Moment 15 Flashcards
Presley: What … what you doing?
Cosmo: Looking for something.
Presley: What?
Cosmo: We’ve all got them.
Presley: What?
Cosmo: You … must … have … one … somewhere …? Come on, my beauties.
Presley: Will you tell me what you’re doing please?
Cosmo: Aha! Here! Here’s one. What a whopper!
Cosmo enters with something cupped in his hands.
Cosmo - slowly, carefully - shows Presley what he’s holding.
Presley: Take it away!
Cosmo: Just tell me what it is. Say it’s name.
Presley: … Cockroach.
Cosmo: That’s right. Cockroach. Costs nothing. Am I right? Cockroaches are free. Am I right?
Presley: Yeah.
Cosmo: Come here.
Slight pause.
Cosmo: Look at it. Beautiful little thing. They can live on next to nothing. Two grains of soap powder will keep them alive for months.
Cosmo laughs.
Presley: Why you laughing?
Cosmo: Its legs are tickling me. I’ve got sensitive skin.
Stares at cockroach
Cosmo: Oh, they’re little survivors all right. In the event of a nuclear war, the cockroach alone will survive.
Presley: That can’t be true.
Cosmo: It’s true, Mr Chocolate. No one believes me but that don’t make it a lie.
Slight pause.
Cosmo: I perform in pubs. In clubs. Anywhere people will pay me. Some nights I get through a hundred of these things.
Presley: How’d you mean?
Pause.
Cosmo eats cockroach.
Cosmo: Feel a bit queasy?
Presley: Yeah.
Cosmo: People do. They feel queasy - but they love it. That’s why they pay. And the queasier it gets the more they pay. I eat other things as well. Caterpillars. Maggots. Worms. Beetles. Moths. Goldfish. Slugs. Spiders. I suck live snails from shells. Bite wriggling eels in two. Gnaw heads from live mice. My speciality, Mr Chocolate, is a live canary.
Presley: It’s disgusting - And stop calling me Mr Chocolate!
Cosmo: … Why don’t you eat one?
Presley: Wh-what?
Cosmo: A cockroach.
Presley: No.
Cosmo: Go-on. Yum-yum.
Presley: I … I can’t.
Cosmo: I’ll find you one, Presley.
Presley: You will?
Cosmo: With my own hands.
Slight pause.
And… it would please me, Presley.
Presley: Really?
Cosmo: Oh, yeah. Just let me find one. Shall I do that? Let me find one and we’ll take it from there. That’s all. No promises. How about it, Presley?
Slight pause.
Presley: Well…
Cosmo: Yesss!
Slight pause.
Cosmo: Ooh it’s a whopper, Presley.
Presley: Really?
Cosmo: Take a look.
Presley flinches away.
Cosmo: Just one peek. That’s all, Presley.
Presley: Just… a peek?
Cosmo: Just a peek.
Presley looks at cockroach.
Presley: Oh … yeah.
Cosmo: Looks juicy, eh?
Presley: Mmm.
Cosmo: Take another peak. Longer this time. Go on.
Presley looks at cockroach again.
Cosmo: What d’you think?
Presley: It’s very … dark.
Cosmo: That’s right.
Presley: Like a spit of tar.
Cosmo: Ooo, yes. Never thought of it like that. Very good, Presley. What an imagination you’ve got.
Slight pause.
Cosmo: Go on, Presley.
Presley: Eh?
Cosmo: A nibble.
Presley: I… I can’t…
Cosmo: For me, Presley.
Presley: I …
Cosmo: I’ll be upset if you don’t.
Presley: You will?
Cosmo: Very.
Slight pause.
Presley: Kill it first.
Cosmo: Nah, nah. Has to be alive. That’s the whole point.
Slight pause.
Cosmo: I’d feel very close to you, Presley. I’d feel as if we … shared something.
Presley: Shared something.
Cosmo: Something special.
Presley: Like a … communion?
Cosmo: Yeah. That’s it exactly. Trust you to think of the right word. It’d be a communion. Between us two. A special communion between Cosmo and Presley.
Very slowly, Presley takes the cockroach from Cosmo’s hands.
Cosmo: Oh, Presley … Presley …
Presley puts cockroach in his mouth and eats it.
Cosmo: Don’t forget to chew it well. They’re apt to crawl back up if you don’t.
Presley: I need some chocolate.
Cosmo clicks out of his ‘carressing mood’.
