Alice
(A play in seven scenes)

– Scene One –

(Sitting room. Carpet. Sofa. Rocking chair. Two paintings. Desk. Man in his 40s wearing a tracksuit. Another man, in his 60s, wearing dark clothes, sitting behind a desk. First man moves in circles around the room. All of a sudden, he stops as the sexagenarian stands up from his chair. The two stare at each other for a bit. Then, the quadragenarian goes back to his orbit, and the second man sits back down. Silence prevails. And then …)

Second man: You didn’t answer my question. Have you gone deaf? Earless? Don’t you care to hear? Speak now, say something (he utters these words fast and loud).It’s a question – a question that is eating me up and there’s no answer to it. And you, you …

First man: Me? Me what? What do you want?

Second man: You, you never answer.

First man: You’re expecting me to answer. I know your questions all too well. And you know my answers just as well.

Second: Right.

First: Right.

Second: Right.

First: What are you saying?

Second: Nothing, I’m saying nothing.

First: So you got no question.

Second: No. How? No, no, nothing.

First: We agree, then. Nothing it is. Let’s see now, ah, today’s weather. Rainy or clear?

Second: I was going to ask that question. You’ve taken my role.

First: Each one of us has his own role. You are acting as yourself.

Second: And I as myself.

First: Didn’t I tell you that we need no questions and answers? I know you as well as you do me. God damn the time of day when we met.

Second: You remember? You remember that day?

First: (mournfully) I do.

Second: As if you … Please don’t you be weeping now. The day we met is never coming back.

First: Hell it’s not. But guess why, because it’s still pretty much here, taking all its time to last. You’re here and I’m here, aren’t we?

Second: I wish I were there.

First: Where? Where’s there?

Second: Hell.

First: Well, it’s within your rights to turn to religion, become pious.

Second: What are you saying?

First: Your reference to hell implies a belief in the existence of paradise, and thus …

Second: (interrupting) Please, please …

First: So you’ve got no question.

Second: No, no, nothing. You … nothing.

First: You mean I’m nothing? But I’m waiting for this critical question.

Second: No. Right now I need no question or answer. I’m full.

First: Are you hungry? What’s the time now?

Second: I’m full, I’ve got my fill of you …

First: So …

Second: You seem reluctant to let me finish my sentence. You don’t want me to say what I have to say. Or maybe you don’t even want to hear my voice.

First: Neither this, nor that.

Second: (sardonically) What’s the this? And what’s the that?

First: (laughing) By “neither this, nor that” I mean … I mean that “this” has realism in it, I don’t know. Maybe realism, or nothing or something else, or …

Second: Super. This, that and something else. Three things full of meaning.

First: Clear. Meanings are crystal-clear.

Second: What time is it?

First: My friend … Well, first I beg your pardon, do you think of me as a friend?

Second: What do you think?

First: About what?

Second: About do you think of me as a friend?

First: My question to you is, do you think of me as a friend?

(End of scene)
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