A Trial of Error (by Gwilym Scourfield)

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A Trial of Error

Judge              Name?

 

Suez                Suez.

 

Judge              Suez?

 

Suez                Suez.

 

Judge              How did/ you get a…?

 

Suez                It’s an anagram of Zeus.

 

Judge              Ah….. But you’re female!

 

Suez                Now you tell me! Gods don’t do gender. I was ‘male’ all the years it was going well; but the minute you screw up…

 

Judge              You know the charge?

 

Suez                Yes. (BEAT) I didn’t wait. I should have waited…

 

Judge              (Reading)  …. Failed to pause sufficiently to consider the potentially catastrophic implications of creating a universe in which a single species… What did you call it? …

 

Suez                Homo sapiens.

 

Judge              Homo … That’s not Greek!

 

Suez                Neither is Suez.

 

Judge              … Homo Sapiens … should become the highest pinnacle of its evolution,  leading to technical mastery over all other life forms. (BEAT)  How do you plead?

 

Suez                Guilty …. If you put it that way.

 

Judge              Is there any other way?

 

Suez                How should I know? They haven’t finished evolving yet!

 

Judge              Any mitigating circumstances?

 

Suez                What does that mean?

 

Judge              …Why you didn’t wait until you had a better grasp of the situation.

 

Suez                I suppose I was in a bit of a hurry.

 

Judge              “A bit of a hurry”! You created sixty billion stars/…

 

Suez                ..Sixty billion and seven!

 

Judge              …Sixty billion and seven stars, a solar system perched perilously close to the side of one insignificant little galaxy which you choose to have dominated by an unsophisticated, barely mature animal species, and you say … ‘you were in a bit of a hurry’!

 

Suez                There was a turtle planning a similar venture. Boils down to pride in the end. (BEAT) I would have waited if his egg hadn’t twitched.

 

Judge              I see. Record that, clerk – “Intimidated into premature action by the  twitching of a reptile egg”. (PAUSE)  Is that why you started with all those ridiculous dinosaurs?

 

Suez                Could be.

 

Judge              Go on, admit it! Then you had to start all over again, buggering up the earth’s entire ecosystem in the process.

 

Suez                It was an experiment.

 

Judge              I see. Record that, clerk: “The omnipotent, almighty Madame Suez  stooped to trial and error.” (BEAT) … and it all came from the big bang.

 

Suez                Don’t flatter yourself. It wasn’t that big. Another MALE overstatement!

 

Judge              I’m not talking about that nonsense with the swan. I mean at the beginning.

 

Suez                No, you mean ‘before the beginning’.

 

Judge              Linguistically, no – that’s true; we’re somewhat pre-language here. It took  you twenty million years to get around to language.

 

Suez                It couldn’t have been me, then!

 

Judge              How do you figure that?

 

Suez                Creation’s an idea. Ideas come from language. Ipso fact – no idea, no creation! (PAUSE) Not me then, Guv. (BEAT) Ask the woman in the bed

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