[honeybees]

[Actors present: Scientist 1, Scientist 2, Soldier, Capitalist, Priest]

Scientist 1: (looking severe, and peeved) As to the data we are receiving from the alien civilization, it is apparently now being “coded” by NASA “for our safety,” before we even receive it to decode!

Priest: (reverently) [whispering]…for our safety, so The Voice wouldn’t be so brilliant in its raw form and glory that we would be destroyed instantly… [slowly closes his eyes]

Soldier: Pfft. (mentally rolling his eyes) Coded, to be decoded?

Scientist 1: But putting that aside [stroking his beard], how can we decode a signal that has traversed civilizations and light years, that is assumedly not only inter-species, but inter-galactic? It’s like like trying to communicate in Braille, through a telescope, with a spider, on Mars, after translations and back-translations through a thousand languages that aren’t spoken anymore. It is as if—if each person only understood ONE language—a woman, in English, tried to…

Capitalist: …communicate a verbal message to a man who only spoke Chinese, and so on and so on, to French, and then to Hindi, or in spoken Sanskrit, I suppose, and then… I don’t know (just spitballing now), fired as a virtual information laser…

Priest: [gasps] …thereby tattooing a desert goat! [everyone groans]…but then the goat falls down a well and perishes, and the Goat-spirit emerges like smoke, as it billowed from the fires of the destruction of the great Library of Alexandria! [quietly sobbing now] We are not sufficiently knowledgeable! We are lost! I am losing my religion… but perhaps (quizzically, as if considering a thought that had never before entered his mind) the aliens are Gods?

Scientist 2: {ignoring that bit about goats and gods} Yes, like smoke, [she looks up at the ceiling] like maybe we’re losing information as it decays over time and space, as if IN—and finally then OUT of—[swallows hard, with weighty realization] a black hole!

Capitalist: [rubbing his eyes] …but even then it could only work if, despite common sense and physics, the metaphorical radio signal that emerged, weakly emitted, was…

Soldier: (deadpan)…in English.

{Note: Which was an overstatement and not exactly true, but it had been a long, difficult week to say the least, and he was wearing uncomfortable boots}

[the Soldier sighs] (…he is exasperated, and thinks of the sacrifices he’s made to protect his countrymen, and countrywomen, from harm, alien-caused or not; and of his young daughter, far away—not being with her being one of those sacrifices—how he hates to not see her grow up, and hopes someday she will understand that he was a soldier, like his father before him, and that being away was his duty…. notwithstanding the sacred duty he also had, of course, to her)

Scientist 2: …But it wouldn’t be in English. Because by then [grimaces, then straightens her bow tie], it’s probably not a LANGUAGE anymore—it might be numbers, or music.

Priest: (looking haunted) …or just the sound of slow breathing on the other end of the phone…

Capitalist: (frustrated) [says under his breath] These aliens may as well be telepathic octopods! [saying this next part at typical volume] Didn’t Carl Sagan send some decorated disc into space, what ever happened with that? Can’t we just send them some inspirational quotes, or one of the Ali-Frazier fights…or that version of “Hamilton” that’s on Disney+?

Soldier: If any of the Navajo code talkers are still alive, can we ask them to save our ass again, but this time to do it in reverse, and in their old age?

(All seem puzzled…) [Scientist 1 looking at Scientist 2, Scientist 2 seeming to do calculations in her head, the Soldier staring dutifully and unblinking at the door (in case it were to be breached), the Priest holding a rosary and mumbling a prayer, the Capitalist checking emails on his phone.]

*A young girl with hearing aids, who plays in the trees, ENTERS*

Girl: (signs, in sign language) Use the sounds of the animals. The whales, the monkeys, the honeybees.

(For Hannah)