Lights up on four chairs and one table. HARMONY and LIZ are sitting down, opposite each other.
HARMONY: So, what's the topic for today? Go fetch me some water, please. Go on.
LIZ: (Bows.) With pleasure, my lord! I'm not thirsty, you go.
HARMONY: Sometimes, you could be nicer. (She gets up and leaves to the left.)
LIZ: (Yelling to the side.) What a good house dog you'd make! That horrible "cliché", ah yes, bring the newspaper and house slippers, dear.
HARMONY enters again with two glasses, one full of water, another one full of ice.
HARMONY: Hell no. So when are they arriving? We should have a topic ready.
(She places the glass full of ice in front of LIZ). Here. Now, wait.
LIZ: Oh my, so your humour has been reduced to this? Pitiful. Horrible. Fascinating, in some ways.
HARMONY: What's more pitiful is the disdain of blaming first world problems on gen Z. Do you reckon that's what we should talk about? Don't answer. It's too forced, for all of us.
LIZ: Who would've thought just yesterday it seemed like you were a genius. The brilliance of your mind blinds me.
HARMONY: Quite the remark. What was your favourite drink, remind me. Bleach or acid? Let's see. Feelings.
LIZ: Too vague, too general. It's like if I proposed we talked about economics. You would have said, "In which country? In relation to what? Economy is crazy and mind boggling."
HARMONY: Don't think so.
LIZ: You can't lie to me.
HARMONY: No. So yes, I would have. Now that I've said this, it sounds strange in my mouth. (Enunciating.) I. Would. Have.
LIZ: Because you've had to admit I'm right.
HARMONY: Tempting, but no. There's something missing. But let's also set this aside.
LIZ: Let's. So, you said before, and I'm curious too. When are they arriving? They're proper late.
HARMONY: Must be chatting at the pub, Downtown. Where I last saw them, I believe. Then, alcoholism. Well, we can't drink, can we?
LIZ: Then, drugs. We're falling into a pattern now. Quite boring. If they are drunk, somehow, they'll have an idea. Another "cliché" I'd like to appeal to. Children and drunks never lie. The most truths I've heard are from my little sister and Miss Audley. The neighbour. She's really loud.
HARMONY: Be a bit more sensitive, would you? They'll probably smell of enclosed space. Like the sewers. Scum of the Earth, those drunkards. Not my words. And another topic lost in the air, and oh, how many books we could write with pointless topics of conversation, and watch from afar as one's human nature over thinks something as logically established as one plus one! I've always liked mathematics. Too logically established to demean.
LIZ: A fun way to pass the time, that is, watching people become mad against their own mind. Come on then, it's four seventeen.
Suddenly they hear three slow and heavy knocks.
LIZ: Do come in.
HARMONY: It's open. Push, not pull.
SVEN walks in first, hands raised in the air. BEE follows, hands behind his head.
YOU ARE READING
A kid's curiosity
Non-FictionThis is not a masterpiece. This is conversation. And what you talk about with your friends and don't tell your parents. It's nothing else than a human mind. Week-day afternoons turned into storms of nonsense, insults, stupid one-liners and teenagers...
