From Wikimedia Commons
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Ah broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
– Edgar Allan Poe, Lenore
TIME AND PLACE
Present. At and near apartment number XX [to be determined by the Director].
At center stage is the closed door of that apartment.
CHARACTERS
AUSTIN, 20s.
JULIA, 20s
JULIA
Austin!!
We hardly know each other.
You hardly know me at all.
AUSTIN
I know what you like to read, Julia.
And the coffee you drink.
JULIA
And that’s about all. You don’t even know what my home is like.
AUSTIN
I know I’m at home with you. Like nowhere else.
And I know Diogenes pisses you off.
JULIA
No you don’t.
Diogenes treated Plato like a communist. That’s all.
And Plato called Diogenes a Socrates gone mad.
All I ever said was:
I wondered what would have happened if Diogenes,
with his infamous lantern searching for an honest man,
ever met Jesus of Nazareth. That’s all.
AUSTIN
And you said Jesus would call him a dog, like Plato did.
JULIA
So what? Jesus called the Canaanite woman a dog, too, didn’t he?
AUSTIN
And you said you doubted Diogenes would recognize Jesus as an honest man.
JULIA
The two of them were almost four hundred years and nearly two thousand miles apart.