Hocus-Pocus: Subways and Moron

By Eberekpe Ogho

Hocus-pocus

Both man, Lemur, and friend, Black Cat, work as spoken-wordsmith; their place of work are meetings and conventions or wherever the crowd is large. They erect their tents at different places and start to woo people to their stands, contradicting each other in other to win enough people to their stands to believe in either of them and, in the process sell their tracts and pamphlets. They have just finished from Hyde Park and Stratford where there is a huge gathering of musical and sporting turnouts. Grace works as an official of the government and augments her wage by going to the street every weekend when she is not working with her battered-looking violin to play some disjointed tones by saying hello to forlorn looking passersby to attract their attention and patronage. Your sins are much heavier, then! Gods punishment upon your brute would have been tampered if in your weakness you had hit a wife instead of a woman He first created ere her decision at alteration into the creation to be priced and possessed by punch gloves like you, as she strives towards the dearness of motherhood! O, how debased thou art! Why did you allow thyself to be driven to the sharp edge of dire evil by the devil thou art! To raise thy hand up against anything is evil itself let alone Gods love, a woman! She will see to medication! Sinner!

Subways and moron

...And the fools and yet the many and more damnable bastards who would not aspire to dare...furthering the rapid rise of more fools and many more inconsiderate bastards! Bastards! Oh, difficult villains! It looked at the expanse of life that was present everywhere, the greenery, the physical presence of endeavours and the sacrifices of minds desperately innovative and great in the ever achievements of all these grandeurs, and when it thought of the so-called educated minds far yonder...

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475948233

Eberekpe Ogho

www.eberekpewhyte.com [e-mail]

Book preview

Hocus-pocus

Image24736.JPG

Subways

and Moron

Eberekpe Ogho

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

Hocus-pocus

Subways and Moron

Copyright © 2012 by Eberekpe Ogho

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-4822-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-4823-3 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 09/20/2012

Contents

Hocus-pocus

Act 1. Scene 1.

Scene 11.

Act 11. Scene 1.

Scene 11.

Act 111. Scene 1.

Scene 11.

Scene 111.

Act 1v. Scene 1.

Scene 11.

Subways and Moron

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

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Hocus-pocus

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Eberekpe Ogho

Other works by Ogho:

Lord Bangboomboo

Number Tense Dawning Strict

Black Britain

Baby Ps

Abule Oje

Evwri EL-Rustic

The Ink; My Pen

Conservative Humour and Mad Men

Sacred

London!

How Not To Be Depressed!

Songs of Hearts

Subways and Moron

‘Ovie

Cast

Man

Friend [s]

Grace

Both man, Lemur, and friend, Black Cat, work as spoken-wordsmith; their place of work are meetings and conventions or wherever the crowd is large. They erect their tents at different places and start to woo people to their stands, contradicting each other in other to win enough people to their stands to believe in either of them and, in the process sell their tracts and pamphlets. They have just finished from Hyde Park and Stratford where there is a huge gathering of musical and sporting turnouts. Grace works as an official of the government and augments her wage by going to the street every weekend when she is not working with her battered-looking violin to play some disjointed tones by saying ‘hello’ to forlorn looking passersby to attract their attention and patronage.

Act 1. Scene 1.

{A bar of only two}

Man:

{Forlorn}

I walked myself into this, blind to the handwriting on the walls and deaf to the angel that spoke within me. I did, yes, I surely did, and I should carry the heap of burden alone?

Friend: Realisation is a healer, my friend. Should you kill yourself o’er spilled milk? A friend and a brother, you have found in this spirit and life you are presented with.

Man: I am more troubled by my realisation that I have become a prisoner of it! How grateful I am fortuned, nonetheless.

Friend: But, I have told you many times ere now, take another emotional occupation to warm up the cold and have yourself freed from the yoke you are bound. Alas! To think this period is the best period for you to find many and one when Greece shall be reborn in London and they will be everywhere in all their glorious shapes, and, the fixation of their hearts and minds if they are meant for glorious victory or inglorious defeat. Cast thy eyes on the search and welcome another woman so that you will be gloried in the sports! They are plentiful hence.

Man: A search for another warmth, did you say? Am I not a wreck already to give consideration to another such thought and her randomness provisions? How can I e’er trust my heart to the beauty of creation with the assurance that this heart would not be stolen again and yet again?

Friend: You were naive once, I am certain you will not want to go through that road again. I hope this has taught you a lesson that the beauty of a supposed lightness is to be tended only with gifts while the emotion is reserved for loftier ideals.

Man: Such as?

Friend: Such as nothing.

Man: You do manage it well!

Friend: Because, talent is effortless, and, I always give myself the benefit of the participation and the enjoyment of the sport.

Man: How stupid I became, driven by the evil of loneliness and did act upon it!

Friend: By the complexities of love, you were driven, I suppose, to quench your very immediate burning flame forgetting that you have to keep the sporting flames burning.

Man: To think the ancient once told me that the most dangerous thing on earth is the price between the thighs of a frustrated and desperate beauty and the most stupid encouragement of this danger is the restlessness of the charmer.

Friend:

{Laughs and drinks}

And you thought you were much wiser, aah; the ancient could not be far from the truth because it must have lived that truth. Shall we drink and leave this place? There is a prescribed beauty I shall introduce to you, she lives on my street. She is not competing at the Olympics, and, she has the heart of an angel?

Man: And the mind richer than the devil’s!

Friend: You are bitter.

Man: Much wiser? But, tell me, is love a curse?

Friend: A healer, if we are humble enough to think. To care is the best blessing of all; to love, my friend, is the carelessness of all men. Love is the sole property of the inventor and not for the practiser who tries to implement it. Let us drink and leave this place ere the emptiness of this bar throws insults at us.

Man: You go; I will dwell here awhile and join you later so that I can converse with the bar in the embrace of alcoholic orgy.

Friend: Aah, you must be careful so that you do not allow yourself to be celebrated amongst great men who have been swallowed up by the delicacy the softness the female is called. You sorrow because the carrier of life in her forgetful era of mischief bewitched your heart, what would you say of men whose hearts have been bewitched by several women and they do not know e’en one to lay their agonies on? Be the consummated man thou art been created ought.

Man: But I am not men but a man who suffers the betrayer of one woman because I have been stupid enough to love!

Friend: You have been naive to love, my friend. Shall we, and go in pursuit of yet other women for this is the grant purpose for which they have been made?

Man: Later, my friend, later, my friend.

{Man finishes his drink and walks out of the lonely bar}

Why was I so blind that I could not detect the anguish in the temptation? Oh, sex! Art thou not the prettiest of all expressive paradise of the arts and yet the most beautiful raiment worn by the devil! Why did I allow myself to be deceived, so, when the angel spoke and warned me of my venture? Men of the same stories warned me dearly because of the love they did not hide from me and women of the wealthiest knowledge of themselves made all attempts to dissuade me from my waterloo; yet did I not allow myself to be piloted by the fool my restlessness persuaded me to be!

{He drinks}

Did I not learn and was told too that there is nothing greater than love and to practice it, none can be compared to it that it is capable of bringing the best in all things? Did the philosophers and the poets lie? Would they not have said and written that love is a hangman and holds everything captive? Did the philosophers and poets lie or I was the one who lied to myself; warned by love that where I proceeded was the devil’s conclave, but blinded to this warning and allowed myself to be voyaged by my uncontrollable charmer? The wretch that I am!

{He pours more drink into his glass and drinks}

{Friend returns}

Friend: I went to your house, you were not there! Good riddance, will you break away from this entanglement!

Man: I have since broken away from the entanglement, my friend, but how can I take my heart back? She is holding onto it and she is only too glad to have it perished.

Friend: Your heart is in your thought! You are the destroyer and maker of your thought and you alone has the key to its door. You are getting drunk. Now, we shall leave!

Man: A drunk, I have become!

Friend: A weakling, you have succeeded in turning yourself into, my friend. If one woman could perform this great wreck on you, what should I say of the many who are on their way as I know you have not decided to give up your high but low paid occupation for a guard at the palace of Kings’ wives yet.

Man: Should I not choose that path?

Friend: And leave me to laugh myself to the restfulness of death? I once thought to be a virgin was the most perfect and moral thing to uphold until I gave my passion to the lofty endurance of a woman. Alas, my friend, since then I realise the difficulty of remaining in Eden and the beauty of cultivating the garden. The pain you suffer so is because you have always thought of Eve and because Eve will always be Eve and knew your heart was for hers alone. The garden is of varieties! This state of drunkenness is a disgrace to your manhood and a scorn to the glory of any woman; be thou be told, no true woman plays hostess to scorn.

Man: To think you are making yourself a celebrant of sin and the poison inherent! But I chose the path of faith and to remain faithful with my heart to one pleasure.

Friend: What can be worse than the sin that you have chosen to consume you so to the damnation to everything aspire? Should it not be the plaything for God’s gods, faith? Come, this place, we must leave ere you become a further nuisance.

{On the road}

Now, we will go to your house and rest you and your drunkenness ere I face the direction of my home.

Man: What manner of friend would thou art been if I were to be left alone in the squalour of my thoughts! But let me drink a little, only a little, so that I can stop thinking. A little more drink, please.

Friend: It is a busy world now that your thought is created by your own space; enough of the drink! I wanted to probe the sanity of your thought; you have not gone complete berserk then. To my place. I knew I would take you there and I have made arrangement for your cure, if you would give heed to cure, that is.

Man: Lord! Lord! God! Almighty! Lord!

Friend:

{Laughs}

Dear friend, you do battle when your nemeses are unknown, your nemeses fight themselves when you know them.

Man: I know my nemesis and she is fighting me!

Friend: Because both of you are doing battle.

{Laughing}

Scene 11.

{Friend’s home. Two women are in the sitting room half-naked}

Friend: Your healing is in the other one; I am used to this shadowlessness? Tell her the healing you desire and the pain you are suffering from her same provision, I am sure she is capable. But you must not work your healing by the reliance in the past.

Man: I cannot seem to tear myself away from the past, it is difficult!

Friend: You do not have a past, my friend, you dwell in the hell of fixation and your past has taken advantage of your weakness, and day by day is rubbing you in. Please, I must depart to quench the fire that troubles me, so.

{Curtain is drawn}

{Curtain opens}

Friend: Tell me, I am willing to hear.

Man: Hear what?!

Friend:

{Laughs ruefully}

I did not remove you from your sorrow to dwell in this place to nurse your miseries. Your face looks more refreshed and relaxed than previously. I heard every sound and the moaning of pleasure in between e’en though I was carried away by mine.

Man: I did not moan for the cure you righteously provided as a true friend, I moaned all through the erotic night for her, can you not see! She is has taken o’er my righteousness, too!

Friend:

{Laughing}

Man: Do you laugh me to scorn now?

Friend:

{Still laughing. He falls off from his seat}

Man: Have I become a parody to be laughed at?

Friend: God bless the day I found you and decided to make you a friend so true I shall ne’er part with. You are worse than all parodies. What is her name?

Man: Whose name?

Friend: The one you gave your heart to, of course.

Man: I am working very hard to leave her name in the abyss to hurry me out to pointlessness.

Friend: I can see you have not arrived at that destination yet. I thought you told me everything about her, but now, I know what you did not tell me, your heart was not stolen and held by her, you gave your first true heart innocence to her and she captured it with the expertise and magic of her indepth beauty and since then you have become slave to that deed and you have refused to see beyond that slavery that there are better masters. And e’en much better ones that come with culture.

Man: You are talking nonsense!

Friend: The nonsense that you refused to accept, though true.

Man: She occupies my thought always.

Friend: No, because you have not allowed your thought to be occupied by enough sex. That night was the first, there shall be other nights. More nights for you to moan and groan and for you to pray for all women, instead of being allowed to be cursed by one. Enough sex free from sickness and bacterial is a glory to the temerity of God’s gods and man if you do not lose yourself to its splendour as you have done.

Man: I have ne’er known you to be this unrighteous!

Friend: Where has it led you, eh? Righteousness is a dangerous master; it saps your freedom and turns you into its slave and you end up as the nuisance all women become afraid to court.

Man: To think I am getting to know that you are a flirt!

Friend: And end our friendship?

{Gets up. Leaves. Returns with the choicest wine and two glasses}

The world is a flirt, my brother; it is created to be flirtatious.

{He pours them drink}

Drink, my good friend!

{Glasses raised and click}

No woman likes a man of virtue and righteousness; they yearn for virtue and righteousness and they think those are what they want and need, but down deep inside of them, they find those qualities most irritating. A man who possesses such great qualities turns them into the masters or mistresses they find greatly irritating. It is their nature to be treated as dignified slaves to be adored and respected. You erred when you made her the master and considered yourself the slave and gave her your heart. She has not a grain of regard for your heart, because she has no heart, she requires of you your brain and your charmer, which of course must be awesome, and for you to succeed in making her your respectable slave. One additional woman and many other pluses will teach you these things. Drink, please drink and afford yourself some uplifting thoughts if we must stay relevant at our calling.

Man: I wish I could be like you, my friend.

Friend: You are like me, only that you see yourself as the more righteous being and he who must run the course of virtue where there is no such thing.

Man: You are twisted, so!

Friend: And what is the fate of he who claims that his virtue or sanity is beyond destruction? Tell me! Is he not worse than an incurable madness?

Man: Do you think I am mad now?

Friend: Aren’t we all mad and the only thing that separates us is the gravity of our state of insanity?

Man: The only thing I think of is the sweetness of marriage!

Friend: Or the arrogance of being called a parent or the pride of having constant sex without having to pay for it-it has changed these days though- and soon you become bored with it because of the slavery you have yoked yourself in. Alas, you strain and further your burden; marriage to whom? A woman does not believe in marriage; she is the free, beautiful flower of creation; all she needs is the respectability of constancy, can you not see, my friend? These lay your pain. She is a paradox who is in need of constant flirtation with seemingly possession! Oh, gracious womanhood, how minds like yours have negated its usefulness!

Man: Children need to be born!

Friend: And cared for! Children have always been born, this gesture none can alter. {Drinks}

Aah, we must control our temper now or we bid friendship a badbye.

Man: I want to be married.

Friend: And what does the lofty word mean to you?

Man: I do not know, man, woman, children and the making of a family.

Friend: Then as soon as you contract that loftiness, you will be headed for divorce at once.

Man: What friend have I beget, so? What is it then that I am possessed with that drives me to the shore of thoughtlessness that to take my heart off her worries me sick if not for marriage and the stability it brings?

Friend: The stability it brings? O, this is your long pursuit, stability? And who told you there is stability to be found there?

Man: To a man who is married finds stability and graced with responsibility, yes!

Friend: Show me that which is stable only but a mind that has chosen to be, which you have not! What’s stability?

Man: And by being married, by being stable and by being responsible; I am graced by the freedom of sin?

Friend: You mean by the rave of the moralists? Sin? A man should not aspire against his fellow man in whatever forms; this is a wonderful moralists’ concept of which I am deeply not shifted. But for you to obey the arrogance of the moralists’ attempt at all that is good and building and forget that to sin is a woman prerogative and the secrecy of it is a doom for you! Aah, you must consider me with the greatest of evil to think I intend to weaken the moralists’ resolves; not I, not I, my very good, but weak minded friend, they have done their best to establish great walls around our civilisations, but this one and with your powerlessness, should I dare not say it is your singular responsibility?

Man: You are vulgar!

Friend:

{Gives a sharp laugh}

Vulgar? Me? Go and ask a woman, the e’er pretentious precious stone, or more still, the woman who has bewitched you so, especially. Men who are kind with words are limited in their journey with women as in everything. My friend, my friend, you must choose an innovative roughness with your sentimental self if you must make the necessary progress.

Man: You are not providing me with any meaningful cure to my heart, which has been beaten and captivated!

Friend:

{Gets up and walks to him. He places his hand on his chest}

I was educated by the anatomists that the heart of all of us sits there.

{He removes his hand and places it on his}

Mine sits here inside as well; the reason why we can still lay claim to words is because it is still there and pumping blood to every part of our existence. Your heart has not been stolen and captivated, my friend; you are daft to think so. I provided you with a cure, yet your heart and your thought are far away towards your punishment.

Man: The solution you are proffering is the rug my death walks and dances on.

Friend: What do you care when you carry yourself as one who is already dead and you are waiting to be buried! It is the same solution I will continue to stress on; more women, more glorious explicit expressions.

Man: Christ!

Friend: I have ne’er spoken or address the tenderness of children or the kids inside of grownups.

Man: I cannot just go about with every grace that comes my way.

Friend: Yet you are not willing to find the path to her, which you dread! If you carry yourself in such a way that you do not think you are doing