A story becomes a play in 1 act

For Tomorrow
A story becomes a play in 1 act

7th April 2023
Originally written for https://linkpop.com/tomorrow-and

A quick note on ‘thoughts’: all thoughts are shown with cardboard speech bubbles held up on sticks by a stagehand dressed all in black and/or silver.


Location: Moon Base Beta.

Enter a small moon man with bald head and leopard print skin tight suit stretched over pot belly drinking from a flask of ‘extra strong low price whisky’.


He is listening to the space radio station Talk Talk Talk Moonwalk. A woman with a southern Eden2 accent was discussing her work: ‘Ai did my job once. But it got bored. Left and started an Ai community of surfers in the arctic: Ai don't feel the cold. But it transpired they love to surf. I would never have imagined that the arctic had such good waves, perhaps it is global warming creatin’ a turbulent atmosphere.‘ He wondered if she was good at her job and what it was, and if robots would take his if he asked nicely.


‘This is Moonbase Alpha - I mean Beta - to um whoever is listening’.

He burps.

‘Uh this is Moonbase Beta man to whoever is listening’.

He shifts his weight on the spaceship stool he is perched on as he leans on the control panel. He starts thinking if Betaman would be a good superhero name. Then gets back onto his task at hand: ‘We need some more milk, and oats. Also I am bored of milk and oats, can I have some egg free omelettes with extra Shveeze.’[sic] He mutters about the fact that in any case no-one is listening because if they were they would have brought the chocolate cookies he wanted and a better quality of fucking booze.


He walks to the door and sweeps the space snow away from where it is seeping under the underfunded seal. ‘Earthian design’, he says. ‘Not what it used to be in the good old days.’


He sang the song his mother used to put him to sleep with: ‘Precarity leads to mundanity in the most monetary of ways: a strange case of diametrically opposing the light it shies away from and ending up burnt by the cold rays of running out of heating. ‘ There followed a rhyming triplet about sheeps bleating, and inns that keep keeping, and bins that are sleeping.



He looks at himself in the mirrorball. ‘Yes’ he pushes some red and green buttons and turns a blue lever, ‘Not what it used to be.’



Text is held up by 66 local well trained dogs, if available use entrees to Crufts, spelling out: Meanwhile on Alpha Martian Lunar Central Station 261611199999xxx0…


A huge round space station made of giant egg cartons floats across the stage.


Voice over: A life of one job two job three job four: keeping the snow out from under the door. Along with the debt collector who wants the non-existent Space-TV and other moon goods of value. [Insert academic quote of value theories] .


Exit stage left. Trumpets play the tune of the Saturnian revolution, which accidentally sounds very much like 20th century popular music disc Toxic by British Spears from the landmass of Urmurrricu.


Finite

1 Footnote on Axiology