Good Crop Bad Crop Outcrop

Good Crop, Bad Crop, Outcrop (Two uniformed men hover over a dark shape - restrained, in a dark cell, lit only by a bare, flickering bulb.) Good Cop: You are in quite the pickle my stony friend. Cooperation is your only option at this point. In mein opinion you will feel resistance to be quite painful. Outcrop: (groggy) What are you talking about? Bad Cop: (Blows smoke in Outcrop's face, snubs a cigar). 'Where were you in the Silurian?' Outcrop: 'What's the Silurian?' Bad Cop: 'What's the Silurian!? What's the Silurian!?' Good Cop: 'Listen kid, we found the sandstone and shale, you were here in the Ordovician. We found the Devonian Sandstone, you were here in the Devonian. So where were you in between?' Bad Cop: 'We're not going to ask you nicely, wiseguy!' Outcrop: 'I don't know! I don't know! Why haven't I been fed? That wasn't my lawyer on the phone! Why do you care where I was in the god damn Siluri-!?' Bad Cop: Shut up! (forcefully strikes Outcrop). Good Cop: (turning to Bad Cop) Zat is enough! Outcrop! (again in a soothing voice) Outcrop... we don't vant to trouble you. You don't have to lie to Outcrop: 'I'm not lying! There's an erosional truncation, here, right where the Silurian should be, look!' Bad Cop: 'Put that away! No one wants to see that…' Good Cop: (irritated) 'To us. You can trust us. We aren't mad, are we? (turns to Bad Cop and casts a reproving glare). We don't care where you were in the Silurian. We just want to find out about a certain crime committed around this time last era. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you Outcrop?' Outcrop: (stammering) I don't know anything about any crimes... I don't! Good cop: You were here before, weren't you Mr. Outcrop? It seems you were here for quite some time, from the Ordovician all the way to the Mississippian. Limestone, silt,

arkose... perhaps you were languishing at the beach? Playing in the tidal pools? Swimming the coral reefs? Bad Cop: (with a crazed gleam in his glass eye) Let's cut the bullshit! The Proterozoic is missing! You've been here since. Where were you in the Silurian? Hiding the body?! I bet you were you sick bastard!' Outcrop: I don't remember anything, I really don't! I was sitting there, minding my own business, when here comes this terrible thrust from the bowels of the earth and I overturn and hit my head. My first lucid memory is during the Cretaceous, when a Granitic Dike impaled me on it's way to the surface... then the bittersweet satisfaction as we were both smothered under a Basalt flow in the Miocene. Bad Cop: How convenient! Good Cop: Zis is most unfortunate. If you persist in you this charade any longer I vill be forced to vacate the room while my comrade has a little chat with you. Outcrop: No! But I didn't do it, I swear! I couldn't have! The proterozoic was a strong Diorite! How could I have destroyed him?' Bad Cop: 'How do you know that!? I thought you were first here in the Ordovician! Outcrop: 'Uh.. uh..' Good Cop: 'This is most disappointing... I must leave you now'. Outcrop: No! You can't leave! (Good Cop exits, door slams) Outcrop: I swear I didn't do anything! Bad Cop: Liar! You know what I smell? Outcrop: I'm not – oomph! Bad Cop (gags Outcrop) 'Don't interrupt me! You know what I smell? It rhymes with dying!' Outrcrop: Mmmppphhh! Hmmphh!! Bad Cop: Frying! Frying, kid, you're gonna fry! You're gonna fry if you don't spill it right now!

(blindfolds Outcrop) They're gonna pull the switch... they're gonna pull the switch and Zap! (throws bucket of icewater on Outcrop. Outcrop: (in abject terror) Mmmmmahh! Mmmmpph! (Bad Cop tears off gag) Outcrop: (babbling) I did it! I did it! I killed the Proterozoic! He had deserved it anyways! I’ve never met a rock so dense! He (Good Cop re-enters the room, with a holstered revolver and handcuffs) Good Cop: Outcrop you’ve just confessed to murder and obstruction of justice. Where is it? Where's the body? Outcrop: (Sobbing, broken) He’s… he’s under me. (Good Cop and Bad Cop shudder as they shift Outcrop aside) Good Cop: Good God… what have you done? You’ve completely buried him! (to Bad Cop): Call the paramedics! Bad Cop: (rising from examining Proterozoic’s vitals) It’s no use. He’s stone cold. The End