The Turquoise Elephant Read online

BASRA: Since when? Last night?

  JEFF: No—I’ve been following it for months.

  BASRA: Really?

  JEFF: Really.

  BASRA: No!

  JEFF: Yes.

  BASRA: You’re lying.

  JEFF: I’m not! You have some great things to say. And your elephant is such a terrific metaphor for what’s happening in the world.

  BASRA: How so?

  JEFF: It’s ‘the elephant in the room’, right? It’s what we all know is happening, but won’t acknowledge. Is it real? Is it imagined? Though you and I and ninety-nine per cent of the planet know of course that it’s real. It’s always the one per cent we’re dealing with, isn’t it? Always the one per cent who stand in the way.

  BASRA: It’s the one per cent who own everything.

  JEFF: Right.

  BASRA: Who control the resources.

  JEFF: Right.

  BASRA: Who have the ear of government.

  JEFF: You got it. And here you are. Beautiful Basra. Sitting right next to that one per cent—within sniffing distance of it. So close you can taste it. I don’t think you even realise how powerful you are.

  BASRA: If you’re talking about my family’s wealth—

  JEFF: Your family’s proximity to power. Your grandmother with one foot in government.

  BASRA: Ears and feet? I think we’re mixing our metaphors.

  JEFF: And you in such an incredible position to influence …

  BASRA: Oh, my grandmother doesn’t listen to me.

  JEFF: She should read your blog. Then she’d listen.

  A pause as he gazes at her. She gazes back. VISI rolls her eyes. Coughs.

  VISI: Should I start on lunch?

  BASRA: I’m not hungry.

  JEFF: I’m fine.

  BASRA: Maybe check on Aunt Olympia. She asked us to wake her by noon.

  VISI exits.

  JEFF: The one per cent. I want to flip it.

  BASRA: What do you mean?

  JEFF: If one per cent of the population can run the world at the present time, then surely one per cent can save it too.

  BASRA: Not the same one per cent.

  JEFF: Right. I’m finding the other one per cent. The best. The brightest. Saving them and starting from scratch.

  BASRA: Only saving one per cent?

  JEFF: Hey—you gotta start somewhere. We’ll start there and gradually rebuild. Like that seed bank they got buried in the ice in Norway. Store away enough of humanity to see it through the apocalypse and then kick things off afresh!

  BASRA: But you’d save as many people as you could in the first instance, right?

  JEFF: Sure. Aim big, right? This dome is gonna be huge!

  BASRA: So conceivably you could take hundreds of refugees.

  JEFF: Conceivably I could take thousands. Once we’ve become self-sustaining.

  BASRA: When do you get underway?

  JEFF: The deed of sale is sitting on some minister’s desk right now. Some fine print about foreign ownership to be signed off on. Everything’s in limbo until you find a new Grand Poobah to replace the one that resigned. Things should move quickly once that happens. If you’ve got money to burn, you should think about investing. Being part of the one per cent. Having a say in who survives. You’d be in an incredible position to do something positive.

  BASRA: I’m tempted. Very tempted.

  JEFF: I hope so.

  VISI enters with OLYMPIA.

  VISI: She was already up.

  OLYMPIA: Doing my eurhythmics.

  JEFF: Your what?

  OLYMPIA: Calisthenics. Very good for the pelvic floor.

  JEFF: Well now …

  BASRA: Jeff was just selling me on New Eden.

  VISI snorts.

  He’s saving the one per cent.

  JEFF: In order to save the ninety-nine.

  OLYMPIA: Yes, I know all about that. He needs builders.

  JEFF: And planters. And scientists. And artists.

  BASRA: So you’re not taking everyone; just those with particular skills or characteristics?

  JEFF: To begin with. Then we build. We rebuild humanity from the ground up.

  VISI: But humanity’s not gone.

  JEFF: Not yet.

  VISI: There are seven billion people out there …

  JEFF: The great cull has begun, Visi. The paradigm’s shutting down. We’re about to see mass extinctions the likes of which you can’t imagine. Basra—how many die in Melbourne if this cholera outbreak takes hold?

  BASRA: I don’t know. Hundreds?

  JEFF: You think thousands won’t die because it’s a First World city? You think you’re inured?

  BASRA: Well—no, but—

  JEFF: Imagine the same thing happening in Dhaka. In Kolkata. In Cairo. In LA. No-one saw Melbourne coming. It wasn’t even on the radar. You mark my words—now that this ball has started rolling, it ain’t gonna stop. We’ll see half a billion dead within two years. Less. The timing is urgent. We’ve gotta get in and save them first. Starting with you, Basra. And Miss Olympia here. And Visi too, if she cares to join us.

  VISI: Oh. You’re looking for cleaners too?

  OLYMPIA: So many disasters! I won’t know where to visit first. Should we go to Cairo, Jeff?

  JEFF: Not today, Miss Olympia.

  OLYMPIA: I’d like to see the Sphinx submerge.

  AUGUSTA sweeps into the room, dressed to the nines, preparing for her big speech.

  AUGUSTA: I’m stepping into the breach!

  BASRA: What breach?

  AUGUSTA: Interim Governor-General. Until they find a permanent replacement.

  JEFF: Well, now … congratulations, your worship!

  AUGUSTA: A steady hand to steer the ship.

  BASRA: I don’t believe it.

  AUGUSTA: Believe it. I have the ear of government.

  JEFF: Well now …

  OLYMPIA: I hope they have their cochlear switched on.

  AUGUSTA: Oh, they’ll listen to me. Hands back firmly on the wheel …

  JEFF: The hand that signed the paper …

  BASRA: It’s rigged. This isn’t fair. It’s all rigged!

  AUGUSTA: I can’t find my cameo brooch. Where is it?

  BASRA: I don’t know. I don’t care.

  AUGUSTA: I always wear it for important speeches. It’s like a talisman.

  OLYMPIA: Might have been stolen by the help.

  AUGUSTA: I’ve turned the bedroom upside down.

  VISI: Did you leave it in the car?

  AUGUSTA: On Monday—when Gregor drove me back from the—yes. That must be it. Visi dear, you’re a genius! Now get my purse. I need my contact lenses for the autocue.

  VISI exits.

  Are you ready, Olympia?

  OLYMPIA: Of course.

  AUGUSTA: Basra? You haven’t changed.

  BASRA: You really think I want to witness this?

  AUGUSTA: It would be nice to have some support in the room.

  BASRA: Don’t look at me. I think what you’re doing is disgraceful.

  AUGUSTA: Right. Stay at home. Sit here—mutely—and judge.

  BASRA: I won’t be sitting here mutely.

  AUGUSTA: Blogging, then. Tweeting in responses. The armchair critic.

  BASRA: I’m helping Jeff. I’m investing in New Eden.

  JEFF: Huzzah!

  AUGUSTA: With your pocket money?

  BASRA: We’re saving humanity. Here. From the lounge room.

  AUGUSTA: That’s nice, dear.

  JEFF: That’s great news, Basra. I’m so glad.

  VISI: [re-entering] I’ve found the cameo.

  BASRA: [to AUGUSTA] What you’re about to do is evil.

  AUGUSTA: Thank you, dear.

  VISI pins the brooch to AUGUSTA’s dress.

  JEFF: What’s she doing? Bombing China?

  BASRA: Effectively.

  OLYMPIA: One wants to save the planet and one wants to destroy it, but I don’t know which is which.

  BASRA: It’s h
er. She wants to destroy it.

  AUGUSTA: Don’t misrepresent me.

  BASRA: Do you want to look Visi in the eye and tell her climate change isn’t happening? That her parents’ island never actually disappeared at all?

  AUGUSTA: I didn’t say the climate isn’t changing—we all know that—it’s irrefutable. But I refuse to be held responsible—either personally or as a species—for the sun’s natural warming and cooling cycles.

  BASRA: Why not? In case you have to pay.

  AUGUSTA: Don’t ask questions and then answer them, Basra. It’s passive aggressive.

  BASRA: So is climate change denial.

  AUGUSTA: Mark my words—the next Ice Age will be upon us before we know it and we’ll be completely ill-prepared!

  OLYMPIA: I think this is a grand time to be living in. An operatic age! To be alive to witness such spectacular adjustment. Change like this only occurs every ten or twenty thousand years. Can you imagine being there the moment Uluru emerged from a drying sea? Or the moment the Atlantic broke past Gibraltar and flooded the great Mediterranean Valley? My God! Such transcendent chaos! It’s the only thing worth living for. Everything else is moribund. People bore me. Humanity hasn’t had a fresh idea since the invention of the computer. But a planet arching and kicking in turmoil—grasping to survive. There’s a tragic beauty in that.

  BASRA: If humanity’s so boring, you decadent old ghoul, why don’t you just curl up and die!?

  OLYMPIA: Well!

  AUGUSTA: It’s over, Basra. Time to concede defeat. The pragmatists are taking over: Game, set and match!

  JEFF stands and applauds.

  JEFF: Oh, ladies, ladies. That was brilliant! Come on, Visi. Stand and give them a hand.

  OLYMPIA: Who won?

  JEFF: We might have to consult a video referee on a couple of those last points. But sadly, Basra, I think I’m going to have to award this one to your grandmother.

  BASRA: You what?

  JEFF: Oh, you won the moral argument hands down, but Her Eminence is right. We are truly in the end of days—the final stages of this phase of Earth’s existence.

  AUGUSTA: That’s not what I said.

  JEFF: It’s too late to save the planet now. It’s fucked. Renewables aren’t going to do a damned thing to reverse this damage.

  AUGUSTA: Thank you!

  JEFF: But frankly, neither is uranium or coal. And I don’t know that we’re heading for another Ice Age necessarily, but we’re plunging into some sort of apocalypse. And you and I and Miss Olympia and Visi here—all of us—are the descendants of the survivors of that last mass extinction event. Survival is in our DNA. Natural selection. That’s the process I’m interested in. I’m selecting the survivors and taking them to paradise and we are starting again. The smartest, the most ingenious—

  VISI: [to herself] The richest.

  JEFF: And the most attractive. Miss Visi has finally joined in our conversation. Seems to me, ladies, that between you, you have all bases covered. Who’s coming aboard?

  AUGUSTA: I’d rather stick a knife in a toaster.

  JEFF: Who’s joining the Great Migration?

  BASRA: I am.

  AUGUSTA: What?

  BASRA: I’m going with Jeff. I’m going to help him build New Eden.

  AUGUSTA: Nonsense. I forbid it.

  BASRA: I don’t care.

  AUGUSTA: You’ll never leave the house.

  BASRA: Yes, I will. When the time comes.

  OLYMPIA: I’m coming too.

  BASRA: I’ll leave this room.

  OLYMPIA: I don’t know what I’m going to do there, but it’s nice to be asked.

  BASRA: I’ll walk out the door and I’ll never come back!

  OLYMPIA: I think I might be a concubine.

  BASRA: When the time comes.

  JEFF: And what about you, Visi?

  VISI is looking out the window.

  Are you coming with us?

  The faint sound of a crowd chanting.

  You’ll be the most beautiful woman in New Eden.

  BASRA: What’s that sound?

  OLYMPIA: Did he just call her the most beautiful?

  JEFF: It’s the sound of inertia. Dying.

  BASRA: Is it coming from outside?

  OLYMPIA: I thought I was the most beautiful.

  JEFF: It’s the sound of the paradigm shutting down! Oh, holy day!

  He leaps up onto the table.

  The world’s turning upside down!

  AUGUSTA: Get off that table!

  JEFF: It’s time to shift the fucking, furniture, people!

  It’s time to pack up and leave!

  The chanting gets louder. JEFF, an ecstatic messiah. A window smashes.

  VISI: You need to take a look outside.

  Half of Melbourne’s sitting on your doorstep.

  They all rush to the window.

  AUGUSTA: Is it me? Are they protesting against me?

  BASRA: They’re protesting against the summit.

  OLYMPIA: Who told them where we live?

  AUGUSTA: Peasants.

  BASRA: There are turquoise elephants—on their placards.

  OLYMPIA: What are they all looking at?

  BASRA: They’ve become a symbol.

  JEFF: It’s the end of days, folks, the end of days!

  BASRA: Or maybe it’s me.

  OLYMPIA: Are we leaving?

  BASRA: Maybe they’re protesting against me, too.

  AUGUSTA: Yes.

  BASRA: Oh, my God.

  OLYMPIA: What’s the noise?

  BASRA: Have I become the enemy?

  AUGUSTA: You shouldn’t have bragged so wantonly on that silly blog about housing refugees in Jindabyne!

  BASRA: I didn’t.

  AUGUSTA: I told you that would backfire!

  VISI: It made them angry. That someone worth ten billion dollars would only house two families.

  BASRA: But I never bragged—I never posted that. We recorded it and I told you to throw it away.

  VISI: …

  JEFF: Honey, even I read it. That’s what prompted me to come visit.

  BASRA: The money?

  OLYMPIA: No, no, you came for me.

  JEFF: Of course I did, pumpkin. [Laughing] After I met the fascinating Miss Olympia on the cruise ship, I became interested in the whole family. She told me so much about you. I was drawn here by a young woman with such passionate principles and hopes for a better future, even in the face of global destruction. And I wasn’t disappointed.

  BASRA: [to VISI] You posted it? Why? Why would you do that?

  BASRA looks at VISI in disbelief. The chanting outside gets louder.

  AUGUSTA: Enough natter. Come, Visi. Forward ho! Into the tumult!

  Beat.

  VISI: You—you want me there?

  AUGUSTA: I keep forgetting things.

  VISI: Are you sure?

  AUGUSTA: I need you to keep me organised.

  VISI: I can’t—

  AUGUSTA: You asked to come the other day.

  VISI: I’d have to swap.

  AUGUSTA: Swap?

  VISI: Change. I’m not dressed properly.

  AUGUSTA: Where do you live?

  VISI: It’s on the way.

  AUGUSTA: We don’t have time.

  VISI: It’s near the city. I have to call them—

  AUGUSTA: Well, hurry up.

  VISI stares at her for a moment. Beat. She fumbles with a mobile phone, leaves the room.

  OLYMPIA: What a dreadful noise. I think I’ll shut it off.

  JEFF: You need to listen to it, my friend; it’s the sound of the world turning on its axis.

  The ruckus swells and crescendos and turns into applause. It fills the room.

  SCENE FIVE

  A spotlight. AUGUSTA walks into the limelight, arms outstretched to receive the glory in Eva Peron style. She exults in the moment.

  AUGUSTA: They say all the grand certainties are dead. God. History. Truth. All dead. The weather—the seasons
as we know them. Apparently even capitalism itself is dying!

  Laughter.

  Please! You wish!

  Applause.

  Oh, yes, it’s an apocalypse, people! Well, you don’t hear them complaining about the end of days in the wheat fields of Greenland. The Chinese and Mexicans are cloud seeding. Saudi Arabia is pioneering drought-resistant crop technology. They’re growing food in dust bowls! If this is the apocalypse, I say bring it on!

  It’s time to embrace change and make practical preparations for our future.

  Those of us gathered in this room are the solvers of the world’s problems.

  We are the pioneers.

  The ones whose business acumen and innovation will help humanity adapt to the change that Mother Nature is wreaking upon us, even as we speak.

  Loud cheers.

  The timing is urgent.

  VIKA appears on the stage behind her. She walks slowly towards her, in the shadows.

  There are actually those—the enemy within—who would have us live in permanent terror and apprehension about the sort of change we are proposing this evening. Purveyors of doom who threaten us with violence for finding solutions to the world’s problems!

  Laughter and applause. VIKA approaches her.

  Well, we’re not afraid of you!

  Cheers.

  To this homegrown enemy, to the faceless and so-called ‘cultural’ terrorists, this ‘Front’, these Turquoise militants, I say … up yours! We are the history-makers. We are the gatekeepers. We are the future and we are unstoppable!

  VIKA presses a device cloaked within her clothes, around her chest. A massive bomb blast rips through the building. Screams. Sirens. Blackout.

  SCENE SIX

  When the dust settles, we find BASRA and OLYMPIA sitting in the lounge room with JEFF. OLYMPIA seems to be in some kind of trance. She has fallen asleep with her eyes open.

  BASRA: She was here. The whole time.

  Living with us.

  Planning it.

  JEFF: Kinda spectacular when you think about it. The audacity of it.

  BASRA: Infiltrated.

  Just like Grandma said they would.

  Beat.

  JEFF: Come here.

  He gives her a bear hug.

  You hangin’ in there?

  She nods.

  You’re safe.

  BASRA: Am I?

  JEFF: With me.

  He goes to hug her again, but is unnerved by OLYMPIA’s trance.

  Uh—is she okay?

  BASRA: She falls asleep.

  JEFF: Right.

  BASRA: When she has the cochlear off too long. She forgets that she’s awake.