

Kascano: I’d give fuck all to charity - they do fuck all. They’re just organised begging companies. Fuck that.

Moth: Yeah, well, whatever.

Kascano: What we need is one big, good, revolution. We need more people to arrest. The cops on the colonies have it really tough, but Earth’s a doss. It’s fuckin’ boring; you want something to ahppned. Everyone’s just got cancer, or whatever the new disease is, and are dying. Everyone’s dying.

Colley enters.

Colley: That sounded profound. Really?

Kascano: Don’t get clever with me, shithead.

Moth: Hey easy - shall we talk about movies or something?

Kascano: No, we won’t agree on that. I can tell his twatness is probably a Kubrick fan and won’t stop going on at me. I can’t take that, it’s all over-rated shit anyway; it don’t change people. They just go nice; did you see muff? That’s all I’m interested in: did I see somethin sexual. I want doctors to let us tune into endoscopes while they’re performing keyhole surgery. Arses,