[A photo of the Emperor Haile Selassie hangs on the wall of a suburban house. Upstairs 'Hava Nagila' is being played on a lone violin. The door bell rings.]
Mr Bloke: Don't worry dear, I'll get it!
[He opens the door.]
Mr Bloke: Yes!
First Man: Hello, er can we have your liver...?
Mr Bloke: My what?
First Man: Your liver... it's a large glandular organ in your abdomen... you know it's a reddish-brown and it's sort of -
Mr Bloke: Yes, I know what it is, but I'm using it.
Second Man: Come on sir... don't muck us about.
[They move in.]
Mr Bloke: Hey!
[They shut the door behind him.]
[The first man makes a grab at his wallet and finds a card in it.]
First Man: Hallo! What's this then...?
Mr Bloke: A liver donor's card.
First Man: Need we say more?
Second Man: No!
Mr Bloke: Look, I can't give it to you now. It says 'In The Event of Death'...
First Man: No-one who has ever had their liver taken out by us has survived...
[The second man is rummaging around in a bag of clanking tools.]
Second Man: Just lie there, sir. it won't take a minute.
[They throw him onto the dining room table and, without any more ceremony, start to cut him open. A rather severe lady appears at the door.]
Mrs Bloke: 'Ere, what's going on?
First man: He's donating his liver, madam...
Mr Bloke: Aarrgh... oh!... aaargh ow! Ow!
Mrs Bloke: Is this because he took out one of those silly cards?
First Man: That's right, madam.
Mr Bloke: Ow! Oooh! Oohh! Oh... oh... God... aargh aargh...
Mrs Bloke: Typical of him. He goes down to the public library - sees a few signs up... comes home all full of good intentions. He gives blood... he does cold research... all that sort of thing.
Mr Bloke: Aaaagh... oh... aaarghh!
Mrs Bloke: What d'you do with them all anyway?
Second man: They all go to saving lives, madam.
Mr Bloke: Aaaaargh! Oh... ow! Oh... oh my God!
Mrs Bloke: That's what *he* used to say... it's all for the good of the country, he used to say.
Mr Bloke: Aaaargh!... Ow! Ooh!
Mrs Bloke: D'*you* think it's *all* for the good of the country?
First Man: Uh?
Mrs Bloke: D'*you* think it's *all* for the good of the country?
First Man: Well I wouldn't know about that, madam...we're just doing our jobs, you know...
Mr Bloke: Owwwwweeeeeeeeeh! Ow!
Mrs Bloke: You're not doctors, then?
First Man: Oh!... Blimey no...!
[The second man grins and raises his eyes as he digs around in the stomach. They laugh. A head comes round the door... It's a young man.]
Young Man: Mum, Dad,... I'm off out... now. I'll see you about seven...
Mrs Bloke: Righto, son... look after yourself.
Mr Bloke: Aaargh... ow! Oh... aaargh aargh!
Mrs Bloke: D'you er... fancy a cup of tea...?
First Man: Oh well, that would be very nice, yeah... Thank you, thank you very much madam. Thank you. [Aside.] I thought she'd never ask...
[She takes him into the kitchen... shuts the door. She bustles about preparing the tea...]
You do realise... he has to be... well... dead... by the terms of the card... before he donates his liver.
Mrs Bloke: Well I told him that... but he never listens to me... silly man.
First Man: Only... I was wondering what you was thinking of doing after that... I mean... will you stay on your own or... is there someone else... sort of... on the horizon...?
Mrs Bloke: I'm too old for that sort of thing. I'm past my prime...
First Man: Not at all... you're a very attractive woman.
Mrs Bloke: [laughs a little] Well... I'm certainly not thinking of getting hitched up again...
First Man: Sure?
Mrs Bloke: Sure.
First Man: [coming a little closer] Can we have your liver then?
Mrs Bloke: No... I don't want to die.
First Man: Oh come on, it's perfectly natural. Only take a couple of minutes.
Mrs Bloke: Oh... I'd be scared.
First Man: All right, I'll tell you what. Look, listen to this -
[A man in pink evening dress emerges from the fridge.]
Man in Pink Evening Dress: Whenever life gets you down, Mrs Brown
And things seem hard or tough
And people are stupid obnoxious or daft
And you feel that you've had quite enough...
[As he starts to sing, the wall of the kitchen disintegrates to reveal a magnificent night sky. The vocalist in pink escorts Mrs Bloke up into the stars.]
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at 900 miles an hour,
That's orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way.
Our galaxy itself contains 100 billion stars
It's 100,000 light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, 16,000 light years thick
But out by us its just 3,000 light years wide
We're 30,000 light years from galactic central point,
We go round every 200 million years
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding Universe.
The Universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light you know,
12 million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
Because there' bugger all down here on earth.
[The vocalist in pink climbs back into the fridge and the door slams to.]
Mrs Bloke: Makes you feel so sort of insignificant, doesn't it?
First Man: Yeah yeah... Can we have your liver, then?
Mrs Bloke: Yeah. All right, you talked me into it.
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I hope New Zealand runs its organ donation program a little better than this.