Lights come up on PROFESSOR, who is sitting on a bench reading a newspaper aloud. There is a pile of newspapers beside him and two or three books. The park is well kept and clean. The grass is green and there are flowers a few feet from the bench. LORD STEWART is sitting on a swing, which sways gently. He is eating a boerewors roll as he listens intently to the news as rendered by PROFESSOR. There are a merry-go-round, a slide and a see-saw nearby. All the playground equipment is in poor condition and exhausted, but not broken. It is still very functional. The swing squeaks to the rhythm of the swaying.

PROFESSOR [reading]: ‘Thousands of people – yesterday I counted more than five hundred – flocked to the humble home in Tassenberg Road, Benoni, to receive blessings from Francesca Zackey, the South African teenager from a local Lebanese community.’

STEWART: Project! I can't hear you.

PROFESSOR: It's Nongqawuse all over again.

STEWART: What is?

PROFESSOR: Teenage girls making prophecies.

STEWART: Read louder.

PROFESSOR: You would hear me if you stopped that damnable swing. It gets on my nerves, you know that. Maybe that's why you do it all the time, to get on my damn nerves.

STEWART: Why would I bother with your nerves, Professor? It is the only way I can relax after standing all day at the traffic lights. You should try it too sometime.

PROFESSOR: I hate that swing.

STEWART: I mean earning a living at the traffic lights. I don't know how you can afford to sit here all day long reading books and papers while we sweat in the hot sun. And so they say this lady has seen the Virgin herself?

PROFESSOR: Yeah! She was sitting with her mama and papa eating a dinner of spaghetti and meatballs when she was suddenly attacked by the scent of roses.

STEWART: We need roses here as well. Not just Easter flowers and whatever those purple ones are. I think they plant those because they are hardy. But they don't have any decent scent at all.