Taken Up By The Raptor

A Play

Act I

Scene I

MAP`s voiceover is heard over the jungle scene.

MAP: `I`ve lived long enough with the people of Ourobouros to learn the language; but not long enough to see their faults writ large, which means that I still feel liking for them. I knew I wouldn't approve of what they will, thanks to me, soon become. My role has, I realize now, been that of the Tempter. However, I have also seen how, despite all mythological statements to the contrary, the Serpent has, in a way which defies belief, effectively been the garden.

Act II

Scene I

Narrator`s voice over in which the audience is returned to the Edenic scene of Eve and Adam in Eden picking fruit while a reptilian biped looks on approvingly.

Narrator: `Tempter and Serpent are, in teleological terms, antitheses. Consequently, in unconsciously playing the role of Satan, MAP achieved what no self-respecting time-traveller ever sought: a place in the history of human evolution.`

Act III

A return to the jungle scene and this time the viewer can see MAP standing in the clearing. He smiles wryly.The audience hears his voice as he `think speaks`.

MAP: `When I think of the 'pivotal' role I`ve played, the impulse to label myself 'seminal' has been strong. Freud would make a lot of that!`

We see MAP explode into laughter in the clearing, scaring birds and wildlife, without any discernible reason for his mirth. MAP think speaks.

 `My mind's 'censor' has done what the good doctor expected. Unlike Like Mr Kurtz in Polish writer, Joseph Conrad`s The Heart Of Darkness, I can`t remember the horror.`

Act IV

Scene I

There`s the sound of someone coming through the trees and drawing closer.

 Narrator: `He who had committed the crime would have been sentenced and the guilt is in some part MAP`s to share.`

 The camera zooms about the clearing until it focuses in upon bloody stains on a block of stone near the centre of the clearing. Skulls and bones are visible to the viewing audience.

MAP: `Some are old. Some are fresh.`

 We see MAP standing by the stone.

 `I will not be a witness to a bloody sacrifice!`

 MAP clenches his fists and jaw.

 Narrator: `That will come later.`

 MAP: Think speaking. `This is, rather, a place of punishment.Those who use it believed in taking an 'eye for an eye', but this most recent case had set a legal precedent. The offender had been found guilty of the 'new' crime of -`

MAP`s think speech breaks off. The audience sees him grimace.

 MAP: 'Manslaughter'.

He pronounces the word, `man`s laughter`. His think speech continues.

 `I can`t decide whether the fate which awaits the criminal is 'worse than death' or not. Only time will tell.`

 Narrator: `Indeed, time had told, but the full unfolding of the sequence of events which MAP had set in motion now belonged to futurity; the search for an antidote to the troubles of his own time paling into insignificance beside the subtle machinations of fate.`

 MAP lingered.

 Narrator: `The decision to linger wasn't entirely due to MAP's newly acute sense of responsibility. If he didn't see it, he wouldn't believe it and, more importantly, he wouldn't be able to convince anyone else. The human race must be prepared for the evolutionary shift which, having seen how the great wheel turned, he now knew was coming. As he stood there in the shadows cast by the great ferns, waiting for the blow from the stone axe which must fall if a new biological epoch was to dawn, his mind drifted back to the scene in the laboratory which had confirmed for him that what his imagination had told him was true was the truth.

Act V

Scene I

 MAP appears to be forcing himself to loll against a lab bench before striving to appear nonchalant there.

MAP: 'So what do you think Rob? Does the theory hold water? Is the human race doomed? Are we dying out like the dinosaurs, or what?`

 Rob shrugs indifferently.

Rob: My friend. As you know, my indifference isn`t entirely forced. My stake in the future of humanity is, after all, limited. Your 'theory', as you like to call it, is sheer speculation and, unless you can persuade me otherwise, that's how it'll stay.'

 Rob sighs in admission.

'Unfortunately these samples do confirm that, even since the early nineteen-nineties, the average male sperm count is down by fifty per cent.'

 MAP's face grows a rueful smile. It had grown bigger and less apologetic as his hypothesis was confirmed. Rob continues unabashed.

 'It seems the average size of the female clitoris has, as you have anticipated -'

 MAP's smile transforms itself into laughter.

 MAP: `And you`re revolted by the female genitalia which I know you possess.`

 Rob: 'Look, if you're so convinced of your own infallibility -'

 Rob glares.

 Rob: '- why not forget you're a scientist, and we can dispense with the donkey work. You can just wallow in your own sense of self-worth and I can ignore the necessity of proving-'

 The mask habitually worn by his friend slips for an instant to reveal the painful ambiguity of the feelings which lie beneath.

Rob: '- or disproving your 'theory'.'

MAP: Let`s go over the biological evidence again. By now it`s clear even to the man in the street that twenty-first century woman is becoming more aggressively masculine than the opponents of her feminist ancestors had ever dreamed. Rape, at least by men, is now to be found only in historical fiction. No man in his right mind would considered this an option today - the castration laws had seen to that. but that isn't the only deterrent. Often the girls-only teen gangs won`t wait for a court judgement. Sometimes it isn't even necessary for a man to behave violently: if they didn't like the way you walk or the look you give them, or even the 'vibes' they pick up (whether you are actually conscious of giving them out is immaterial), your manhood is liable to be mangled ('mangirlling' they call it); usually psychologically, but often, and this is rapidly becoming the norm, physically too. The consequences have been twofold. Society is more peaceful, indeed, war is, at least in the 'liberated' West, an anachronism. On the other hand, Western woman's dominance has resulted in a rather subtle emasculation of her menfolk. It seems that violence - albeit subliminal - is, for the male of the species, part and parcel of the sexual act. Domestication has meant not only a reduction in men`s sperm count, and therefore a levelling off of population, which many interpret as 'nature's way' of ensuring that humanity doesn't develop into 'planet cancer', but an antipathy toward the sexual act itself which looks like becoming a  permanent socio-cultural phenomenon.`

Rob: `Okay, my area of expertise.

Rob takes a deep breath.

 My own research shows that men have reacted by turning to each other for support and consolation; much in the way that women of the twentieth-century formed 'sisterhoods'. The parallels with the misogynist extremists are also evident. Since HIV/AIDS began feminism`s unannounced pogrom in the early years of the 21st century, thanks to the efforts of Bugger `Em, homosexuality has been considered an 'option' for radicals, that is, as 'normal' or even categorizable as heterosexual, but (and this is the rub), 'political' for members of the 'brotherhoods'. As with the early lesbian feminists, it`s considered politically correct for men to assert their solidarity by choosing a sexual orientation which negates the role of the 'other' sex. Perhaps it isn't nature's way of showing her disapproval, but no one ever suggested that anal sex is a 'fruitful' mode of intercourse, and the sperm count dropped even further. This, then, is the problem, and the Bureau of World Science brought in you, MAP, one of the few male genetic archaeologists left in the higher institutes (it`s rumored that, due to fears about possible infiltration from female supremacists, women weren`t even considered for your project), to resolve the problem.`

MAP: `My decision to co-opt you, Rob Lush, met with a few raised eyebrows, not only because you`re a 'political radical', that is, homosexual by choice, but because of your field of expertise - time-travel.`

Act VI

Scene I

 There is a familiar sound in the corridor, a sharp tap-tapping of high heels. The viewer is sped back in time to scenes of glamorous nubile women in high heels and sexually provocative outfits, before the scene zooms forwards in time to obviously more futuristic scenes of women in high heels at rallys and meetings wearing Nazi style uniforms interspersed with scenes of their brutalization of men.

Scene II

MAP: `Men came to understand that, if they didn't force themselves to (no pun intended) stand up straight in the presence of a woman, they would unconsciously adopt the position which best afforded them a chance of protecting their testicles. Not that women are given to launching unprovoked kicks at a man's scrotum; the wounds they inflicted were largely psychical, but the end product was the same - unmanning.

Scene III

 We see futuristic scenes of women launching unprovoked attacks at men`s testicles, inflicting heinous pain and obviously wounds.

Scene IV

 The footsteps cease at the door and a figure can be seen outlined through the frosted glass panel. The handle turns and the woman walks in. Rob disappears behind a wall of jars and tubes; he can be heard at intervals, shuffling about, running water into sinks, generally keeping himself out of harm's way. MAP, on the other hand, seems merely to adjust his loose stance by the bench in order to confront his uninvited guest.

MAP: 'Pat Horner! What brings you to this neck of the woods?'

 MAP curses himself silently. We hear him speak thinking.

 `This false bonhomie is, I know, acceptable in male company, but women see through it immediately.Just what it is they see, I`ve never been able to deduce. Perhaps it`s just female psychology; you know, the idea that there must be something you're trying to conceal from 'mother', so why not accept your guilt?`

Narrator: `Was it MAP`s fault his genitals always tingled in the presence of the opposite sex? Damn it! He did his best not to be come aroused, but that fabled intuition of theirs detected the slightest disturbance in a man's aura.`

 MAP think speaks further.

MAP: My grandfather had told me how, in the old days, women had used their sensitivity to find a bedmate, but that was during the period of what came to be called the Sexual Prevolution, a period of 'free love' which, all the experts now agree, was a contributing factor to the spread of AIDS in the last century, and which produced in the women of that time an unhealthy fear of what lay coiled inside a man's trousers, a fear that led to unconscious hatred; and finally to outright hostility - like now.`

 Scene VI

 The viewer sees scenes of coquettery from the late 20th century designed to excite sexual desire, and then scenes of haggard degenerates with HIV/AIDS dying of the `disease`, before the futuristic scenes of high heeled Nazi style women brutalizing men cowering in fear.

 Scene VII

 Narrator: `MAP experienced the feeling of the woman's gaze passing through him to settle on what, in the face of ever-deteriorating relations between the sexes, had become that ever-guilty and ever-persecuted worm which was to be found squirming ineffectually at the core of every man's being. He noted the slick black body sheathe, the thigh high white boots, the peaked leather cap, all fetishistic objects which, in another time and place, would have tickled a man's erotic fancy. Now, however, they inspired fear in the guilty (and who, faced with the 'crime' of owning a penis, wasn't guilty) and obeisance (genuine grovelling, that is, not as part of some twisted form of Eros worship) in those who had lost the vestiges of their pride in being masculine.`

 The camera lingers on Pat`s costume for what seems like an eternity to the interested viewer.

Pat: 'How's the project coming?'

MAP: `Is it my imagination, or do I detect a sexual emphasis in the words project and coming? Are you conscious of how, just by running your tongue along your teeth like that, you can make a man's trouser snake go rigid with pleasure? Already I can feel it, swelling up down there; getting itself good and ready; informing me – and you - that whenever...'

 Pat raised her eyebrows.

 Pat: `I`m jerking you back from the fantasy. Big Boy down there, in spite of assurances of its invincibility, will now curl up like a slug with salt on its tail.`

 MAP: `No, and if this goes on much longer...`

Scene VIII

 Images from nature of crabs disappearing into holes in the sand, and rabbits disappearing into rabbit holes, etc.

Scene IX

 `... it'll dig itself a hole and crawl in.`

 MAP frowned. He think spoke.

 `There`s something in that; if I can just...

Scene X

There are images from nature of slugs with salt on their tails curling up in his mind as Pat moves past him; the clicking of her heels making it impossible to concentrate. Map holds his head in his hands visibly trying to concentrate. It`s as if someone is dragging their nails across a chalk board and indeed the audience hears the sound and sees the horrendous image of a woman`s nails dragging screaming notes from a chalk board as she drags her fingernails down.

Narrator: `It is as if the coils of his cerebrum are being dragged about the floor like loops of cold spaghetti.`

Scene XI

 Images of spaghetti being dragged about the floor by a woman in high heels interlaced with images of the brain convulsed and trembling with its convolutions and whorls reminiscent of loops of spaghetti.

Scene XII

 Pat: 'Where's your faggot? Do I frighten her?'

 Pat stares mockingly at his crotch.

 MAP: `I`m resisting the impulse to change my stance to ease my discomfort.`

 MAP think spoke.

 `It`s working! Is that a flicker of embarassment I see flitting across her features? Apparently not.`

Pat`s stare travelled slowly up MAP`s torso to rest challengingly at a point just in front of his eyes. MAP thought spoke to her.

 MAP: `I haven`t got time for this. Rob's busy. He's been working hard.'

Narrator: `MAP kicked himself mentally for falling into the trap of discussing this relationship.`

 Pat thought spoke back at him.

 Pat: 'What did you say? Wanking hard? I didn't know they could get hard anymore. Did you?'

 MAP: `I`m not going to fall for that one! Did I what?'

 Again Pat dropped her eyes to mock.

 MAP: 'Look Pat-'

 Again he was cut off.

 Pat: 'Oh!'

She laughed.

 Pat: 'I am. I am.'

 MAP cursed himself inwardly.

 MAP: 'What is it that you want? We're very busy here and -'

Once again she overrode him.

 Pat: 'I told you, we're interested. What have you found out?'

 MAP thought spoke to himself.

 `God preserve us from right wing lesbians!`

 Then aloud.

 MAP: `I`d have liked to tell you to shove it, or something of the sort, which you shouldn't interpret as a sexual innuendo and turn against me. It`s part of the conditions of my contract - thanks to women's pressure groups - that the two projects co-operate. Needless to say, so far the 'co-operation' has been entirely one way. It seems...'

MAP paused mockingly as if waiting for the interruption which, because this time it was important for her to listen to what he had to say, wasn't forthcoming.

 MAP: '-that my theory was right. Men are becoming sterile, while women are beginning to develop certain peculiarly masculine traits.'

 Pat: 'You mean we're growing cocks?'

 Narrator: `Clearly she isn't going to make this easy for him.`

 MAP: 'It isn't that simple, but ...'

 Pat: 'I've got some news for you brother-'

 Narrator: `This time she chose to interrupt him with an insult to boot.This was going too far.`

 MAP: 'But -'

 Pat: 'But nothing.'

 Narrator: `Suddenly MAP realized that what she had to impart must not only be dynamite but shattering in its finality; they'd never told him anything before this.`

 Pat: 'You remember that clit born fifteen years ago in Rumania?'

 Pat paused while MAP nodded his assent.

 Pat: 'Well, that clit can not only fertilize herself, she can fuck too. You know what that means?'

MAP gave a low involuntary whistle.

 Pat: 'That's right dickbrain.You're obsolete.The board have decided to shut down your half of the project and go with us. The human race will continue, but on our terms.'

 Without waiting for any further response she turned on her heel and headed past him through the open door; then, as if remembering some unfinished business, she sang out mock sweetly.

 Pat: 'Bye bye Rob.'

MAP: I`m not too stunned to know what that means!`

 Narrator: `They had both been worried about the human race's dying out, but Rob wasn't exactly a family man; he didn't have a vested interest. MAP wasn't married either, but he liked kids and it was an 'option' for him, which meant he wanted a future not only for men and women but for men with women.`

 Scene XII

 MAP begins talking to himself as though he has an actual interlocutor.

 `Pat's threat suggests that, although there might be a role for men like me, if her kind wasn`t in control, it`d be a future without 'queers' - voluntary or otherwise. Extermination? Are they already making lists? The brotherhoods aren't secret organizations; so far they hadn't had to be, but now? This ought to provide Rob with the incentive he seems to lack. But there`s another thought buzzing around in my head, which won't let up until I`ve examined it.

 MAP is seen with brow furrowed struggling to think. As if summoned by MAP`s mental wrestling, Rob appears from behind a wall of instrumentation.

 MAP: 'A condition of their must have been that, if the WSB didn't want them to take their findings to the separatists, this concern would have to be shut down due to its being 'no longer viable'.`

 MAP snapped his fingers.

 MAP: 'Of course. That's it! But-`

 He spluttered in realization.

 'That's ridiculous! Now that we know what the problem is we can do something about it. Where's that artefact?'

Rob reached into a pocket of his labcoat.

 Rob: 'Here.'

 Rob tossed it across and MAP looked at the circle of stone he now held in the palm of his hand.

 MAP: 'This is the oldest example you could find?'

Rob nodded.

 Rob: 'It's the oldest there is. Nobody knows how old. What I do know is that, if we link it up to the machine, I can send you back to when it was made.'

 MAP looked at the image; a dragon with its tail in its mouth.

 Scene XIII

 We see the German organic chemist, August Kekulé cogitating over the problem of deciphering the structure of the benzine molecule which is the basic constituent of petroleum products. The 1865 scene is interspersed with images of the indespensibility of benzine in products as diparate as washing powder and engines of various forms of vehicular transportation, including cars, planes and spacecraft. We`re privy to the dreams of Kekulé as he perceives the connection between the fire breathing ourobouros serpent and the structure of the benzine molecule which we see Kekulé drawing furiously upon a blackboard the following morning.

 Scene XIV

 MAP: 'Can you do it now?'

 Rob frowned.

 'Ten minutes ago I would have told you it couldn't be set up for a week, but now...'

Once more Rob shrugged, but the gesture is no longer indifferent. As if to underline its affirmation, he takes the stone circlet from his friend, walks across to the wall of instruments, opens a panel, and places it inside.

 Rob: 'Appropriate.'

 MAP: 'Oh.'

 MAP's curiosity is unfeigned.

 MAP: `Anything you think interesting is!

 Rob: 'The self-devouring serpent has, since its inception, been associated with time-travel. Have you ever heard the story of the man who went back to find out whether or not Jesus actually existed? He asked about Him everywhere, even quoted scripture; recounting the story of His life until, finally, Pontius Pilate had him crucified as a dissident. Turns out he was Jesus all along. A time loop.'

 Rob flicks a switch.

 Rob: 'So watch yourself. Ready?'

 MAP was taken aback.

 MAP: 'That's it? Just like that?'

 Rob grinned.

 Rob: 'It's been ready for weeks.The brotherhoods have been keeping tabs on Pat and her bunch.'

 Rob adopts a pained expression.

 Rob: 'Not that I ever needed an incentive.'

MAP laughs.

 MAP: 'Okay, let's go.'

 MAP picks up a bag.

 MAP: `My bag of tricks.`

 MAP steps forward; but, as he slides into the booth Rob indicates, he frowns.

 MAP: 'Haven't we forgotten something?'

 Rob produces what looks like a vitamin pill.

 Rob: 'Swallow this. When you want to come back all you have to do is think it. You don't even have to return to this room. Or this country.You can materialize in the Pope's bedroom if you like. Not that I'd advise it. She might be busy with one of her novices.'

Scene XV

 Their laughter can`t smother what, during these fateful times, are the tell-tale sounds of multiple spiked heels beating a tatoo to the door of the lab. So it`s without the element of surprise that, with Pat at their head, an all-female security squad march in.

 Pat: 'That one.'

 Pat points towards Rob.

 'I denounce him as a member of the brotherhood. Don't move Lush. That!'

 Pat shows him `the finger`.

 `A definite nono!'

 Narrator: `Rob shrugs but, as MAP and all of us now know, he only seems indifferent.`

 Scene XVI

 Seeing what Rob is about to do, MAP tries to shout out and stop him before it`s too late, but suddenly it`s too late. For the moment that the guards are fooled by the shrug and relax, Rob lunges forward, slapping a couple of switches with one hand, and pressing a button with the other before the laser bolts tear into him. MAP's final impression of the world Rob left behind had been Rob's blood-smeared hand sliding down the glass panel of the booth; his thumb raised in what, MAP now felt, was an ironically camp salute.

 Act VII

 MAP`s voice opens the scene.

                                         

 Scene I

 `It hadn't been difficult making contact. Actually, I hadn't even had to start looking; they found me. There had been none of the posturing and mock threats I had anticipated from primitives faced with the shock of the new. Although I was clearly the strangest stranger they had ever encountered, I was alone, and consequently not considered to be dangerous. They had, I`d supposed, taken me prisoner or, as it seemed in hindsight, into `protective custody`. I hadn`t bothered to discover much about the local fauna; though I now knew that some of it was both voracious and, there was no simpler way to put it, big! Hence the caution with which my 'captors' led him back to the caves in which they lived.`

 We see MAP tied to a bamboo pole carried by almost naked members of a jungle tribe carrying spears and other necessities. There are very large animals of the dinosaur type that periodically appear either unbeknownst to the tribes people but known to the cameras that record their monstrous forms and hideous screams and bellows, or are seen and reacted to by the tribes people`s hurling missiles or screaming in order to chase away the denizens of this nightmare journey through the jungle days and nights.

 Narrator: `They had found him almost instantaneously. MAP had wondered if the suddenness of his arrival had caused some sort of dislocation in the surrounding area; some of the foliage had apparently been singed, and there was a silence which, after experiencing the more commonplace shrieks and bellows that usually accompanied a stroll in the jungle, MAP had later decided was the natural response to a loud noise.`

 Scene II

 We see MAP being carried upside down on the bamboo pipe observing a singed part of the verdure along the jungle path. Further in the jungle we see two large reptilian creatures screaming and making hideous noises, while they engage in a brief mortal combat, which leaves one of them feasting on the corpse of the other, while an appalled silence reigns over the danksome forest.

 MAP speak thinks.

 MAP: `Rob would have to - damn!`

 Scene III

 Rob`s sacrifice looms fresh in MAP`s mind, and once more the audience is privy to the dreadful scene in which Pat and her minions rip apart Rob`s body with laser bolts from several different camera angles up to the point at which his bloody hand slides down the clear plas of the observation window in the time traveller`s booth showing thumbs up.

 Scene IV

 Narrator: `Shortly afterwards, MAP had seen shapes flitting to and fro amidst the giant ferns which, at first, he had taken for trees. However, after a brief survey of the faces that peered out at him from the shadows, he had perceived his error. Later inspection had revealed that, due to some trick of the light, the creatures had seemed more reptilian than they actually were, but, for MAP, it had meant only one thing: the stone circlet was an artifact of the period known as the Mesozoic, which was of course impossible - was being the operative word.`

 We see the reptoid faces looming out of the darkling forest during the day and night amidst torchlight as the denizens of the jungle observe the progress of the tribes people carrying the white man as their unwilling burden. The image of the ourobouros serpent spitting fire amidst imagery of technological devices that need benzine to function is interspersed within the scenes of reptoid curiosity.

Scene V

[The song, `Halfway Down The Stairs` by Robin, the frog nephew of Kermit, from the creature workshop of Jim Henson`s The Muppet Show (1977) is readapted for the scene, `Halfway up the cliff is a cave where I live, there isn`t any other cave quite like it, it`s not at the bottom, it`s not at the top, but here is the cave where I always stop.`]

 There are caves located halfway up the face of a cliff.After being unbound by his captors and rubbing his extremities to restore blood circulation to hands and feet, MAP is visibly relieved when it`s made apparent to him by sign and gesture that he isn't expected to get up there by muscle power alone.One of his few acquaintances emitted a sharp whistle and, it was evident they had been expected, because a serviceable rope ladder was immediately cast down. The individual who appeared to lead the group had gone first; demonstrating to MAP how to avoid slipping and breaking his neck.

 MAP: `This is a courtesy for which I, your pupil, feel that I would be eternally grateful: heights made me dizzy.`

 Scene VI

 MAP peers archly towards the audience after giving this uncomprehended stilted speech in a moment of tragi-comedy at his being hopefully understood by the theatre goers while being unable to make himself understood to his captors.

 Scene VII

 MAP: `It must be an extraordinarily massive cave; judging by the size of the welcoming committee.`

 We see a huge throng of almost naked tribes people with their spears and other necessities milling at the entrance to a cave and MAP looks archly at where the audience is presumed to be sitting in the cinema, or at home in the television version.

Scene VIII

We see MAP discovering that, in fact, there`s but one cave; those he has seen from the ground are essentially subsidiary entrances. There is little interest in MAP as the `people of the cave`, as they call themselves in their own language, are far more important to the community than he is, or rather what they had failed to bring with them would have been. The leader's initial apologetic open-handed stance tells the viewing audience as well as MAP all that is needed to complete the picture. The group that had 'trapped` him, as it were, by the simple expedient of digging a pit for an animal to fall into, had been hunting for food, and his arrival through the time bubble had probably scared off whatever passed for game in those parts. The scene of the tribal leader bemoaning his fate at catching only a foreign body is supplemented by scenes of daily life amongst the cavers as the audience is shown the extent of the single huge cavernous region and the viewer is given a brief recap of the story so far in which MAP is seen arriving in a time bubble with some meagre resources and equipment that are subsequently taken away from him by the tribes people that trap him unawares in the pit we see him fall into.

 Scene IX

 MAP receives many looks of contempt and disdain from the onlookers during his forays about the caverns, Eventually the cavers draw pictures of themselves not eating people. In fact there are many such depictions on the walls of the cave in which are described in great detail how the cavers don`t eat people. The looks of contempt and disdain are painted on the faces of the people on the walls where the story of their definitely not eating people is narrated pictographically. MAP understands that the looks of contempt and disdain are meant to reassure him that of course they are not the kind of people who eat people.

 `I see. You`re not the kind of people who eat people.`

 [The scene is accompanied by `People Who Need People`, the song from the 1964 Broadway musical Funny Girl sung by Barabara Streisand and composed by Jule Styne with lyrics by Bob Merrill which are readapted to `People who eat people are the luckiest people in the world.`]

Scene X

 Narrator: `After explanations are sought and given, MAP is forgotten. The only reason for his being dragged along was to provide the hunters with an excuse for their failure to feed a hungry populace who most certainly didn`t eat people.

 The scene of MAP being hauled through the jungle tied to bamboo is repeated as the narrator voices over while the cave paintings of people not being eaten are repeated for the audience to review. Again MAP archly turns his face to the viewer to express his thoughts.

 Scene XI

 MAP: `I suppose I ought to have been thankful that my problem wasn't how to overcome that hostility which strangers always seem to encounter with cannibals in books and films I`ve read and seen. Instead, I`d had to cope with an almost total lack of interest.`

 Scene XII

 The words `potential breakthrough` appear on the screen in big bold capitals.

 POTENTIAL BREAKTHROUGH

 MAP sits with his his back to the cave mouth for much of the night, while time lapse cinematography techniques show the passage of time between dusk and dawn. Before daylight a figure appears beside him with a steaming bowl of lumpy fluid which the figure lays quickly at his feet before disappearing back into the darkling gloom. MAP eats his fill voicing some surprise to himself.

 MAP: `Mmmmm. It isn`t that unpleasant either. A bit like swallowing axle grease with bits of india rubber floating about in there to give a man something to bite at. Satisfies the stomach. It`ll allow my mind to sleep.`

 While the time lapse cinematography speeds things along, MAP is depicted sleeping, which is collapsed temporally into minute or so as the viewer is invited to marvel at the time lapse cinematography. We see three sunrises and three sets of moon and stars amidst scenes of wildlife entering into the cave and leaving, which includes a scene of a large bear sniffing and snuffling about MAP`s sleeping form before it retires once more out of the cave entrance and into the night blocking out the stars with its huge frame before disappearing from the audience`s vision. After three days, MAP wakes and performing his ablutions beneath a fall of water that enters the mouth of the cave inside and above before leaving by a hole at the cave`s foot. Then he enters the cave.

 Scene XIII

 MAP: `I guess there`s nothing for it but to get on with what I came here to do. I have my mini-lab. All I need is a willing subject. I haven`t been able to detect anytihng unusual about my reluctant benefactors` physiology, apart from the reptilian cast to their features, but that is mainly because of the voluminosity of the garment with which they hide their method of reproduction.There could, I know, be a very good reason for this, but I don't want to get my hopes up too much.`

 MAP replaces a mini disk from his recorder taking another from inside his mini lab pack that he carries, and it is clear to the viewer that this is the explanation for some, if not all, of the conversations he`s been having with the ether.

 MAP: `Another thing I hadn't been bothered with before, but which now seems significant. All the specimens I`ve met with so far have been male. I can be sure about that, because none of them have worn anything upon their upper bodies and, well, even I couldn't have missed what my grandfather had used to delight in describing as a woman's 'love bumps'.

 `I rapidly discovered that there are no restrictions on my movements, apart from one, I`m not allowed to enter the mouth of what, at first glance, seems a small cave at the back of the cavern. However, from the amount of to-ing and fro-ing that goes on, I quickly came to assume that only the mouth of this cave is tiny, inside, I guess, lies a cavern at least equal in magnitude to its parent. What goes on in there is taking me longer to learn. Direct enquiries are, until I began to master the language by sitting, watching and listening - no one volunteers to teach me – futile.

 Scene XIV

 We see MAP endeavoring to communicate with the raptor people who, to-ing and fro-ing into and out of the small mouthed cavern, shrug him away as he endeavors to interrogate them about the contents of the cave with the smaller mouth that is expected to loom large now in the audience`s anticipation.

 Narrator: ``What,` the blank eyes they turned upon MAP seemed to say silently, `would be the point?``

 Scene XV

 We see MAP sitting with some of the `serpent people` while they use pictures to teach him some of their language with particular emphasis on the theme of not eating people. The audience sees MAP pointing to his mouth and those of the others while repeating the strange - to his lips and ears - sounds and consonants; several times.

MAP: `Serr li nuh comb bez` [repeated several times while MAP points at the mouth of himself and those of the others] .

 MAP takes out his recorder to repeat the exact phrasing and translates for the audience. MAP address the small throng of reptoid people sitting about him and watching earnestly from the shadows where only their eyes can be seen or small patches of light glistening and gleaming upon their raptor forms.

 ``Serr li nuh comb bez` means `the mouths that do not eat people`. I see. I`m still having problems with understanding this other phrase, `Serr ah meesh el ger luh`?`

 MAP repeats the phrase several times until the rapt faces of the raptor people rap back at MAP with pictures and sign language.

 `I see. `Serr ah meesh el ger luh` means `the mouths that definitely do not eat people, although it might appear that they do. Kissing!`

The raptor people chuckle honestly together. They chorus together.

 Rapt People: `Sel Mup Ler!`

 MAP: `What about `Tr Ay Seel Ordz!``

 There is some excited discussion amongst the rapt throng before new pictures are brought forth indicating the meaning.

 MAP: `I see. `Tr Az Seel Ordz` means `that part of the individual which is not eaten but disappears for a few minutes into the mouth of the person who doesn`t eat people.`

 The rapt audience cheer and laugh with enthusiasm as MAP gets the translation correct. It is not clear from the script whether or not the audience at home or in the theatre are able to see the pictures that the rapt throng show to MAP who is now addressing his recorder seriously.

 MAP: `The conversation with these rapt people who`re different but the same as myself sheds some light on the mysterious taboo surrounding the smaller cave at the rear of the larger opening in which we sit. The societal taboo against my entering the smaller opening inside the larger cavern fills me with the desire to go in there even though I`ve been warned against challenging the basic assumptions of the tribe. I dread to think what transpires. Perhaps it`s the key to knowing why these rapt people of the cave seem to belong almost entirely to their curious theme of `not eating people`. Are people being eaten in there? I must know! Even if it costs me life and sanity!``

Scene XVI

 The theme music plays, which also introduces the film and appears periodically during the movie at points of high drama. This time the music goes on for some minutes rising to a crescendo before falling away as MAP stands to look towards the smaller cave at the rear of the theater and the rapt people of the internal audience fade away from the pregnant orachestrated scene to go about their lives` tasks. The theme music is, `I`ve Got You Under My Skin` by Cole Porter from the 1936 `boy meets girl` musical, Born To Dance, starring Eleanor Powell, but here sung by U2`s Bono in a 1993 duet with the late great crooner, Frank Sinatra, in a single release that made #4 on the United Kingdom`s popular music chart. MAP continues speaking into his recorder as the song fades out and we hear his voice coming through clearly.

 MAP: `... impractical; and, having achieved command of a few basic words, unfruitful. However, because of the continuing non-appearance of a female of the species and, more importantly, the absence of recognizably young children, I have deduced that the cave within a cave is the place where the mothers of the tribe rear their young/`

 MAP looks carefully at where the audience is sitting in the theater or at home.

 `But surely, I put the question to myself, the women can’t spend their entire lives in there?`

 Scene XVII

 Every day at twilight MAP`s mysterious benefactor has continued to appear with food. We see scenes of the mysterious shadowy figure in the darkness leaving a bowl of food and a jug with a flask for MAP to eat and drink from.

 Narrator: `Aware of the many dangerous taboos, which lie in wait for the unheedy when in contact with fundamentally different societies, MAP refrained from tampering with the food and drink arrangement, and that was wise given the fact that the meal wasn`t poisoned.`

 We return to the scene of the bowl and the food and drink and witness MAP slowly eating until one evening, becoming proud of his limited grasp of this incurious race's tongue, he addresses his provider using his limited rapt vocabulary.

 MAP: `Why, when everyone else ignores me to the degree that I sometimes believe myself invisible, you deem me worth feeding?`

 MAP`s limited rapt vacabilary is here translated into the language of the audience, although it`s clear from MAP`s jaw movements that the speech is out of synch with the articulation needed to articulate the words. Below the screen appears in capital letters, A STATEMENT FROM THE DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER, which disappears from the screen to be followed by, THE EFFECT IS THAT OF THE SILENT SCREEN BEFORE HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA, BEGAN TO PRODUCE `TALKIES` AND THE WORDS SPOKEN OFTEN DIDN`T MATCH THE SUBTITLES.

 MAP`s speech is met with a startled glance from the almost invisible shadowy figure and the bowl is hurriedly put down so the figure can make its escape.

Narrator: `Shuddering at the chance he then takes, MAP grabs an arm. There had, he recalled now with some embarassment, been a brief struggle in which his hand had touched what he hadn't yet seen, a 'love bump'.`

 MAP: `Good God!`

 He nearly let go his bowl.

 MAP: `This, then, is a female?`

 We see the speech between MAP and the rapt girl, which isn`t lip synched, and this time we hear the rapt speech, while the subtitles appear beneath, so that the audience can follow what`s being communicated between the pair.

 MAP: `Ptuk ak el ur tektrez detvem sekereket.` [Let`s come to an understanding.]

 Rapt girl: `Poquek telik boket meke terik cex jakib nifekez.` [`I`ll release you, and you promise not to run: if I do.`]

 Narrator: `The disengagement proceeded to the satisfaction of both parties and, after a few misunderstandings, MAP`s visitor manages to put across the idea that he is to wait while she goes to bring illumination.`

 The rapt girl describes in the sand of the cavern an ideogram of the sun and looks about her until MAP comprehends that they need light and she`ll bring it.

 `Light!` He draws a picture of a star in the sand and stabs at the picture with his index finger.

 `Here!` He laughs.

 The girl leaves. A short time passes in which he envisions a rapt vengeful father or boyfriend emerging from the shadows to hurl him from the cliff, and the audience sees the scene enacted, thinking it is a real event, but afterwards we see MAP where he has been still waiting while the viewers have been witnessing his death at the hands of the supposedly enraged rapt man, which is meant to sit uneasily with the theater goers and those watching on their television screens at home because no one harmed MAP at all though we see him fall and die smashed on the rocks below.

 MAP: `She keeps faith!`

 The girl returns with a flaming torch which, set in a nearby crevice, casts sufficient illumination to enable each to see the other.

 MAP: `It is, he mused, incredible how attractive she seems, uncannily so.`

 Narrator: `One thing, as they say, led to another. Pat would have said it was typical of a man.`

 Scene XVIII

We see Pat saying that it`s typical of a man as, back in the laboratory, he slips into the booth beside the dying Rob and quickly sets the time controls as the female guards attempt to stop him and level their laser bolts at him and the equipment before he disappears and we see MAP emerge in the time bubble with his lab pack inside the jungle clearing where he began his journey into captivity and a new educational chapter in anthropological research.

 Pat: `It`s typical of a man.`

 Scene XIX

 Narrator: `MAP had been certain (although noone could have expected him to have known why), she was a virgin. At first she hadn't seemed to know what it was he wanted her to do; an ignorance he put down to either an inability to communicate his desire verbally or some natural reluctance in her due to fear or inexperience; perhaps there was even a taboo of which he was unaware; or, and the possibility only occurred to him later: perhaps she just didn't fancy him?`

 Scene XX

 Events prove otherwise. When, by behaviour which, from his point of view, makes it plain what he wants, he fails to make her understand, he had opted for drastic measures; opening his jeans and taking hold of his member. Placing her fingers firmly around it, he sits back on the heels of his hands and waits. The scene is in the hands of the director of the finished film, so it`s his/her decision how graphic MAP`s sexual desire appears to the viewing audience.

 MAP: Speech thinking. `Let's see what she makes of that!`

 Kor-el`s reaction was baffling for MAP and not a little humiliating. She`d laughed loudly and long. To the viewer it looks as if MAP is concerned that she might become hysterical and he`d have to slap her.

 MAP: `Is this savage ridiculing me?`

 Then MAP looks humiliated as that idea flits across his mien and he resigns himself to the truth, which is that she`s amused.

 Narrator: `Fortunately, MAP`s brain quickly hits upon something of the truth; Kor-el, for that is her name, laughs due to incomprehension. She actually doesn't know what to do.`

 MAP turns to where the camera and audience are watching.

 MAP: `Is this going to be more trouble than it`s worth? Oh well, in for a penny...`

 Scene XXI

 MAP signals to her that she should take off her clothes, while getting rid of his own.They stand for a moment looking curiously at one another as the shadows cast by the light from the flaming torch that she had brought dance festively over their skin. Oddly enough, it`s she who reaches for him; it seems that instinct takes over: she had, still gripping his tool, lain upon the ground, forcing him to his knees. To her obvious amazement, he parts her thighs and, as she strains to see what he does next, forces his way into her. Her eyes open wide in unfeigned astonishment and, as if further confirmation is necessary, brief pain; then he begins to thrust, slowly at first to let her get the rhythm, then faster as he feels her body respond. He begins to squeeze her breasts in time with the motion they are creating, and she looks up in wonderment; then, as he watches, she loses focus, her back arches and she comes: again and again her body shakes until, excited by her uncontrolled fits of ecstasy, he releases his own joy.

 Scene XXII

 Narrator: `MAP hadn't known they were being watched, and nothing happened immediately to suggest that this was the case. If MAP had known ... but that was wind across the cave`s mouth. MAP`d done what he'd done, now he had to live with himself. It hadn't been long before he'd discovered the reasons for Lizzie's laughter (he called Kor-el `Lizzie` because, though he was ashamed to admit it, he often thought of the great English Queeny Lizard Birth when they were doing it. Rumor had it that the great houses of Europe had been full of raptor royals and that in fact humans were what they ate...`

 The narrator speaks as MAP is perceived in an encounter with an ancient Egyptian tomb of the Pharaohs as a robber of the contents hidden within and beneath the giant pyramid that looms above his intial efforts to break in. Forcing one of the internal chambers he comes across a representation of the serpent Ourobouros carved into the stone of the burial chamber.

 Narrator: `On the day MAP was finally granted admittance to the mysterious 'Chamber of Birth' by the rapt people, he came to know what the figure of the Ourobouros serpent really represented. Darwin would have suffered apoplexy. Freud would have spoken of the archetype's power of transformation. Winston Churchill said, `Madam you are ugly, but in the morning I shall be sober!`

 Scene XXIII

 We see a Winston Churchill impersonator in a black homburg hat, and a very large cigar and greatcoat, who is listening to a woman in a suffragette style pose with a placard from the period immediately after WWI (1914-18) in which women were fighting for the vote, `VOTES FOR WOMEN!`

 Emily Pankhurst: `Mister Churchill! You are drunk!`

 Act VIII

The director has the task of determining how each subsequent act is received by the audience. Depending on the direction, the affect upon the audience can be one of horror or bemusement, and even comedy, because it`s in the director`s purview as to how the scene is filmed. The actor`s words in the script are malleable and may be subject to rewriting because what the theatre goers see on the screen is dependant on how the film is rated by the censors. The camera eye takes in the scene and the audience is treated to a soft (or hard core) montage depending on the audience for which the censor has passed the film.

 Scene I

 Here we see MAP being surprised at being invited to participate in a `drinking ritual`; the essential detail of which he grasps straight away. MAP speaks to camera once more.

 MAP: `I wondered how my hosts would react once they saw, like Kor-el, that I`m capable of performing in the way they expected. As it turned out, I needn't have worried. Once the ceremony, which took place during the time of the full moon, got underway, noone paid me any attention. I was, however, able to watch the preparations of the other participants. All those present were, I hadn't really needed to check, male.`

 MAP is depicted shivering in remembrance. They proceed to remove that article of clothing which, as he later found out, acted as both restrainer and protector. MAP turns to camera again.

MAP:`Anyone else, I`m sure, would have passed out, or gone mad. I had thought I had known what to expect; but still, the reality was hard to accept. Unfettered, the creature which passed for a penis amongst these worshippers of Ourobouros, sprang erect. There would, of course, have been (apart from its outré context) nothing truly uncanny about that, but these rods of flesh and, I had noted dazedly, pulsating blood and muscle, were at least two feet long! I had stared in fascination as, all around him, men had stroked and carressed these shafts before, heads bowed, they`d inserted the bulbous head into their mouths and begun to suck.`

 Narrator: `The Surrealist painter, Salvador Dali, famous for his `soft watches`, couldn`t have imagined a weirder scene. One after the other, each great shaft goes into spasm as its seed travels down the throat of he who wields it. There is an after period for, MAP supposed, recuperation; but, as bodies very soon began lying comatosely all about him, it was clear he wouldn`t be leaving the cave until the next day; if then.`

 Act IX

 Scene I

 MAP dreams of a glittering, multi-faceted wheel of green and gold which, as it spins, emits sparks of white fire; then, gradually, it slows and he sees what it is. An inner light show caused by the flashing scales of the self-devourer as it chases - and eternally gobbles - its own tail; but there is something more, something he`s missed. The image sof the devourer are interspersed with images from the previous night`s events but the fleshly imagery is replaced by a more elaborate ritual of initiation in which there are various staffs before the seated throng who are bowed over them as if seeking guidance from some invisible divinity that they can perceive but dimly within themselves. As MAP awakens, the viewing audience is meant to feel that what they`d seen of the previous night`s vents was in fact a surreal nightmare iwhereas the truth is contained within MAP`s dream, and it is a sharper gaze that he casts about him as he wakes.

 Scene II

 MAP scrutinizes his surroundings much more closely than before. Without paying much more than cursory attention, he`d been aware that this inner chamber was a natural amphitheatre. His companions of the previous evening had, before indulging in their solitary orgy of oral onanism, seated themselves in rows about a shallow pit in the centre of the cavern, which scene we now see in flashback to the previous evening`s events.

 Scene III

 MAP now glances around him to see what, if anything, the morning sun is going to offer in the way of revelation. Most of the revellers had, he was pleased to register, already left; but the rest are gathering by the pit. The one whom he had mentaly tagged 'leader' from the previous evening`s events, proved to be so. He it was who, circling the pit, gave the signal for the rite to begin: that morning he had fumbled at his throat before raising his staff and the the talisman which hung there about his neck. The `leader` stares directly into MAP's face, and MAP understands, and, reluctantly, ventures to beside the pit for what is definitely an undesired tête-à-tête.

 Scene IV

 MAP: `It isn't altogether startling to find that it is the familiar carven image of Ourobouros which, hanging about your, my summoner's, neck, is raised to catch the eye. It is, if I allow the superstition to creep in, fate's messenger, But there is no time for such philosophizing.`

 Scene V

 There is a flashback to the previous night`s bizarre action. Each man in the ring about the pit holds an object in the crook of the arm like a leather egg. Then we see that is what it is – an egg! MAP starts in sudden realization as the dream image impacts upon him vehemently.

MAP: `That was what I hadn't understood. The Ourobouros isn't only the self-devourer but also the self-begetter. It all depends how you look at it; if you see it one way, it seems as if the serpent is devouring itself; but, looked at another way, it appears as if it is giving birth to itself!`

 Before MAP can analayze his spoken reverie, the `leader` brings up a stone knife and, pulling MAP toward him, rips open the front of his shirt, exposing his chest; then, bizarrely, he places his hands upon his victim's nipples and squeezes the flesh with which they are surrounded. MAP quickly draws back; holding the tattered remnants together with one hand, but that`s the climax. With a snort of disgust, the perpetrator of the assault points to the mouth of the cave and turns away.

 Narrator: `Kore-el had provided MAP with some illumination and, with what MAP had been able to deduce for himself, MAP thought he had gotten a pretty good picture of how things stood. He had, from his researches into the cult of the rapt people, guessed that, in earlier epochs, their male`s sexually reproductive equipment had been much bigger; indeed, this was the reason he had come here: to gain knowledge which would allow him to restore the potency of the males of his own period. MAP`s discovery that the people of Ourobouros were capable of self-fertilization hadn`t added an insurmountable complication in genetic terms. It was probable that, despite the evolutionary gulf, there was a likelihood that, using tissue samples from the rapt `specimens` as a biological template, genetic engineers could restore the penis power of twenty-second century males.

 MAP is speaking into his recorder during the narrative.

 MAP: `I`ll try to get the samples I need, but I`m not sanguine about the outcome.`

 Act X

 Scene I

 Kor-el: `Your inability to lay an egg has been the occasion for what, you`ll be amused to hear, has been a 'sexual' assault. There has, it appears, been some doubt as to your masculine credentials. Apparently they've decided that your sterile.

 Scene II

MAP evinces great relief at this news and we see a pit full of leather eggs in a flashback to the night of the full moon.

 Scene III

 Kor-el: `So, you won't have to go through that again!`

 MAP: `There remains but one question: if the 'men' of the tribe are self-sufficient in terms of the reproduction process, what is the point of women? Why do they exist?

 Kor-el: `As you have guessed, we are used for the 'mother' instinct, although that doesn't make reproductive sense. Not only were you, MAP, the first to make love with me, but all of the other women are still virgin. Prior to your coming here, neither male nor female knew what the other sex was for. Women were seen as `drones` in countrast to the males. At first the women weren`t killed outright, and afterwards it was presented to what remained of the females as `nature's way of weeding out the unviable`. Then, as the numbers born steadily increased, we were granted `citizenship` of a sort.

 Scene IV

 Infants being summarily despatched after it is discovered that they`re not males, and females becoming appreciated for their skills at nurturing and home maintenance impressing the males into keeping them as necessary adjuncts to the life of the society.

 Act XI

 Scene I

 Narrator: `That night it had all changed. Kor-el hadn't appeared and MAP had become worried; then, shortly before moonrise, he had heard the scream. He had known it was a death cry; he had known too that it was hers.`

 We see MAP pacing, looking concerned, before finally he begins to doze off into sleep, and then a hideous scream wakes him from his slumber.

 Scene II

 The camera zooms through the window and speeds like an eagle with the rushing sound of wings attending its flight to the scene of the murder, and it arrives just in time to see the shadowy form beside the body of Kor-el.

 Narrator: `By the time they found her she was dead; the culprit hadn't even tried to escape. He was naked, but for his now limp 'weapon'. MAP knew then that someone had been watching as he and Kor-el had made love. This one must have wanted to see what all the fuss was about and, ever-willing to please, she'd agreed; but these beasties were just too damned big for a little girl like her: it must, MAP had considered, have been pleasurable to contemplate but, in practice, the pain would have been excruciating. Her partner couldn't really be blamed for what had happened, likely as not he'd probably been too far gone to stop: this, it had to be remembered, had been his 'first time' too.

 Act XII

 Scene I

 MAP is standing in the shadow of the great ferns during the narration. He speaks to camera.

 `We`re waiting for justice to be done. The guilty party now stands with his head bent forward over the punishment stone; the leader strikes the necessary blow.`

 We see the scene enacted as MAP describes it. Although it`s not as the viewer expects. The culprit is having his penis shortened. As before, it`s up to the director how graphic the scene is but the essential elements conveying the meaning of the scene need to be addressed so that the content is expressed to the audience. After a few brief phrases which, to me, are inaudible, the group leaves the scene. MAP strides over to the chopping block.

 MAP: `The tissue specimen I have sought.`

 Once again we see the image of Ourobouros flashing through MAP`s brain.

 MAP: `What further significance could it have that I`ve missed? Ah! It comes to me.`

 MAP clutches his head as if to will the information he needs into consciousness. He begins to think speak his thoughts to the viewing audience looking into the screen and, although the audience hear the words, MAP`s lips do not move as he gazes expressively at the point of the viewer`s interaction with the scene.

 MAP: `The self-devourer and self-begetter is, looked at from a further angle, the tail eater! If I needed convincing, this has done the trick. It won't be long, I`m sure now, before the procedure I have just witnessed becomes institutionalized. It will be a long time, however, before circumcision denoted merely an excessive preoccupation with hygiene or an archaic religious bias. It will, I imagine, take millennia for Woman to appear. How long, then, will it be before men are born who don't need to be surgically 'adapted'?

 Scene II

 A curious dislocation in which MAP puts his recorder into his mini-lab pack as though he`s been using it, although he`s been in direct thought speech link with the audience apparently. Transposed upon his features for a few seconds is the face of Kor-el smiling gently until her visage fades into MAP`s own.

 Act XIII

 Scene I

 MAP stands by a monitor watching the 'bot docs working on Rob`s inert form. The audience hears him think speaking to them as if it`s a recording from his mini lab pack, although he pays no attention to the viewer, but constantly adjusts  the controls, zooming in and selecting different camera angles to watch as the robot doctors endeavor to restore life to Rob`s inert body.

MAP: `It had been relatively simple, once I'd gotten the idea of thinking himself into the WSBs headquarters, to get the chief's permission for a spot of temporal manipulation. The armed medical squad waited while, in a room along the corridor, Rob had sacrificed himself to send the earlier MAP back to meet and greet the rapt people of the Mesozoic period. I`d gambled that Rob's brain would have remained intact and, as that had been so, they would be able to rebuild him.`

 Scene II

 Pat hadn`t been pleased to see him, and the viewers are privy to the interview scene at which we see MAP grinning at her disapproval as he attempts to persuade her with facts she knew nothing of. She calms visibly and becomes more happily attentive.

 MAP: `Thanks to the renewed importance of our joint projects, Authority will be taking no action against your faction. It will take, I feel sure, only a few days for the implications of what you have brought back to the 22nd century to have its impact on the medical establishment. The Great Wheel is turning again for both man and woman. It is my hope that, this time, the transition can be effected without trauma.There could be many difficult phases to withstand. If I aren't able to forewarn them, I perceive that the males of this species will undoubtedly go mad during what we now know is the retractile stage of the race cycle in which the male genitals retreat.

 Scene III

 We see time lapse cinematography focusing in on MAP`s penis shrivelling up before, drawing his testicles after it, it disappears into his groin.

 MAP: `No way you could cope with that without councilling!`

 Narrator: `For a while the separatists would have what they wanted; at least until the male vagina had become functional.`

 Pat: `I will help now. I agree that, although women will, for a while, be able to fertilize themselves with their newly grown penis, this is a transitional phase. Some conjecture that evolution intends them to have cocks of their own to suck as a means of defeating slavery.`

 MAP: `I give that theory a lot of credence. It might, I hope, be nature's way of forcing men and women apart forever by polarizing their sexualities. But how will Rob and the 'brotherhoods' take it? God only knows.`

 MAP gazed at the screen and the audience hear him speak think to no one and nothing in particular.

MAP: `Rob loves me; but do I love Rob? Love is something to think about.`

 Scene IV

 The body on the raised dais being worked on by the robot doctors surges upwards from its recumbent position for a few seconds and looks to where MAP is watching through the glassed in enclosure that separates the medicos from the observers. Rob`s eyes are preternaturally intense and very blue as if his entire spirit is concentrated there before he smiles and relaxedly resumes his place beneath the ministrations of the doctors.

 MAP speak thinks to the room.

 `The robot doctors are more human than the humans because they care more for the humans than the humans. I`m more human than you`d at first glance suppose.`

THE END

Bright, R. 'Taken up By The Raptor', JustFiction! Edition, January 2019.