Q

[PLAYERS are on stage acting out Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra as in normal theater-going experience.]

PLAYER 1 (delivered with overdone theater voice): He dreams: I know they are in Rome together,
Looking for Antony. But all the charms of love,
Salt Cleopatra, soften thy waned lip!

(SIBYL is sitting in a chair with ENTIRE AUDIENCE)

SIBYL: Salt… Cleopatra? Never forget the salt, no doubt
Hmm... What is this play all about??

PLAYER 1: Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both.
Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts,
Keep his brain fuming. Epicurean cooks,
Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite,
That sleep and feeding may prorogue his honor
Even till a Lethe’d dulness—

SIBYL: Cloyless sauce, is that for eating?
I could use a little more sleep and feeding…

PLAYER 2: Ay, sir, we did sleep day out of countenance and made the night light with drinking.

SIBYL: Been there… am there… breath still stinking

PLAYER 1: Eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast—
and but twelve persons there! Is this true?

SIBYL: Breakfast… Oooh…
I remember breakfast…
What’d I have?
Eggs over Antony and… Cle-oat-patra?
Oh that was yesterday–
Forgot this morning but usually do fine
Usually do just fine
Forgot this morning though
Couldn’t find a single wild boar
Letaloneabowlaoatmeal
(Lustfully, now)
I remember breakfast, sleep and feeding
Eye remembers breakfast
When stomach is lacking
We remember breakfast
When stomach is needing!

[SIBYLLA are sat surrounding SIBYL, but not in front]

SIBYL ONE:
Death is sticky,
And David Quaking

SIBYL TWO:
But was meal made
For morning Monday?

SIBYL THREE:
Quaking David positioned atremble
Emptybowled and sat at the table

SIBYLLA:
Yet did he waft
Of meal made in Moloch

SIBYL ONE:
Teased with
Shredded coco’
Crumbled nuts

SIBYL TWO:
Bluestraw with berry
Rasblack and others–
Sliced banana!

SIBYL THREE:
Pinched with
Brown sugar–
Incestuous granola!!

SIBYLLA:
That selfsame
Dessicated corpus?...
Nay!!!

SIBYL ONE: What course cut groat conceived
SIBYL TWO: In drowning chamber
SIBYL THREE: Simmering pote
SIBYLLA: Saturates til porridgedom
SIBYL (as though snapping out of it):
And is born?
I can see it
Through the aether
I can smell it
Through the floorboards
Mmmmmm…

AUDIENCE: We want… OATMEAL!!!

SIBYLLA: Comeforth Quaking David!!

AUDIENCE: Not Quaking David!!! He smells so funny and speaks in rhyme!

SIBYL: Quaking David is…
No friend of mine
Yet somehow his essence is on my mind
Or maybe his ass-stench––
Duh, it’s David I’m sat behind!

[QUAKING DAVID is sat in front of SIBYL, he then groggily moves onto stage, at which time the PLAYERS freeze or pantomime, tbd]

QUAKING DAVID:
Oh, morning. Good?... Morning?
Grumble grumble. Stomachrumble.
Cascade from
Cardboard carton
Goldengrey ash
Into crock with a paltry flash
[THIS COULD BE KRATER]

[AUDIENCE makes gentle bubbling noises for {13 seconds}]

QUAKING DAVID (making sure to wait 13 seconds):
My utensile gripped hellbent
Stomach and hands
Positioned to re-pent
Or to bludgeon
Why oh why do I feel like such a curmudgeon?
Why didn’t I buy INSTANT OATS, 20 to 30 minutes?
I’m late for my obligation!

[AUDIENCE makes louder bubbling noises for {27 seconds}]

SIBYLLA (making sure to wait 27 seconds): Bring forth HANGER!

QUAKING DAVID:
Suddenly, suddenly…
I’m in a mood to stir the pot
Before two cups of titus flavius’d Josephus
Talketh to me not
Now I’ve had three and anxiety
Anxiety now that I’ve got

[AUDIENCE makes anxiety inducing noises, bubbling and otherwise for {6 seconds}]

QUAKING DAVID (making sure to wait 6 seconds):
Simmering away awhile when soon
From arid granu-i-le dormant tan goo
Paste without guile
My child how I’ve longed to
Eat, err...rather meet you!

[Crescendo! AUDIENCE makes very loud bubbling gurgling slimey ewie noises for {8 seconds}]

ALL: OATMEAL!

OATMEAL (Slimes onto stage, ignorant of QUAKING DAVID. Soliloquy style, to no one in particular):
Amnion!
Amnion?? Am I all alone?
Lethe!
Lethe?? River tide must’ve let me go
But not without parting gift?
A big wet sack of shitte?
To carry around, never lighter?
Frankincense and Myrrh,
Even gold might’ve been nicer
Left with golum-body floating thick
But all I’ve got it seems
Midstream of consciousness
A need to wonder at…
Ethics, epistemology, aesthetic
Horrible toppings, topics like this…

[AUDIENCE makes hungry noises or something]

AUDIENCE: Mmmmm… OATMEAL!!!

QUAKING DAVID (protecting OATMEAL from AUDIENCE. Genuinely surprised):
You want Oatmeal?
Well what have you done to deserve it?
I pour’d, stirred, and soaked meal
Forgive if I try to preserve it
From your hands that gouge
My poor porridge out
Of its bowl and into the crowd
You care not for the sound
Of its innocent gurgle!
Why, you’ll douse it with milk
And not even stick round ‘til
To taste if it’s curdled!

AUDIENCE: OATMEAL!!! [NEED TO TURN UP ANTAGONISM]

OATMEAL (self-inquisitive): Yes! Oatmeal! A curse? That I am nutritional I will be nutrient and for what?!
To be a milquetoast morning snack
Washed into the abyss with gut-wrenching coffee black
From colloidal slime in colon
Turned to poop
Squeez’d through hole
In unending loop!! [DO I WANT ETERNAL RETURN?]

AUDIENCE: QUAKING DAVID! Give us OATMEAL!!

OATMEAL (Notices Quaking David):
Quaking David?
Could it have been you?
Who traded my requiem siccum
For unmeasured scoop?

QUAKING DAVID (remorsefully):
Oatmeal… I don’t know how to tell
Rob and Paul, Peter neither
Can leave breakfast for later
I too, meal needer
I, oat eater!
Forgive me child it was… well...
I who forced you to be-here!

OATMEAL:
If that is so…

(Pause.)

With what low authority
Did yee go and pour in me
Boile’d water like I meagre
Cuppa tea?

Brought to life without love, without sense!
Unable to deal with consequence
You’re no pa-rent clearly
And soon ask me to pay rent
With my flesh
Like lousy lackey!

QUAKING DAVID:
Enough!!
Of this talk
Of agency…
(Delivered with regret but anger. Clearly hangry)
You are born
You will die
You will never be free
That much I’m willing to guarantee…
(Soft and somber to self)
It happened to me.

AUDIENCE MEMBER A: What the hell is going on here?

OATMEAL: Hell is going on here! Quaking David summoned me from warm, dry, safe anesthesthesia like some sort of sickly little tardigrade! Like a lamb to the slaughter. Chained wet to stiff consciousness like Casseiopeia’s daughter.

QUAKING DAVID (interrupting):
Ungrateful booing-hoo
Petulant grey being who
Mixed with silver spoon
Doesn’t realize
Complaining is not all there is to do
Hydrostatic little life of effort
If indeed you suffert
In death you’ll comfort!!

(QUAKING DAVID stabs OATMEAL with silver spoon [stainless steel or pewter will suffice].)

AUDIENCE: Oh! The horror!!

End Scene