The Innocent People

A PUPPET SHOW


Man: The innocent people! Whenever I hear talk about the innocent people it doesn't half make me angry. The innocent people! There was an innocent person, have you ever heard anything like that? From the newspapers, the TV, those films. (putting on a lion mask) There's the TV set, there are some of the innocent people. (puts his foot through the TV set) We had someone claimed he was an 'innocent person', he was just a footstool really. Left the area, went to Spain, I think. Got the ferry to Sicily and leapt into a volcano, but only after taking lessons — 'swim in lava' I think they called them. There was an innocent person drew a penis, a very famous local artist. Afterwards no one talked to him. 'There he is', they said, 'the man who drew the penises.' Or 'thank you and good day Sir.' He stormed off, for no one would listen to his complaints and died in a Godforsaken place, hot with desert landscape and beating heart. (puts on an apemask) What did King Agemmnon do with the innocent people (with immense scepticism)? He loaded them onto an 'orse (a horse appears with backdrop of red flames and black sky) and sent them through the day and the night, Helen's eyes glowering with hint of malice and incredible anger. Achilles slew Hector and dragged him around the city of Troy. Round and round they go. (a carousel of horses appears then a silhouette of Hector dying) King Agemmnon had no time for the innocent people! Julius Caesar! The innocent people! (cries with anger and pain) He wrecked Gaul, sacked cities, loaded them onto carts and took them to Rome to be slaves. (sound of a cart running over a cobbled street) What did Caesar care for the innocent people! When I talk of that man 'Annibal! (wracked with anger, dons an elephant mask) He fought his way through the Alps and took the innocent people to task, result of his anger and testament to strength. Because that's all there is, at the end of the day. There is strength and there is nothing. Strength is all. What about Adolf Hitler? (wracked with anger and spitting venom) You may accuse me of being morbid, but what did he do with the innocent people? (sound of a divebombing stuka and flak) There were very few innocent people left back then. (raging on. . .) Today we think we're the innocent people. They never were, for Agemmnon, Caesar, 'Annibal, Hitler are all one. They're all the same. Strength and weakness, weakness and strength.