[A sparsely decorated stage in an empty theatre. On the stage are arranged the following in a semi-circle: a scratched faded brown barstool; a ratty old once-maroon-coloured armchair, with a hole in the arm from which stuffing can be seen; a dentists mirror on the floor.]
Spaceman Dark enters, walking from right to left quite quickly, like a man who is on his way to the burrito shop because he really fancies a burrito.
Spaceman Dark stops abruptly. He looks down.
SD: Did I mention the floor is bare and looks like floorboards but is actually cheap lino?
Spaceman Dark nonchalantly rummages in his jacket pocket and pulls out a small bottle of spacejuice.
It is at this moment, while he is drinking, that you start to examine the frail human on stage. He is at once majestic (in his apparent madness and the uncaring nature of his beard) and destitute (his life lies in ruins). You take in his rugged future-clothes and, tho you despise their garish sentience, grant that they are indeed to be envied for their stoic fatelessness and cheerful demeanour.
He’s wearing some like, intuitive hunting boots or some shit, and you know what? He’s wearing them WELL.
Spaceman Dark places the bottle onto the mirror and stretches like a sexy lynx.
He pauses, and assumes a hunched-over-the-controls-of-a-crashing-space-ship pose.
SD: WE’RE GOING DOWNNN, THE NAVIGATION SYSTEMS ARE TOTALLY FUUUUCKED. I’M LOSING IT!
He hunches, squinting his eyes and sucking air through his gritted teeth, preparing to crash land on some noxious alien planet.
SD: FUUUUUUUUUUUU—
[The curtains are drawn for the half-time whatsit and stuff. You shift your balls in the uncomfortable theatre seat and wonder if you need the toilet yet, and if you don’t, maybe you should just go for a quick walk around and an explore before the second half. Decisions.]
YOU: I’ll take two and a hotdog.
The words leave your mouth and you realise you’re talking to the half-time food people, with the half-time food. You pay and start to eat your hotdog while your two ice-creams begin to melt and the lights go down.
Good decision, you think, as the curtains draw back.
Spaceman Dark is lying on his back, unmoving, staring emptily.
On the mirror, the bottle starts to wobble.
A VOICE: Wake up, Dark.
It is a strange and deep voice, and your hotdog is held mid-air and forgotten, your ice-creams lost, melten and forlorn.
The washed-out stage lights begin to flicker and then go out! A BURST OF STROBE. Then a spotlight snaps on like an alien gaze beaming right down onto Spaceman Dark, his futurous denim sparkling dangerously.
A VOICE: We entered 4-Space, Dark, it was the only way to save us. We were about to collide with a planet. I had to do it.
The bottle merges with the mirror and becomes something else. The chair forms itself into an idea of a thing, and shifts itself upright and breathing. The table bursts into flames and collapses.
The Bottlemirror and the Breathingchair reach down and take ahold of Spaceman Dark.
Come-on-you-poor-beast they say, and help him off stage.
THE END
