An Important Discussion

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:


ZENO: A philosopher who shoots at tortoises

SOCRATES: Another philosopher, and the only man who did not attempt to sleep with Alcibiades. Did some other stuff too.

TERRY WRIST: The newest housemate - a shadowy presence. No one has yet seen his face.


Scene

Socrates sits in the living room of their sprawling share house. He is alone, staring suspiciously at a steaming cup of tea. 

Enter Zeno

ZENO: Morning, Socco - what are you up to?

SOCRATES: Hey, Zeno. Someone left this cup of tea for me, and I don't think it's quite right.

ZENO: You don't think the cup is quite right, or the tea, or the leaving of it?

SOCRATES: Let's not start this nonsense again. We were at it three days last time. Let's just say I've developed a general distrust of herbal infusions and leave it at that.

ZENO: Fine. I don't care, anyway - I'm here on important business.

SOCRATES: Oh yes? What's that?

ZENO: Well, a member of the government, [checks his phone] one George Christensen, says that it's vitally important we have a discussion on Radical Islam.

SOCRATES: Well, if the government says so, we should probably do it. What's Radical Islam?

ZENO: Um... It's Islam that's gone radical.

SOCRATES: You'll have to do better than that.

ZENO: Well, 'radical' means wanting to change things and 'Islam' is a religion. So it's a religion that wants to change things. Yeah - that's it.

SOCRATES: I think you'll have to work on that definition.

ZENO: Whatever for?

SOCRATES: Because if you can't properly define something, you can't really say you understand it.

ZENO: You know I've never really agreed with you on that.

SOCRATES: That's probably because you think a tortoise is faster than an arrow. Anyway, let's leave that aside for now. This Radical Islam - do we have a lot of it around here?

ZENO: I don't know. But what I do know is that it's a big problem - everyone's talking about it.

SOCRATES: If everyone's already talking about it, then why is it so urgent that we have this discussion?

ZENO: I'm not sure. I just have a vague feeling of unease, is all.

SOCRATES: Surely it would make sense to investigate this 'vague feeling' before going around bothering other people with it, don't you think?

Enter TERRY WRIST, composing a Tweet on his phone as he walks past ZENO and SOCRATES.

ZENO: Hey, Terry - where are you going?

TERRY: I've got to catch a plane to Iraq. That's where I mostly work these days.

ZENO: Can it wait? We have to have a discussion about Radical Islam.

TERRY: Sorry, no. And besides, I'm pretty sure your 'discussion' doesn't affect me in any way. See you later, guys.

Exit TERRY WRIST stage left

Curtain