Translations
Dictateur Perpetuel (French)
Dicatus Perpetuus (Portuguese)
Dictatus Perpetuus (Spanish)

1st. Act
( Medieval room with a long and high platform: on top of the platform a long desk, spacious enough for 13 chairs, the middle one being tall with elaborated classic back; 30 student desks at some distance from the platform; a side door high and wide by the platform; a glass back wall to a backyard full of trees which may be of the pot implanted ones).

First get in the professors together with the dean, the last one academically dressed with cape to somehow differentiate him from the rest of the other professors; they sit down at the long desk, with the dean at the middle chair; then come in the 20 students, who sit in the first of their desks, leaving the other ones empty; the students through the books and school material on their desks in deliberate mess, to show disrespect.

After sitting down, the students suddenly get up and encircle, trying to cover him up, John; the scene lasts about three minutes, silently, to the surprise of the professors, who look among themselves and to the dean, stultified, who was going to speak when the students got up and encircled John, who remains sitting down. Quickly the students disperse casually by all the desks, leaving some of them empty, picking up their books and school materiel. When there is silence and not allowing the dean to speak, again, who was getting again ready to do so, John jumps off one of the first desks where he has sat gives two steps towards the platform and looking straight forward at all the professors, very rigidly, starts).

Scene 1
John (in a proclamation tone, fast and high)
-Keep your miserable books, together with your ignominious conscience: We, your children, reject you; we are ashamed of your ways; what do you pretend: That we live condemned to die without hope like you? No, we won't; your cancer(which you carry with you, which you deceive and entertain with the pills of your culture, which slowly kills you) will be for us a bullet we'll carry in our brain, and will condemn us to a certain death; with the sentence of growing children who will continue us and whose condemnation we can't imagine when the time comes to pass them the culture you afford yourselves to delegate us. It is time to stop to cheat yourselves- so many times with the nostalgia of the long ago moment when you, yourselves, wanted to revolt against the imposition of culture from your own parents and you coward yourselves to resignation because of the difficulties, which you meanly, although you knew it wasn't true, postulate of insurmountable, believing yourselves misunderstood genius being victimized martyrs in the arena of Caesar; and you wish to calm us; I don't speak to you only in our behalf of our children: It's from them, if not only from us, that we fear judgment; isn't yours the doctrine of the species struggle? We are defending ourselves. We know right now all too well how do you feel to want to feel to want to feel to want to feel like it ever; put your heads up, if you can, look upon us and condemn us, as we condemn you; isn't that yours the doctrine that the accused shall have the head down and the judge be allowed to look upon him? If you were so many times tempted by our solution, if you desired to correct you initial mistake (the sin you attribute to Adam and Eve) you only have one way out of this- help us: because if you don't you'll lose yourselves and not even your saying of dying with honor you may save; but if you don't do it you lose yourselves because we won't stop or spare your own lives; it's over for you, the kettle boiled over, it's blowing up. The moment you were scared of has arrived; nothing will be able to save your world, your own children condemn you to burn it or die with it. We lost enough time, your game of life puzzle is over; we refuse to continue your centuries old task of executors of the majority; we are in strike against your teachings, we refuse to participate in the public and private "thing", we'll make your intentions perish and we'll teach our children the limpid and real truth. Now, call your executors, those famished agents of your law and order, who scare and reprehend, once it's not enough for you to send them against indefensible people fully armed, we'll see who wins.

(All students run away screaming through the door in the back wall to the backyard, except John, who stays in the front of the dean and the professors; all the books and school materiel were tore up by the students in the last scene; pencils broken, ink all over the desks, in anarchic disorder)
Finally, after a tomb's silence falls into the room, the professors get their heads up, but seeing the dramatic figure of John they get startled, heads go up and down, in obvious bad feeling and, starting with the dean, they show signs of not being able to withstand the scene any longer. At last, walking calmely but firmly, John gets off by the right side door, by the long professors desk, door typical of the Middle European Age, high and wide enough to let through mounted horsemen, when laying their heads slightly.

Scene 2
(After the curtain comes down on scene l, the curtain of the side scene gets up, looking to a regular street with l968 cars parked between buildings, where John shows up rushing somewhere. From outside an anguished cry from Mary is heard calling John; they meet right at the end of the street in between the last two buildings. On the meanwhile people go by without noticing John and Mary, except for the few who look back when Mary screams for John, but understandings she is calling him keep walking in both directions, crossing the street, getting in buildings and disappearing; few motorcycles and adults on bikes go by, being that the few cars are parked. Mary, who comes in sweaty and tired, drags John in the last two buildings right in the front of the scene; first Mary pushes John by an arm; John, arms down and reprovingly thoughtful; then Mary both her arms on John arms.)

(Mary-John run away, John: You are the students association's president, you are the one known as the head of the revolt; how know already of your speech at the opening ceremony of the school year to the teachers and the dean at the university - I heard it over the university radio station; you are lost John, I heard from my father's mouth when talking to his friends at home last night; they said that not even your father, as cabinet minister, can save you: You gone be arrested and sentenced harshly in court to set an example to the other students; all the other association's members are going to be sentenced, some heavier than others, to jail. Run away John, your life is in serious danger, they try to kill you in the confrontations between you students and the police. For the love you have for me run away John to Paris or London, until you have a chance, as the authorities discovered the ties you have to the labor movement and they affirm that only by death you will leave the socialist virus you obtained; run away my love, perhaps it's true that the movement is not yet ready enough and latter on, without the sacrifice of yours and countless other lives, we all will have the success so cheered.

John (in firm and indomitable tone, but a little lecturing and amicable) - No Mary, we don't all want that success you mentioned; to prove we want it we have to face the maximum danger and without that proof we'll not temper ourselves to face life squarely, as soft and half-death it is now, and the moment to resist will never come; no, we can not go back, that we have been doing for a long time and now we are prepared to face the worst; the propaganda gave the right result, we turned the public opinion in our favor; no, I'll not run away, truth and justice is with us, not with them; reality is ours, theirs is the morbid fantasy; ours is the youthful and well wishing, they only have their ugly one; no, we'll not give away our spirit to have them work it the usual way to submission, we'll not allow them to turn us into machines and we are not scared of being devoured by the labyrinth monster. The mask has fallen, long live the revolution! (last words in a scream.

Mary(now in desperate cries and tears)

- No, run away John: Already the horse riders of nightmare gallop to prosecute you; look at them faraway (points out), on the run, with brilliant and naked swords, they want to soak them in your blood, they take you life away (at this moment faraway galloping is heard of several horses, coming near and near by the minute.)

John (who starts to run the same way he came)

-Good by Mary, you'll hear from me, but don't think I'm a coward.

Mary (in screaming and tearful more and more louder cries)

-John, stop John, don't you want to see your child I'm bearing? Do you wish to die without seeing him?

John(who stops all of a sudden, like he was fulminated by the news, returns running even harder, with altered expression, not being able to surpass his emotion, tragically facing Mary, very serious, even more than usual, visibly shaking)

No, it's not possible, I don't want it! Repeat what you just said?

Mary(crying and being shaken by John with both hands)

-Yes John, it's true, nothing will avoid it, that I'll not allow it! Happens what will happen; choose John, choose between: I, your son and your life, or your death and the revolution.

John(who fights desperate and drastically with himself, tremendously emotional and sweating suddenly, after a minute's silence)

No Mary, life is ours, either we smile at it or it will disdain us.
Mary(as before)

-You lost John, but remember: I always will love you, happens what happens.

(they kiss for a long time and separate from each other, then John runs two steps and runs back to kiss her again. Finally, arms extended to each other, facing themselves, John backup a few steps and slowly turns around starting to run, Mary staying still with her arms extended towards him crying convulsively in a goodbye without an end, falling ever so slowly to sir down, position she stays in with her head in her lap, all curved, weeping endless and sorrowfully till John disappears in the end of the street, the horse riders go by at gallop and the curtain falls.

2nd. Act
(At the first scene; the professors arguing and the students in a melee, which does not let the teachers be heard, all in big activity which does not quite make sense; John comes in by the side door running and wary; stops for a moment to look reproachfully at the professors and gets off to the backyard by the wall door; calls the other students by gestures, with weak voice, not being noticed at first when he can force them to pay attention incites the students to resist the horse riders)

John (loud in a commanding voice, with the professors listening in silence)

-Boys, boys: The executors follow me, lets resist them. I came back to warn you. Everybody to his post and ready.

(The horsemen are heard to arrive; the first horses' heads are seen through the room's side door. The commander of the force comes forward and the men also dismount and let the horses away; the commander confers with the dean, who seems not to want the police to do its job, but after shown a written order by the lieutenant shakes the shoulders and by gestures, once the voices inside the room are not being heard with all the noise around, invites the professors to get out of the scene; in the meantime the students take positions behind the trees and with John in charge, get ready to fight. After the professors leave the room, the lieutenant forms the men, about l5, and in front of them, right hand in a peace sign, approaches the backyard; he comes with a pistol in the holster and naked sword in his left hand, pointing down)

Lieutenant(in proclamation tone, however not harsh, asking for understanding)

-Students, give yourselves up; we not coming to do you harm; we only want to arrest and question you, as a mere formality.

(Big yelling of the resisters, who answer with insults and screams of "never")

-we'll only detain John Castelo e Silva and let the others go free; those are my orders.

(higher yelling from the students, who throw rubber stones at the horsemen, which force the lieutenant to retreat in his old fashion military attire, without avoiding some of the stones, which also hit the glass back door and break some of it. After which the lieutenant commends the men to charge with naked swords, but the same thing happens, three times charging, three times retreating, each time more and more hit, as stupidly the men don't rationalize enough to completely open the back wall, going three at a time in the usual formation through the only open part of the door in the wall, being received by a rain of rubber stones every time they try to reach the trees, where the students positioned themselves, mishap from which the horsemen are unable to defend themselves,

even because of the heavy attire, which makes it hard for them just to move around; the confrontation lasts about 10 minutes and at last the lieutenant, who has been in command and due to the impossibility to arrest the resisters, gives order to the men to go back to the barracks)

Scene 2
(Inside the room, the students, who come in tired but all smiles, still carrying stones)

John (who screams to make himself heard, as everybody screams and jokes)

-Boys: Lets get out of here before the police with tear gas and machine guns shows up, because against those the stones don't stand a chance. Everyone has to hide himself for a few days as best as possible, because we all been marked, especially myself, as they want to exterminate us at all costs. Quick, lets beat it!

(when they go through the side door they a guy about 30 years old who gestures to the outside calling someone; they recognize a colleague and they understand his rule in guiding a police force in riot gear; the closest ones pull him to the room screaming "death to the spy" and everybody starts to kick him until he lays in the floor; in the mean while some of the students go to the back yard to pick up stones to through at the policemen, together with the ones they already had; the policemen, very clumsy, get in the room all at once(not having to dismount, as they did not use horses to get around, they are pedestrians), not putting any distance between them and the students, who start to through stones at them right there. Big confusion results from that and the policemen lose their best chance to arrest any student, as they catch one but are beaten by another and in the end they alone get punished. The scene lasts for about l0 minutes in high yelling and screaming; then is heard the horn of an arriving car, hard braking; comes in the room, for a silent calm and silent, a gentleman of middle age and people say "his excellency, the minister"; he goes to talk to the police lieutenant, who out of respect tells the policemen to get out)

The minister(in calm and fatherly voice)
-John, my son, this gentleman is following orders, give yourself up, as nobody is going to harm you; and you, students, all go home quietly, that you will be called in due time to court to testify (the university students get out)

John(in a slightly angry and very surprised tone)
-But papa, you are putting me in the hands of my executors, which they could not accomplish by themselves, as we managed to hold on.

The minister(in a persuasive tone)
-John, try to understand, I'll explain to you the details latter: The chief of government threatened me with demission if I can not turn you in and that you'll be amnestied, after due justice course. Watch what you are going to do, all of us at home reproach you conduct and Tony's father (your classmate), judge of the supreme court, just committed suicide so not to condemn his own only son, because he knew what was going to happen to the son.

John (reproachful and loudly)

That's it, you only concerned with your position and family; if Tony's father committed suicide that's because was the only way out and you are going to have to do the same very soon - the monster charges everybody blood's interest, canon fodder, sweat and suicide "in extremis"; don't be mistaken, you just turning me in for holocaust, right now.

(To the lieutenant, who pulled handcuffs, to which the father gives a negative signal)

-I know how to behave like a man(once you the older people and supposed to be responsible) don't, follow me.

(Curtain)

3rd. Act
(Common court room with public made up of students and workers; lawyers semi-sleepy: Ferociously individualists and extremely self-sufficient or subservient, now extremely conciliatory then extremely antagonists, very religiously for the political system, fascist, luring their promotions, very propitiatory to turn insignificant details to facts of intransigence against fascism, giving relevance to second hand facts to explain the advance sentence, well of everybody knowledge (only them acting like they would not know that and trying to make believe they live an objective reality), trying to show a logic illusion. Among them only the defense attorney comes alive, fascism resisters, a little philanthropic, private law practitioner and one of the very few to take such cases of political prisoners, as such without illusions about the results of such trials, only trying to lessen the effects of the hurricane, human force impotent against the brute force of the elements in full blast; long speech which confine themselves eternally about the same theme of pre-determined sentence in vicious circle , which render even the flies to sleep, and only excite the speaking district attorney - always hoping to be noted by the supervisors to be promoted for doing an exceptional job; the other associates bounce their heads with sleep, thinking about their private lives and simulating to pay attention to the "illustrious colleague" their heads going up and down with sleep and using that as a "yes" sign. Now and then there is a very angry voice, from someone who cannot any longer

stand the villainies heard, screaming against the lies of the district attorney, who presents the accused, John da Costa e Silva, as "the red dragon" completely debauched, he "himself already confessed to have seduced the innocence of the well to do Miss Mary da Conceicao Helen Rosario da Silva, et cetera", voice that automatically makes the presiding judge to order silence not to evacuate the room completely and many times orders the bailiff, these in great numbers, to arrest the person who dared to insult the court in the person of the district attorney, such a dignified and illustrious representative of the court, detail which generates a tumultuous episode, as everyone says "I did not say anything" in a confusion of disorder; in due time the defense lawyer is admonished to moderate himself in his wrong words, which affect the court (to which he argues that such words are necessary to the defense of his client); all of which makes part of the process, once such defense attorneys cannot be detained as they make part of the illusion of the judicial process and they always hope to save someone's life. "Words which diverge from the main subject". The scene shall make believe that the case is coming to an end. Present are Mary, who cries convulsively in her all black dress and veil, in a sign of mourning for John, and the last's father, not any longer in the Cabinet, grayish before his time, in contrast with the first time he showed up, not so well dressed and profoundly sorry looking)

1st. Scene
District attorney(in a auto-sufficient and peremptory tone, like one who is conscious of his position in life, emphatically superior)

-Illustrious gentlemen: As for several sessions I have been pointing out to you and I'm profoundly aware of your intelligent understanding, the accused, a young, vicious man, seducer of one, may be more, virtuous, innocent, gifted and exemplar young lady, whose name I refrain to mention in such a public place as this, but who is present, closed in the mourning black of her pain without limit as criminally cheated...

(anonymous voice from the public of "assassin" - hammer and automatic voice of the presiding judge: "Bailiff, please arrest the individual who so infamously insulted the dignified and illustrious district attorney". One of the bailiff goes toward the public in the hypothetical direction of the voice and tries to arrest a man, who argues "I did not do it", which causes grand confusion as this man says it was someone in the front rows and the bailiff tries to arrest another one in the front rows, who repeats the same allegation to the front rows; furious hammer of the presiding judge, who warns in angry voice: "silence, or I'll order to evacuate the room". Finally, one man is taken away by the bailiff and the silence is restored. In such occasions the other accusation attorneys wake up, their heads full of sleep, frightened and seeming to have fallen from another planet)

-criminally, I was saying; the young man condemned, who also could have served the cause of God, Country and Family,

(liquid and disdainful look from John, who only a few times looks at the district attorney and while he speaks simulates being asleep)

-who is not anymore than the dirt of our society; consequence of the influence, which he voluntarily accepted, of the worst filth of our distinguished society.

(voice from the public of "garbage man" and repetition of the preceding melee)

-the accused, I was saying, who disdains the wise lessons of his illuminated and dignified teachers, preparing him for the saint national mission
young voice from the public from a student of "cretin" and same melee as before)
-accepts, in part influenced by the misguiding contacts of foreign youth, through the local student's association, the communist lessons from Moscow, and teaches the universal Bolshevik apocalypse. Crystalline and irrefutable proof? I have the honor to present to your excellencies the dignified witnesses who arrested him.

Defense attorney(in dignified, but tiresomely without illusion)

-I pray, your excellency, presiding judge, to be good enough to pay attention to the fact that the district attorney, as a great demagogue he is, keep presenting to us witnesses "a posteriori" of the evolution of the case of the accused, being that my client, did not want anymore than democratic reform of the actual principles and that, concomitantly, the witnesses (and obviously very suspicious in their reliability by their answers' logic) may only confirm that an arrest is never the cause of the process on trial, as self explanatory.

Presiding judge(in a totalitarian-peremptory tone)

-I ask the defense attorney to restrain his speech, which only diverge from the case, so I won't be forced to punish him, for insulting the principles of this court.

(Everybody screaming and presidential hammer to impose silence)

District attorney(to the first witness, the lieutenant)

-Do you know the accused?

First witness(in a peremptory militarist tone)

-Perfectly well, sir; when I arrives to arrest him I found him mutinying the other students against law and order with truly communist words, being that he commanded the armed insurrection and hurting many of the policemen I was commanding to arrest him.

Furthermore, and in the service of the country, I should inform you that I was forced, for the first time in my life in such popular repression, to order my men to retreat, faced with the enemy's strategy, which placed us in off guard.

Defense attorney

-Do you like, lieutenant, to describe for us the details of the confrontation and how did you find the place when you got there?

First witness

-Please be good enough to know, sir, that the students threw stones at us from behind the trees; at us, the representatives of law and order, without respect for the authority from our uniforms; as to the place when we got there it was, as follows: In the main room, where we concentrated, at the side where we dismounted, there were only the professors, the students where in the courtyard, hiding behind the trees, which motivated our retreat, as we were taken by surprise; they were very silent and hiding.

Defense lawyer

-and was then, lieutenant, that you arrested John da Silveira?

First witness

-Yes, sir; that is, after I invited the Professors to come out and the dean refused to do so, but he got convinced by the written order I had on me.

Defense lawyer

-Thank you, lieutenant, I'm satisfied; dignified members of the court: Please note all the evident contradictions of the first witness of this session.

Public attorney

-I protest your honor, I protest against the capacious way my colleague mixed up the witness and extracted from him information which he did not want to divulge.

Presiding judge(in a monochord tone of voice)

-ruled, ignore the declarations of the witness during the second part.

(voices from the public of "fascist" and repetition of the described scenes in such instances)

Public attorney(to the second witness, a policeman)

-Do you know the condemned?

Second witness(with a very rustic aspect)

-Yes, your honor.

Public attorney(in a pleasing tone)

-Please tell me what you know about him

Second witness(in a learnt lesson tone)

-When we "get" there to the campus there were "red books" thrown all over the desks

of the classroom... which were tear up (which the teachers did because of the color of the books, so that the students would not read books prohibited by law); I mean I read the title of one of the books and it said there about Russia and Joseph, the sawyer, the one with the big mustache.

About knowing him, knowing him (what is there to know about him?) they say that even his father, when he was minister, was crazy about females...

(small laugh from the public)

but this is for the gentlemen of high society

(he says this phrase turned to the assisting public, in a semi-confidential, semi-reprovingly tone)

with respect to the respect that's where the big shame came in: They dishonored our uniform and beaten me so bad that even my damn old lady got very satisfied when she saw me at home, saying that it was to pay for the ones I give her

(more volunteer laughs from the public)

'cause she wants me to go out to steal to give her things, but I don't belong to the business fines' squad, and if I'm not able, I'm not able

(big laugh from the public, hidden smiles from the attorneys and inquisitive look from the witness, who starts to become mad)

Defense attorney

-May be the witness saw the books at the classroom from Karl Marx, Stalin or Lenin?

Public attorney

-Object your honor, I object against the improper form with which the defense counselor pretends to mislead the witness.

Defense lawyer(anticipating the judge, who looked favorably inclined to rule for the State)

-Object as much as you like, because I'm taking off if I'm not allowed to work by legal means

Judge(seemingly afraid of the defense lawyer quitting)

-Objection over ruled; the witness to continue.

Second witness(in an automatic and very responsive tone)

No sir, only the ones I already mentioned, from Joseph, the carpenter, rest in peace.

Defense lawyer(in a most understanding voice)

-Poor fellow, already died?

Second witness(in a more intimate tone)

-yes, sir, that he would be today well over 90 years old,

(afflictive gestures from the public attorney to stop him, but the policeman does not him from such angle, because the defense lawyer covers him up)

-if he even went to school with my deceased father!...

(loud voices from the public of "get the hell out of here!", and the same disorder when such happens)

Defense attorney

-Thank you, I'm satisfied.

(turning to the court)

-Gentlemen: You, yourselves, agree with the prepared ineptitude of this one more witness, so, please, I beg of you to concede the "veredictum" in favor of the accused in this invalid trial...

Judge(not letting finish the defense attorney and in a very severe warning tone to him)

-I recall the attention of the defense attorney to his words and used tactics which may bring him serious consequences.

Defense attorney(in a angry voice)

-If you, sir, don't allow me to speak in defense of the accused "this" won't have a defense, that I'll quit; please let the record show that I protest against the illegal ways of this court.

Public attorney(in high pitch)

-I object your honor, I object of the ways the defense lawyer improperly goes about, even insulting, my witness and his simple minded speech...

Second witness(in an offended voice)

-This is too much, a man comes here to be called names? Inept is the defense attorney and all his family: I'm the father of a little girl and my old lady can witness to that!

Defense attorney(in a kidding tone, imitating the public attorney)

I object, your honor, I protest; the witness, the illustrious policeman, just insulted the court, insulting me; please proceed.

Judge

-Bailiff: please arrest the defense attorney..., I mean, the witness.

Second witness(in a very angry tone)

-Hell! Now they arrest me? Was for that my lieutenant taught me what to say and asked me to come?

(the policeman gets thrown out by the bailiff, saying the above last sentence)
Public attorney

-I object your honor, I object: The witness was obviously exploited by the defense attorney: I beg that only the first part of the testimony be mentioned in the record

Judge

-So ruled and let this last deposition be a lesson to the defense lawyer.

John(getting up, pale and tormented and in a tone now peremptory, than melancholic, then dispraisingly, as applicable)

-Lets finish with this clownishness: I'm the principal student in this process of extra-judicial trial, I'll nor reveal name of anyone else, even for more that I'll be tortured; I don't recognize any miserable witness for the prosecution or the validity of this court, witnesses which already came to this court in higher numbers than the policemen used to finish off the try for freedom which we, the young people, once you older ones are so disgusting, to say the least...

(furious hammer of the judge, which John ignores at the start)

-no, I'll not be quite until I finish what I have to say, even if I'll have to swallow this pill (I'm not scared of what you'll do to me now, I know you already condemn me), pill which will be better than all the torture I already have suffered and I will suffer and that being that if I'm not here there will be no trial, so much of your low intentions to justify the system, by calling it democratic.

(again the judge's hammer and applause from the public)

-I have the right to say what about in my own defense and the clear truth. I know your laws ( I studied them), which you only know to promulgate to serve your purposes and to oppress de majority of this country's people.

(applause from the public and hammer)

-your laws, let it be civil or ecclesiastical, which no people with a minimum of political consciousness could freely accept, but you impose them by force

(furious public's applause and hammer)

-as such, what kind of standard may they have? They only irritate and make laugh, they look like black ghosts with wings, as you are full of fantasy, but yours is the horrendous fantasy of the monsters.

(public's applause)

-As to my very personal life, as a normal male, I guarantee you I don't play Don Juan with checking account in the bank: I never try to explain the "happenings", you know what I mean, about your conquests of females, with the excuse of "c'est la vie", I never seduced any of my maids with money, to buy human bodies;

(hammer, feminine crying and applause, which are louder than the latter, from the public)

-Not withstanding that I never needed yours gifts of money to be loves; love truly shared, as a matter of fact, as I have more and better than you, as I have the real human values (and which ones do you have? But the not human, of course, the human beast ones, and of the most atrophied kind); yes, continue to sell your daughters to the best party in marriage, to the best jobbers, as you're not far from the monarchic abhorrence; or what represents your Holly Church?

Hide behind your spiritual values, which are your best achieved torpor, continuing to applaud eternal dictatorships, as you'll have always the middle class to stand up for you, until one day you will have to respond to the ones which you so miserably and indignantly are supposed to represent; don't forget, the wheels of History never stops, as never has been seen (unfailing variation) man enslaved to the machine; cry and desperate afterward, that the power evaporated out of your hands. On the meanwhile go on living with death in your souls and blame the others. But why force you to such penitence? I swore to myself do not open my mouth; that you, in your speech, nothing will admit; my sentence has been written well in advance - you are only funny ghosts representing a comedy, which is your life; you ostentatiously close your eyes, your ears, to the reality, drinking to the last drop the pleasures of every minute of the day by day, having an asphyxiating fear of the future, living from yesterday and today.

Condemn me, it is for that you are paid and for what you are here: Because you only obey orders? And what are you? Or do you think only to live to manure, afterwards, non productive cemeteries? For that there is no need for human beings, complex human beings! Yes, condemn me, but next commit suicide, or do something useful to society, which for the most part you only have been defrauding. Legislate, execute: But decently; remember that you are only a small part of the whole and human beings are organically equal; just because you assume you are still living in the Middle Age don't pretend to retrograde the rest of the people to the Stone Age - no, time can not go backwards, that is the first law of life, time never repeats itself, unless in nightmares; else, why was there so much work to discover the calendar? Let the Obscurantism behind, open your spirits to the light of science, you, who entitle yourselves scientists, but are no more than "sardine scientists", and similar, vaguely.

At last, if you want to give some signification to your lives choose: Either the suicide or the revolt, but don't, don't be so serious, don't look like philosophizers weighting transcendent question, because is as simple as water, you are the ones who make it difficult with your habit of the pseudo-science, which you know it is no more than the expression of your interests, only materialist and a tiny technical progress.

The question is, once for all (as you, yourselves say that is better late than never), arrive at it definitive and convincingly - don't go about it once again in the same routine (soon, after you finish this one more trial, when you get out that door, don't forget it, thinking about the way your wives are, that you are going to have such and such diner, that your colleague is lucky in his job, that you need this and that, et cetera) - yes, the question is to want or not to want.

Well, I'll finish; I know, I know I stole your precious time (time of wrong, magistrates, time to execute an obscure life, even at superior orders, not at all personalized time), that I bored you without having such right. I know all to well that there is nothing you can do about it, that there is no remedy or hope for your rotten wood, that such wood will never go back to the original condition; no, it is not the older people who will make the necessary change, but the youth; you 'll have to make kind of a boycott to the institutionalized powers, giving the young that chance.

Condemn me, as you can not do any otherwise, but remember that tomorrow you may have to condemn your own sons, that you may be in the same status as my unfortunate father

(grieving sigh from the last)

or that in the finishing lines of your lives you'll find suicide or lunacy as the only solution for all your lives.

Long live the liberty of humanity! (screamed)

(Long lives screams in the end of few seconds of silence in all of the courtroom, silence dictated by the delirium of the court from the above scream, public as well magistrates; long lives continued by the public, such as the spectators of roman legions' parades of war heroes, who next day could be dead in the battle field, heart warm applause by the public and judge's furious hammer, who seems to wake up from a bad nightmare, feeling bad. In the end of a few minutes the calm return to the courtroom.

Judge(in a matter of fact and fixed tone)

_In the face of the accused deposition, I believe, estimated members of the court, that there should be no doubt as to the sentence...

Court adjourned for jury deliberation.

(Cat calls from the public, which is forced out by the police; John is spanked and escorted to his cell)

IV Act
1st. Scene
(Courtroom again)

Judge
Gentlemen of the jury: You are the unbiased judges of the cause, have no pity; the death sentence already has been abolished for bandits of the worst kind, who certainly deserve it; great pity is to conserve life, even with forced labor, for condemned who are against God, Country and Family; by your faith please dictate the sentence.

(a member of the jury gets up, in a monochord tone, like the one who is saying a learnt lesson, but a little cold and compromised)

Member of the jury(facing the judge and the court, wearily)

-Dignified presiding judge, respectable court: The sentence is... condemned for life to concentration camp, at open space at all times, in the usual jail in Cape

Verde Islands.

(complete silence. Desperate scream from Mary, deep sorrowful from John's father and great disturbance from the public in protest; in the preceding silence John laughs loudly in sarcasm. The judge once more makes his hammer heard and declares the trial closed,in a phrase which is not heard in the general disorder.

The police again spanks the public, which runs in all directions, tumble all over the place and screams; some from the crowd are arrested by the police and taken out of the courtroom.

In the middle of all this John is spanked and thrown out of the room by the political police.

V Act
1st. Scene
(In the esplanade of a coffee house, at the table of university students)
1st. voice
Say, you guys: Do you remember that guy who was condemned for politics last year? A John something or other... The guy was tough, hey? But half crazy, was not he? Oh well, that's life...

Second voice

-Crazy and cretin are you, Merry go around.

Third voice

-There you go, talking nonsense.

Second voice

-But don't you see it's a matter of separating the wheat from the rest and...

Fourth voice

-There you go with the philosophy (these guys studying it at school are out of this world with that), keep it for yourself, man!

Second voice

-Well, with you guys nobody can talk, it's a matter of fact; I'm leaving.

Fourth voice

-Man, are you leaving because I told you you're intolerable?

Second voice

-No, I'm to know which is the measure of intolerance and who is that. I'm leaving because I don't want to happen to me what happened to Passos, who used to study Agronomy, who was talking in a coffee shop with an ass who enthusiastically psycho him up about local politics and in the end denounced him to a political policeman and Passos ended up in jail; I'm to know who are you and what will you do in politics.

(leaves with a worried and thoughtful look)

First voice

-Nice guy, but a little crazy, he wants to change the world in two days - if he just could change the weather, which is hot like the devil!

Fourth voice

-Going back to the same: Do you remember the girl of that so called John, nice and gorgeous girl, as a matter of fact, who passed out and everything when saying goodbye ao him at the pier, by the ship which took him overseas to jail? They say that her family never took her back home and she became a prostitute.

Arthur, that guy studying Engineering, was "fished" right there in the trial, the dumb bell could not escape without placing himself in the wolf's mouth (check if that guy over there is not paying too much attention to our conversation, may be the guy belongs to the political police...), and afterwards had a trial in closed door; a year in political prison, right to vote suspended and "security measures", that's what he gained; a poor devil, a failure who was in the last year of the curriculum last year and now is receiving pennies to park cars down there.

That's the way life goes in this country!

What a heat it is!

Hey, you, bring me another beer.

(to the old coffee shop employee, who goes by)

I'm done for, my old man does not want to raise my allowance and I can not live with so little.

Third voice

-Still you wanted to buy that "seven" (Austin): That the car is fantastic, it is OK; such a hot rod!... Such a cute mechanic! What about the gears?!...

And after all: The beauty of it all is that one engages such gorgeous girls with it (by the way: Did you know that Ms. Mary got such good looking "materiel" just arrived from the barn? Such first class babies and they never finish to get in from the barn, looks even like the stupid parents are only procreate them for us to delight ourselves to "have them"). But you need money, big money; that's life for a well to do son, who can even afford MG (car) and everything; I don't understand certain animals: This guy who just left: Even "chauffeur" has and his father got him a special new car; but then what: He gets into politics!...

(Curtain)

Perpetual Dictator
Copyright © 1995-1997 Edgar Perry. All rights reserved.