(Lights up.) (An unemployment office. Dingy and run down with use. KRONK, an ogre in work clothes, sits at a card table reading the paper.) LOUDSPEAKER 2478. (KRONK yanks a scrap of paper from his pocket. Disappointed. Back to the paper.) (Enter DAGMAR, a troll in work clothes.) DAGMAR Still here? KRONK Looks like it. DAGMAR TV section? KRONK All yours. (DAGMAR takes the TV section. Spots a corked test tube on the table.) DAGMAR What's this? KRONK Hell if I know. DAGMAR Not yours? KRONK What's with the questions? DAGMAR Sor-ry! KRONK One of the freaks left it. DAGMAR Eww! (pause) They got work? KRONK Sure did. DAGMAR You gotta be kidding. KRONK Nope. DAGMAR Jiminy H. Cricket! That's bullshit! KRONK I don't make the news, I just report it. DAGMAR You work your ass off, put in the hard hours, scare the shit out of each and every billy goat that trip-traps over your bridge and you still end up losing work to a bunch of squirrels with Nixon heads. KRONK Specialized skills. They can gather nuts and normalize relations with China. Can't fault them for that. DAGMAR Doesn't give them the right to leave their crap behind. I'm taking this up with McNulty. KRONK Better not. He's on one of his tears. DAGMAR Oh, not the. . . KRONK Worse. Says he's implementing a new rule. If you haven't pulled a job in the last century, you're cut off. DAGMAR He can't do that. KRONK Did it. DAGMAR We can't let him. KRONK What are we gonna do? He's got the juice. DAGMAR We unionize. KRONK Not that again. DAGMAR You always "not that again" me, but I'm serious. If we stick together, he can't run over us like that. KRONK Just a thought. It's good to have a job before you form a union. DAGMAR We'll get the freaks on our side. KRONK Have you ever tried to talk to them? (Pause) DAGMAR Hell with it. LOUDSPEAKER 2479. (DAGMAR and KRONK check their slips. No dice. DAGMAR reads the paper) DAGMAR You believe this? They have this invention that can beam any conceivable fantasy into their living rooms and what are they watching? Some worn-out rock star looking for the remote control in his underwear. Talk about "the magic mirror", huh? KRONK No accounting for taste. DAGMAR When I was a kid my dad told me my job was secure. "The world will always need trolls, son," he said. "They'll always need you to creep in the shadows." Then they go and invent electric lights and (blows raspberry). I'm glad he never lived to see this. KRONK I don't know. This is bad, but it beats getting a lance up the hoo-ha highway any day. DAGMAR Hey, that's my dad you're talking about. (KRONK shrugs.) LOUDSPEAKER 2480. (DAGMAR and KRONK check their slips. No luck.) (Enter CARLA, a middle-aged woman in a matronly dress and a pair of fairy wings on her back. She's followed by TWINK, a younger woman in a cute dress and smaller fairy wings. TWINK spends the scene flitting about, ringing her little tinkling bell.) KRONK Hey, hey. Beauty and the Beast. CARLA Lay off! My feet are killing me. What's this? DAGMAR One of the freaks left it. CARLA Eww! Who's got the honors? KRONK I got nothing better to do. CARLA That's what I want to hear. (CARLA kicks off her shoes and props her feet in KRONK's lap. He starts massaging them.) CARLA Ow! KRONK Working the beat again, eh? CARLA A girl's gotta eat. KRONK Tough way to go about it. CARLA You're telling me. Don't know what we were thinking. Selling wishes door-to-door. We all end up back here sooner or later. Why so quiet, Dagmar? KRONK Don't bug him. He's on his kick again. DAGMAR It would work. CARLA Oh, honey, don't do it to yourself. DAGMAR The system depends on us jacking each other for jobs. We stick together, see how long it takes for the system to change. CARLA Fairy tale. DAGMAR Toadies. CARLA What number you got? (KRONK checks his slip.) KRONK 4674. CARLA Trade ya. KRONK Ha! CARLA Can't blame me for trying. KRONK What's happening on the street? CARLA Nothing involving the old bibbity-bobbity-boo, that's for sure. Market's running dry. Twink got a couple offers to do lap-dances. Fifty a pop. KRONK Good money. CARLA You can't just give in like that. Play their game. They gotta get tired of that annoying rationalization nonsense before long. Don't they? Old King Cole Almighty! The literal minded revolution. Who saw that coming?