ABSTRACT
https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429476877/f8bf397a-fc8d-4bac-b2f3-f91cc02b3b4b/content/pg29_1.tif"/> one
(snoring) … zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz …
two(snuffling in sleep) …
bibblesnifflezzzzzzzzzbabblesnofflezzzzzzzzzbubblesnibblezzzzzzzz …
one(waking groggy) … whooah … where am I? …
two(moaning) … oh, wo-e is me, o-h … I do not feel, in fact, too very well, actually …
one(gingerly) … no, I am, I fear, also not entirely compos mentis … indeed, it would be fair and not a great distance from the truth to observe that we … are drunk … (declaiming grandly) … drunk like Dionysus …
two(groaning) … drunk, for surely sure … but like Dionysus … really …I do, in fact, wonder … (looking down at itself) unless he too actually did assume grotesque larval form …
one(thinks) … wouldn’t have put it past him … now you mention it … (then warming to the sound of its own voice) … drunk it is that indeed we are … drunk … like the Persians of Herodotus …
two… !? …
(there is an interval in which both fall back to sleep, hence)
one(snoring again) … zzzzzzzz …
two(snuffling, rather tunefully, in sleep) … zzzzzbabblefobblesnifflebofflezzzzzzzzzz
one(wakes, surprising itself again) … aha! … here we still seem to be are then (looking out over wonky reading glasses, nudges the other to wake it up) …
two(disgruntled) … wha-a-at? … oh … it’s you … what do you want? …
one… any comment? … my somewhat grumpling umbel …
two… any comment on what? …
one30(impatient) … on the preceeding preceedings, obviously, my plumping dumpling …
two… no …
one… oh …
two(then takes some time to reflect) … well, actually, yes … in actual fact …
one… what? …
two… well, I was wondering why it is that it is … all so … (searches for a term which is not too impolitic) …
one(a little defensive) … why it is that it is all so … so what? … exactly …
two(hesitant) … all so … odd … odd and peculiar … and peculiarly odd …
one… ah, is that all? … it is because, my milkweedy sweetling … if you consider the multimeta- nay, near pata-phoric entities it is that we are … how? … (expansive and knocking glasses entirely askew) … I ask HOW? could a prosaic linear linguistic offering possibly encompass and convey … let alone commune with the impossibile infinititude of possibilities it is that it is that we are???? …
two(wincing) … aieeee … would you please to keep the noise level down …
one… bien sùr … ma bête en boulette … I do understand … you have, what Oofy Prosser of the Drones would term, a morning head … now, where was I … ? … ah, yes … (continues declaiming, now in a stage whisper) … only a very narrow, mono-directional mind could be satisfied or sustained by the railway track potentiality of your workaday single-dimensional sentence …
two… ok, ok, I get it … pass the bott would you …
one(screwing a new top off and handing it over) … here you go, kiddo … and also … as the old music-hall standard goes: … (now singing con gusto) … “for only the oddest live at the edges/and most of the oddest are mad, are mad/and all of the oddest are mad/ and all of the oddest/and all of the oddest/and all of the oddest - are mad” … sing along if the mood takes you, little pod …
two(suspicious) … what old music-hall standard in fact is that? … exactly …
one(insouciant) … well, truth be told … and truthfully … one I just made up … catchy, though … n’est ce pas? …
two(suddenly vertiginous) … oh no … here it goes again …
one… who-a-h … age cannot wither … nor custom stain …
two… our infinite … meta … phor … icity …
one… that’s not sooo bad, as it … go-o-o-o-o- -o- -e --s …
