Time Multiplied – excerpts of the play TA O’REVA by Thokozani Kapiri
Setting
The family witnessed the time of Johannesburg becoming apocalyptic to the point that people became more like shadows, faceless, identyless, shadow images. The sun is not clear, blurred … climate change, polluted air … its smoggy … not easy to breath … . time looks the same, day and night are the same. They have escaped to the north towards central Africa to a place called Nyasaland (where the environment has not yet become destructive). They are epidemic, violence, war and climate change refugees. In this night of the theatre as installation we get to hear and witness part of their memory in fragmented scenes.
One at a time…
Mother: “Time is confusing…”
Grandmother: “Time does not change ….People change”
Girl: “Time is what you make it….”
Grandfather: “There is no Time….Things happen, the distance in between ….Slaves of Time”
Girl: “I exist in Time”
Youngman: “Time will tell…Time is a voice”
Fragment 5
The Youngman: 2014 – Race riots spiral out of control across South Africa;
Girl: 2017- A cargo of hazardous bio-chemicals disappears from Port of Durban.
Girl: 2018- South Africans start dying from an unknown disease; Number of reported deaths: 832
Mother: 2019- The unknown disease is discovered to be an engineered airbor bio-agent;
It is named after patient-zero, Johnnie de Villiers – a white far Parts of South Africa are quarantined; Number of fatalities: 9264.
Grandmother: 2021- WHO declares the Villiers Contagion “incurable”. Military–enforced quarantine remains in force; Number of fatalities: 133,887.
Grandfather: 2023 -First case outside quarantine zones reported at OR Tambo Air WHO initiates the ‘Jié lǐ kē’ cordon to prevent global spread; Over one million SA refugees migrate to neighboring countries The remnant start a new civilization in the city sewers; Number of fatalities: Data Collection Discontinued;
The Youngman: 2024- South Africa is cordoned off indefinitely.
Girl: 2029- Growing anti-South African pressure forces hosting countries initiate ‘The Deportation’ program; Remaining South African refugees go into hiding; Human consciousness is digitized and touted the greatest achievement in Science;
Girl: 2045- The Singularity has occurred. Man and technology have become one;
Digitized human consciousness can now be uploaded into clones called Incarnates;
Man can now live forever;
Mother: 2052 – 2101 Time travel is invented and is an instrument of South African refugee-resistance army; The first time traveler is sent back to change the past; he disappears without a trace.
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Fragment 8
Oldman: “What are you?! What’s going on?”
Stranger: “I mean you no harm.”
Oldman: “Why do you look like me?”
Stranger: “I can help you, but I need you to calm down…I am an Incarnate. A clone synthesized off your likeness. We are currently in a virtual reality designed to help your imprint – you – merge with my operating system.”
Oldman: “Imprint?”
Stranger: “You are an imprint of your former self. Your consciousness has been uploaded in this virtual reality we are in now. For you to exist outside of this world, you must merge with my operating system so you inhabit my body.”
Oldman: “But….. I remember dying.”
Stranger: “Your body died, but your mind, your consciousness, lives forever.”
Oldman: “Why? What is it you want with me?”
Stranger: “Do you know who you are? (silence)…That’s a result of your fragmented imprint. You will remember everything eventually. But I need you to focus.”
Oldman: “On what? …Is that me?”
Stranger: “Yes.”
Oldman: “What is that chant? What does it mean?”
Stranger: “Language has deteriorated so much here we can’t decipher what it means.”
Oldman: “What are they doing?”
Stranger: “Focus. Try to remember. Concentrate. It will come to you.”
Oldman: “I remember this place. What happened here?”
Stranger: “The bodies you see are the infected who succumbed to the contagion,”
Oldman: “Infected?”
Stranger: “A disease called the Villiers Contagion will wipe out most of South Africa. Many will seek refuge in neighboring countries because of it. The remnant within the cities lives in the sewers.”
Oldman: “Why are you showing me this?”
Stranger: “All I am allowed to tell you is that only you can change this.”
Oldman: “Me? Why me?”
Stranger: “That is for you to find out. Will you merge with me?”
Oldman: “What if I refuse?”
Stranger: “Then I will leave you here where you will always be reminded of what you could have changed.”
Oldman: “Take me away from here. Please.”
Grandmother: Merging initiated.
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