[first draught of The Holo Magi]
Act Two Scene Five
[Albinio's home, a mud volcano on the beach.
His net hammock strung from palm trees.]
Eduardo - Albinio, it's all rubbish and antiques.
Albinio - Monsiuer, I've recycled that old rusty
walker as my beachcombing shopping cart.
Bernardo - If you find an old magnetron, you'll
be whooping, I'm sure, amigo.
Albinio - There's mobility scooters and golf carts
out past the sandbar and reefs.
But I'll not chance the tide even under a strong pull of a
blue moon. But I assure you, the combings of
the sea bed at low tide are all mine. $10
The descendants of Atlantis won't touch junk.
Eduardo - You said you'd introduce us to your zombie
friend the UN colonel Felix Xavier.
Albinio - But I will. And he is here. Came to solve
a problem, put himself in the pickle.
Bernardo - Where here? In this mud volcano?
Albinio - In that pilot whale. It's the strangest
thing, a pilot whale committing suicide
on its own. Usually, he'll drag the community
of mammals down to his own level. $20
Eduardo - Misery loves whale pods.
Bernardo - You stuffed the zombie-colonel in a pilot whale?
Albinio - I did. I thought to marinate him, but he was
wheezing like a fellow on a morgue slab,
so I thought it would be more humane to keep
him alive and warm dusted down with sea salt
and insulated by natural grease and oil.
Bernardo - I don't believe you, melonhead.
Albinio - Watch, I'll sit down on the beast's head,
and pump the colonel's head out his arse. $30
Eduardo - He's powder white and mumbling!
Bernardo - I think he's saying pump harder!
Eduardo - Pump harder! Amigos, pump harder!
Albinio - You'll be disappointed, he took his
work home with him, put a bullet in his
own temple, is now a creature of habit with his
fifty most common words and grunts.
Eduardo - Couldn't save his own butt. Pump!
Bernardo - We'll get the history of the island out him
with prompts and nods, shakes, winks and snorts. $40
Albinio - The Holo Magi was tedious with his
arithmetic and spelling but exciting with his fables.
I know all about the black christ with fine perfect
features, unlike you, and his hermaphrodite
mother, the boy-girl virgin. I can put two and two
together but I care not for two and three.
Eduardo - This colonel needs medicinal lysergic acid.
The problem with his wheezing half brain is it is
not scrambled enough. Worse can fix bad.
[end of Act Two Scene Five of the Holo Magi.]