8

Plot synopsis: The leader of a criminal organization is dying. The members are at a meeting to decide who will be the next leader.

Characters:- Each might be female or male.
 
1. SMALL POX. Dying leader.
2. AIDS.
3. HERPES.
4. SYPHILIS.
5. CANCER.
6. Numerous servants; non-speaking; obviously illness-crippled, engaged in minor tasks such as dusting, adjusting chairs, replacing drinking glasses, et cetera. 


The stage curtain opens on an onstage spacious meeting room. At centre-stage is a high-end polished-wood table, and chairs. On the walls are portraits of past leaders such as Bubonic plague, Cholera, Leprosy, Typhoid. There are four exits/entries: downstage- left, downstage-right, upstage-left, upstage-right.
___________________________________

Servants enter and go about preparing the room for the meeting. Servants usher in SMALL POX and CANCER from downstage left. SMALL POX is frail; continually stifling coughs, and is supported by CANCER as they walk along. They sit in chairs at the table.
 
CANCER: (Softly, to SMALL POX.) Boss, let me call off this meeting. You’re doing just fine. We do not need another leader.

SMALL POX: Cancer, you mean well. You are a true friend. You are my choice for the next leader. But start now to be an unsentimental  realist. My time has ended. I have had a most glorious reign. I devoured countless millions for centuries. I killed more than all of them together. (Gestures to the portraits on the walls.) And all of you, so far.

CANCER: Next to you, boss, they were insignificant. Paltry.  Embarrassments to our honourable profession.

SMALL POX: (Weakly.) Uh-uh. Do not be disrespectful. In their times they were true and great leaders.
People trembled and took cover in fear at the very mention of their names. It was not their fault that the gods did not provide enough people for them to devour. I am blessed to have reigned in these times of runaway overpopulations throughout the world. Our next leader will have no difficulty surpassing my heights.

CANCER: Surpassing you, boss, will not be easy. During the 300 years from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century in Europe alone you eliminated approximately 600,000 a year. In total, that was 180 million! In other words, boss, in your time you took out the equivalent of entire nations. Less than 5% of the world’s countries at present each have that high a population total!

SMALL POX: Really? Wow! I stopped counting a long time ago. As they say, huh? ‘Time flies when you’re having fun.’
 
(SMALL POX’S laughter triggers a fit of coughing which obliges both of them to stop talking for long seconds while CANCER and servants wait, anxiously and solicitously.)
 
CANCER: And that was just Europe, boss.

SMALL POX: Yeah. And let’s not forget our North America. When the Europeans brought me here, it did not take me long to wipe out half the total of indigenous people. Yeah! The really good-old-days!

CANCER: Incredible, boss! A truly great leader! None ever greater!

SMALL POX: Bubonic there was my mentor. My hero, devoured 75% of all Europeans in a mere twenty years in the fourteenth century! Sheer genius. What tactics! At my most successful, I was never a match for the fear Bubonic triggered; family deserted family! I learnt a lot from old Bubonic,  grand master of terror.
 
(CANCER, seeing other members approaching, fusses over SMALL POX pointedly for the others to see.

Enter AIDS, HERPES, SYPHILIS. SYPHILIS hesitantly and cautiously goes to SMALL POX, bends deferentially and speaks softly and slowly.)
 
SYPHILIS: Apology for absence, boss, from my twin sibling, GONORRHEA. (Hands over a small parcel to SMALL POX. SMALL POX nods and accepts the parcel.) I personally counted it, boss. It’s all there.
 
(When everybody is seated, SMALL POX addresses them.)
 
SMALL POX: Welcome, everybody. One of us is absent. The penalty has been paid.  
(SMALL POX lifts up and slowly-briefly waves for all to see the small parcel from SYPHILIS. There is a general murmur of approval from those seated at the table.)

HERPES: I volunteer to count it, boss. No charge for the service.
 
(Mutterings of dry laughter from some, at the table and among the servants.)
 
SMALL POX: Thank you. Herpes, it is?

HERPES: Sure is, boss. Herpes it is. Always here at your service.

SYPHILIS: (Directing a mirthless and challenging smile at HERPES.) I personally did the count. It’s all there, friend.

SMALL POX: Everybody, I have called you here because you have to elect a new leader. According to my medical doctors, I could die any day now. The vaccination peddlers have finally murdered every one of my mutations. I am, at last, defenceless. By my dwindling numbers, I am no longer qualified to be your leader, even if my death were not around the next corner. By the numbers, all of us at this table here are equal, more-or-less.

AIDS: I agree with you, boss. By fatality totals nobody here is significantly superior to any other, and so not qualified to be our leader.  Then, surely, it’s time for leadership by a committee-of-the-whole of equals. I propose we divide the world into areas. Each of us will have complete monopoly in one area.

HERPES: That will work for a limited time only for those of us already struggling against the medical profession’s permanently successful preventive measures, and temporary scientific cures. Within a few short years it will be the end of us, forever.

SMALL POX: The both of you make valid observations. My recommendation is that we adopt the option of governance by a committee-of-the-whole of equals, as a temporary solution, while we search for or work out some other arrangement more practically successful.

SYPHILIS: I endorse that, boss.
 
(There is silence. Every one looks at others, enquiringly, indicating support for the ‘temporary solution’.)
 
AIDS: I see general consensus, boss.

SMALL POX: Me, too. Show of hands, please. Do we have acceptance of a temporary governance by a committee-of-the-whole of equals? (All raise their hands.) Good. I declare this meeting successfully over.
 
(On their way to exit, every one goes to SMALL POX and takes silent leave. Only CANCER remains to be alone with SMALL POX, until all the servants, too, have taken their leave.)
 
SMALL POX: (To CANCER.) My last meeting with all of you. Should I have brought it up?

CANCER: Your brilliant insight into the future which you dared shared with me although it is 100% doomsday for all of us?
 
(They exchange sad looks at each other. CANCER helps SMALL POX get up out of the chair. Before taking a step to exit, SMALL POX speaks.)
 
SMALL POX: I am a coward for being pleased I will not have to tell them. I release you from all obligation to tell them.

CANCER: On the one hand, boss, I promise I will do nothing to bring about the occasion to be obliged to tell them. On the other hand, I promise that if the occasion arrives and requires it, I will not shirk to give you full credit for seeing now how that holy scripture was prophetically right thousands of years ago while you were there.
 
The machines take over, eventually; as they did the life of Elijah in that driverless machine taxi that came for him and transported him into eternity to infinite heavenly glory forever; Elijah ‘the prophet of almighty God like unto whom there has never been another with whom almighty God conversed face-to-face’.
 
Those scripturally prefigured perfect Elijah-machines taking over nowadays in our midst, are, surely, signifying the beginning of the end of all incurable illnesses. The end of the likes of you and me, boss. 
 
(As SMALL POX and CANCER slowly move to exit, holding on to and helping each other, the lights dim, and the curtains close.)