"Plexus and Nexus"

By Scott Johnson and Garrett Birkel

Author's Note

I have recently come to a stunning conclusion, which I would like to share with you, fine reader. After many candlelit hours in my chamber, scribbling away until my sight was dim, producing proofs of my theses ontological, orthographical, opthamolagical, and phoenetical, I came at long last to the long-awaited, often hoped for logical conclusion, which I had but forseen all too often many steps in advance, only to reverse my course at the last moment to prove in a last ditch antiproof the unproof, unproving what I had antithetically unsought.

Quite supernaturally, unlike nothing else I had unsought, the unproof dissolved in a piff of smoke and thus quite unnaturally unproved what I had not unsought. Forgive me if this is a bit obscure, patient student, for it only reflects my darkness of understanding about these matters. I had been working on a proof that all human beings love each other at heart- but alas! A brief perusal of the facts forced me to conclude that I, at heart, truly felt just the opposite, the antithesis, the fullest embodiment of bitter hatred for evry human being who walks the earth. O, one may ask, what bitter grievance so mark'd my soul as a young lad, compelling me with great compunction to this unfeasible end. Yet it was true, every word here and anon, hither and thither, to and fro, happy-go-lucky, and all points west.

I decided at this point that I may perchance provide a proscription, perfore to provoke your wandering sentiments, pulling perhaps your corpuscles to my own putrid recompense.

I give now with a delight a delectable diabolique, penned as a poem, dialect diabolical.

Dialouge

CHORUS
When the days becomen long in shadows
And our lyves do growen short in tyme
Looken we to our friends in near meadows.
Those neighbors not guilty of cryme,
Thilke friends whose revelries we trusten,
Whose words are to us as a chyme,
To thilke friends are everything given
Thilke neighbors are everywhere known
To their opinions we usually listen
Though they bring on the disease of Krone*.

In this spirit I bring thee my dialouge
This truthful philisophie out of the past
Which concerneth one man named Plexus,
and his ungainly evil double, Nexus,
who hath spent many years before the mast.

Rejoined now in this truthful dialouge
Plexus and Nexus now walk hereforth
to meet in the course by the wall of the court,
for Nexus is angry and Plexus is sooth,
and when they meet there ariseth an unfortunate dispute.

For both men are poor, impecunious in soul,
and neither has seen his reflection once, all told.

ACT I

[Nexus arriveth by the wall. Plexus, who doth smoketh a pype, doth arrive with pype in his mouth.]

NEXUS
Ho! Plexus!
Wherefore art thou uglier than sin,
than the thousand faces of Satan
patch'd together and riven apart again?

PLEXUS
Forsooth, Nexus!
Hold thee thy tongue! Thou art but foolish,
and thou smell'st like dung!

NEXUS
Ho Ho, my knave!
Thy insults wound not, for thou art
a beggar, and look'st like rot!

PLEXUS
Nice try, my friend,
but I'm afraid thou hast failed!
Thou art the more unfortunate –
since it is to thou that sorry face is nailed.

NEXUS [who looketh extremely angry]
Thy very visage makes me tumble and retch.
I'm afraid, my good friend, thy face has no match.
Thy face, like a fish, is scaly and cold,
and thy prize gold teeth have one by one been sold.
I do not know, varlot, whence thy face did come,
but I am sure at the least, the Devil had fun.

PLEXUS [whoso stompeth at every word]
Thou art a liar, a fool and a strumpet!
I swear by the book thou dost look like a crumpet!
Pimpled and bumpy, like yet unshapen dough,
I'd sooner chew glass than look at ... you know.

NEXUS
Thou art no beauty, I'm unafraid to point out.
The bumps on thy face remindeth one of grout.
Each crevice and crack festereth over with mold
And the nits in thy hair have grown overly bold.
They dance and carouse, with scarcely a care
Secure that their master knoweth not they are there.
And bounce off thy head onto each passerby
Who, upon seeing thou, doth crumple and cry.

PLEXUS
Thy sick tongue oozeth falsehoods, your oaths are all lies!
An affront to good judgement, as well as my eyes.
This truth is far greater than any yet said:
Your face is a crater! Vast, ashen, and dead!
Each pock-mark a pit, packed tight with black grime
And like leaves of spoilt lettuce, veiled thinly in slime!
One glance at your visage driveth the upstanding insane!
Your gaze makes small children burst out into flames!!!

NEXUS
I observe by your smoking that you are already alight.
Please allow me to assist in your plight.

[NEXUS DRAWS HIMSELF UP, GLOWERING, AND, IN VERY UNGENTLEMANTLY FASHION, SPITS ON PLEXUS]

[PLEXUS THROWS HIS PIPE AT NEXUS. NEXUS DUCKS.]

NEXUS
Hot tempered as well.
See what I have revealed!
Admit your putrescence!
I demand that you yield!

PLEXUS
This has gone far enough, you disheveled goon!
Prepare to be booted clear over the moon!

[PLEXUS AND NEXUS ASSUME A BOXING STANCE AND JUMP ABOUT.]

[A STREAM OF WATERY BROWN POURS TO THE GROUND BETWEEN PLEXUS AND NEXUS. BOTH CRINGE AND STOP BOXING.]

PLEXUS
What disturbance is this, in the midst of our spite?

NEXUS
The court chamber pot has interrupted our fight!

PLEXUS
Ugh!
This stench breaks all natural laws!
By comparison, this rank lake of liquid doth cause
our quarrel to be like so much brotherly love.
Why Nexus,
we've been superceded by filth from above!

NEXUS [thoughtful]
If such filth be in heaven, it maketh no sense
To argue the foulness of our earthly demense.
When we contest corruption our time is ill spent
For it seems there are worse things in the place we are sent!

PLEXUS
In this matter, I believe, we two are agreed.
So what if thy countenance doth stink like a weed.
In measures of foulness, we all are behind
What is truly the worst: The waste of our time!

NEXUS
So what if nits caper about in your hair.
'Tis shameful to argue on a day so fair.
Come, Plexus, please, let us cease with this fighting
Today in the river the catfish are biting.

[THEY LINK ARMS]

PLEXUS AND NEXUS
And now, to the river! For fishing and fun!
Our disagreement and our play are done.

[THEY BOW AND EXIT]

*A degenerative disease of the intestine.
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