Applied Nothingness

You have done well, Saint Roley, says Gaius.

Thank you, says Saint Roley,

 So I'm going to make you an offer. How do you feel about curlews? says Gaius.

Ambivalent, says Saint Roley. They are fellow waders. In a sense, our brothers.

Admirable sentiments, says Gaius. Now, I have learned from Birdlife International, that the Far Eastern Curlew is endangered.

Aren't we all? says Saint Roley.

Hear me out, says Gaius. This is a particular instance. The Far Eastern Curlew's habitat in Moreton Bay is being threatened by developers. It's a crisis.

I do well in a crisis, says Saint Roley.

That's the spirit, says Gaius. However, I'm not sure I can take you back to Australia by plane.

You want me to fly? says Saint Roley. Thanks but no thanks.

There are other ways, says Gaius. He is thinking of them as he speaks. All of them dodgy.

I'll give him his flying lesson, says Arthur. Come over here, Roley.

You're NOT going to throw him over the edge of the Pointe de Grouin! says Jeanne Jugan.

Do it! cries Terence. You'll fly back to me, won't you Saint Roley?

Saint Roley is scared. So scared that he flutters up onto Jeanne Jugan's shoulder, and drops a feather.

See that! says Jeanne Jugan. He can fly quite well already.

Wonderful, says Gaius. I can always rely on you, Arthur.

Come on, Arthur, says Sweezus. Back to Cancale. Belle's stuck there with Sartre.

Being seduced, says Arthur.

Jeanne looks surprised, and takes Sartre's hat off.

It was unravelling anyway, and now it's no longer respectable.

.......

The tide is still out.

The oyster beds of Cancale are uncovered.

Belle, François-René, and Jean Paul are observing the visible rows.

Jean Paul is trying to think of something to say about oysters. Something existential.

François-René says something first.

There are two kinds of oysters in France, says François-René.

Boy ones and girl ones, says Belle.

No. Oh, ha ha! says François-René. You have your father's sense of humour. What I was going to say...

Hell is other people, mutters Jean Paul Sartre.

...is that there is the indigenous flat oyster and the imported hollow oyster, says François-René. Most of those in Cancale are the hollow type.

The hollow type. An opening for Sartre. Being and nothingness, applied to the oyster.

Too late!

François-René continues: The flat type has been dying out since the seventies, due to parasites.

Parasites.

Belle doesn't care. She really likes oysters.

Why don't we buy some from that stall over there? We could have an oyster picnic.

Sartre is in favour of an oyster picnic.

At a certain point in the picnic, he intends to say:

To eat is to appropriate by destruction.

And see how they take it.