The play is set in a small cafe in a quiet town in Eastern Ontario. The cafe, which was once known as The Downtowner, has recently been redecorated by the owner, and has now been reborn as the Active Volcano Café—no doubt because of the presence on the back wall of an enormous mural depicting, albeit crudely, two black-and-white volcanoes out of which furl billowing clouds of thick black smoke. The new volcanoes dominate everything—even conversation.
Colin: What are you going to have? A latte?
Clifford (vaguely): Sure, I guess.
Colin: You seem a bit abstracted.
Clifford: Insufficiently present, right?
Colin: Yeh.
Clifford: It’s these damned volcanoes.
Colin: Well, they are sort of aggressive.
Clifford (darkly): Sinewy black smoke rising.
Colin: Muscular.
Clifford (still more darkly): Rising from big volcano shoulders.
Colin: Why are they here, do you think?
Clifford (suspiciously): Maybe they’re not.
Colin: They’re just a projection, you mean?
Clifford: Well, it happens.
Colin: But here? At the Downtowner?
Clifford: That‘s all different now, remember? It’s the Active Volcano Café now.
(curtain)
