Two Husbands'... Part 1, Chapter 16 con't...

 

Fundamental Losers

Ocean Breeze

SMALLY

They skip down

(all the numbers in a frown)

and waste themselves

    in the drink;

absolved, dissolved...

No man can help them.

Their abstract, mathematical,

configuring soup is of no use.

BIGGY

Boil, boil all numbers

and toil.

SMALLY

Then, take up cleanly

on our holy graphs -

chosen and ordained

perfectly above,

looking down on us.

Create the perfect solution:

numbers’ arrogant power leading!

BIGGY

And we’re ready to read them,

    to tally them off,

    to add them

creating a storm of quotients

    for our brain!

SMALLY

We will collect all, we think.

BIGGY

It seems and looks so simple.

SMALLY

Numbers on a graph:

we’ll easily take them off.

BIGGY

But they jump away from us.

SMALLY

Yes, they resist!

BIGGY

They truly are arrogant.

SMALLY

And willful;

manifesting in the sky.

SMALLY

They’re stubborn.

BIGGY

And separating for good

from each other and us.

SMALLY

Bounding off, leaving us!

BIGGY looking down at the scattered papers on his desk,

Stranding us

with our pockets

and hands empty.

These papers tell us nothing,

now that our numbers have all left.

SMALLY

Yes, they’re useless.

BIGGY

As good as winter leaves...

SMALLY

Or torn up school books

that I can’t use.

BIGGY

What formula can we use

to re-sway them back to us?

SMALLY

Nothing said out loud

or figured with a pencil.

Nothing thick in the head

or following them from a book...

Nothing at all that would be useful

because I don’t know what is!

There’s nothing useful anymore!

All the numbers are gone

and we’re really at a loss, partner.

BIGGY

Yes, shifting on our swivel-chairs

from side to side for no good reason.

(Pause)

SMALLY

What’s out the window?

BIGGY

A regular day:

a girl flying a kite,

a dog running,

a big freight train coming in to the city,

a flag flying at sunset,

a sad harpist somewhere.

SMALLY

Who is feeling like us failures!

BIGGY

Yes, like losers without any numbers.

SMALLY

Fundamental losers!

BIGGY

Misplaced husbands

who only can bend over backwards

    for themselves -

and forget their wives.

SMALLY quite despondent,

I’m not used to this.

And I’m not used to remembering them, now.

BIGGY

Yeah, remembering them - our wives !

    Without dinner waiting

    and success on our lapels...

SMALLY

Without our success riding up beneath them,

    lifting them up and shouting, 

    Hurrah!  Look what we’ve got!

    It’s better than anything!

BIGGY

And, today or tonight - by now -

after working wastingly all day

we have nothing.

SMALLY

And no wives, either.

BIGGY

They’re certainly gone.

And shall we follow them?

SMALLY

Where? How do we find out

just where they went?

(They both look very disconcerted)

Note to Readers: At this time, on the Pacific, the Two Wives beg the Ship’s Captain to release them from his ship; they are completely exhausted. He refuses this appeal; but, soon after, he gambles them away to a Jungle Chieftain who takes them by canoe to a remote native village. As they leave the ship, El Sultam gives the Wives some of his miraculous German formulas and two sturdy rugs to roll up in for warmth and protection on their trip.

(End of Chapter 16 and Part 1)

Two Husbands'... Part 1, Chapter 16

  

Numbers in the Drink

 

Scientist Husband at work

(Another day at the office)

NARRATOR in critical review,

Two Husbands are at work;

    at work

    at their desks

with graph nets behind them

supporting numbers upright;

while they - the men - are

    bent over,

their shoulders heavy,

their jaws clamping shut for good

as they concentrate and work out

    those numbers.

Their pencils are thickly squeezed between

    their sweaty fingers

and are almost slipping out, squirting away

    from them.

Thin pencils, un-useable -

pencils, now laughable, left aside;

all their shallow numbers

    not figuring!

leaving the squares

evaporating or toasting... (Sighs) 

Or, just leaving the two men

    barely able to

mentally get a hold of them at all!

Two Husbands sliding together

    in futility -

their stumpy, fat legs practically intertwining,

underneath the broad desk’s desert-like expanse.

Up above: bare figures, black ghosts

or shadows of numbers 

    barely seen.

Or, are they leaving?

Your numbers are all black ghosts now -

burnt up in electrico-magnetic wiring;

    fussed and fizzed out

    by you, Two Husbands!

BIGGY

Yes, we can’t try.

We can’t fuss anymore.

We’ve reached our ultimate limits

and are no good.

SMALLY

No good at it.

BIGGY

At working with

or embracing our figures.

SMALLY

Yes, they are not real.

They are like black ashes

    turned to dust.

BIGGY

Or, like fuzz on an old TV screen

    looked at dead.

SMALLY

Their stately proportions

    have left us now.

BIGGY

They no longer can help us

do anything now.

NARRATOR

Your numbers are staying apart

from one another, not mixing.

SMALLY

They don’t care to be intermixed.

BIGGY

Alas, they want to be left alone.

SMALLY

Yes, see? They are separate personalities

proclaiming their self-usefulness;

and not wishing to be so engaged as to lose

their smug, stand-out appearance.

Numbers disruption

    Such as ‘The Great 7’

    or ‘Certain 8’

(though it is two halves of something)

     or ‘Left-Alone 9’

     hanging above,

     poised or radical.

And 10? Who does it? One? Zero?

    10 - who does it?

No one. They merge to create

    a double 5.

    And did they ask to?

5 says that there is only it, alone. Not two.

So, everyone is confusing.

3 seems to be

more than half of 8.

And 2 half of 3.

And 1 looks like an unfinished 9

or a tall, meek 7.

And 6 is unusual.

4 is a tabletop.

And 7 is a slider, a trickster -  a 7!

BIGGY

6 is bending over, down under

    the Sun

and probably pushing back all the time.

SMALLY

Each number has a right to proclaim itself.

Numbers gallery

BIGGY

5 is pressing forward pointing,

    changing 6.

5 is an incomplete 6;

and (so embarrassing)

never getting anywhere.

SMALLY

7 is a departure.

8 is a perpetual game inside of itself:

    two of 4

    and four of 2.

9 is a leftover,

before 10 takes over.

They skip down

(all the numbers in a frown)

and waste themselves

    in the drink;

absolved, dissolved...

No man can help them.

Their abstract, mathematical,

configuring soup is of no use.

(End of Chapter 16)