BUTTONS

(Characters: Agatha, a seamstress; her boy, Brad)

Scene: a small, one-room apartment near a river, lit only by a low-wattage lamp and the glow from a single-bar electric heater. Agatha is seated by the lamp, sewing.

Agatha: Brad, pass me my tin of buttons.

Brad: Don’t call me Brad. I want to be called Pegasus until I can think of a better name than Brad.

Agatha: I just want you to pass me the tin of buttons.

Outside, clouds gather in the overhead sky.)

(Brad goes to the window and gazes out.)

Brad: Now I know my true name. Mother, you must call me Clouds That Voyage Forever.

Agatha: All right, all right. I need the tin. Do you fancy cabbage and mustard tonight?

(Brad leaps from window.)

CURTAIN

DAVID BOWIE FAN CLUB

Jim Bowie: Hold on just a moment, I have a painting to finish.

Dave Bewlay: It’s a very good painting. Somewhat in the style of a child.

Jim Bowie: Thank you. I’m going through my Simple Period.

Dave Bewlay: Yes, I’ve been through mine already.

Jim Bowie: Is that the mail man?

Dave Bewlay: I think it is.

Jim Bowie: Yes, it was.

Dave Bewlay: No mail for us again today.

Jim Bowie: Nope.

Dave Bewlay: I’m going to put on a God David record to cheer myself up.

Jim Bowie: Oh good. Please not “Earthling” today, though. I’m not in the mood.

Dave Bewlay: I was thinking “Low”.

(There is a knock on the door of the loft. Dave Bewlay answers it.)

Alicia: Hello! I'm Alicia Hollish, from Runeberg Palmroth. I'm looking for Jim Bowie . . .

Dave Bewlay: From Runeberg Palmroth? The gallery?

Alicia: Yes! Are you Mr. Bowie?

Dave Bewlay: I'm Dave Bewlay. Also a painter.

Alicia: Oh really? And is Mr. Bowie here?

Dave Bewlay: Um . . . He's busy at the moment . . .

Alicia: What is that funny music you're listening to?

Dave Bewlay: Oh, it’s just some ….

Jim Bowie: ….. Hi, I’m Jim Bowie. I just popped out to wash my hands. It wasn’t in the stage directions but I like to improvise. Who did you say you were?

Alicia: Alicia Hollish, from Runeberg Palmroth.

Jim Bowie: What on earth is Runeberg Palmroth? It sounds a little like a disease, and a little like a character out of Star Wars. I mean the later films, the so-called prequels, where the characters are even weirder to look at and have even unlikelier names than in the original trilogy, which I’m sure you will agree is, to put it bluntly, magnificent – except, of course, “Jedi” goes on far too long. Do you like this music by the way?

Alicia: I was wondering what it was.

Jim Bowie: It’s by God David. I’m the secretary of this street’s branch of his Universal Fan Club, and Dave here is Treasurer.

Alicia: But you are Jim Bowie the painter, yes?

Jim Bowie: Oh yes, in my spare time. But I devote most of my life to God David, as does Dave. Dave is also a painter. We both like red a lot. It’s what brought us together. Red, and our devotion to God David.

Alicia: I suddenly feel rather dizzy. Could you get me a glass of water?

Dave Bewlay: One of us would need to go into the kitchen. Do the stage directions cover that?

Jim Bowie: It appears not.

(Dave Bewlay goes into the kitchen.)

Jim Bowie: Oh, there they are. You’re okay.

(Alicia sits down, rather bewildered. Dave Bewlay returns from kitchen with water in a Plexiglass measuring cup. Alicia drinks. Meanwhile Jim Bowie goes suddenly to an easel at the far end of the room and adds a scarlet circle to a painting in progress. He returns and stands staring intensely at Alicia.)

Alicia: I had thought that perhaps -- that is, I was wondering -- I'm sorry, do you think you could turn the music down?

Jim Bowie: Not me. I have to stare intensely at you.

Dave Bewlay: Don’t you love God David?

Alicia: I’m not sure.

Dave Bewlay: I’m going to stare intensely at you also.

Jim Bowie: It’s what we do. We like to stare intensely. It’s when we get our best ideas.

(They stare intensely at Alicia.)

Alicia: I don’t like being stared intensely at.

(She leaves. Exit stage right or left, depending where the door is. Dave Bewlay and Jim Bowie continue to stare intensely at nothing in particular. The music becomes louder and louder and goes on and on until the audience is forced to leave the theatre or suffer irreparable damage to their ear workings.)

CURTAIN

EMPTY ROOM

(Scene: An empty room. In it, there is nothing, which has been described as “nothing, pure zero. But this is not the nothing of negation. For not means other than, and other is merely a synonym of the ordinal numeral second. As such it implies a first; while the present pure zero is prior to every first. The nothing of negation is the nothing of death, which comes second to, or after, everything. But this pure zero is the nothing of not having been born. There is no individual thing, no compulsion, outward nor inward, no law. It is the germinal nothing, in which the whole universe is involved or foreshadowed. As such, it is absolutely undefined and unlimited possibility -- boundless possibility. There is no compulsion and no law. It is boundless freedom.” On the other hand, even the most humdrum and low school educated theatre-goer knows that the trouble of sustaining a true void may push us to the most extreme answer to the question ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’, namely, ‘There must not only be something but there must not be any emptiness at all!’. Which is pretty confusing. Parmenides, a blonde, maintained that it is self-defeating to say that something does not exist. The linguistic rendering of this insight is the problem of negative existentials: ‘This room does not exist’ is about this room. A statement can be about something only if that something exists. No relation without relata! Therefore, ‘This room does not exist’ cannot be true. Parmenides and his disciples elaborated conceptual difficulties with negation into an incredible metaphysical monolith.The Parmenideans were opposed by the atomists. The atomists, who met every Thursday afternoon for a few drinks and a chat, said that the world is constituted by simple, indivisible things moving in empty space. They self-consciously endorsed the void to explain empirical phenomena such as movement, compression, and absorption. Parmenides's disciple, Zeno of Elea, a brunette, had already amassed an amazing battery of arguments to show motion is impossible. Since these imply that compression and absorption are also impossible, Zeno rejects the data of the atomists. Less radical opponents of vacuums, such as Aristotle, whose hair colour is irrelevant, re-explained the data within a framework of plenism: although the universe is full, objects can move because other objects get out of the way. Compression and absorption can be explained by having things pushed out of the way when other things jostle their way in. Aristotle denied that the void can explain why things move. Movement requires a mover that is pushing or pulling the object. An object in a vacuum is not in contact with anything else. If the object did move, there would be nothing to impede its motion. Therefore, any motion in a vacuum would be at an infinite speed. Anyway, in this room, there is nothing, not even a simple chair, a book of plays, or a fly buzzing around looking for a way out. The door opens. Enter Bill and Ben, furniture removals men.)

Bill: Is this the place?

Ben: Doesn't look like it.

Bill: Check the address.

Ben (pulling a note from his overalls, studying it): Yeah. This is it.

Bill: This room.

Ben: Apparently.

Bill (with heavy irony): Oh, "apparently."

Ben: Listen, buddy. A job is a job.

CURTAIN