Fundamental Losers
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| 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)
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