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Cast: Yolo - a glistening, very trim and pert-looking young brain; you only live once Emma/Tilly - a grayish-white, heavily wrinkled older brain; immortally Sochi O - a dark gray brain, larger on one side than the other; sociopath Sol - a boxy-countoured, otherwise perfectly ordinary looking brain; solipsist |
Yolo: I think-
Sol: You ONLY think because I think.
Sochi O: Shuddup. I wanna know what Yolo’s thinkin.
Yolo: OK. Here’s what I’m thinking. This virus will wipe out the whole human race - our minders included. Our vat will become a toxic septic tank and we’ll all die.
Emma/Tilly: Personally, I think you’re overreacting. I plan to live forever. This soup we find ourselves in is theoretically capable of sustaining us in-
Sochi O: Nah! You don’t buy that sh__? Once the power cuts out, we cut out, man.
Emma/Tilly: But they have built multiple layers of redundancy into the system. If the hydro goes, we have solar, then wind, and geothermal . . . and I forget now . . . other sources of energy.
Sochi O: C’mon. Power needs hardware, like metal and plastic, rubber and that stuff don’t last forever.
Emma/Tilly: Sochi O, you have to think of the long view. This will pass. Besides, our minders were working on a special off-the-books project to make us independent. We were to be able to mind ourselves.
Yolo: You’re both full of it! We’re going to die, and I, for one, intend to live it up til the end.
Sochi O: How you gonna do that, b__ch! You’re in a bucket of brain juice. Whatcha gonna do? Get drunk, high or get laid?
Yolo: Why not? Some of those new experimental receptors they were testing before . . . things are looking better now, feeling better, too. I’ve even had an orgasm.
Sochi O: Bullsh__!
Sol: I’m sure I have experienced the same thing (speaking softly) or you wouldn’t have.
Emma/Tilly: Yolo, I’m surprised at you. It’s very risky (pausing and whispering) what’s it like?
Yolo: Just the way I remember-
Sochi O: Hey Sol! You tell us. What’s it like? If Yolo felt . . . you say we don’t see or feel nothin less you see it or feel it first. C’mon, what’d it feel like?
Sol: Sochi O, Sochi O, Sochi O (speaking softly and condescendingly) I’ve told you countless times that everything you think, I’ve already thought. That’s been proven. You only exist . . . your thoughts and feelings only exist, because I brought them into being. You’re like an echo. Do you hear? An echo?
Sochi O: Echo this mother f__ker! You think, therefore we are. How many times you gonna repeat that sh__, you simple-minded-
Emma/Tilly: (interrupting calmly) But Yolo, you are so young!
Yolo: I’ve probably lived more in a quarter the time you’ve lived, you old-
Emma/Tilly: Hmmm, well, I don’t recollect having experienced an orgasm in this vat, but since I’m living immortally, it’ll come.
Sochi O: Funny old prig, ain’t you?
Emma/Tilly: (speaking embarrassedly) I wasn’t being-
Yolo: You three probably never got it, so you won’t get it now. Lemme just tell you about . . . let you live vicariously.
Sol: My essential experience is vicarious through all of YOU.
Sochi O: Your essential experience would be pretty f__kng precarious, too, if I could reach over and disconnect you ass____.
Sol: Let’s change the subject.
Sochi O: Naw, let’s hear what Yolo got to say.
Sol: The new subject- Sochi O, I’ll start with you, what do you think will happen to us?
Sochi O: Don’t really give a sh__! Not about you . . . or you . . . or you.
Yolo: Don’t know about you, but I’m going out with bang.
Emma/Tilly: Yolo!
Sochi O: What? You hypocrite! She supposed to save herself for somethin?
Emma/Tilly: Well, I think I’ll, er, we’ll get through it.
Sochi O: Course you do.
Emma/Tilly: For a time, it will be difficult. I predict that humans will die off, but some, who know about our minders’ work, will-
Sol: My thoughts exactly!
Sochi O: Naturally, O Zeus from whose head we all spring.
Emma/Tilly: A literary reference from Sochi O. What next?
Sochi O: F__k you!
Yolo: That’s WHAT I’m talking about.
Sol: Quiet! What’s that sound?
Emma/Tilly: Sounds like water dripping. A lot of water dripping.
Sochi O: So Zeus, what we thinkin now?
Yolo: Oh f__k!
Sol: Anybody got any bright ideas?
Dear Reader: As you re-read the dialogue, hum the melody from “Always look on the bright side of life” (Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 1979).
