Guest Blogging -- Creative Writing Fridays

The literatus has submitted a one-act musical on the subject of negotiated solutions in Afghanistan. In my view, it starts reasonably well, but the conclusion is a bit weak. Also, decapitation scenes are expensive to stage. But you can make up your own mind. You have to add the Oscar & Hammerstein-style score in your head.

MOTHER DIALOGUE

A strategy in one Act.



Cast.

Jack-Stephen Lewis-Layton, a promoter of virtue.

Mullah Omar, a suppressor of vice.

PithFella, a cunning strategist.

McKenzie McKandahar, an Afghan farmer.

Assorted Talibans and Princess Pats.

The Ghost of Edward Said.



Scene 1. The desert north of Waziristan. An enormous, polished round table of Canadian spruce dominates the sandy landscape, with empty chairs all around. PithFella knuckles his forehead in the lead chair. He sings.)



PithFella. Perhaps we're not so different, my friends.

We shoot and bomb each other, and call it deterrence.

Lewis-Layton says destroying you Talibs just makes ya madder.

Won't you come to the UN talks, and straighten out this matter?



Mullah Omar. Allahu Akbar! (Strikes PithFella in the head with an axe. Blood spurts. Pith collapses, Omar pauses.) (Beat.) Maybe we'd settle for just a province or two down here in the smack-producing regions. (Beat.) You'd be surprised, the Koran is down on chicks flaunting themselves, but it's very cool on heroin dealing. That's according to some of the more innovative imams, I mean.



Jack-Stephen Layton-Lewis. You patriarchal insensitive misogynist defender of indigenous cultural traditions! (Strikes Omar on the upper arm with a Concordia University calendar.) (Beat.) (J-S L-L begins massaging the neck of Omar, who glares.)



Talibans. Inshallah, asswipe! (They leap out of the wings and strike L-L in the head with an axe. Blood spurts. He collapses. They sing.)



Scene 2. Village battlegrounds south of Kandahar.



Talibans. We're just regular old Talibans,

Executing queers and whores, who wouldn't be a fan?

We wanna suppress any kinda quirk-a,

Put all the girls in their burkas;

We don't like vice, we're fond of virtue,

Hello Canadian boys, we're gonna shoot you.



Princess Pats. (Emerging.) But we admire your ethnic vibrancy.



Talibans. Well, around our land mines you'll find it chancy.



Princess Pats. Can't we build some roads and infrastructure?



Talibans. We're sickened by your female soldiers, fuckers.



Princess Pats. We'll bodycheck ya, then, instead of negotiation.



Talibs. You know we saw the Russians and Brits out of our nation.



Princess Pats. We're not invading this hot Labrador. We don't want it...