The dull yellowish light of the night. The YOUNG MAN is sitting on one of the boxes, moping. The PRESIDENT is sitting on another box, brooding. His bandaged leg is outstretched, and the GENERAL tries to whisk flies away from it with his open hand. The other Ministers are just sitting around, bored.

AGRICULTURE: Stubborn sons of a bitch, eh General?

GENERAL: Yes. They keep on coming back.

JUSTICE: What's with them anyway? They should be sleeping at this time.

AGRICULTURE: That's the problem with these summer flies. They just never do what they are supposed to do at the time they are supposed to do it.

CULTURE: But you must admit though, they are so beautiful to look at. See them hovering over the buckets of our human waste, or over the leg of the Wise One, and admire their glowing bodies in metallic green. Listen to their buzzz … zzz … like honey bees. Only theirs has the sharp whine of sorrow.

JUSTICE: Sorrow at creating all this misery for us.

CULTURE: Damnit! When will they bring her back?

AGRICULTURE: They should give the Father of the Nation a break, and hover only over the buckets.

CULTURE: She's been gone for the whole day. God knows what they are doing to her.

AGRICULTURE: Can't you shut up about her!

JUSTICE: I think it is time to change the bandages.

AGRICULTURE: Who's going to do it? The Minister of Health is not here.

CULTURE: So when you want her to work you worry about her not being here?

AGRICULTURE: It is her jurisdiction as Minister of Health to change His Excellency's bandages.

JUSTICE: More importantly she is a woman, and it is her work to take care of men. If God didn't want her to change bandages he would have made her a man.

CULTURE: Well, he's not here.

JUSTICE: Get the boy to do it.

AGRICULTURE: Hey, boy, come and change the bandages!

The YOUNG MAN does not budge.

AGRICULTURE: The son of a bitch is as stubborn as these flies.

JUSTICE: We'll have to force him to do it. Boy, I'll give you five seconds to drag your rear end here and change these bandages!

AGRICULTURE: We'll have to drag him here screaming. We'll have to kick him into action. Who the hell does he think he is anyway?