Act 1
REAL TOWN
The Way It’s Meant to Be

Scene 1
THE HUMAN RACE! WHAT A MARVELOUS IDEA!

“Hear ye! Hear ye!” the Town Crier cried.
“Time to gather together
with a common sense of purpose:
that life upon this earth might survive!”

And thus it was not only possible
but also absolutely essential
for a family of trolls—name of Jones—
to be living in the midst of all of this,
and thus they were.

Wisteria Jones, lavender-haired family matriarch,
cranked open her hillside windows
to catch the early morning vibes
wafting on the early morning air.

“Where on earth would we be,” wondered she,
“if it weren’t for the weather?”

Then she picked up the phone and dialed Real Time.

“Welcome to the world of right now!
You only need to do the right thing!
This instant we exist
in 13/12 time:
thirteen beats to the measure
and a twelfth note gets one rhyme.
Slow down when you should slow down;
speed up when you should.
Pianissimo if necessary.
Bravo! if you’re good.
May you be in sync with Real Time;
may Real Time guide your beat;
may you find your next riff easily;
this riff is obsolete!”

Wisteria Jones slipped out of her shoes and ran over to the stereo.
And then she entreated, “Oh, Sergeant Pepper!
Please can you play
your anthem to the break of day?”

And lo! Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band began at once to play,
“With A Little Help from My Friends.”

And that was how—
on this particular day in this particular year—
that this particular Wisteria Jones began her morning dance.
And dancing there she expanded in full to the Jones Family motto:
If you can’t reach it—stretch!

“Good morning!
We are now on the air, broadcasting to you live
from the heart of downtown Real Town.
Time to wake up!
Time to practice being you!
And you don’t get a single minute off all day long,
not until you sleep again, and even then,
if you’re awakened—you’ve got to be you!
Well, we’re all in it together,
that’s all I’ve got to say.”

“Welcome, folks, to reality—the only show in town!”

“Oh, I love it! I love it! It’s a fairy tale—but it’s for adults!”

“The more you pay attention, the more there is happening!
And you don’t have to be an intellectual to know what’s going on!”

“The rhythm! That’s the thing I feel the most! The rhythm!”

Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Real Town,
Adam and Eve are eagerly exploring and resolving their differences
in order to spare the rest of us one big, hard fall.
(As founders of the human race,
Adam and Eve came to life in Africa
and therefore, of course, are African-American.)

And equally meanwhile, the Mad Scientist,
that character passionately dedicated to proving
that reality does indeed exist,
has been hunched in his alchemist’s lab
since long before the so-called ‘rising of the sun.’

“‘Dawn,’ yes!” he says. “I’ll buy that!
But ‘the rising of the sun’?
A phrase that has stirred my own heart, I must admit,
and yet,
in the interest of the continued possibility of the existence of reality,
I feel we must abandon a phrase
that perpetuates the concept that the sun revolves around the earth,
when, in contemporary reality—if it does indeed exist—
it certainly does appear
that the earth not only rotates on its own axis
but also, of course, revolves around the—

“Whoa!!!
I just remembered a dream I had last night!
Incredible! I’d totally forgotten!
Sisters and brothers! Brothers and sisters!
I dreamed
it was scientifically proven—
on one level of reality—
that…the earth…is…flat!
Flat!
Isn’t that amazing?
Flat as a pancake!
Oh, it had its highs and lows,
its mountains and its valleys,
its amber waves of grain....
But, scientifically, on one level of reality,
it was proven that the earth is—”

But at this very moment,
on the circus training grounds only a stone’s throw away,
the Lion Tamer, master of self-discipline,
is commanding the ferocious beasts—
poised and ready to spring—
with whom he shares his life-long cage.

“The goal…
is to have the body and the soul…
in the same place
at the same time.
No more dillydallying with the past,
no more frivolity over the future....”

Meanwhile, keeping up with the Joneses....
When it came right down to recognizing the adorability of everyday life,
Wisteria Jones was an utter champ.

“People, yum!” she’d often say full-heartedly.

Oh, Wisteria Jones knew a whole lot of people
thought she ran the gamut from slightly eccentric to wildly insane.
And how did she know?

Because oftenly to her she’d hear them say,
“In the REAL world....”
and they’d say it as if they thought she’d never been there,
all the while they themselves most certainly had.

Ah, well!
But never mind.
If there was one thing Wisteria Jones loved to do,
it was to get out there and rub elbows with the human race,
ponder in the produce department along with the human throng!

Wisteria Jones absolutely loved
to put on her imaginary marching hat and march through town,
gathering impressions while recreating in her head
the stirring sounds of a John Philip Sousa band
playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever!”
Directly past the ONE WAY—DO NOT ENTER sign
she’d march against the traffic down the Avenue of Love,
greeting all she met,
her arms outstretched and a smile entrenched upon her joyous visage.
Her heart always leapt at the sight
of the tick-tock clock like a toy we once knew
(down at the corner where the depot’s full of books)....

Frankly, about the clock:
Wisteria Jones would find herself battling—
each of the many times a day she passed through town,
whether as a foot soldier or as the driver of a steadfast steed—
an uncharitable-like feeling of annoyance,
for at least one of the four sides of the clock
was always stuck somewhere in UNREAL time....

BUT, she’d tell herself,
once that clock WAS fixed—
and it eventually always was—
it would mean SOMEBODY had climbed up there and worked on it.
And thus before she even passed under the wrong time
she’d be smiling once again.

Past the flower stand
beside the creek
beside the market
in the heart of Real Town;
past the upbeat of the village music store;
past the three-way sidewalk conversation
to evaluate the pizza parlor menu through the glass;
past the laughter from the open bus stop
and across the street
straight into the Real Town Post Office she always strode!

It was part of her daily habit to stand there in the P.O. lobby
and read the Real Town Constitution written on the wall:
“We the People....”
But that was as far as Wisteria Jones could ever get.

“The People! The human race!
What a marvelous idea! What an awesome concept!” she’d exclaim,
tears in her eyes, her arms outstretched,
and a smile entrenched upon her joyous visage....