Parents meet
Naseer Ahmed
(Max, Gina and Joker sitting on chairs outside a café situated on the Margalla hills, Islamabad)
Max: Gina, Why did you invite Joker? He has nothing to do with what happened to us. Have you gone a bit sadist? Do you want to laugh at our sorrow?
Gina: So rude of you Max. You dislike Joker but Joker is my best friend. I want help and support. You know we are here to talk about Nemesis .I want to know truth. I don’t want to indulge in all those upside down tantrums.
All, I want is inside out truth.
Max: Huh, this broken clown won’t lead you to truth about Nemesis .He would just laugh at our plight. He is indifferent to our suffering. I never liked him because I don’t like clowns. Besides, we are here to talk about our loss, not about entertainment at some circus.
Joker: haha, Max, you want everything your way. You don’t like what discomforts you. You hate what challenges you and you dislike laughter. You want to mourn the loss of Nemesis. I say it was a good riddance.
Max: See Gina, your best friend is laughing at loss of our Nemesis. I don’t want this Gina, please. I don’t like this mirth in funereal.
Gina: Joker, behave, please.
Joker: Gina, your losses fill my eyes with tears but Nemesis is his loss and our salvation.
Max: Nemesis is our loss. My loss, your loss, even his loss. There is no hope since Nemesis is not around. It is dark everywhere.
Joker: A bad parent turned his child into monstrosity. It is nothing but a feel-good factor. I have seen Nemesis hurting women, hurting children, hurting animals, hurting birds, hurting whatever life she came across. Oh, I have seen all that. Don’t try to dodge me, don’t try to deceive me, and don’t try to fool Gina.
Max: Oh please, I don’t want this worthlessness. Oh, Gina, let’s move away.Oh, Gina, you don’t see the devil here. You don’t see an enemy. Remember, how beautiful is Nemesis? Her smile shines through the flowers, her eyes twinkle like stars, and her face is a beacon. Remember it, you have seen Nemesis. Why are you silent, Gina?
Gina: Yes , Max, Nemesis is beautiful. Nemesis is gorgeous. Nemesis is full of love and life. Why, Joker, why? Why don’t you see the grandeur and the beauty?
Joker:Oh, Gina, I have seen Nemesis beating up people, I have seen Nemesis killing people. I have seen Nemesis stealing bread. I have seen Nemesis robbing banks. I have seen Nemesis desecrating churches and temples. I have seen Nemesis raping children. That was only time, in my life, I could not laugh. I wept and wept and wept until they told me Nemesis won’t hurt anybody anymore.
Max: Jokers cannot understand the grandeur and beauty. They are jealous of it. Clowns do not like heroes because girls do not choose clowns. Nemesis created, built, innovated, organized and created a world of opportunities. I am proud of Nemesis. This worthless clown’s lies cannot damage excellence and brilliance of our heroine.
Joker: I have seen that heroine shitting in her pants when her turn to suffer came. I have seen him crying energetically for mercy. Max, you took the revenge of your unhappiness through Nemesis. He does not love Nemesis. He is only obsessed with his unhappiness and he does not know how to be happy.
Gina: Oh my God, two stubborn men hurting each other and in the process they hurt me too.
Max: What a name oh Gina. Nemesis made things better for this ungrateful clown too but he won’t accept it because accepting this simple truth would make him full of sorrow too.
Joker: Max, Nemesis did not make anything better for anybody. She got into a worst company and with her gang, she just hurt and harmed. You know Max, you trained her this way. They imagined monsters, you created one. But that was all you could create. You are a crap parent.
Max: Poor Nemesis was too trusting. People took advantage of her. She did not intend anything bad.
Gina: oh intentions? Max, intentions lose their charm when they face consequences.
Joker: Max, You are angry. You were always angry. Your Nemesis inherited your anger. His friends made her powerful and she unleashed his anger on all of us.
Max: Joker, how good parent are you? Why did you not stay?
Joker: I had to leave Max but I have light and colors and above all, I have laughter. I left some light behind and I carry a bit of light within me and every passing day, this light makes me a better person. You are not I, Max. Don’t confuse things. Your Nemesis rose to power and wealth through this confusion which you are using against me. In confusion, you offered certainty and your certainty became a monstrosity .Now you want to save this monstrosity by throwing tantrums and tantric piety.
Max: Joker, everybody hates you, everybody dislikes you. I don’t know why Gina loves you .You mock Nemesis’s friends. Where are your friends?
Joker: Oh Max, you have just this crap method against everybody. Absence of my friends won’t justify what Nemesis did and what you did. You wanted to change things through Nemesis.
Things changed but things changed for worse. I know I have seen people devoid of imagination worshiping the monsters they created themselves. Your change was a change in degree, a change in scale and it was worse.
Nemesis just exploited love, fear and greed like all of them. You thought you and Nemesis were something bigger than all. It was not so, you just aligned with nothingness and increased nothingness. I am not impressed.
Max: You don’t know anything about inevitabilities and necessities. That is why you keep suffering from them.
Joker: And you don’t know anything about diversities. That is why your Nemesis keeps making people suffer.
Gina: Joker, let us leave. You have done a great injustice to me but I don’t have any friends and it seems your friends won’t come tonight. But tonight I would be your friend.
Max: Why? Gina, Why? Don’t you remember? How beautiful is Nemesis? How lovely is she? How strong is she? How wonderful is she?
Gina:Oh Max, You won’t see truth ever. I am with Joker now. That beauty you talk about brought so much ugliness in my life, I saw that ugliness and I suffered it too. That love, you professed passionately, was a good name for hatred; I saw and suffered that hatred. That strength you worshipped was a cover up for a weakness which weakened our capabilities to think and resist.
Max, you were too busy with Nemesis. While you were busy, I saw that wonderfulness which is life about. I cherished it, I celebrated it, I enjoyed it, and above all I loved it.
That love went through every corner of my existence because it came from every corner of my existence. It was my misfortune that you were busy with Nemesis and I saw that wonderfulness dying in my arms too many times. You did not notice the pain on my face because you were busy with Nemesis. I see that wonderfulness in Joker. He has hurt me too but there is a difference, you won’t get it Max. Your obsession with Nemesis became a distraction for me. Now, I don’t have any illusions about you and Nemesis. This means perpetual mourning for all that wonderfulness which died in my arms and this also means being with joker might bring back all that wonderfulness I lost on the way of exploring nonexistent stuff in Nemesis. Goodbye, Max, I cannot live your illusions anymore.
Max. Oh Gina, it hurts me to imagine your plight but anybody who deserts Nemesis deserves it. Go away, Gina.
Joker: Let us leave Gina; It is tough for Max to forsake his obsessions because he knows truth and truth does not comfort him. He seeks refuge in these obsessions. He won’t see the light.
Gina: Come on Joker, let us wine and dine, let us explore new ways, let us erase sorrows, let us enjoy.
(Gina and Joker left)
Max. Nemesis, Oh dear Nemesis, O darling Nemesis, Please come back. They need you more when they repudiate you more. I don’t want you for myself, I want you for them. Please come back Nemesis.
(The night descends over the Margalla hills)