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you for possessor of a functioning tongue.
     
    LUDWIG: There’s that we again, I’ll thank you not to speak for us.
     
    CLARISSA: And I’ll thank you ( to Ludwig ) not to speak for us; perhaps we want him to speak for us.
     
    NESTOR: Thank you.
     
    CLARISSA: But we don’t, I don’t, don’t speak for me.
     
    LUDWIG: For me either.
     
    NESTOR: So you guys thought Chuck, uh Charles, could speak…
     
    LUDWIG: No.
     
    CLARISSA: Not in a million years.
     
    NESTOR: yet somehow chose to not utter a solitary syllable in the many months…
     
    CLARISSA: Years.
     
    LUDWIG: Decades.
     
    NESTOR:  . . . he’s been here?
     
    LUDWIG: He’s an enigma.
     
    CLARISSA: Enigmatic. A mystery.
     
    LUDWIG: Mysterious. A riddle.
     
    CLARISSA: Ridiculous, subject to ridicule.
     
    CHARLES: I’m right here, I can hear you, and it hasn’t been that long.
     
    NESTOR: Wait, what do you mean by that?
     
    CHARLES: I haven’t been here that long, that meaning.
     
    NESTOR: So how long?
     
    CHARLES: Feels like I just got here really.
     
    ( Nestor looks at the others as if vindicated. They won’t meet his eyes except Adam who fails to see the relevance.)
     
    CLARISSA: You say feels like but you also recognize that you’ve been here a while, longer than any of us, right?
     
    NESTOR: No, I’ve been here the longest.
     
    CLARISSA: What are you talking about? I was here when you arrived. I remember it like it was yesterday.
     
    LUDWIG: It was yesterday!
     
    CLARISSA: That’s right, it was. You just got here and already with the bossing everyone around.
     
    NESTOR: I remember when Charlie arrived and it was a long time ago.
     
    LUDWIG: Years.
     
    CLARISSA: Eons.
     
    NESTOR: Chuck has always been here and always will.
     
    CHARLES: I’m leaving soon.
     
    LUDWIG: No he’s never been here and never will.
     
    CHARLES: I’m right here.
     
    CLARISSA: Charles has never been where he’s going and only gone where he’s been.
     
    ( Everyone ponders that a while. )
     
    ADAM: But where?
     
    LUDWIG: Who said that?
     
    CLARISSA: The new guy.
     
    NESTOR: New guy my ass, he’s been here longer than any of us, even longer than Charles and Charles has never not been here.
     
    CHARLES: He sure as Shinola was here when I arrived.
     
    ADAM: Where when you arrived?
     
    CHARLES: What?
     
    LUDWIG: Who invited this guy?
     
    ADAM: ( to Charles ) When you arrived where?
     
    CHARLES: Here! What’ve we been talking about? ( looking to the others for support ) Believe this?
     
    ADAM: But where is here?
     
    LUDWIG: Right here. ( gesturing ) See? ( all laugh )
     
    ADAM: But what is this? Where are we?
     
    ( Laughter stops abruptly and the ensuing silence is extended and palpably meaningful .)
     
    NESTOR: ( to Ludwig ) You were saying?
     
    LUDWIG: I wasn’t.
     
    NESTOR: What?
     
    LUDWIG: Saying.
     
    NESTOR: What’d you say?
     
    LUDWIG: I didn’t say anything. You were saying you were saying and I was saying I wasn’t saying. ( Pointing to Clarissa ) She was saying ( pause ) just saying.
     
    NESTOR: Fine ( to Clarissa ) you were?
     
    CLARISSA: Saying? I was saying that when we say, say, what was I saying?
     
    NESTOR: Exactly.
     
    LUDWIG: Well that’s settled then, off we go.
     
    ( No one moves. )
     
    CHARLES: Besides it’s not where we are it’s what we are and the answer is brains in a vat.
     
    NESTOR: We debunked that already, weren’t you listening?
     
    CHARLES: Listening as we debunked brains in a vat? No, missed that.
     
    CLARISSA: Debunked is too strong, as I recall much spoke in its favor.
     
    LUDWIG: Much indeed, great intuitive appeal.
     
    CHARLES: Which one was brains in a vat again?
     
    CLARISSA: Which one? How about the one you just declared the truth.
     
    CHARLES: I know, and I remember being persuaded, just not very strong on the particulars right now, refresh please.
     
    NESTOR: Brains in a vat, the thesis that we, the inhabitants of this room, are merely…
     
    CLARISSA: Certainly