An old house
The kitchen

The kitchen covers the entire width of the stage.  There is a sink, a stove, a refrigerator, cupboards, benches etcetera set around the walls.  Audience right is a doorway leading to the hall; audience left is a doorway to the sitting room.  Along the back wall of the kitchen is a large window.  Through the window a few tall trees can be glimpsed; and large expanse of sky.  A table and two chairs stand in the centre of the kitchen. 

Noon
Luke sits at the table
A large dictionary is open in front of him
He reads aloud:

- dictio a word dictio a saying from dicere to speak a book containing the words of a language arranged in alphabetical order with explanations of their meanings in the same or another language a lexicon

He leans back from the dictionary
He looks up at the ceiling
He tilts his chair back
He tilts his head back further
His tilts the chair back further
The chair falls over
He falls to the floor

Long pause

Ned appears in the doorway of the sitting room
He looks down at Luke who remains motionless
He moves to the table and looks down at the dictionary

Long pause

He closes the dictionary

Blackout
Lights up

Night
The kitchen is empty
Light spills into the kitchen from the sitting room
Music can also be heard coming from the room (slow Jazz)
After a few moment the front door is heard opening
Luke enters the kitchen from the hall
He carries a large plastic bag
He stands listening to the music for a moment
He empties the contents of the plastic bag onto the table
The bag contains weeds grass dirt and dead leaves
He sits at the table
Long pause
The music stops
Ned comes into the sitting room doorway
He stands there a moment before switching on the light

- what's that?
- they're the weeds
- what weeds?
- the weeds from the grave
- how did you find it?
- In the city of the dead the living find their way
- was there a map?
- as I hadn't forgotten my mother's name I looked it up in the directory supplied there was a number beside her name and a map reference she is number two two seven eighteen in the south west quarter avenue E 
- I know where she is
- her remains
- are you saying the grounds are untended?
- her plot seems to lie just outside the extent of the tending
- they can only do so much
- of course the dead are bound to be at the mercy of the living the living tend their own gardens
- as do the dead for all we know
- are you suggesting some kind of afterlife?
- many people have
- but are you one of them?
- I'm undecided

Pause

- our mother's grave is untended
- but you've just tended it
- it that appropriate?
- I would have thought so
- I would have thought that the tending of graves was the responsibility of those who have decide to make a profession of the dead
- you mean of graves generally 
- is not our mother's grave a grave generally?
- it is our mother's grave
- I'm quite aware that it is our mother's grave but I am unaware of what difference it being our mother's grave makes with regard to the duties of those whose appointed task it is to tend graves no matter whose they are
- are you saying that you have no responsibility in that regard?
- it is not a responsibility and that it should be thought of as such is what I object to
- then what have you just done?
- I undertook a compassionate act after consuming a certain amount of alcohol and yet I ask myself how can one act compassionately towards the dead?
- in the same way that one can show reverence for the unknown
- meaning what?
- christianity
- theology again
- it seems appropriate
- are you suggesting an occasion when theology is considered appropriate?
- it seems that I am
- I'm staggered quite frankly I'm dumbfounded
- what are we going to do with these weeds?
- compost them
- I have no garden
- nothing to tend?
- nothing
- our mother had a garden
- the garden is dead
- not everything in the garden can be dead
- there are probably remnants there are probably tubers sleeping under the earth bulbs drying somewhere shoots struggling towards the sunlight I've paid very little attention
- what have you paid attention to?
- other matters
- what are they?
- they change from day to day moment to moment
- you flirt
- it's chaos I'm telling you
- I can imagine
- no you can't you can't imagine anything about me you haven't got the faintest idea you haven't a clue I'm not on your fucking map I'm beyond your horizons there's not a cell in the slop bucket you call your mind that's concerned with me
- do you know how many cells there are?
- no
- have you got a pencil and paper?
- you make me sick

Pause

- what was that music you were playing?
- you're not interested in music
- that's beside the point
- how can someone not be interested in music?
- it's easy
- please explain

Luke stands and goes into the sitting room
After a few moments music is heard (the same slow jazz)
Luke returns to the kitchen
He sits down at the table opposite Ned
After a pause:

- when I left this house I was the fucking monkey man spine bent knuckles dragging wore no shoe shine fingered no beads was coinless in a cashed up world looked out through my eyeholes and saw the blank world saw the strangers saw the reckoning zero comes of zero walked out none the less heard the penny drop sucked in the new old air heard you crying calling me back 
- I never called you back
- you called me back and that was the fucking music that was the blessing that was the prayer I never had to answer that was the proof and the pudding the half blood calling the half blood I spat in the street and listened to my broken boot heels on the broken pavement I was well out of it I knew exactly what I was I was the no fucking good man the fatherless child the fag end the genuine fucking copy I was good for nothing the way I'd been bred and raised
- our mother wept
- our mother often wept
- not often for you
- often for you 
- I stand accused
- I dried her face with my nose rag that rag had held the faultless seed I'd spilled in perfectly lonely nights the blood I'd bled the pulp of ripe pimples the spit I'd spat the tears I'd cursed I wiped her face with it and said there there mother not to worry the boy will be hale the son will be a son 
- what kind of son were you?
- I was the son that was made 
- the brother
- the brother you never had
- I made a brother and you were he
- what to you I was I was never to myself
- you were everything to me I called you I called I planted my seeds in your ears I?painted my face in your eyes 
- you were mistaken
- so it seems
- seems?

Pause

- what are we to do with these weeds?
- leave them where they are
- they'll take root
- everything does
- who'll water them?
- you
- why?
- you have nothing to tend

Pause

- will you help me?
 - you are the weight and the toil and the bell that rings the time of prayer you are the song to bring the harvest home you are the hearth lit you are the god buried you will tend the garden

Pause

- what if I don't want to?
- don't want to?

Blackout