The Last Dregs
The play started to be written three billion years ago. It took two billion years to write the first word. At first the phrases and sentences were short and boring but as it got into its stride the scenes began to spill over the page in increasing splendour.
The play was audacious, confident and the action was vibrant.
There were set-backs – theatres closed and on a few occasions the play was nearly lost altogether. It had to be rewritten from scrawled notes. Each time it bounced back in finer raiment, with a new cast and louder production – each time more brilliant.
Now we are reaching the last days of the run. The scenery is old and has lost its lustre and the cast is greatly reduced. They are all forgetting their lines.
Perhaps, when we have closed this theatre and destroyed all the written work, in some future age, a new play will be written from the scraps we leave behind and a new theatre will open even more lavish than this one has been.
We can but hope.
The Last Dregs
These are the last dregs of a summer’s play –
As the actors enter for the very last scene
To deliver their lines monotonously
And leave the stage without a bow;
As the audience rises
And heads for the exit
With glum faces and not a single clap;
As the curtain falls,
The lights dim,
The key is turned in the lock,
And there is not even
A spider left to spin its web –
Only dust and rust.
All the words have been said,
All the actions executed,
And the cast retired.
Those were the dregs –
A pale shadow of what once was
With jaded lines
And tattered costume –
Going through the motions one last time.
Never to be seen again.
Opher 1.11.2016
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A kind of global version of Shakespeare’s ‘7 Ages of Man’ speech. We are indeed bad actors mumbling old lines we don’t understand or believe in …
As humans play out their last hand in the game of cards – playing the hand they are dealt.
Some finesse required, alas …
Let’s hope we don’t get trumped! – Sorry!! Couldn’t resist.
Reblogged this on Opher's World and commented:
It sometimes feels as if we are in the last dregs.