Willett FJ

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Jewels on Black Velvet

by F J Willett

Jewels on Black Velvet
was judged Best Script in the
South Australian One Act Play Festival
at the
Adelaide Fringe Festival 1994.
The One Act Play Festival was organised and presented by The South
Australian Writers' Theatre with the support of Foundation SA

Jewels on Black Velvet was also broadcast on ABC Radio Sept 93

Cast:

Woman
Man
Girl

THE SET IS DARK. D.S. RIGHT IS A WHITE WROUGHT IRON TABLE AND TWO CHAIRS. D.S. LEFT IS A MATRESS WITH A DARK DROP SHEET CAST OVER IT. NEXT TO THE MATRESS IS A PILE OF DOCUMENTS SIMILARLY COVERED. WOMAN Hello. I don't know how to begin. I came here tonight to confess. I say I. Not I the actor. The actor speaks for me through 'me'. The 'I' the writer hides out there in the dark with you. Hi. It is I the writer who speaks. Ignore the actor. See through "her", me to the me, "her", out there. To my story, my pain, my confession. I'm not off to a good start, am I? If you look in the program you'll see the play has no author's credit. Why you may ask. After all the by line is all the notice the writer gets. Why forgo that. Remember, writing is nothing if not an ego trip. Not to the same degree as an actor, perhaps, but if you're a writer you keep better company. Shakespeare, Brecht, me. I like that. No. I love it. I love the kudos. But in this case I can do without it. You'll find out why as we go along. You see, I want to shrive myself. Here. Now. I want you to be my confessor. And it's not a confession I'm particularly proud of. So I hide behind the actor [FLOURISH] Let her take the kudos. I sit there in the dark. I hide in the dark. Cringe in the dark. Cower at my confession. You see I slightly killed someone. Well, totally. Forget slightly. Once you're dead you're dead, right? Anyway that's why I didn't put my name on this play. I'm a coward. That's my confession. Well part of it, anyway. Things are never that simple, are they? I didn't mean to let the cat out of the bag this soon either. I meant to soften you up. Get you on my side. Get you rooting for me. Get you baying for blood. Urging me on. "Kill him. Kill him." "Go on kill the bastard." "Yea, snuff him. Rub him out." Do you think I couldn't. Course I could. That's what writers do: Manipulate your emotions. I can make you do it. I will make you do it. Be warned. Haven't you ever noticed how nobody good or noble or nice ever gets snuffed on television? It's always somebody evil or bad and usually ugly. Or with no dress sense. It's no accident. Who cares that real life's not like that. There's good in everybody. Not a lot of good in some cases, but enough. Enough so I don't think anyone can say, "So and so was better dead." I don't care who it is, would you cast the first stone? No? But I killed this man. Anyhow let's get the sordid facts out of the way. It was at a party on the hills face over looking Adelaide. If you know Adelaide you probably know the house. It has this incredible view. A small road climbs up into the hills and passes just below the terrace. It was around nine. The light had gone. The lights of Adelaide winking on the plain below us. I could see a car winding up the road. Crawling along. It's lights cutting in and out of the hills face. The car was almost below us. I reached out and pushed... The balustrade was low. More decorative than practical. It caught him just above the knee. He had no weight. He was light as a feather. He moved with my hand as if willing it to happen. He tipped, toppled, fell, some two meters to the road. The car swerved, hit him and fetched up against the guard rail. I don't want you to think it was an accident or happened in the white hot heart of an argument. It was deliberate. A cold, calculated act. I meant to push him. That's part of my confession. You know, he expected it. He stood right up against the balustrade, his back to me. He knew exactly where I was and what I was going to do. He wanted me to do it. He wanted me to kill him. Don't think I'm trying to justify myself. In the end I and I alone gave the fatal shove. And I'd do it again. No hesitation. That's also part of my confession. You know words are funny things. You payed good money to come here tonight. You come in. Sit down. The lights go down, come up on words. You sit there. You listen. You take what you'd never take in your own home. You listen. Someone's speaking words. "What did she say?" "Oh she just confessed to a murder." "That's nice dear." Why isn't someone running for the cops? Ah, but it's just a play, isn't it. None of this is real, is it? I the writer, sitting out there in the dark with you, know what you're thinking. ... I know what you're thinking now, too. ... And now. Unsure. Confused. Of balance. Ought I really leap up and run for the cops? But you won't. I know you won't. You know you won't. Not even at the end of the play. Not even then. I've been reading a lot of Robert Heinlein lately. Not a fashionable author. Too violent, too primitive to suit todays taste. But a good author for the mood I'm in. One of the things he got right, though, is that as a society we are sadly squeamish. We fear the sight of blood. We abhor death. We forget someone's got to cut the heads off the chooks. Have you ever beheaded a dozen chooks? You grab the first one. It's a bit flustered at being dragged out of the hen house. You lay it's head on the block. It looks up at you on the whole pretty calmly. Worried but trusting. "What's she up to. She's always fed us, watered us. A bit of a dork - " That's what they think of you, chooks. Why else would they go around all the time saying: "Dork dork dork dork dork." Anyway, back on the block she's looking up, "Dork dork, but I guess she's alright. I wish she'd let go of me legs but. Dork!!!!" F.X. WE NEED A COMPLEX SOUND HERE. RIGHT ON TOP OF THE FINAL "DORK". IT SHOULD BE QUITE LOUD, AND SUGGESTIVE OF A GUILLOTINE. A METALIC SWISH CRUNCH. IT SHOULD CHILL THE BLOOD. By the time you get to number 12 they know what's going on. You lay their head on the block. One eye is watching you like you're Jack the Ripper. The other eye is hard up against the block in the still warm blood and the still warm gore and the still warm feathers. She knows. But I still eat chicken sandwiches. Want one? Why'd I bring up chickens? Have you ever seen a chicken die? You cut off it's head and the body's up and away. Feet pounding, heart pumping, blood spurting. Run chicken run for your life. The brain's last severed message. Go feet run. Get us out of here. But life flows away with each red spurt. Pump. Pump. The heart pumping air. Give me life. Give me blood. Give me life. We fall. Still running. Feet beating the air. Twitching. And on the block her mouth opens and closes soundlessly. The eye watches. Why don't my feet carry me away from here? Get up. Go. Go. ... It's fatal to get sentimental about a sandwich. What are you going to do. Apologize? Sorry I ate you chicken old friend. Here, let me puke you up. To live you eat things. Plants, animals, what's the difference? Is it worse to eat a whale or a billion bacteria that gave up their lives for a loaf of bread? Is it worse to eat a living plant or a living animal? Would you rather starve? Or perhaps you'd prefer to be on the menu? Me? I'll have the chicken sandwich. An important point. Chicken sandwiches have got a lot to do with this. You can get 'em in the foyer at interval if you like. Don't just eat it. Examine it. Think about what's in it. The parts of the humble sanger. I'll come back to this. And I'll be asking questions. So pay attention. We'd been eating them. I'm a bit compulsive that way. I'd taken a plate out onto the terrace, "Eating?" he said. "Chicken." I said. The sandwich. When was the last time you went up to Windy Point? I'd recommend it. I've haunted that place a lot lately too. "As cities go," he said. "As cities go there's nothing that grand about Adelaide. It's not a grand city. It's not ostentatious. Not garish. But there are no slums or ghettos, either. A modest city. A middle class city. Yet even here if you looked in the right places you'd find people starving. People willing to give their right arm for one of those chicken sandwiches." "Let 'em eat Jatz's." I said. He ate a chicken sandwich though. I offered him one. He took it. So in that sense we shared the guilt. That's important. Remember it later, please. Count it in my favour. I held out the plate. (SHE HOLDS OUT THE PLATE) "Want one?" I said. "Chicken?" he said. "Chicken." I said. "Ta." he said and took one. See? A bit later I pushed him over the balustrade then faded back into the party. The police came. Of course they came. "Unfortunate." they said. "The balustrade was too low. The man was intoxicated. Point oh five or some such. Quite enough to stumble, tumble, Tttthhhhppp!!!! No ones fault. Could have happened to anyone. Certainly no suggestion of foul play." Well I wasn't going to put my hand up, was I? I faded back into the party. We are what we eat. Rapacious omnivores, gorging our way across the face of the planet. Eating. There are five point five billion of us and still breeding. Eating and breeding. We talk of endangered species. What about endangering species? That's not strictly part of the confession. Yes it is. (THE MAN APPEARS IN SILHOUETTE BY A BALUSTRADE AT THE BACK OF THE STAGE. HE IS LIT ONLY BY THE LIGHTS OF ADELAIDE ON THE CYC BEHIND HIM). I want to tell you a story about... It's actually his story. It's at the heart of what this is all about. His story. The story he told me on the terrace before I... (MIMES SHOVE) In a sense it's about death too. Death is a strange thing. Everything fails in the end. People. Of course people. Animals, plants, trees. There is one tree over 4,900 years old and still going strong. But in the end death will get it. (Cut it down to size.) Even buildings age. This theatre. One day it'll go. They'll tear this place down. Oh, they may declare this place a national monument. Refurbish it. Protect it. Stick a plaque on it. All that. But the aging process never stops. It's always at you, chipping away. The relentless killer. Somewhere along the line... time... will... win.... Inevitably. Where you're sitting will be just a memory. A hole in the ground. Or a mound on the ground. Picture this. I was standing on the terrace looking at the lights of the city spread out before me like jewels on black velvet. MAN Consider the view... WOMAN Oh! I didn't see you. Want one? MAN Chicken? WOMAN Chicken. MAN Ta. (HE TAKES A SANDWICH) Do you realise that Adelaide is only a hundred and sixty years old? A hundred and sixty years ago all you'd see from here would be the camp fire of the hunter-gatherers. Maybe. But lift your eyes and look across the plain at the ocean and you would see the fleets of the white settlers with their ploughs and machines already disgorging on the shore. The farmers, the miners, the foresters lining up their jack booted machines. Getting ready to tear and gouge and rip and destroy their way across the face of the continent. WOMAN And build, of course. I couldn't resist pointing that out. We destroy to built, don't we? And ah, the building we have done. Was there ever such a civilization as ours? Did Rome ever scale the heights we have attained. We have left footprints on the face of the moon. Could the Pharaohs claim as much? This man. I couldn't see him well. I never did. He was a block of black cut out of the night. He spoke softly, Intensely. I couldn't help but listen. I felt like one of three. "By thy long grey beard and glittering eye Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?" He didn't have a beard, of course. He struck me as slight. I've said that. Big chested. But hollow. Large lung capacity I suppose. He must have been a runner once. A Jogger. Perhaps he did marathons. He had thin arms, and he stooped. He stood. Stooped and stood. He stood so close to the balustrade. He hunched his shoulders. I imagine he frowned. It was his line: MAN The lights of Adelaide spread out like jewels on black velvet. ... like jewels on black velvet. The city pulses with light. With life. Like a thing alive. Have you ever considered a city? It lives, it breathes. It consumes. It is a living thing. You are a writer. WOMAN How did you know? Who are you? MAN I know you write. I will give you truth. You will write it. WOMAN I had never seen this bloke before. Didn't know him from a zit. But he knew me. How? MAN You are not a great writer. Not even a particularly good writer. WOMAN I objected to that. I mean we all like to think of ourselves as something special, don't we. More than that. We must. Look into your soul and try and tell me that somewhere in there you don't think you're hot stuff. If you don't have that ego. That super-ego you're history. Thhht! Straight over the first Gap you come to. Thhht! Off the first bridge. Thhht! Under the first bus. You might even wind up trying to talk someone into pushing you off a terrace. Let me tell you about me. I'm a writer. I write. Journalist. Right? When the papers started folding around Australia I was "encouraged" by necessity to try a new career path. Free-lancing. A story here. A story there. I roved - I still do. I have this bus. Stop in some town. Spike a few stories on the town, the scenery, the local identities. Look up anybody famous who lives in the area and try and snag an interview. Type it up. Get the pictures developed. Post 'em off and move on. A week here. A week there. When I get fed up I go home for a holiday. I've written a fair bit. No damn it. I want to be fair to myself. I'm proud of what I've achieved. I may not be George Sands, but I do write a fair stick. I've picked up the odd award. Almost got a Walkley once. I mean if I'm going to do this confession lets put in the good as well as the bad, alright? I mean if I'm not going to stick up for myself who will? That's that the difference. That's the big difference. MAN You have only one virtue as a writer. WOMAN Oh Yea. What's that? MAN You are here. WOMAN Up yours. MAN I have a story I want told. You will tell it. WOMAN I have a story... I've been re-reading Coleridge. Trying to find a way to say that. In my notes it looks trite. It sounds pretentious. But it wasn't. It wasn't the words. It wasn't acting. But you knew. Here was honesty. Coleridge said it. "He holds him with his glittering eye - The wedding guest stood still, And listens like a three year' child;" That was me. Impaled by his intensity. "The wedding guest sat on a stone: He cannot choose but hear; And thus spake on that ancient man." MAN I am an archaeologist. I perform the autopsy on the remains of civilizations past. And the world is littered with the corpses of dead civilizations. I moved through this boneyard of dreams. Examining the cadaver for probable cause of death. Seeking the smoking gun that dispatched the Aztecs, the Mayans, the.. well, a hundred other. Here a civilization ravaged by disease. There encroaching sand drowned a city, a country. An eruption from the earth. Drought. Famine. War. There are endless reasons why civilizations die. The Minoans, buried under an erupting volcano. The Aztecs, wiped out by the diseases carried by Cortez. The fabled city of Ubar hub of the frankincense trade in the time of Christ. Ubar was built above a limestone cavern. No one knew it was there. Then one day the roof fell in on their world. The earth just openned up and swallowed the entire city. I knew them all. You know it's one of the funny things about academe. It's a world apart. You develop a sense of aloofness. You're special. Other can people think this or that, but you're an academic. You know. Or you think you know. So you're not prepared when reality hits you right between the eyes. You see reality isn't bones and ruins and shards of pottery from the first century. Reality is people. (A GIRL RUNS ACROSS THE STAGE AND BUMPS INTO HIM. SHE DROPS SOME BOOKS.) MAN Oh, sorry. Here let me help you. (PICKING THINGS UP) I didn't see you. Here let me get that. Sorry I didn't mean to stare. You've got such unusual eyes. Pretty I mean. Look could I get you a cup of coffee? It's the least I can do. I mean I'd like to. (HE SHOWS HER TO A TABLE DOWNSTAGE TO ONE SIDE. SHE SITS) MAN It's the oldest cliche in the book. But it happens anyway. Every day. It's like saying people have feet. We know that. We've all got feet. Well most of us. We take it for granted. Of course we've got feet. We'd notice if we didn't. Hello. I keep falling down. That's odd. My left foot's missing. I wonder where it's gone? I had it there this morning. Well I think I did. No, I definitely must have had it this morning. Otherwise what did I put my shoe on? Feet are a cliche. Life is one big cliche. Meet someone and suddenly it's hormones away. I wasn't prepared for it. There are certain things about being (GESTURES TO MAKE THE POINT. THE GESTURE GRADUALLY BECOMES SUGGESTIVE) male that women don't understand. Take going to the toilet. Men never talk in the toilet. They just stand there like this... (MIMES URINATING) You know why they're not talking? (TURNS TOWARDS SOMEONE AT THE SIDE) Say did you see the footy on saturday? Oh. Sorry about your suit. New, was it? There are physical constraints to being male. With women hormones rule their bodies every month. With men it's every five minutes. Watch a pretty girl walk past. (GESTURES) You've got no control. Of course these days we're all sensitive new age guys. We don't talk about it. Even to ourselves. We suppress our visual instinct. But she caught me off guard. I wasn't expecting someone like her. Parts of my anatomy were in open revolt. (GOES TO SIT) GIRL Look at your suit. MAN Oh really? (FLUSTERED, COVERS GROIN) GIRL It's polyester. MAN Is it? GIRL That's scarce oil resources wasted. Don't you care about the environment. MAN Well, yes. GIRL And you shave. Do you know how much electricity a shaver consumes. And how much material and energy goes into making shavers. Not to mention the packaging. MAN No. GIRL Besides there's nothing wrong with hair. On a man. Or a woman. Body hair can be very attractive. (HE QUICKLY CROSSES HIS LEGS). MAN When you can't cope with the assault of you hormones. When you find a presence too intense to deal with, you talk. (TO GIRL) In the Russian autumn great herds used to move south. South from the steppes of Russia. South through Turkey and Anatolia, through Jordan and onto the winter grasslands of Saudi Arabia. Hunters constructed traps. Fences that channelled the herds into killing pens. Each year the line of fences and traps spread across Iraq, across Jordan, across Israel, until one day the fences and the traps formed an unbroken line from the Mountains of Zagros across the Tigris and Euphrates due west to the Mediterranean. There was one last great glorious hunt. The killing pens were full to overflowing with milling animals and flying arrows. Blood and death. That year there was plenty of food for everyone and it seemed the good times would go on forever. The next year the great herds just didn't come. They would never come again. The next year hunger and starvation stalked the land. (PAUSE. HE LOOKS AT HER. SHE LOOKS AT HIM. IT BECOMES AWKWARD). The Chimor were canal builders. On the plain between the majesty of the Andes and the sea they built canals to bring water to their fields. But the land was rising as the Andes mountains pushed their way skywards. One by one, the canals of the Chimor dried up. The Chimor fought to keep their canals working on a shifting land. They pushed the canals further and further into the mountains in search of water for their fields. But one by one the canals failed. The water dried up. So they began to build the last great canal of the Chimor. It was hacked out of the face of the Andes with the most primitive stone tools. The canal was to bring water from a different river system over seventy kilometres to their fields. But the land continued to rise. The water in the grand canal ceased to flow. The Chimor began to die. GIRL You know that our civilization is dying, don't you? The symptoms are all around us. Pollution. Greenhouse. Holes in the ozone. Do you know how much top soil a year is lost because of the way we do agriculture? Do you know how much land is poisoned by salt? How much land is buried under urban sprawl? How much habitat is being destroyed? Do you know how many species are going extinct? There are more extinctions happening now, today than at anytime since the Cretaceous. And you know what happened then? The dinosaurs died out. The dinosaurs became extinct. Don't you see? We are the dinosaurs. We are destroying our world. We are destroying ourselves. THEY GET UP AND WALK TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STAGE. THEY UNCOVER A MATRESS ON THE FLOOR. KNEEL. KISS. MAN I was totally unprepared for her, She overwhelmed me. She was so vivacious. So passionate. She was earnest, intelligent, committed. She was almost fanatical about the environment. And look, I didn't care. I wouldn't have cared if she was a fanatic. I wouldn't have cared if she was completely around the twist. I was in the grip of the gonads. Off balance. Help! (SHE UNCOVERS VOLUMES OF PAPERS STACKED BESIDE THE MATRESS) GIRL See? I've documented everything Loss of wetlands. Drift netting. Erosion. Logging. The collapse of fisheries. Land management. Chemicals. You name it. The whole catastrophe. MAN And what are you going to do with all this stuff. GIRL There's a conference in London. On the environment. I'm taking it there. MAN (TO AUDIENCE) It was incredible. She had documented everything. Every 't' meticulously crossed. Every 'i' dotted. She made pendantry an art form. (TO GIRL) How on earth are you going to get all this to London. GIRL Carry it I guess, she said. I'll manage. Somehow. MAN Look. I'm going to England on a sabbatical with my, you know. My wife and family. Would you like me to take some of it. GIRL I don't know. MAN Come on. You'll never manage all that by yourself. GIRL Alright. But don't mess it up. It's taken me ages to get it all in the right order. MAN Don't worry I said. I won't even open it. (SHE GIVES HIM TWO VOLUMES OF DOCUMENTS) I will see you again. GIRL Of course. I'll have to pick up the papers in London, won't I. MAN Of course. I'll see you then. GIRL I'll see you then. THE GIRL EXITS. WOMAN Let me the author editorialize here for a minute. I want you to remember I'm here on the terrace talking to this... man/mariner. And I'm wondering how much of this I can believe. The man/mariner's grip on reality wasn't too solid. At best he was a flake. Should I give him the flick and get back to some serious partying? On the other hand who was the woman? The writer in me wanted to know more. On the other hand there was something about this flake. I knew I would regret listening to this story. How did the Ryme of the Ancient Mariner end? I wasn't sure, but I don't think the wedding guest came out of it a winner. But I the writer couldn't help myself. "I fear thee ancient Mariner" I listened. MAN (ON MOBILE PHONE) Honey, look, I've got to be at a University funding meeting on the 12th. But we've got the flat in London from the 8th. Why don't you and the kids go on ahead. You can catch up with Jill and Tania and I'll join you there as soon as I can after the 12th. Alright? (HE PUTS AWAY THE PHONE) The penny didn't drop when the plane exploded over Indonesia. For some reason I got the idea the plane had been shot down. Silly of course. I found it hard to imagine my wife and both the kids, dead. The penny didn't drop when they found the flight recorder and proved it was a bomb. The bomb was in the luggage. The plane came apart. Broke up. A wing came off. They found it miles away. The body of the plane ripped open. Scattering broken bodies like seeds... I was interviewed by the police, and the penny didn't drop. "Just a routine enquiry, sir. Trying to find out how a bomb could have got on the plane." The penny dropped when I... (PICKS UP ONE OF THE "VOLUMES" AND LOOKS AT IT) I put the other one in my wife's luggage. It looks so like a book, doesn't it. Even up close. Even under an x-ray. It looks like a book, but you can't open it. It hides knowledge of a destructive kind. To read this book is to die. (CRIES) (THE GIRL ENTERS. THE MAN FLINGS HIMSELF ACROSS THE STAGE TO CONFRONT HER). You see this. It's yours. How could you... How could you kiss me. How could you hold me, say you loved me, and hand me this. How could you take away my family, my life. How could you do this? GIRL You. What do you matter. What makes you think anyone cares about you? To us you're nothing. You're less than nothing. Just a tool to be picked up. Used, and thrown aside. MAN Is that all it was. Us? Did it mean no more than that? GIRL It meant nothing. Nothing at all. You can't see, can you. You can't see at all. You are the problem. You and people like you. All the environmental action in the world means nothing if we don't remove the endangering specis. When the Crown of Thorns threatened the Barrier Reef what did we do? We removed it to save the reef. Very well. What's the one specis damaging the environment today? The one specis polluting the rivers, poisoning the air, dumping toxic chemicals, killing the ozone, decimating the forests? Who is the endangering specis? Man. It is the human herd that must be culled.. MAN Can't you see. Are you blind? You can't kill people like, like cattle. If the moral arguements don't weigh with you, think of the practical problems. How fast can you kill people. Remember the first World War. Millions died on the battle fields, but the population actually rose. Can you kill as many people as the combined armies of Europe? That is still not enough. GIRL We must try, she said. The planet is dying. THE GIRL STARES AT THE MAN UNSEEING. MAN (THE MAN RETREATS FROM THE STARE TOWARDS THE WOMAN) And her eyes! Her eyes didn't see me. Her eyes looked right through me like I was nothing. (THE GIRL EXITS). And it was then I became a destroyer, an unmaker of civilizations. If she wanted to see destruction I would show her destruction. If she wanted to see death and carnage I would show her. I would tear civilization apart until no stone stood upon another. I would make her see me. The world is littered with the remains of dead civilizations. An archaeologist, I know where the bodies are buried. I know all civilizations are mortal. And to be mortal is to be vulnerable. It takes but a spark to to trigger the inferno, to bring on the holocaust. I could give you many examples. . The Easter Islanders who in a week of fury ripped assunder centuries of civilization. The death of one archduke that plunged Europe into the Great War. Pol Pot. The urge to destroy, to start over, to wipe the slate clean is fundamental. I could tell you of the Essene, who walked away from home and hearth to found a religious commune in the desert at a place called Qumran. I could tell you how William Lane led a band of Australians into the wilderness of Paraguay to establish a new utopia. I could tell you how in 1705 3 and a half million Japanese men, women and children left house and home. Left jobs, left towns and cities deserted to pray at the shrine at Ise. Nor is this urge to unmake society something that is burried in our past. It is with us always. It is with us now. Remember Jonestown? Remember Waco, Texas? People there were fighting to get into the compound and join the martyrs. They wanted an end. An end to everything. That is a power to be harnessed. THE MAN WALKS TO THE BALUSTRADE AND LOOKS OVER THE EDGE. THE LIGHT BEGINS TO FADE FROM HIM. HE IS A FIGURE CUT OUT OF THE DARK. HE IS ALMOST INVISIBLE. WOMAN He stood right up against the balustrade, his back to me looking out over the lights of Adelaide. I saw the car on the road below cutting in and out of the hills face. He knew exactly where I was and what I was thinking. He wanted me to do it. He was daring me to kill him. That's when I reached out and.... THE MAN TOPPLES SOUNDLESSLY OVER THE BALUSTRADE. WOMAN You see I knew what he was going to say next Remember the chicken sandwich? It looks so simple, doesn't it. It lies in the hand so comfortably. So familiar, so inviting, so mouth watering. Please eat me it says. But it's not so simple. Open the sandwich and there's a world in here. The margarine is made in giant vats a tonne at a time. The oil that makes the marg is grown in thousand acre paddocks; harvested with million dollar machines. Crushed, processed, purified to a guaranteed quality. So it is for the mayo, the bread. The sandwich implies a civilization. No civilization, no sandwich. I said I'd be asking questions later. The question is; Do you want a sandwich? Look at the lights. He had said to me. Spread out before us like jewels on black velvet. A hundred and sixty years ago all you'd see from here would be the camp fire of the hunter-gatherers. Maybe. But lift your eyes and look across the plain at the ocean and you would see the fleets of the white settlers with their ploughs and machines already disgorging on the shore. You see I remembered the end of the poem "The mariner, who's eye is bright, Whose beard with age is hoar, Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest "Turned from the bridegroom's door. He went like one that hath been stunned, And is of sense forlorn:" But it was too late, don't you see? The Ancient Mariner was seeking absolution. He gave his confession to the Wedding Guest. He purged himself. Cleansed himself. He passed on his albatross... to the Wedding Guest. And the man on the balcony did it to me. He passed me his albatross. You see I know what he was going to say. I killed him because I didn't want to bear the albatross. But it was too late. And it's too late for you too. You see he knew I was a writer. He knew I wouldn't be able to resist. I wouldn't be able to help myself. He knew I'd pass the albatross on. To you. When you leave here tonight and drive down our orderly streets, through our manicured parks past our neat and tidy architecture you will see the trees and the kangaroos and the hunter-gathers who went before. And you will think how permanent is all this? And you will begin to doubt. And if one of you, just one of you begins to doubt, then civilization itself is at risk. And you have picked up the albatross. END copyright (c) 1993 & 1999 F.J. Willett 49 Metala Rd Paralowie South Australia 5108 ph 08 8281 2524

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Jewels on Black Velvet

copyright © 18-4-2001 Fred Willett