Ahmed enters slowly, looking sad.
AHMED. There are a lot of you! There’s a terrible lot of you! And me, Ahmed, I’m just one! I could fancy that I’m the lone eagle soaring above a flock of sheep! Look at Ahmed soaring and watching the fattest one among you with his golden eye! I’m going to swoop down! The one is going to swoop down, with his beak of one surging forth, and attack the whole plump lot of you.
Improvisation of the lone eagle.
Damn, it isn’t working. My giant’s wings prevent me from eating. If I eat some of the plumpest of the lot that you are, I’ll only be making a mess of meat and feathers and beak for the one that I am, still one, still the lone one among the many survivors. Poor eagle Ahmed perched here alone, and you all, whether eaten or not, still so many! What a misfortune always to be one in the labyrinth of the numerous multiple!
From this point on, Ahmed speaks faster and faster, while slowing down at the end of each paragraph, like a bird that takes off, alights, takes off again, etc.
I’m one. The ultimate misfortune. But but but. But. But I’m one what? One Ahmed? Ahmed’s only a name. A name that a lot of others have, too. Many are the Ahmeds, and Moustache, the awful Moustache, often says in the reinforced concrete town square of Sarges-les-Corneilles that there are too many Ahmeds in France. If there are too many, there are lots of them, not just one. Me, Ahmed, I’m numerous in my name, and not one! Perched here is the flock of the many Ahmed eagles above the many plump sheep! No lonely meal! A feast! A banquet! Hooray for the many with the name of everyone! … Uh-oh! Everyone! Every one. One of each. Every Ahmed with the name of several Ahmeds is one. Many are the everyones, but every everyone is one.
But but but. But. But one what, if the name Ahmed doesn’t make one, since it’s the name of several, and even of many? Of numerous everyones. Let’s examine the thing. Let’s examine the one. I’m examining myself. It’s the exam. The examination of the one. The exam-one-ation.
Ahmed to the audience, looking ferocious.
Examine yourselves too, you bunch of many ones! You’re only everyones! No kidding! One thinks one is many, and one is only a heap of ones, a lumping together of every one! Time for the exam-one-ation, my little many ones!
The Ahmed one has a nose. There’s no doubt about it. Am I a nose? Ahmed-nose? Ahmed-schnoz? Get to know your noses, please! It’s time for “Know Your Nose.” What does the scientific examination of the nose tell you? Exactly: the nose has two nose-holes, not one. The nose is two, not one. Am I two holes? Ahmed-two-holes, Ahmed nose-nose? … Ahmed knows the two of the nose, you know what I’m saying? A tiny little many, the two, the smallest of all the many, comes out of my one. Its fragrance fills my nostrils.
Two, frankly, isn’t so many. It’s two times one, two. It’s hardly more than one. It almost is one. If you were two, would I say that there were a lot of you? The force of the nostril isn’t that great. They take the air out of me, these nostrils.
But but but. But inside each nostril, what is there? Examine the inside of your nostrils, please. With a little stick, because with the fingers it’s gross. Or even with a very clean big stick.
Ahmed picks his nose with his stick.
There’s a whole pile of wonderful little dried boogers in the right nostril. And I’m sure there are as many or almost as many in the left nostril! And, all the way at the back, there’s some snot! Some beautiful foamy snot, like the sea on the sand! And a forest of little hairs, soft as spring lambs! How big the population of each nostril is! How nicely they keep me company! How nice it is that I’m no longer alone or one.
Ahmed picks his nose furiously.
I’m almost sure that the dried boogers and the foamy snot and the amazing hairs are as plentiful in my nose of Ahmed-one as you are in this theater. Wait! Wait a minute! Another one! Another four in the left nostril! And if I cut the hairs with a pair of scissors, there’d be a mob! A demonstration in the streets! A gigantic parade of hairs! More, more!
And in each hair, what is there, huh? I’d really like to know what there is in each hair! A mess of delicious shit, I’m just sure of it! Ah, for a microscope to study each hair of the hairy demonstration that comes out of my nostrils! My stick for a microscope! And in the foamy snot what is there, huh? Examine the snot, if you will! In the foamy sea on the sand there are crayfish and soles and oysters, knives, plastic bottles, tar, shrimps, seaweed, fleas, periwinkles, clam chowder and starfish, urchins in cream sauce and rotted sharks’ teeth! There’s a whole world inside the wave that carries you along. Just thinking about it exhausts me, this whole world washed up by the least little wavelet on the smallest patch of sand. Wow, I’m beat.
But but but. But in the snot at the back of one of the nostrils of my single nose of the Ahmed-one that I am, it’s worse! An overwhelming calamity! Bacillae of every shape, little hairy beasts, scrawny microbes, sickly white globules, gluttonous macrophages, viruses, some of them inactive, some still active! A colossal mob! An entire electorate that votes in the snot for the stability of a single one of my nostrils! Listen, I give up. In the tiniest recess of this supposed one, there are the many and the many of the many. There are billions and billions of multicolored particles! Help! The one is being eaten up everywhere by the ravenous many! Ahmed all by himself is a billion times more numerous than you! You’re the ones, I’m the ever bigger multitude.
But but. But, in each of the thousands of microbes borne along by the foamy snot, what is there? Loads and loads of cells and then molecules and then atoms … Enough, enough! Let’s not examine anymore, please. All sticks out of noses, please. It’s finally a little hard to be so many in one’s one. In one’s every one. It’s swarming! Hey, I gotta go to sleep. I don’t know if they’re going to sleep too, the multitude in my nostrils, but me, Ahmed-one, when I sleep, I sleep.
Ahmed speaks very drowsily.
But but. But when I sleep, I’m not even one. I’m no longer anything. Either nothing or too many! Whatever! That’s just how it is. One is never one. One is always too many. Everyone is too many. Every one is between zero and too many. That’s how it is. That’s how it is.
Ahmed leaves as sad as when he entered.