A dirt road. A shrub. Evening. Al Hillah, Iraq. Alfah, sitting on a low mound, is trying to kill an ant while balancing one round rock atop another. With a stick in his left hand he jabs at the ant distracting him from the rocks. Bayta stares intensely into the core of the sun and listens as the shrub gains food directly from an inorganic compound using light energy. Alfah gives up, exhausted, turns to Bayta.
Alfah: What should we do?
Bayta: I don’t know.
Alfah: What should we do in order to come to know what we should do?
Bayta: Whatever we usually do in order to come to know what we should do.
Alfah: Why should we do that?
Bayta: In order to come to know what we should do.
Alfah: Why should we come to know what we should do?
Bayta: Because we want to know what we should do.
Alfah: Why should we want that?
Bayta: I don’t know…we just do!
Alfah: No, no. We certainly should want to know what we should do.
Bayta: Then that is what we shall do! (raising his fist to air)
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(Curtain)
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