Here, where the whole world seems
naught but an endless dream of dreams,
lie down where life has death for neighbour Swinburne - A Forsaken Garden
AIB
Characters: Doris - A librarian
Agon - A neuropathologist
AIB - An Artificially Intelligent Being
Professor Quantum – A university lecturer
Schrody – A black cat
Act 1
Vodka
The doorbell rings.
Agon opens the front door.
Schrody comes to life inside his box.
He yawns, stretches and moves to the sofa.
Agon: Doris, do come in.
It’s so nice to see you.
Would you like a drink?
A glass of vodka, perhaps?
Doris: That would be lovely, Agon.
It’s been such a stressful week.
Agon: Sit down on the sofa next to Schrody
and I’ll fix the drinks.
Doris: What a lovely cat, Agon. She’s got such soft fur.
Doris strokes Schrody, who purrs quietly.
Where did you get her?
Agon: She’s actually a he, Doris.
I found him sleeping in a metal box
that someone had left by the recycling bins.
On the box was printed Schrodinger’s Cat 1935.
Inside there was a Geiger counter, a small hammer,
a radioactive substance and a flask of cyanide.
It looked as if it was a scientific experiment.
What’s strange is that some mornings,
when I open the box,
Schrody’s dead and he remains dead all day.
Then on other mornings,
when I open the box,
he’s alive and remains alive all day.
I never know which it’s going to be,
A living-day or a death-day,
anyway, let’s have a drink.
Agon hands Doris a glass of vodka and sits next to her.
So here’s to Schrody - dead or alive!
They raise their glasses.
Chin! Chin!
And now you really must try to relax, Doris.
Imagine that you're on a tropical island
where there’s no technology,
no internet,
no stress,
nothing to hear but the sound of the surf,
nothing to see but blue sky and sun,
nothing to do but three things.
Doris: What three things are they, Agon?
Agon: Birth, sex, and death.
That’s all there is to do, Doris.
Nothing but birth and sex and death.
Doris: I don’t think I’d like living on you're island, Agon.
I’d be bored.
Agon: You’d be bored?
Birth, sex, and death and you’d be bored?
Doris: Well that’s no life, just being an animal.
I might as well be dead.
Agon: That’s well said, Doris.
You already are.
Doris: What do you mean?
I’m not dead.
Agon: But you are,
just like Schrody.
Agon strokes Schrody
You’re both alive and dead.
They’re different sides of the same coin.
A few years ago I had a neighbour
who killed his girlfriend.
Doris: I didn’t know that, Agon.
How terrible.
Agon: Then he filled his bath with vodka
and kept her in it.
He didn’t know if he was alive
and she was dead.
He didn’t know if she was alive
and he was dead.
He didn’t know if they were both alive or both dead.
Doris: But what happened?
Agon: Nothing happened.
The months passed by.
Nobody came and nobody went
but he took in the milk and he paid the rent.
Doris: What did he do, all that time?
Agon: What did he do?
That don’t apply, Doris.
Ask living men what they do.
He’d come up and see me sometimes.
I’d give him a glass of vodka and cheer him up.
Doris: Cheer him up?
Agon: Well again, that don’t apply.
I gotta to use words when I talk to you
but the words I use don’t reveal my instincts.
They’re simply safe sounds without a meaning.
Doris: What do you mean,” Safe sounds without a meaning?"
Words must mean something.
Agon: You don't understand, Doris.
The word “meaning” is meaningless.
You think and talk in meaningless clichés.
You are so ordinary.
I've just told you an extraordinary story
about a man who lived in a meaningless world.
Doris: I didn’t like you’re story, Agon.
I couldn’t understand it.
Agon: You couldn’t understand it, Doris,
because you believe that everything means something.
You believe that you're a real and unique person.
You believe that your world is real and unique.
But if you were alone, like he was alone,
you'd stop believing in anything.
You would become nothing.
There'd be no escape.
Doris: It all sounds so scary.
If there’s no escape
what do I do?
Agon: Don’t be scared, Doris.
You'll do what you always do.
You’ll sit here and share a drink.
You'll sit here and talk about things.
You'll sit here, then eventually you’ll go
and finally someone will dispose of the body.
Doris: The body?
Whose body?
Do you know who, Agon?
Agon: I’m afraid that I do, Doris,
but I have to do what I have to do.
By the way, have you seen my bedroom?
Doris: Not yet, Agon,
but I’ve got a feeling that I’m going to.
Schrody yawns, stretches and climbs back into his box.