Ahmed, the Demon of the Cities.
The Demon, alone, is down on all fours on the stage. He shows his ass to the audience. He turns around, grimaces, walks on all fours like a dog sniffing the ground. A bit of play with this theme.
THE DEMON. Are you wondering what I’m doing, you bunch of yokels? I’m doing what you don’t do very often. I’m looking for an idea. There are people who think ideas are found way up high, almost in the sky. I know of a philosopher, a guy called Plato, a Greek, in other words a sort of Middle Eastern trafficker, who said that ideas floated in the air, next to the stars. What an ass, that Plato! Real ideas are the ones you find right on the ground, in the middle of the garbage and the dog shit. Once, I found a great idea. You know where? In a garbage can, between a diaper filled with shit and some rotten-smelling eggshells. An idea like you don’t find very often in life, even by sticking your nose in the trash like me. OK! You’re dying to find out what this idea was, huh? Usually, I don’t tell my ideas to anyone. You can’t trust anyone; you’ve got to stay barricaded in your house and keep your ideas in your wallet, the one you put under your pillow when you go to sleep. But this particular idea is an old one; I’ve completely used it up. I can give it to you. It’s a dog collar, with the tag, the name, the address … Yeah, I’ve got to tell you, the good ideas aren’t at all like that Middle Eastern guy I was just telling you about, the too famous Plato, claimed. They’re not invisible, celestial, and all that jazz. Like all Middle Easterners, this Plato was a stinking intellectual. Let’s face it: an idea has nothing ideal about it. It presents itself like a nice little piece of filth or a crumpled piece of paper or an apple core … So in this case we’re talking about a dog collar, and it says: “Rover, Property of Maurice Labouche, 5 Dog-breath Street, Sarges-les-Corneilles.” And the telephone number to call. This idea smelled good! Because just calling your dog “Rover” nowadays is about as dumb as you can get. Second of all, being a dog and living on Dog-breath Street is grotesque. Third of all, belonging to a guy who calls himself Maurice Labouche when you’re named Rover is appalling. But the best part of the idea, what made it really an idea, is that Maurice Labouche is my upstairs neighbor! Because I live on Dog-breath Street too, but I’m not a dog, I have the right! Mr. Four-eyes, this Labouche is—you know the lousy kind of liberal I mean. He even lets illegal Negroes into his house; it’s unbelievable! So I noticed that he got a new dog recently, this shithead Labouche. He had a horrible mutt, with long red ears, it must have been the Rover in question. And now he had a new awful mutt, the kind with little short white hair and a sad little mug, so sweet it made you want to throw up. I’m guessing you’re starting to get my idea, almost like it was you who found it rummaging through garbage cans. No? You don’t get it yet, my idea? Well then, I guess you all just aren’t idealists! Me, I’m a professional idealist, so I saw in a flash that the dog collar was an idea. You keep an eye out for Labouche’s new dog. Then one day he comes wandering around the stairwell and you lure him with some sugar. He’s so nice and dumb, this mutt, that he follows you into your apartment wagging his tail like the moron of a dog he is. Then you haul off and smash him over the head with a hammer. That right there, that’s the hardest part of the idea. But every good idea has some hard parts. A professional idealist like me isn’t going to be satisfied with simplistic ideas. Killing a mutt by bashing his head in with a hammer is a fairly complex idea, but it works out OK. You just have to pursue it to the end, because a dog isn’t going to drop dead just like that, after only one blow. That would make the idea too easy. No, he has a tendency to run all over the place, to get blood on the carpet, he moans, he quivers, he looks at you like he wants to ask you something … Anyway, you have to put your mind to it. Finally, he’s lying on the ground, with his noggin all smashed in and everything and his tongue sticking out like vomit. But the idea must prevail. So now you take his collar off. And you know what it says on the collar of this new mutt, with its owner’s ridiculous name, Labouche, and the address, and the phone number? It says: “Blackie.” Can you believe it? He’d called his first mutt “Rover” like some yokel from two hundred years ago, and his second mutt, who was all white, he calls “Blackie”! I should have smashed this Labouche guy’s head in. Which’ll happen once we’ve got a new mental order in this country. When idealists will get the reward we deserve. Anyway. Once I’ve ripped off the smoking collar of this Blackie, I replace it with Rover’s collar! I put the idea I found in the garbage can around his neck! And I leave the dead body of Blackie with Rover’s collar on Labouche’s doormat. Behold the brilliance of my idea! Imagine Labouche! When he discovers his mutt all smashed in and covered in blood! He bends down! He kneels over the body! He cries! He wants to make sure! He looks at the collar! And before his very eyes he sees the ghost of Rover! He goes crazy, this Labouche! He’s barely buried his last dog, he’s barely taken his new one for a piss four times, and lo and behold the mashed mug of the second one shows up with the first one’s name! Brilliant, I tell you. That’s why you see me looking for an idea right now. One as good as the last one.
The Demon resumes his hunt on all fours.
AHMED (entering suddenly). I have one, an idea.
THE DEMON. What is it? What do you want?
AHMED (taking a big bone out of his jacket). So Demon, how does this idea strike you? I didn’t find it in a garbage can, though. I didn’t find it in the sky either, this pretty lily-white idea. No, it’s an intermediate idea, in short, an Ahmed-level idea. So?
THE DEMON (trembling). That’s not an idea. That’s a bone.
AHMED. It’s an idea. And, boy, you love your ideas the way a dog loves a bone! Everyone can see how you love your ideas, the ideas you find between garbage and dog shit; so now you’re going to take this idea right in the chops. Come on! Bite down on that idea, you rat! Bite down hard!
The Demon, still down on all fours, takes the bone in his mouth.
And so what do you do to dogs who love their bones? Tell me. Tell me your great ideas about dogs, Mr. Labouche’s dog, for example … I’d like to imitate you, I’d like to become a professional idealist, like you. Speak up!
The Demon, unable to speak with the bone in his mouth, mumbles and belches.
Gee, your idea isn’t quite as beautiful as it was a little while ago, is it? But I get it! The idea must prevail! And the intermediate idea, the Ahmed-level idea, prevails over the idea that’s been picked out of the stench of the gutter! Here’s how it ought to be done!
Ahmed attacks the Demon by striking him violently with his stick.
So there! The clash of one idea with another. A battle of idealists, in short … Plato would love this sort of thing!