The Qualities Of Canaries

By the time the playwright returns with the drinks, a philosophical debate has started.

It began like this, when he was at the bar:

Vello: Call me a fool, but I didn't know canary beaks were brown.

David: Of course they're brown. A chicken's beak is orange. A canary's beak is brown.

Belle et Bonne: Are you sure David? I never for a moment suspected the yellow leaf of being a canary.

Rosie: I'll check it out.

She takes out her phone and types in the word canary. A photograph comes up on the screen. She shows it around.

Belle et Bonne: Its beak is pinky-yellow! David, look!

He looks.

David: Wrong type of canary. That's a southern canary. The northern canary has yellow feathers with olive streaks and a brown beak.

Belle et Bonne: Did you think that I knew that?

David: No, I was just saying. It was a northern canary that the leaf reminded you of.

Belle et Bonne: It couldn't have been. Especially as I thought it was a chicken.

David: With a brown beak? Come on! And what happened when you realised it was actually a leaf?

Belle et Bonne: I was happy it wasn't a chicken.

Arthur: If it was me, I would have been happier if it was.

Belle et Bonne: I was happy because it hadn't been alive. But then I thought.....

Rosie: I know what you thought! It had been alive. There wasn't any difference.

Belle et Bonne: I felt a little guilty thinking that. Less happy. It was complicated.

Vello: So it was dead, this chicken?

David: Of course it was. It was lying on the footpath!

Belle et Bonne: It wasn't a chicken.

David: Or a canary.

Vello: You can't be sure.

David: Don't get me started.

Rosie: Started? What on?

Vello: David thinks we can't be sure of anything. He's an empiricist.

Rosie: So how come he knows about the qualities of canaries?

Vello: I bet he doesn't know a single thing.

David: It doesn't stop me having an opinion.

David Leddy (plonking down the drinks): Here we are. Drinks for everyone. What's that you've got there Rosie? Why're you looking at a picture of a chicken?