Until one day, the sun warms us and we melt. We become a trickle, the trickle becomes a stream, the stream a river, as we reunite with all the other little drops and become a mighty torrent. Powerful, roaring, cascading—we are the Ganges—yes! Immense, pouring down into the valley. Full of life and energy and fish! People are swimming in us! Bathing in us! Laughing, joking!!!

Elephants squirt arcing sprays from their trunks! Shamans baptize their followers in our sacred waters! Dark-eyed women scrub their washing on the rocks, pounding their dhotis and saris with sticks, the water droplets splashing joyously up into the air! Even the dead are brought to us upon their fiery funeral pyres, as they say their final good-bye to this transient life. People chant! They sing! They celebrate! We are the river, we are life itself! We are HOLY!

(Pause.)

Wow. All that right here in this theatre, tonight.

And so, hopefully, if my humble little show touches you in any way, if I do manage to reach out and communicate to just a few of you, an incremental change may come over you and you might walk out of this theatre a slightly different person.

You’ll walk out of here and who knows what you might do? Maybe you’ll write that letter to your mother your therapist has been telling you to write. Break up with that boy friend who’s been vegetating for the last six months. Lose ten pounds. Throw away those cigarettes for good. Give someone a hug.

Or write a novel. A play. A screenplay!

Inspired, you just might invent something, some great new invention—penicillin! Well, they’ve already invented penicillin, but something like penicillin. Something that changes the lives of millions. That changes the course of history!

(Pause. Looks the audience straight into the eyes, brimming with optimism, then:)

Or not. Maybe none of that will happen. Maybe you’ll just walk out of this theatre, and enjoy nothing more than a pathetic wordless ride home, you realizing that, despite my every effort up here on your behalf, nothing has changed, there has been no progress in your life whatsoever. And indeed you will go home and set the alarm clock one more time, knowing full well that you’re going to get up tomorrow morning, same as every morning, and go back to that same God-forsaken job you hate with every molecule of your being. And everyone of those misfits you’ve endured for the past five, ten, fifteen years, will be there tomorrow, same as yesterday, same as today and there’s nothing you can do about it.

You are locked in an endless cycle of conformity, a grinding featureless routine, punctuated by only the most lame and insipid diversions, of which this is obviously one.