So Do We All?
First Sequence

 

 

 

 

Will Owen

 

 

 

 

 

comedy
(of scenelet sequences for the pixel-screen performance space)

 

*

Introductory Information

Concept and Synopsis:  So Do We All? is a multi-episode, "concatenation of scenelet sequences".  Each scenelet's running time should be about five minutes -- better, less than five minutes.  This playwork, though similar to a stage play, is primarily intended for the digital performance space of our screen devices.  It's apt for wide-rangingly devised setting, direction, casting, performance (and rehearsal and recording).  A key goal is to put traditional stage-acting skills, most particularly verse-speaking skills, to use in a contemporary work adaptable to the "pixelspace" of our social media apps and conferencing/collaboration software.  The dialogue is continuous (and can be played continuously ignoring the scenelet divisions), but for pixelscreen performance it will work better divided into many very short -- possibly differently set, costumed etc. -- micro-episodes.  This first sequence of scenelets is an animated conversation among three friends who went to university together.  These three play personages -- Fiordiligi (FI -- "Fi" or "Fifi"), Dorabella (DO -- "Doe" or "Dora"), and Despina (DS -- "Des" or "Desi") -- are of the same playing age; exactly how long ago they studied together -- five?, ten?, fifteen? years before the present time-setting -- doesn't matter.  Nor does it matter where they are -- talking remotely over "zoomdrinks" or similar, or together in domestic living spaces or in public ones.  The three other play-personages in this multi-sequence work of short scenelets for the social media performance space -- Guglielmo (GL -- "Guy" or "Ghee"), Ferrando (FR -- "Ran" or "Nani"), and Alphonso (AH -- "Al" or "Poncho") -- are all also of the same playing age (though these latter three only appear beginning in the Second Sequence).  Much of the interaction among these characters, in the sequences thereafter, takes place on dating apps or similar using disguise/alias profiles.  We're all in the middle of an explosion of art-making with, and for, our phones; creative teams are encouraged -- using the dialogue to maintain continuity -- to set and "look" the different scenelets variously and inventively, while still pursuing, primarily through play-personage consistency, their particular interpretation of the play.

 

*

So Do We All?

First Sequence:  FI, DO, and DS are in the middle of an animated conversation.

Scenelet One

FI
What may have been our lives before can stay
back there like dead forgotten-buried; like what's
to change there anyway? Move on -- the fut-
ure's ours to make our own and now at last

DO
we're making, making wedding plans! And oh
We're both so lucky and

FI
so happy and

DO
and so we're grateful; now acknowledging
in humble inner strength within, all
our blessings

FI
and good fortune

DO
as it's right to do.

DS
What if in heaven-happy 'llusion's where
unhappiness' hell of love-gone-wrong begins?

FI
I'm going to marry him; that's all there's to it --
no more looking back and questioning --
or else we'd never decide to move on and achieve.
With him, I'll make it diff'rent from the rest.
I know we can together 'cause...'cause I...
can help reform him so he gets it so --
in dignity of full committment and
equal in mutual respect, we'll each
to the other, to forever live love true.

DS
That promise, if by all who made it kept,
u'd like re-make to devinely kind
this desolation world of heartbreak's cruel,
mortal hurt.

FI
Oh no, he wouldn't -- couldn't -- no,
not my love; once he's staked his trust
and honor with me in that true love way,
he wouldn't like faithless break it for...
he's not like some...whatever stupids...you know

DO
like you say they all are -- but they're not! --
can't be -- cause mine -- I can tell you's why
I chose him that he's diff'rent from them all.

DS
Dream on, in trusting, true-woman loveswoon.
They're all -- men -- at bottom at the core
of being where person, body, soul, and mind
in some like dyna-stasis makes and keeps
each one of us a personself persisting samely
through all keeps changing in our selves and lives...
always the same -- unreformable the way they are:
obsession-fierce in avid thrall, so abject
to that anxious vanity and self-regard
that like ever needs another hit of that
thrill-juice kick-up dopamine whatever
kite-rush come from power-it-over some --
any weaker one -- easiest, a woman
to hold down and pry open -- and so get going that
same old, in the mind, male dominance thing,
like porn-show, live, for their selfie's reel
of how they're some -- like hoohah -- mighty,
swagswing man with sway and power over...over...
whoever -- faithful only to the gorge and surge
of their male-self's fearful need to feel empowered
by humiliating to submission any living other.

DO
No, no -- not all -- that can't be so; we know
some at least are kind and caring,
responsible, honorable and honest, called
to liberate and lead, not subjugate and command,
be all they say they want to be for good?
And mine, I know is; can be anyway --
for for that's I chose him to be mine.

DS
Your mister-right man of your life? Huah!
What woman here hasn't made that wrong-man mistake,
mis-choose some him for all he turned out not
to ever be?

FI
Oh, [DS] saying Despina's -- or other -- character-name
Everybody makes -- unwittingly -- mis

DS
no, deliberately, like all our great world leaders

DO
mistakes are made with good intentions like

DS
when it comes to marriage? You're telling me?

DO
Look I don't have like all that like experience
I guess that

DS
like I wish I didn't?

DO
I don't know, but know like I don't understand
like all that like you do but know it's got
to be you know like all more complicated than
it's only this one way or only that other.
And anyway it's common sense I'd say
'll tell you things as big as that, well aren't
like ever all way one way or the other?
Isn't that what all like 'sperience shows?

DS
'Cept all what mine, experience has made me see
'bout how at root it's power-over sexism
that's what all men're all about -- and...and
they're glad, glad, gleeful-glad to be and stay
that same patriarch sexist way. Why can't
you see that that's the way it is? What blinds
you now to what's like so way obvious, isn't it?

FI
Oh you're just jealous

DO
jealous that we're now

FI
at long, long last

DO
in true

FI & DO
and lasting love.

DS
Oh sigh, sigh me a hurricane
of breezes gently amorous
as those of Spring's first sunny days;
then cry, cry me a rainlash
of stinging disillusion tears
whipped by Autumn's chilblain wind.

DO
Oh you got like a case of problem-person

FI
and like angrily resent

DS
no I don't!

FI
oh, listen how you sound like so sarcastic,
and look at what your body language says
're feelings that run through you when you talk --
'cause yeah that's also how you sound to me.

DS
So what if with a fatload of so cold
good reason?

Scenelet Two

FI
Huh? Please spare us all, oh yeah,
all that like so psychology old-tired,
like envy of that

DS
swinging dick fake thing? -- pah!

DO
'cause yeah, you said yourself

DS
of course I did!
No way! Not me! What I've seen through...aw man...
No question woman-being's then-some better --
our powerpotential too, but brain chemistry --
may be just not the same in small but key

FI
no! Why? One more male-story justify disparity.

DO
It's not just all brain bio-chem anyway,
but how we strive for constant betterment
through daily, deliberate practice -- that's
what re-forms our soul and mind and changing makes

DS
us anywho we want to be? Dream on --
no more'n we can change the body what we're in.

DO
Who'd we be if we didn't dream? 'Cause who
we work to be's the truest portrait of our self.

FI
Sounds to me like more of that same story-making --
some more no-fact fiction -- wish were true --
made to untrue justify the-way-things-are

DS
like trickle-down, and tides that lift all boats?
Them feel-good lies that always feel so better
than that troubling truth they keep denied?

DO
True love has to be true or else it wouldn't be...

FI
Yeah, look what all the stupid's in this world believe --
chose up sides, mind made up, questions shut out,
hugging close as totems lies that make them feel
they're safe and certain like they got closure on

DS
the why they're feeling so betrayed and soldout?

FI
Okay. But still believing what's so crazy stupid.
Like makes them feel that they've made sense
of what they'll never understand.

DS
The "stupids"?
Clearly not you

FI
and not you either so don't pretend.
So what we will to do and then achieve --
and then managing the world to get us there --
that's th'achievement that makes us who we are.

DS
Drink to that anyday. (To freedom to,
but only if with freedom from; to with,
with whom we strive, and not whowhat against?)

DO
So when it comes to all this mind and body
cartwheeling-heart thing, love that no one's seen

FI
so someday soon we will -- like sensor see it --
a patterned stirring, reverbing 'cross the neuron nets
weatherlike, changing, through the brain terrain,
the imaging a dancing tracing -- phosphorent --
of like a dappling, breeze-kiss rippling of
the wheat-tops swaying in their golden,
rip'ning summery sheen, the rounded Earth uplifting
to the rays-spike -- glowing -- life-lighting sun

DS
and if there's choosing 'tween love's 'lusion and
its po'mtime purpling in its heat I'll take

FI
oh stop it, miss sigh-me-a-hurricane.
I'm just saying that now like all that oh
so old tired psychostoryology's --
like narrative's -- now all so dated, no?
And it's like neurosience now explains

DS
so wha'd'I tell you 'about how they got to keep
that dopawopa-whatever-meen hits surging --
the expectation that makes so deep intense
that reptile brain's obsession with the siezing
'cause spent it's right back to restless prowl --
so got to keep that power-over thrill juice
coming, coming, up there up between the ears

DO
you make it sound like their brains are in their balls.

FI
[Do]!

DS
The only place you'll find their minds and what
they always got them on. (And there, there's
the lev'rage -- isn't it? -- cause it's not power...
what doll girls got no other hold pry loose
some shelt'ring, so temporary safespace,
like shack-up some shielding harbor-cove embrace --
the rapegod by their offering placated --
sanctuary-moment snatched against the random,
abusive fury of the carnal, predatory storm?)

FI
I'm...well not shocked of course...you know,
I mean it's just not like you so

DO
it's exactly like me -- not how you want to see me.

DS
No, oh no, not shocked -- too sophisticat' to be shocked --
oooh, miss fifi baby poetry princess, uh-huh?
But shall we a wadtad -- sniff, sniff -- disapprove?
Oh, just an offhand, but then "didn't mean that at all!"
Like step us downscales back, like get a backhand
snobstab in -- "oh but still so ought to be you know",
like so know-better standards of the upscale...
like you're -- I see you way you are -- bought out,
cut-out fakester-person propping up,
deniably, the bilcap-boys high-hand --
the get-rich guys downsize-and-financ'alize --
patriarchate that keeps you ease and careless,
afloat above, swirled in invisible
impregnable elite-class bubble-wrap.
Like pool-lounge kick-back sip-drinking from
that wealth-concentration payroll spigot that,
for you and yours, ever won't run dry.
What am I even doing being best friends with you?

FI
What? Me? I'm an ev'ryday person just
like anybody else, and I don't mean at all

DS
fatload you didn't -- and maybe not -- but still
you said it like you might as well had;
when people say what they don't think they're meaning

DO
that's when it can like hit home, diss the most?

FI
And anyway, I'm not fat; I'm a true, proud woman.

DO
Who really wants the subject changed?

FI
"Doll girl" -- oh! -- how can you even think that way?

Scenelet Three

DS
Who here like said anything about fat?
Little defensive about size-up that it?
What? Missing that super slimline postgram thing,
project all that symbolic capital of oooh-me!
so status-beauty prestige-project like oversee --
oooh admire-envy me! -- dominance of
us all too real

FI
drudgeslab women? Why I'd
never say a thing like that.

DS
Oh no, no no,
you wouldn't, never ever, not at all.
And you, you two, got slabloads still to learn,
'bout where woke-woman girl-power stand-tall lives.

FI
And I'm not defensive, not at all -- 'bout anything!
Free! That's what I am and I work to be and stay

DS
oh yeah, stay, stay that way ever-and-a-day --
one of the ever fewer can afford
to become -- or inherit -- and then staystaystay?

FI
No I didn't mean that all, and besides

DS
don't want to talk about it? Well, okay --
way it's not just financial and production
capital that's ever owned by fewer-fewer;
it's also all them other make-you, break-you
kinds of capital: mast'ry-skills know-how,
who-you-know networks, and that status image --
bulldoze irresistable, kaliedo-eyeful symbolics-feed.
So where's that leave for real, make-it choices
us more and more got less and less of ev'ry one
of ev'ry kind of capital there is?

DO
Oh all that's just like um...the transient
dream-stuff of this illusional, desireful world --
you know, you got to like cut loose from all
that bad karma avalanche of envy and competiton,
and free the inner self -- our deeper being --
and all its generosity and goodness
from all that wanting and projecting, you know,
all for how we think we want like others see us

DS
envy and its power like advertising

DO
no, like for sharing and for like

DS
rack up the likes, the followers, like uuuuhh?
Oh yeah, maybe time right now, right? yeah!
miss cosmic-cool here catslip into one of those
oh croch-awesome ohmster-poses -- medi-levitate
lift away like oh so enviably free,
so glorious-framed in some adventure-travel
land-escape, or bio-home -- so casual,
so warm and spare, interior undesign --
like oh, no way you didn't spend frazzle hours
catch that perfect, grooving-with-the universe,
oh so freedom moment...babelike poured
into that body-tight, skin-bare, pop-open,
so-fashion yoga-suit -- pose, smoze -- hah!
With you it's always only, all about the post!

DO
No! I'm serious 'bout what I do and want to share,
achieving enlightment -- least trying to
best I can with all there is that's me --
not like perfect, or 'way exceptional, I know --
but still, the inside, deeper caring real me,
and trying to share it freely, with all I can.
My searching teaches me what I'm looking for.
And okay, I'm average, nobody special, it's okay,
but that doesn't mean I can't go on exploring
for some calmer, more human way of life,
and at least keep learning and improving,
to be there -- but more engaged and caring --
for others like that want me in their life?

FI
[DS], what are you doing?

DS
I'm searching, searching for the right emoji --
send you something speaks my bellyful disbelief,
now you've left me -- me! -- speechless -- cause like,
what I'm looking for teaches me what I find:
cause I know what I'm looking for, cause like
experience has taught me what you're not
like ever going to find in life cause it's

DO
like true and lasting love?

DS
not there

FI
'cause men
like just aren't up to it?

DS
No, they're not -- and that's the way it is.
The only thing they're ever up for's like
their get-some thing's got pussy fever,
and never just for yours. And you can keep
on hope and wish for all, all night and day --
no finding what's not there. Not pretty --
no way -- but it's seeing that that makes
you someone like's got common sense, alright?

DO
So what do you want?

DS
What else is there to want?
I want respect and dignity, same way
that ev'ry living person wants that too.

DO
Like they're like an alternative to true
and lasting love?

FI
It's common sense to want
them going with each other

DO
strong and steady too.

FI
So yeah, common sense -- like that's 'cause why
so many like don't have any -- if you're so angry
and afraid that you can't trust like when in love,
it's common sense that's first to go on you --
can't even see the obvious hiding in plain sight.

DO
Hey yeah, like why's you two...dial down...zen out --
you're not being aggressed, assailed, whatever...
breathe deep the breath of living and experience
and see, see reality the way it's for us all.

DS
And me, I just said what? You both
got muffstuff ears when I talk or what?

DO
I mean not the way -- what that's word?

FI
ideology?

DO
yeah, explain-it-story makes you want to bend
the world to how

FI
refract and not reflect?

DO
No, not either, not do at all -- just take it in,
perceive

FI
like thinking nothing that explains
the why of how we feel about the way
we think things are, least as best as we can see?
Oh, never mind. And so you're saying that
like ideology-free

DS
that nobody gets to be.

DO
No, like this...fully mindful, empty-minded
free of all that's not clear consciousness,
integrated, one with Earth and heaven, fully human, free...
Delight in what's possible and what you can create,
be real 'bout what's the-way-it-is; let go,
and see -- accept -- and humbly, the way things are.

FI
The way things are is totally unacceptable,
from the self-serving rich men, summit-top in power
to the heap-bottom mountain range of poor --
mostly women -- supressed in powerlessness,
and all of us -- all -- slowly suffocating
on our abused and hurting, smold'ring planet
that unparity and disequality make doubly worse!

DS
And it's not you that's going to do a thing
about it, nuh-uh, 'cept blahblahblah'n'huffwhuffpuff
talktime-lietime, make-yourself-feelgood-time
'bout how you're oh! so insightful and concerned,
and when it comes to action and results
that change -- and deep -- the way things are
just can't give up enough to make that big,
gasp-over tipping point touch top and revolute,
down-surge accelerate to momentous change --
just stuck in that old order you can't let go:
identitary certainties like dumbstriking,
freezing you in your social self's own mirror --
looking so good -- and feeling even better way
that stream of dividends keeps flood-tiding in --
unable to imagine you could play a different role
and lead -- so stuck, ducking real change --
just like them bigboy pop'list macho-man
command-guy hypocrites you so despise --
just like they so resent -- and so'd like get off
twisting you down servile and hurting,
pridegutted and pistolwhipped, like with...
like with their pay-roll thing gag your face!

FI
Oh! [DS], you always were so...so...

DS
Pressure-dropped?

FI
Yeah, like so at edge, so overwrought,
like angry under all the easy carefree like

Scenelet Four

DO
undercurrented
by swirldeep water troubling down beneath,
but still like barely rippl'ing, so relentless,
the surface of the stream that seems so calm.
I'll send you like my latest post on how
to find and steady, hold-and-smooth -- open to --
your cent'ring breathe-and-flow -- to stay
focused on and grateful for our human being,
and freely, humbly, accept the creature who we are.

DS
I'll be sure to like tap my heart out liking it.

FI
And so will I. ... You know [DS],
I've wanted, always, to listen to you

DS
but hearing

FI
so you do resent?

DS
no I don't -- I'm better than that. I am.

FI
Okay. And I'm not lying. I'm not.

DS
No. No. Well, maybe more than I'll admit.
But you're still just talking. Huhuuhh...why do I
like even think it might be more like satisfying
keep them wild-lie bully boys up there like blame
and scape-hating pretending that they'll take down
that wreckage-makes-riches system the global kings
like used to cash out and crush the proud
and working way of life my parents saw go down --
but theirs and theirs...had...'cause now it's gone.
And what did finansh'al'zation that gutted
that working way of life replace it with
for us: nothing but sidelining off the field,
slouched down and spectating, standing so lost,
in the scrabble-dry weedlots of abandon-arid --
the left-behind in industrial-less desolation...
economy of shamed consumers not proud workers.

FI
What? No, there's such new possiblities

DS
like what -- f'rordinary ev'rydays that what?
aren't overgirls like you? I mean that go
with have-a-life like wages, job security,
retirement, okay? and membership
and solidarity cit'zenship what had
a purpose nobly match the hopes that lift
the patriot heart? And now them big-hair, us-them,
nation-first guys that you spit on 'cause
they promise us they're going to bring oh all
something back like that so great again?
But know -- no way -- they're not, but keep on slam
and banging on that big lie that they will --
and they're so good at lying and they know it,
'cause your stupids -- aarrgh! yes, like me! --
're so ripe for like betrayed believing
any factless feelgood vengeance story.
So...so...that's why 'm I like so tempted like
believe them like at least they'll take revenge
for us on them run-it-all smarty-pants like you,
deriding took us down to ride so high. So yeah,
I do resent you -- and wish I didn't.

FI
Well, at least we all know they're lying.

DO
Even those what believe them like

FI
it's better that people believe in lies
than that they believe in nothing at all

DO
why? Then they'll be ready to believe
in any craze conspiracy and pretty soon
be coming after

DS
whoever your strongmen big boys
find are easy to defame, vulnerable to blame --
and they're going to get away with it 'cause you,
up there with the know-how power and the money
you keep them there and you pretend you don't,
'cause they've bought you out, put you on the take --
leaving you watching in uneasy fascination
as lady liberty goes down pay-roll gagged
on her knees as big tears roll bubble-big,
down from your crocodile cry-eyes.

FI
Oh come on, I'm like way way
so concerned -- worried and preoccupied --
committed, caring and engaged. I am!

DS
Oh come on nothing -- paid off while we're laid off --
just watching while your system throws us down --
but chortle-wartle hoo-hah -- oh-yeah! -- all the way
to that big bee banking brothel house -- ride 'em
cowboys -- that secret subsidy bailout gravy train --
keep your corporate socialism system floatingbubble fat --
self-sold soul-gutted, addicted to that stayrich need --
so run, like half-hiding, home to hit the shower,
try to get that sweatstink off, but clutch that cashpack, girl,
feel such secure relief it sends the shame to hiding,
like some lucky whore just scored a free-spending john.

FI
Oh [DS], not so hard-woke and negative, please.
You're like 'way overdoing it, you're like

DS
don't you dare! "hysterical" that's what you were...
yeah! You think I don't know what that word says?
Huuuh! "true, proud woman," oh!
You think I'm still ignorant or what?

FI
No!

DS
Show you what anger at injustice 's got
squirm-gestating in this woke-girl womb-belly.

DO
Oh...ohm...um...chillchillchillchill both of you.
Let's all go back to center, find the breath,
and sense your open, uplifting heartwarmth,
so softly beating, so alive and certain
such a blessing while you have it;
and let go all the day's stress-feelings --
and twenty-four seven all day every day here now,
share, in our fully human whole self experience

DS
uhuhrgh...oh

FI
my aching head

DS
I need an ah-

FI
lcohol!

DS
Capital idea!

Scenelet Five

DO
And hear, listening closely to your true self,
always here, always with you at heart-center...
hmmmmohmmmm...and always speaking truth to ego-power,
even though, I know, you always want it to shut up,
quit nagging, 'bout what you know is acting right,
and way our living's just the prep-time for
when we're released from time and fin'lly die...
Just find that breath and center, be in this moment now,
one with all that is -- so awesome, yeah --
and most of all in harmony with all that lives,
alive so tiny in this vast...but lightening-like aware...
our consciousness itself a flamelet bright
cent'ring the galaxy-sparkled reach of all...
our mind-rays of awareness that like resplend,
to equally, universally, comprehend and light,
this cosmic blessingplace that all enwombs.
...Hmmmohmmm...

FI
And while you're out there like how

DS
'bout that, whuuu --
like mine's empty too!

FI
I'll be right back okay.
So what're you drinking?

DS
Whatever it is,
it's never strong enough. So always right time

FI
get a refill. Like nothing so cosmic useless
like a glass standing there empty

DS
like oh comical,
lastdrop voided, like uncoupled from its purpose

FI
that's to be filled up full

DS
of nurturing nectar, life-refreshing

FI
life-spark...ling joyful, brimming, like a wuhlm...

DS
Don't go there!

FI
I was just going to say wine-like voluptuous

DS
voided and purpose-empty

FI
no

DS
like a woman without a man? So?

FI
Womb without a child! God damn it!

DO
What?

FI
Oh, just getting another drink.

DS
Hey, "whuut" -- happier in astrocosmic sleepy -- stay there.

DO
What?

DS
That's the real reason you're going to marry that idiot.
'Cause if you don't you fear you'll never

FI
no!
I love him. I do.

DS
[FI], wake up now and eject before

FI
he jects

DS
yuuh-uh-uh the rounded Earth beneath
the sun's rays-spike ejecting... Argh! bail out
before it's too late

DO
Too late for what?
Time, you know's like the one thing that's equal,
equally, always for all, so we, we got all

FI
No we don't. And it's not equal. Ohhh...
Oh never mind.

DS
No, you know he's an idiot.

FI
He can be reformed.

DS
No they can't.

DO
What? Well, if you want to go back to that?
I mean all those old guys that own it all
and have the power like run the world the way
they do -- I mean what if they're not always lying?
And can reform -- what's human potential?
They got to have some, like good habits? I mean

DS
yeah, ideo-slight-of-hand, theater-of-virtue --
hide that predation mean.

FI
What? What meen-dope're

DO
No, she means like...um...like preedough...predotari...predotaripirate?

DS
Pre...predarivate?

FI
Prevaricate I think

DS
Lying's lying, raping's raping no matter what you call it.

DO
They can't be all be like that I mean

DS
mean what meen?

DO
mean like thrills-meen of having all the money.

DS
And what else is being mean and predatory for?

FI
And they want to keep it -- and keep control --
of where it goes and what it's used for, yeah...
making more...I mean, yeah...obviously we

DO
no, I mean what if it's not mean and evil but

FI
just greed-competiveness, so unforesightful?

DO
yeah, like guys can be -- the way they are --
don't have a clue they're lying 'cause they believe
their own self-story? You know, like guys can be --
clueless -- so self-selfie they believe like every fact
they fiction tell about themselves: how good
and strong they are, and always like, "I'm trying okay?"
always like doing their so great very best,
and "why's that not good enough? so can't you be happy?"
Blahblahblah, like always there for you

FI
to beat you down

DS
stick you up

FI
no! like just take charge and take the credit --
so they can swag their strong-leader selfie-thing.

DS
So what's so funny?

DO
So okay, so they're
like just being guys...so they just don't get it.
Like they're not that way cause they're smart,
they're that way 'cause...I mean like you say they are...
like all of them? ...maybe you're not hysterical?

DS
I am hysterical and proud of it! And I'm right.
And they are. ... And you two are going to get married?

FI & DO
Yes we are!

Scenelet Six

FI
We all need to be more positive, forward-looking --
specially now when optimism is so needed.
What we've been taught, like that's what teaches us
what in our lives we can conceive and then create.

DS
"Conceive and then create"? -- achieve...

DO
so don't we all?

FI
of course! as every person has the right
to too, and I'll fight for that freedom to
live way you want and work and make whatever art

DS
yeahyeahyeah blahblahblah so long 's you first
got freedom from -- and anyway, I'm not
like talking to you now; this pictomojigram's
I got distracted from's like one more for
miss cosmic push-up butt here's like so creative
non-stop likesfeed from her yoga-fashion fans-horde --
feed the ping-itch habit, mind flash-and-numbing,
tensing with reward-expectation for that next hit
of self-validation from kaliedo-scroll lightpoints. How 'bout mister barfman here -- yeeehchg! --
no, too cynical, too cruel -- like whoa, negative --
get me the blocking

FI
you deserve

DO
you know
a plain old heart-like's fine

DS
no way -- how 'bout
mister loll-laughing cry-me-eyes-out -- hyeeargh! --
nah -- cause I'm snorting in derision -- heeah!
Um no, this one's read now like it's virus contaging...
Oh leave it to mister trusty all-purpose
thumbs-up high-fives -- yaas! -- like I so really mean it --
but I'd never lie -- add some fire-flames too
cause you're like, [DO] baby, burning up
with strongheart trustfulness and goodness too...
and that, well that's...well, not so average...

DO
And after all that blab you could as well
like skip the punching out the jiffies

DS
but --
I can't resist it when I find the one
like pegs a feeling I can leave un-named

FI
like pictogramming right can say it clear

DO
as saying it with no words at all?

DS sending something on her phone
so there!

FI & DO
... Like that's not very nice at all.

DS
And I don't care.

FI
So like you maybe don't care
it was your unhinged feelings maybe made
you vote like for destructive idiots like

DS
at least I'm not going to marry one!

FI
You're wrong, he's not

DS
oh yeah? You want to see?

DO
c'mon, chill out. Besides she's right

DS
like knows

DO
more better?

DS
why?

DO
It's just that way. She's right; she is.
Back in the day, remember then, when we

DS
of course I do -- oh those

DO
so who was it?
the responsible one made sure we got home safe
those party nights

FI
and study days

DO
like tried
so hard we didn't make that hook-up wrong

DS
mistake.

FI
With you, I could've had more success.

DS
And that, you said it then and can say again

FI
and still be true?

DO
But we can take control
and set our goals for change and day by day,
what we have power over in our lives,
bring us 'round to all that we can be --
that personal best we teach ourselves to be:
our potential, self-developed purposef'lly
that through delib'rate learning practice slow
and deeply sure transforms

DS
so long's you're
like readied, try that way and keep

DO
yeah keep
on trying -- cut yourself no self-sorry slack
near ev'ry time you face that moment of decision:
live and love and act by values you've chose free,
and bound yourself by honor to enact,
so honoring yourself and others in their respect.

DS
Like to this true-love [FR]-turkey that you're --
like going to vow to be so true and and lasting
faithful to -- and still I can't believe it --
like going to marry -- hah! Respect? Like do
you even know this guy?

DO
Of course I do.

DS
"Of course I do". So why's it that that wrong-man

DO
I'm not making a mistake. It's what
we want. And I want. And he wants it too --
at least I think I've convinced him

DS
that he wants it too? Only thing party-man wants
is drunken holepound, self-stream his triumph time...
Look, [DO]...'cause I do care about you -- both
of you, you know I do, and your mom
I know 's no longer with us tell you that

FI
tell her what, that she's like making

DS
like you are too -- that he's a man,
and they're...they're all...like they are -- maybe
it's not their fault, evolution like made them

FI
by mistaken adaption

DS
for relentless replication?

DO
What is the human species' best like um...sublimed?...
you know, re-adapted, like for harmony
in living, defending and protecting, 's no mistake.

DS
Oh yeah? And worst? Like ever unreconstructed?
Why're they still like all that violence and sex
in fused confusion -- porkerblinded, roargrab stupid
swagstomp fools -- so blind exited when they're cruel --
like always needing one more hit of hurt and rule,
get that meen-juice kick-up taking down
one woman or anyone, like make them feel
like power's what they got? You both still don't
like have to, you know -- go through with it,
bowed down, virginal demure, robed for ritual

FI
maidenhead

DS
blade-point slaughter

FI & DO
yeah we do! We're finally getting married,
and now you want us like not to? Like whaa?

DS
There's still time to toss it and live free,
free from love dependency and its price you pay.
Like think it through; what if he's so like selfish --
aren't they all? -- and couldn't ever care
enough, so won't be true and strongly there for you?
Like your -- oh [FR]! -- mister good-time-turn-me-loose,
off-work out of control like he can't stand
his daytime life -- and you're like going to make him
mister-husband-quiet-evenings-on-couchland?

DO
Not so quiet.

FI
Oh [DO]...

DS
"Oh" [FI]...

DO
The work he does 's like 'strem'ly stressful so --
the crazy hours and always all that so intense,
so he's got to somehow let the pressure off.

FI
Out drinking with the guys, a little bit
of that

DS
and what?

DO
no, from now on just that

FI
and what, there's no harm in that; like hey,
I'm up to do some drinking, chilltime with you two,
like right now too.

Scenelet Seven

DS
Like you think drinking's their only that?

DO
What's in the past is like she said and we --
you know, can like compart'lize and accept --
can keep it stayed there. I've got mine too.

DS
So now, like happily ever after all anew,
like ev'rybody gets that brand-new start
like they never been who they been so far?

DO
That's the plan -- it is. And there's no use
in wanting to, if you don't want to try.

FI
My considered feelings and convictions too.

DS
And what if I make you see what untrue,
lying, self-first sex-hound louts they're both
like all the rest that way and'll always be?

FI
Oh-oh, somehow I'm not comfortable with what
with you is scheming -- show us all
we're blind like love and 'bout the truth it's you
that's onto what we'd rather

DO
look away

FI
suspecting

DO
and deliberate leave ignored

FI
like that's a kind of lying too?

DS
Marriage is something most regret -- mostly women.
Ask around, when hub-bub's out runnin' 'round
living his realman studself dreamreel,
like preening it for all the boys to secret share
and then like cow-eye cringely as they envy
ho, big man getting his some beauty booty --
all to the old feel-sorry-for-me selfie-story
"but-I-deserve-it" and "stays-here-so-no-harm-there"
"I-got-the-right, a-man-like-me" grab-up and scarf,
and subjugate and use. Then back to on to next --
fire up that limbic system with another hit
of gratify me and justify it all, right now! --
ask 'round when that's what's feared, suspected, known --
and cheating's woke-hard hurt comes searing, tumbling out.

DO
I'm going to marry him; we've decided.
I love him. He loves me. He's my [FR].

FI
And I am too. And I know why -- exactly why --
that it's with my [GL] I want to love
and live together, make our two lives one --
life of our couple and then our family and so
we're getting married, and we'll work to make it work.

DS
You make it sound like something you'd get paid for.

FI
Oh stop it, [DS]; that wasn't even funny,
and much less realistic; look around, right?

DS
Consider, consider, my best best friends
what I've most realistically well observed:
why's it women -- so strong, ambitious, aware,
determined and achieved -- you notice I didn't say smart? --
why's it women like you that true love illusion
so easy, complete reduces to sea-foam sighs --
oh the swirltingle through airhead bubbleholes in the brain --
those reveries of ev'ry day a closeness lived
so warm and caring, sun-drenched and nurturing
like life together's like one forever Springtime day
begun and ended in the stun of a...
true and lasting, love's enlacing?

Focused on their phones, FI and DO ignore DS.

FI
Oh look, look how handsome
how stand-tall and kind
he gazes so longing
like I'm on his mind.

DO
Oh look at how piercing
his eyes look out for me
so strongly yet caring
like to always adore me.

FI
Oh [GL] you've made me so happy
you, the man I will marry!

DO
Oh [FR] my one and my only
I give you so freely all, all of me.

FI & DO
Now we've found true love that forever will last
all our years of searching and lonely can rest in the past;
for trusting and faithful for caring and kind
forever will love live, constant both in heart and mind!

DS
Argh... Thank God my glass is empty. I'll be right back.

FI
[DS], you're such a party-spoiling yenh-yenh-yenh-yenh
I-know-better and -- what do you know? We'll show you.
We'll make it work; we can if we truly try.
Good things are possible in this hell of human stupidity.

DS
Like you're not some yammering arch-moralistic --
full-volume twenty-four-seven 'bout how all
you ought to act's and think and be and care --
like your way. Just in case you want to know
why some people can't stand you. And what, what
makes you think your husband'll can stand it too?

FI
Stop laughing. It's not funny. But I'm still right --
at least most of the time -- most all the time! --
I am. I can't help it. That's the way it is

DS
"for a woman like me!" entitled powerhouse

FI
of determination, hard work and achievement! Yes!
He should feel lucky I can stand him.

DS
Great way to start a lasting oh-so-true
transaction. So, okay, miss "make it work" --
what if, what if you're wrong, both wrong, 'bout them,
and what you can make work, and I can show you that?

DO
Not interested. I'm too happy.

FI
No. Who needs extra stress.

DS
Oh? ... So what, what makes you so stressed?
Like that's like one thing that

DO
yeah [FI], like you got what

DS
like what everybody envies -- topline-status job,
big-figures paycheck, mom-pop's hefty left-behind --
God bless their souls I know -- but we all die

FI
and those die best leave treasured memory
along with all they rev'rant handed down

DS
like treasure houses stuff-stocked full, and all
reined and handled with the ease of knowing practice,
and money too huh? -- and whole shebang of you
topped off blue-ribbon wrapped, bow-knotted,
presented, like with that credential lux-brand
education too

FI
you got it too --
given the best -- there with us like you were

DS
I was yeah but

DO
oh those -- they were so great --
those years where we, we had the greatest times
we did -- together

DS
still, I never felt
like I belonged for real -- so natch'ral kool
like from forever there -- and "given" huh?
Like real, good education opportunity's...
is what? -- charity from the got-plenty-already?
hand-down leftovers 'cause feeling shamey-guilty? --
oh let's bring aboard some mis-educated downscales,
but not all of course, from that weak schools side
of our steel-wall strong invisible divide line...
leave them locked out, lost in ignorance?
'Cause good education's not a public-good,
a right taxpayer secured, equally for all?
And like I'm supposed to feel so grateful -- and I do --
but so why just me? -- part of how I felt back then --
and no, I'm still not over remembering with you now --
the poor bright scholarship-bursary girl I was.

FI
But still those were great friendship times

DS
they were
who's saying they weren't? Truth is I'd go back
to learn-and-party privilege-land with you
like tomorrow if I could -- and okay I do feel

DO
so one-for-all, that's what we were

DS
and all-for-one -- like in solidarity, that it?

FI
and having so much fun

DO
but also all the sharing, and the felt-like
split-second long hours of talking and of oh
so real the life dramas were then, and lived
like so intense -- but we're all laughing now...

FI
...yeah, so together then...we were, but younger,
so, so less so conscious of and locked apart
by different pasts... [DS], what are you doing?

DS
Oh, nothing -- looking at me now -- like trying to true
remember how I felt back then and why --
so exited -- my mom so proud -- I got in somehow --
and how for her...my achievement...I didn't give up,
no matter how much catching up I feared
and felt I'd never do.

Scenelet Eight

DO
So how things have been going these days
you got to wonder what's going to happen to
that packing people in on campuses all over --
they're finding they can move a lot of it
off-site, right there to the screen that's in

DS
so for all anybody out there cares,
the achievement's only getting selected in?

DO
What?

FI
Of course! Why you or me or anyone
can get the whole, most elite of all
education anyone could want like just
a screen call-up away for free and all it takes

DO
so why's it who what needs it most like don't?

DS
Yeah, you'd think like them bigboy politicos
like'd want to be well-educated, right?

FI
Obviously not, or many likes of you'u'd
like never vote for them.

DS
What?

FI
"Whuuut?"

DO
What, so all it takes to get that top-tier ed-
ucation now's like stare this screen thing in the face
and do like all your teleworking homework
problem sets, burning out your eyes,
frazzling alive your mind and hunching out
your back like years and years at the office

FI
like working like from home at forever teleworking

DO
so day after day like that, the time goes by

DS
'til you get tired or you get fired.

FI
Office jobs and gigwork way it's today? --
you're going jump now down my throat on that?
In workworld now like hordes of lemming milkcows
shackled to their milking machine screens
mind skills keyboard-funneled suck shrivel dry
day after day til there's nothing left but leather
bone-bags dazed and glass-eyed stumbling turned out --
finished -- not even good for glue or dogfood
much less burgermeat for fastfood flipping --
that's what you want to make me say 'bout all
the great new jobs and opportunities
of digital capitalism's global transformation
of services, employment and work?

DS
So works for them what owns the dairies --
so like I hear you say, officework today,
like milk you dugsack dry and not the slightest
thought like earn you any dignity retirement --
gig-milked out -- 'til you get tired or you get fired.

DO
No wonder we want to get married and have a life.

FI
Yeah! Go girl! ... So, thinking of back then --
and finishing to go out graduating and

DO
it's time to change the subject again I see

DS
what else is new 'round here with you two?

FI
I care about this, how we got to here we're now;
me anyway, I felt such confidence and like

DS
entitlement and guess guess what, for you
it turned out 'zact as planned and

FI
well so what? So what!? 'Cause just because,
because you've got that fatpay super topline job,
the hyper-phone and big-space place to live
and all the world's like best made

DO
oh [FI] your purses 're always

FI
handbags

DO
're so...so...
oh I never could say that...that...shee-shee word
like right...so toplux, okay...okay I can't
whatever...like afford them anyway, but then...
I can take a picture and

FI
knock yourself out

DS
and so like virtually afford? So yeah,
you get to crush with envy the wanna-bees
like dangling draggly copy-cat sacks sheepish

DO
arghgh! made from turned-out milkcow leather;
I'm deleting this

DS
whuaahh -- now let's do something so like feel-good --
environmentally -- like totally virtual! Hwah!

FI
And this is an object of fine design, made
with careful craftsmanship and skillful care.

DS
And with that flag-rank brand-badge slapped on --
go with them shee-shee finance-sheik like income
level clothes for the non-stop runway
daily-life like selfie-me display show --
[FI], it must be so stressful have to dress up and
perform like that way every corner-office
working day?

FI
Meetings I got to make a diff'rence in --
all those hypocrite glint-eyed lizards
'round the table, hiss and flicking,
near imperceptible, their venom forks,
takes the armor of fashion best-dressed,
and a lot lot more just survive up there...
unpoisoned by their jealousy and insecurities.

DS
So best dressed's not a privilege nor indulgence,
but a necessary occupational perquisite?

FI
And I can tell you that it all -- it all --
still doesn't mean you've got a life that's real --
that's meaningful and loving -- 'cause for that,
everyone's equally the same, and wants a family
of one's own, with one who loves you
and wants to raise the children yet not forget
why, before that, we were lovers and so
stay partners 'til the end. It's not funny --
I know how much it hurts me not to have it.

DS
Okay, so I won't send you teardrops
I was going to look for here and just...
keep looking for the tracks of those

DO
[FI], hey, we weren't laughing at,
like hurtful at you but like...
you're so clueless in your empowered way

DS
if having all that's not happiness I know,
then what's so been gnawing ruining mine?

DO
but like feeling...um...I'm looking for...not like rude
but like this one, the word for it you know

DS
so just open your emoticon like dictionary app --
like feeling what

FI
rueful

DS
whatever with her 'cause
we all know that it's so hard for everyone
living with what they desire for life and fight
what stands in its achievement's way,
and there's no reason we can't see what they
see's missing in their life like they want it to be.

FI
So what was the other part of what you felt
back then, that clearly, I didn't see.

DS
I think it was the way I felt that I
was starting so so far behind -- like may-
be why my fascination for you from

FI
friendship with you -- from the day

DS
I know, we met --
you seemed to me so accomplished and so free --
like everybody there, even if they weren't --
and I felt like all were so far ahead that me,
not in eon-years of trying could catch up --
and maybe that's th'achievement diff'rence

FI
that should be counted? How? Like a racing yacht
that forges all canvas bellied with privilege breeze
or that tacks and beats to near exhaustion
just to finish into the heading's disadvantage wind?

DS
Exactly.

DO
What's the wind got to do with it?

FI
As always when we learn what we wished we'd known,
I wish I'd seen it then

DS
so see it now.

DO
See what?

FI
The diff'rences we left ignored then
for reasons of egalitarian intent?

DS
But that now we understand so better?

DO
But like we had such great times together then
like were so happy, all together, right?

Scenelet Nine

DS
We were? We were...we were. Who's saying like what,
we didn't? -- have such great times then? We did.
I'm talking now, when ev'ry kind of in-
equality there is 'slike been so overstacked
on one micro-divide-side of the persons population --
and hey, I'm not resentful -- I'm crazy glad
for you and all, soft-nested safe and warm
from all contagion from that viral poverty that now

FI
no, it's so more complicated than just that --
there's always been -- from our evolution's pri-
mate bands back then to our identitary
tribes today like disparity and in-
equality, structural for society to

DS
like that's how it's always got and going to be?
Talk about a story justify dis

FI
No! It's just the nature of the social beast.

DO
We're all equal, always have been, life-even
with all that's lived and will on this bio-
sphered slingstone running 'round it's sun --
each and every one of us from our
conception instant to our glimmergasp time out.

DS
Excuse leave inequal'ty delib'ratly ignored.

FI
No, 'cause people don't see it 'cause progress
is learning to see what you didn't see before.

DS
Like who's always seeing like new and newer kinds
of inequality and disparity

FI
well yeah, got to --
like new-viewing history in new light of what...?
perception-changing, enlightenment's progress...?

DO
what?

DS
so you're like not, like living easy,
so unjustly, cruelly, and unequally
in deep system public purse protected
too-big-to-fail, risk-free ownership's

FI
it's to save jobs that it's

DS
in turbine overdrive
to do away by autorobomating every job it can
til only handful left's only those like you can do?

FI
I work like so much harder than

DS
You do --
where there's that high-horse work left to do --
lifted up into that new finance stratosphere
that precipitates only a mist of money drizzle
after evaporating up every moisture drop
of profit from us underpeople here
in shrivelthirst beneath -- and all enabled
by our tax-debt expense -- so send some rain back! --
invest in our potential for development
and growth.

FI
Be happy to, 'cept no one wants

DS
like they're your stupids

FI
so why's not everyone
like study-sweat and practicing day after day
for years learn all the capability you want
for free right here on

DS
cause you got to learn

DO
to want to learn? But of course, so do we all
we want to

DS
bad enough to do it?

FI
Well I did -- and so did you -- put in
a world of effort and a wealth of time
and I'd say deserve

DS
so okay so you're there, why

FI
like what?
Like everybody else be there too -- like them,
don't even have a clue they want to be there --
like your bossman meansters so proud they're brutes?
What do you want, like I'm should feel guilty
'cause umpteen generations of literacy gave

DS
I'm not one of your untaught stupids, so don't

FI
I'm not ...oh, [DS]...

DS
Oh, [FI] it's okay -- I'm used to it --
Like never belonging, equally with you, really;
you know what I mean.

FI
Look, [DS] I'm sorry...but I shouldn't have to be --
I'm totally committed to fighting all
all disparity and inequality!

DS
[FI], all so well meant, all so resultless

FI
I'm

DS
No, you're not!

FI
Every good and decent
person on this planet wants real equality
respect and dignity for all.

DS
But only way to get it's to unprivilege
the privileged and

FI
take away and smash

DS
so what?

FI
obliterate and level all
the treasured mem'ry work the mighty dead

DS
mandarin mind-story made to exclude

FI
no!

DS
So why won't you pay, equally privilege all
so they can read themselves in
and privileged equally, equal achieve?

FI
It's all out there for free!

DS
So's the ocean if you want to swim across
with no crew and ship to sail you on your way.

FI
You said yourself it worked for you.

DS
I got a lot of supportive care, love

DO
and investment?

DS
And it did work.

FI
But not enough?

DS
You can't be equal if you don't feel equal.

DO
So how do you learn how to do that?

DS
By how you're -- privileged -- always treated.

DO
Oh yeah -- for sure -- like that's how time
the universe and consciousness treats us all,
all the same -- ever and for always --
and ever has and ever will, until our equal end.

FI or DS
Big fucking deal.

DS or FI
"Big fucking deal"?

DO
Well yeah, it is actually, big fucking deal --
so that's great, great -- step back, calm out, laugh!
And everybody like...hummmm...what don't I get?
Happiness 's like not what you don't have in life,
but like building a better life with what you do have.
Yeah but, like [FI], I still don't get like why,
like why the stress what gets to you that way?

Scenelet Ten

DS
Yeah what could possibly be stressing you
like living up there like bubble-bathed
in guarantees that other people get to pay?
What? Fear some crazy woke-girl movement might...
no way -- take down that cloudland like
whirlwind wisp it away like it was all some
cotton candy spun from virtual bit-byte money?

FI
What? That's meaningless! Earnings from
financial instruments are real as notes,
as notes of music

DO
from guitars in hands?

DS
but can be looped and replicated, spun forever
through digiwiz effects that keep louding out
and spinning variations that can seem
they're music blaring from the vibracones,
but like monty-money switch and fake
there's no value-adding real production there
just like there's no musician really playing...
like hand-plucked notes from guitars that played
air-drumming beat ripples shivering the haircell
helixfields cochlear vales and hit the brain...
and unreplicatable, they dissipate and fade...
all so like the dream stuff of this transient
desireful world? So what keeps that sieze-
and-profit system there in place, implacable,
fortress impregnable to evolution and reform?

DO
Not enough woke-girls take it down?

DS
Not yet.

FI
And replace it with some stand-pat sleepy
socialist dependency dysfunction? Woh!

DS
No -- a more equitable version of itself -- so get
ahead so you can stay ahead -- just not so far --
lose, lose lots of ground to keep

DO
you mean
re-invent the rat-race so like we're all
in the same ratpackrace of equally

FI
free-enterprise exhausted, burned out but
exhilerated from achievement's effort and success?

DO
I thought you were going to say stress.

DS
And with the same, same equal chances run

FI
but still the stress of competition's al-
ways greater at the front 'cause there's

DS
so lose the stress, fall back, size down

FI
and pay
a fatload of more taxes just to transfer down

DS
grow green the rain-starved valley-sward
where sears the life of unschooled losthoodness,
so always near to parched in mere trickledown
but apt to sprout up and grow teeming full --
the ripening surge of enough prosperity
that's life in liberty's greatest blessing --
command your destiny and not despair
just suffering it -- under steady sun and rain
of freedom's light and investment's nourishment.

DO
Oh [DS], when you talk like that I feel
that I can see all on Earth like standing tall
like in the kind and grace of human pose.

FI
You dream that all'u'd take is lots of money.

DS
Be a start anyway re-paradigm that re-share.

FI
What!? Like money's some kind of stream stuff
you can send out and share like some social

DS
made of the 'zack same bit-byte stuff now.

DO
Well maybe that what-it's-made-of part but --
no I don't think so -- those old guys got all
the money, sharing that they just don't get;
the best of them they get like charity,
like for the glory of their power to give-away,
but sharing's just not part of how --
that male financial capitalism works you know?

FI
They maybe better learn some new tricks quick
if way it's working now's so unsustainable...
(so what'u'd our capit'lsm be like if women
had at least a real equal share of power there?)

DS
like now there's only viagra bailout's keep it up?

FI
Come on, be real, please, there's just no choice
but keep the legal system and the state

DS
unjust coddle-nanny of your precious in-
equality economy -- oh, there's never any choice!

FI
No! The right choices enlightenedly renewed --
the legal system and its institutions all engaged
securing rights like property 'cause that's
the middle messiness of things that matters
'cause that's where people actually live and care!

DS
Hopeless -- dead dogs learn better than old guys.

DO
Well I don't live there anyway -- not any more --
I don't -- the real stuff in my life is near
all rented, or it's bought for use and then
recycling if I don't wear it out or eat it.
It's not weird! And I'm okay with it, 'cause like
the true me in life of others and my friends
is like near all right here in my phone:
my posts and what I try to teach and share,
the chronicle of my life and how I'm known
to be and want to be remembered for --
like kept in mind with gratitude by all who follow me.
I know, you guys think I'm some unserious dingbat --
but there's real respect and loving in the sharing that
I do, with all my friends and others that I...like know...?

FI
Don't go there!

DO
Where?

FI
Where what now most makes us who
we are is all that pixel stuff and meaning that --
we hope, if not like totally ignored -- others
somehow give to it. No! No way!
It's up to each of us to make us who we are --
not left to some so

DS
stupid?

FI
horde out there
to make the meaning of our bit-byte content and
and so save our person-self from oblivion
and ignored, live presenceless.

DS
Uh-yeeah, worried are you --
all that bit-byte content out there that's still
believed it's money personally owned is going to be
re-meaninging by the stupid crowd out there?
Oh yeah -- worry -- what's going to happen
to the meaning of like owning money -- property --
if so much of it's like all some same cascade
of bit-byte signaling that's meaninginged --
believed in -- or ignored -- unmeaninged --
like just another colorburst of scrollstring,
swiped this way, that -- tagged or flicked away,
to somewhere in data cyberspace to replicate
or just corrupt unused away?

Scenelet Eleven

DO
C'mon, I'm checking me -- mine I mean -- now.
So what's like mine about it? -- now -- maybe
in theory it's like some kind of property
that's mine -- and yeah, it's true I did create it,
but once I put my pics and practice lesson plans,
and all like out there -- who and what can keep
it from like being all and anyeverybody's
doing with it, using it like theirs?
I mean that's why I put there...sharing...

FI
The end of property rights secured effectively
for all's

DS
what got the money pay to make
it happen for what they can predatory
call their property -- like any what
that should be public good from air to energy
to medicine and knowledge

FI
air!? Socialism airhead!

DS
If you got the right to poison it you might
well be owning it -- 'zack, 'zack same!

DO
oh...
Oh, oh -- I forgot and so completely;
like something makes this happen to me all
the worst most unexpected possible times

FI
it is theirs! has to be! material, intellectual

DS
like anything whatever, financially empowered,
they all together get decide called owned?

FI
The end of property rights secured effectively
for all's

DS
as we imagine it?

FI
's the end of democratic civilization;
ideally, rights all equally secured for all.

DS
that all it's not securing all for 'll vengent end.

DO
I got to check my bank account -- they're 'bout
to take out "due today" -- today! -- and it's like short.

DS
Not something you need check and worry 'bout;
[FI], can you even imagine what it means
to not be rich? Right -- why would you want to?

FI
Maybe I can't -- not really no...but still,
I try 'cause I'm concerned that inequality's
got out of hand and things just can't go on

DS
your way?

DO
Oh it's oh like always so the same,
the same old story -- and I'm not even poor --
the outgo number's always like out-cancelling
the income number and

DS
so look like at
your follow-feedster-grambank's page instead --
it's 'zack the same and you'll feel like so much better:
a pair of bit-byte digit strings could be your bank-bank's --
but like the incoming of your followers like way
outgains the outgoing of your followees.

DO
It does. But I can't like trade them in for

DS
yeah you can.

DO
So I'm supposed to feel like I'm
not broke -- or nearly so, like lost 'tween ends
that like always almost -- almost always --
are only nearly made to meet?

DS
So? So you're money broke, but you got social capital --
so get a deal like sponsored by like dollgirl
yoga suits, like monetize

FI
so see,
there's all, all kinds of great great

DS
and fair new opportunities for those
that have the means to sieze them in this best
of all -- so necessarily this way? --
worlds that we conceive and then create? --
oh man let's talk of new-new opportunities
for some getting some! New-new new -- Earth
under the spike-ject sun -- like so new
never-yet-seen opportunity so new:
like that of your like true-love magic main man,
[GL] -- so new! marrying for money -- yours!

FI
No! He loves me; he always tells me so!

DS
Of course he does for you're one and only
poetry princess of his wildest dreams!

FI
I am, and I deserve to be. And he'd never, no,
someone like him even think that base self-seeking way --
his education, worldliness, achievement --
high-minded but practical his every thought --
like always balancing responsibly his private profit,
ensuring it enables, equitably, public good

DS
only equity he cares about 's the kind that's liquid

FI
all in a way that caring and enlightened
and that makes for progress that's sustainable

DS
and I'm the only person here laughing
through my tears out loud?

FI
all ensure that doing the right thing the right way
is how he concieves and then creates
the the meaning of his life -- justly
admired by all for his courage and his honesty.

DS
vice and weakness, and exploitation free?

FI
I'm going to marry him. So I've decided.
And what needs to be reformed in him, can be.

DS
Oh yeah. You don't believe me do you both

DO
both of us we don't. 'Cause same is true
of my [FR] -- his wise sense of humor,
his devotion to duty and to service,
his strong, courageous character all
make clear for everyone, he'd never -- 'cause
he's honest -- go so low.

DS
The way men never do?

FI & DO
Not ours anyway.

DS
Not yours, then whose? All wrapped in tinsel-talk,
cheap narrative of got-a-right-to-mine -- my pleasure --
and my right to my private life like you're not in it.
I think it's like only sex workers maybe see them
the way they are in their puny needfulness,
inner jerkhood of power-fantasy and squalor.

DO
So why would you know all so more 'bout this
than me and her?

DS
Me personally?

FI
Yeah you, [DS]

DS
Oh you know like I've gone on to get
an on-line graduate degree in the observing of
the life experience of de-personizing,
objectifying, stereotyping, and gender profiling.

DO
Oh we all know more than we'd ever want
to ever know 'bout all of that.

FI
We do.
Like world I work and live well it's still...
no matter what the great intentions blahblahblah.

DO
Like you're stressed by the disparity between
the lietalk and the factstruth?

FI
Exactly.

Scenelet Twelve

DS
Like 'tween who's got their rights secured for real,
with full opportunity set up clean predictable --
systems' integrity not fakery

FI
like cielings
that like elevator-like keep moving up
soon as you start hammering on the glass

DS
like 'tween who's got their rights secured for real
and who's like not got all -- at all --
all rights secured...but don't mind that -- oh my --
cause big-talk time -- add some fly-overs and flags --
and all that paper-over propaganda --
hides that all so well from all -- like me --
sometimes don't want to know, 'cause like it's my,
my feelings block

DO
the want to know

FI
and leave ignored?
Well that's absolutely not, not true for me --
I mean 'bout rights -- the last thing that I'm for's
preventing all from getting all, all our rights
equally secured...why preventing any
from getting any right from full securing...
like that'u'd be like so...so unenlightened...
and like might as well be obstructing justice too

DS
de facto, anyway -- 'cause that's why they
like got you bail-out bought out -- bystand away --
stay out of their way -- while they put that
authoritarian -- me and mine're excepted from
the rule of law -- that obstructing justice
way of life in power, and unchecked

DO
so like somebody write me one right now,
like fix my irritant "due today" small issue

FI
one thing I've never been's like on any take
and there's no systemic bail-out system --
like you're into some crazy loser conspiracy --
like oh! some anonymous safety net that keeps

DS
the top tier topped up and then the rest
of us like get

DO
like less and less of every kind
of capital there is -- but that we got
like the intelligence to use and so
the right to have the

FI
actionable?

DS
opportunity
to learn and earn and then put well to use.

DO
Like I'd like now to learn-earn put-to-use a hit
of money capital right now cause they're
like taking out like "due today" and there's
no cap'tal there, least not 'nough cover so

DS
so maybe you, you too can scrounge instead
a bail-out hand-out like

DO
a lifeline

DS
no credit...no?

DO
Sure I do; but that, I got to pay it back,
and that makes everything like so so worse.

DS
So get a big big bailout like her system's
risk-free capitalism's to-big-to-ever-fail
major blahblahs -- that they'll never have
to pay back -- no, really -- like the loan
term years start going by and there's some toptoss
like it's the bottomcard accounting monty and look!
the money's not there where you thought it was!
and in the end the whole thing gets written off --
'cept of course for them put up the money to begin with.

DO
Who?

DS
You -- honest little pay-your-debts-and-taxes yoga girl.
And the up-front money guess who put in their pocket,
and paid off the investors keep everybody quiet?

FI
That's just a crock of prejudiced, populist

DS
What?!

FI
loser-fantasy claptrap -- the're lots of honest,
conscientious super-smart good guys at the top
of our financial and our business

DS
anterooms
to the back rooms -- probably your relatives --
where they leave some good guys buzzing busy,
add to the window dressing tokeneers --
even some women too -- smile and ride
up and down the glass elevators like with
all the other no-power walk-ons
of the diversity diversion used to divert
from where's the real power where the --
one-kind only guys -- mean and predatory --
play that male thrills financial capitalism
game for real.

FI
That's like so woke-girl politically incorrect,
and that you can get away with is so

DO
so how can I get a bailout now?

DS
Sell your vote, like for some tax-relief
or some relief whatever pay-out, spelled out
for yourself personally from

FI
I'd rather be a whore

DS
like patriarch
supremacy wants us all to be?

DO
what?

DS
on your knees and sucking on the payroll --
like that way, once they got you pryed open,
eyes down and dominated they don't have to worry
there'll be any accountability

FI
or accounting.

DS
That's the real reason you're so worried --
way they're putting out that bit-byte stuff now,
to every transaction glinting every which way
through the lightwires twenty-four seven
you could add as many zeros as there's stars,
our eyes see naked in the sky

DO
about two thousand five hundred -- stars? zeros?

FI
why not doll girls?

DS
and the computers make and store the stuff
'll never know the difference.

DO
Well maybe you can see a couple hundred more,
like from one place and it's really really dark
special if you got like fighter pilot eyes,
but the astronomers'll tell you there's like
zillions many more stars made and stored out there
in the universes'

FI
myriad

DO
galaxy

DS
milky ways?

DO
Like way way big big numbers more,
nobody knows for sure how many.

FI
And so you need like astronomical-
financial instruments to know they're all
so many more out there in all?

DS
So yeah, worry --
so then what's going to happen when all us downhere
stupids we like get it there's a virtual supply
like near unlimited of streamer dollers
bulging out-of-sight out there and we
like got so little -- near none -- relatively,
to trade in for some new equalizing learn-and-earn
like opportunity, alright? -- and could so all
so easy all be sent some top up

DO
like pay off "due today"?

DS
right down the lightwires

FI
daily dependency dole!
And how, how miss money magic -- tell me --
is universal basic income not, not
putting every person on the payroll take away
all initiative, independence and self-reliance?

DS
'Cause it's universal, equal and the same
for ev'ry one regardless -- and in
real equality there's equal dignity
and mutual respect, equally for all.

DO
Like stars in equal dark all shine their lightful best.

FI
It's unworkable and unfair, why give those that have

DS
and want to stay disequal?

FI
When stars all shine their best some still shine brighter.
I'm not going to choose between equal and fair --
there can be both, and both is best.
I know, it's complicated and most just won't understand

DS
so give people charity make things more fair.

FI
Philanthropy is not a payroll.

DS
Yeah? Like tax breaks and welfare?

DO
If there's a trade-off 'tween equal and fair,
I'll take equal -- for brighter'rfainter,
any clearly equal, night'rday.

Scenelet Thirteen

DS
May be the only way -- the new equality --
fix the way this country now belongs
like so completely only to the self-serving
and hotair huffing few? And you, you're going
to wilt-out parchout too if you keep hughold
your priv'leges so close

FI
I'm stuck with them.
They're not some stupid boyfriend I can dump.

DO
What boyfriends?

FI
Argh, I meant it as imag'ry not like, like --
God damn it! -- my life reality! And anyway
Nobody chooses who their parents were
and what

DS
or theirs and theirs and all they knew
to how-to -- don't get me started, oh no!

DO
Don't get her started. Well, no...may...no!
I want to talk 'bout love and wedding plans
But wait, I still don't get it like what's
with why like you're so crazy stressed?

FI
Oh nothing
just always insanely busy at work -- always more,
more, more to do and it's because....because...
competence attracts work, specially from the incompetent --
and most especially from incompetent men
'cause if they're too lazy or just not up to it
they like dump the work on the nearest available

DO
able underwoman?

FI
And then usually take all the credit too
like they're the ones that really made it happen.

DS
Why are you laughing little miss achievement machine?
Just 'cause you don't respect them, doesn't mean
they don't control

DO
even if they're total dopes?
Wait a minute, I thought competence -- I mean,
like knowing what you're doing -- means that you
can like work less hard and get more done right?

FI
'Cause you got all the right dopajuices running
'round your brain

DS
yeah, like woke-girls do, and sleep-dudes don't.

FI
So anyway they keep giving you more and more to do
cause you get better and better at get-it-done.

DS
Yeah, and you like oblige -- like "got no choice".
See, that's why the whole country's working harder
and hardharder, getting more and more stressed
cause all that extra work dumped on us
the incompetent in power got told about
and didn't listen like they should've had
the comp'tence to foresee and stage for --
like at that goldbraid paygrade that's the job! --
but no! so we all get to be like underwomen,
hump that unnecessary hurtload, do the work --
deal with it -- 'cause what they didn't do --
'cause if there's one thing that all big boys
in pow'r know how to do so well is look,
like so surprised disaster in the eye
and then at you and say "oh man, somebody else
like so fucked up" and walk away, strideproud --
give that mirror-peek a wink like so golden,
made-member made of no-blame failure teflon.
And like walk on, shrug-off carefree, dump
the clean-up on us underdrones. So how's it feel guys,
get your breathing screwed so disproportionately more,
by them feckless button-dick goofies who like
should've had the competence see it coming but
asleep at wheel focused on their belly-button --
blusterbelly old patriarch-supremacy swagger-geezes --
so happyhappy menlike, blissful clueless --
they really truly think they're such great leaders!
Yeah, get me started!

-->

DO
No, no. Stop! It's about love and wedding plans
that we -- oh, I'm going to have another drink too.

FI
She's right, we need to talk about

DS
Just like you when they talk 'bout justice.

FI
[DS]...

DS
You -- enough hot air of good intentions
-- talk about fake -- huffpuff ev'ry sailboat there
in millionaire marina round the world and back.

DO
But they can't be that that stupid, they're in charge.

DS
No... No... No... They're not. You're the stupid.
And you who ought to know better, don't want to
'cause they got you escort glam-girl bought out --
like signed the never-tell agreement keep the money
hush-hush bit-byte silent tiptop topping up
the banking app's slotspin digit counters --
can make you dizzy, think about it way
respectable and rich go silent actionless
under natpop's gangbang bigblare blamelies --
like eliteland's money habit's put you blindout,
ope-dope hooker dazed out on the street,
like all self-esteem and dignity
fix-fixated, responsibility and self-respect
deep-sixed, river-bottom quiet, like overboard
they slipped you raped up taped down truss-tied,
wrapped and dropped wearing them concrete,
no-risk, corrupted capitalism, bailout body-bangles.

FI
[DS], that again, what's with you?
Look at and listen to me. I'm caring,
concerned, committed and engaged,
doing the best I can with all I have.

DS
Along with everybody else in pow'r
letting us know they're doing like so,
so great work saving us from

DO
reality!

FI
so would you know what you're doing, better?

DS
No... No... Cause they know exactly what they're doing --
pillage and rape -- no matter what the cost --
democracy and liberty so they can stay high-hand,
patriarch supremacy forever over all, no matter
how minority them big-guy meansters in numbers might be --
and you're both going to help them every way you can
pretending that you're better -- and you're not --
put you all to sleep in some "it's direct democracy"
type story, and anyway we're in charge our way now --
the-people want-it, voted for it, wave that flag! --
and here's some money, help you face the payroll --
hey, enjoy uh-huh? the macho-men new unfreedom --
been trying it for years in quite a few
countries out there and the people there they're
just loving the suck it up, all night, all day --
'cause they been pryed open, broken too, like you.

FI
No.

DO
It can't be that bad, you're too like
I don't know, hyper-woke; we're normal you know
and anyway we're like here to talk that oh...

FI
talk that besties talking plan-that-wedding?

DS
talk about how picperect selfie it's going to be
cos-play fantasy come true, so fairlytale wonderful
yeah, it's going to be, oh...oh...
be that loyal, good and faithful oh and maybe --
oh just a little compromise here and there --
submissive and obedient -- like realism may require?

FI
Understanding and accomodating!

DS
big diff'rence.

DO
No, that's not how we see it.

DS
now.

DO
No! True love's no illusion, I think it's more oh
a deliberate practice you've chose together to do,
and keep on doing, even when it's difficult.

DS
And faithlessly disrepected can hurt and devoted
keep doing alone? There's one for you,
true heartbreak difficult and more common
than you'd think -- all out there still not over
that true love, that was going to be?

FI & DO
[DS]!, that's not how it's going to be for us --
[GL] and [FR] are going to be better than that.

DS
Okay, I get the message, I'll be good --
zip it up, let all my experience sit aside --
go 'long with fantasy-time til reality-time
come crash the party all apart and all
the bills of past bad habits finally come due --
it's true, they do -- but I'll, okay, play it straight --
no disruptiveness from misbehaving me --
I promise -- cross my heart [and fingers too].
But if I find a way to show you that they're not?
So -- go on and tell me -- how do you see it
this loving marriage thing you're going to do?

FI & DO
And we thought you'd never ask.

Scenelet Fourteen

FI
I want to love and to be loved, honestly --
passionat'ly, but still by reason guided,
so, unexhausted, love can keep renewing strongly --
and with all that for love matters, not one-sided:
devotion, conversation, responsibility...
that too -- and for it all both eager, equal sharing,
so love's no burden but ambition, lightly
heart-carried, though difficult, long and daring...
our soul-and-mind venture, our enterprise
prized and treasured for our closeness-ardor,
caring committment to each day realize
the purpose we dreamed, we live, waking to in wonder.
Love that's not a losing,
looking lost in th'others' eyes;
love that's an achieving,
finding where we're going, side-by-side.

DO
I want to love and to be loved, honestly --
calm, consistent, deliberate, each the other's nurture,
free, of this big world's 'round us treachery,
triviality, and disrepect for nature.
I want a love that's a boundless sharing of human warmth,
an ocean of daily practice of human courage --
keep us together from now, on to henceforth
'cause courage too, it takes for true and lasting marriage.
I want a love that when we're back from work and tired,
home, on the couch, make-up off 'long with the street clothes --
all pretending gone -- but still by the other each admired
we glance, still seeing, why it's each other who we chose.
Love that's no losing,
but finding, in each other's eyes,
that love's a renewing choosing,
staying, in love side-by-side.

DS
Like an amorous breeze, viral in insidiousness
true love's illusion spreads its contagion,
breathed in, pheromonal, sowing destructiveness
in women's judgement, through silly-sex elation.
Can't you like leave it -- what it is -- unsublimated --
not mistake that male, for a man and kindred soul?
When big-bellied, not see for them you're just inseminated --
on your own, for all they care, and just another cunthole?
What hormonal surging of identifying, so Earth-closely
makes us wish, most of all when grave and nurturing
all in this world should want -- kind and gently --
to give themselves to home and children, abandoning adventuring?
Protect and defend's opposite to mean and predatory,
and most men just aren't up to faithfulness and fam'ly.

FI
Risks are there to take with all prudent
resolve and care

DO
freely and deliberately.

DS
What woman here, for herself or sister,
hasn't seen that risk go break-you wrong?
So much heartful hope and energy,
work, managing the swirl of daily living,
and so much longing, ached and spent,
for fullness of some coming dawn's surrender
like when the Earth arcs up, turning to the sun?
And then, slow or sudden, like cancerous
suspicion creeping like a spreading stain
to crippling metastasis, or the sudden
bad news call from nowhere 'bout some loved one's
stupid accident and death -- and then the crash
of heartbreak's night like plunges what you thought
was a life of sweet Spring days, betrayed
to bitter, angry Winter darkness.

DO
Til Spring
comes back again and Earth in all her strength
recovers

FI
not like we've betrayed, raping her now.

DO
So look to see what you can do and not

DS
give up?

FI
No matter what the facts'll tell you

DO
is
the likely risk of failure?

DS
'genst all odds.

FI & DO & DS together and/or variously
Who here 'genst the odds
hasn't fought, keep hope alive;
many, despite th'applauds
that encourage us to strive.
Who, living the bleakness
of long lonely yearning
hasn't despaired that happiness
is all for others' earning?
Or worse, much so, so worse
who whose life or liberty
has been wrongly reversed
by unjust act, and violently,
hasn't close despaired
'way heartless human cruelty
leaves our grievewounds unrepaired?
Who still would work to heal,
defiant 'genst th'angry gods,
re-teach the human heart to feel?
Just trying, 's winning 'genst the odds.
Who 'spite destiny that dashes,
so indifferently from above,
all our mortal hopes to ashes
does still, afire, this life love?

Scenelet Fifteen

DS
But now before we go well let's just say
you want to bet you know all there's to know --
like how much deeper's the abyss
of the self-serving lowlifeness that is
the usual for men -- especially when they get up
there and be big boys, corrupted by their power.
You want to find out for yourselves how your
true love paladins'll fall like crumpled stooges
to any simpering booty-box that drags them
avidwhimper down into the fantasy-mirage
and vanity that's that thrills-addiction
to bestride and broaching brutalize beneath --
and see that how they see themselves in mind
triumphant and acry's like so way diff'rent from
their bodies' wattle-pasty limbs-gangle of flesh
quimmering like flaccid skeins of maggot worms on rot?

FI
Whoa girl -- [DS], you're like way gone
on that wassail word-wagon

DO
like what're you talking about, I'm

FI
like how'd you prove it if we wanted to bet?

DS
Get skimped up, disguised, stake out a stretch
of digital sidewalk, and just follow them
like with camera-eyes till they follow back and then

FI
I'm not going to play the doll-girl not for you
no no way, and not for any man, that's for sure.

DS
Yeah? Might learn something -- 'bout them that have to.

FI
Nobody has to.

DS
So why do they?

DO
What? Like men and money?

FI
That make them.

DO
So what would we do, if we did?

FI
No.

DS
Why not? You think I'm right?

FI
No you're not. We'd never like seduce them on
some like whatever stalking site like you're thinking.

DS
How'd you know that was what I was thinking?

FI
I, well I...

DO
So how much do you want to bet...'cause if
we win maybe that way I'll get enough

FI
cento zechinni!

DS
That's all? You're so cheap.

FI
Why I'm still rich?

DO
Yeah, that's nothing; I like grow them -- free --
in my home veg'table garden -- and they're really good.

FI
Okay, a thousand if you want to and
anyway it's not the money, it's the game.

DS
And anywhichway they're growing money now
for free like crazy in their modern
monetary theory computer banks so

DO
so how much is a zuchinno?

DS
It's whatever we all agree it's worth.

FI
Or isn't?

DO
Enough to pay off my "due today"?

DS
For sure. And then some.

FI
That's the problem -- where's it end?
Losing focus on saving, 'vesting and
then new production? Ends, ends where?
Living indefinitely on lotus pond streams
of rabbit-hat bit-byte money that can't but
become dis-prized, valuelessly

DS
sharable? So keep it lockboxed.

DO
You're saying all we got to do get
this bit-byte stream of capital is like
win this bet each of us can seduce the other's

DS
reel them in and give them what you'll see
is all they want -- in profiles set up in disguise
and so both of you'll see how faithless easy each
of your sweet husband's-to-be'll fall --
so do they all -- date you'll set up
for any pair of ladder legs that opens in their face.

DO
He wouldn't -- not my [FR]...well, if he's sober anyway...

FI
Never, not my [GL] -- so I'll do what you say
and then you'll see how wrong we all can be!

DS
Let's go.

DO
What're we getting ourselves into?

FI
Oh they'll do fine -- stand up tall
and make us proud -- you'll see -- it'll all be like
no-worries harmless, like some stupid role-play
like theatrical whatever

DO
yeah, but what are we going to tell our real fiances,
explain like why we're like suddenly disappeared
and can't be reached in any way so we can...
oh [FI], I wouldn't be so sure about this.

FI
If trust is going to go, let's get it gone.

DS
I'll have to bring them unexpected news
of something paralyzing but temporary,
that out of luckless blue like struck you,
put you completely cut off from all

FI
like in some sort of quarantine? Come on!

DS
out cold under the covers weathering the noxious
influence of a novel sleeping sickness
like so contagious virus

DO
nobody's going to believe that.

DS
Yeah? C'mon, let's go.

 

*

Second Sequence:  Settings, characterizations, sociologics, etc. are consistent with those used for Sequence One.  GL, FR, and AH are on (or not, as -- and this is the case throughout play -- one, and another...or all...the characters can be "on" via group, phone/laptop video-conference-call).  GL and FR are killing time, lounging around, as AH arrives/enters/logs on to meeting.

.......[coming soon]......

 

*