Utopia, Lip-Synching the Words
Maurice Oliver

In this scenario the live-audience gets to play
the part of the flowered underslip waiting for
the doorbell to ring. They have been told there
will be a ransom note and that it will include an
ultimatum. Life is looking for the next fix. The
whole world reads Le Monde and the Seine is
sprawled out on a battered sofa humming a
Piaf tune as it wonders how it ever survived
the war. I’m the joke with dyed blond hair or the
complete book of Genesis you can read and
then spit out in hoof-print clouds. I describe the
man who cannibalized his own face and try to
make it sound illogical. When that doesn’t work,
I use sign language to illustrate the thousand
steps one would take to reach paradise but
forget to mention that you have to sign the
guest book first or the entrance door remains
locked. A railroad track afraid of trains. Mason
jars that are anything but transparent. And after
more than an hour of haggling back and forth
in an effort to place the blame all we’re left with
is the warmest March in history.