Parable of the sower

By Steven Muir

Summary

There's a group of farmers dedicated to obtaining equal rights for roads to grow seed. A humorous look at the parable of the sower.

Characters

Farmer
Passing motorist

Script

(Scene: Car passing a tractor - could be cardboard cutouts).
SFX: Beep beep
Motorist: Do you realise you’ve been spilling all this seed down the road – I’ve been driving over it for a couple of km. Is your tractor faulty or something.
Farmer: No sir, the tractors just fine, I want that thar seed to be on the road.
Motorist: Sorry!!?? You’re intentionally putting your seed on the road. Look I might be a bit of a city slicker but I was under the impression that seed grows better in a paddock after you’ve ploughed it and all that.
Farmer: Yes sir, I reckon you’d be right about that paddock thing
Motorist: So is there any reason you’re putting your seed on the road?
Farmer: Yes sir, theres a whole group of us all over the world called ERFAL and we’re all doing it
Motorist: ERFAL sounds awful. Does it stand for anything?
Farmer: Yes sir, it stands for Equal Rights For All Land. We in ERFAL believe that it’s unfair that only the bourgeios soil gets the privileged position of bearing fruit. We think that all land types should have equal opportunitites, and asphalt has as much right as anything to try and grow things. It’s only this dualistic, capitalistic, neoagrarianistic culture that discriminates against bitumen and prevents it from achieving it’s full potential.
Motorist: (stunned) ohh… so does this stuff actually grow?
Farmer: I’m sure there have been at least one or two that have sprouted.
Motorist: And did they grow?
Farmer: Yes sir…. Well just 2 or 3 at the side of the road I seem to remember. The rest got snapped off in their prime…by callous motorists like you, I might add.
Motorist: A couple of plants out of millions of seeds, doesn’t sound very efficient to me.
Farmer: No sir, it’s not - but what do you expect after centuries of asphalt repression. Years of ingrained habits don’t change overnight you know. Still we press on encouraging ourselves with the ERFAL Anthem.
Motorist: Don’t think there's any danger of anything here getting  IN-GRAINed. So you’ve got an anthem – how does it go?
Farmer: (To tune of "Row, row, row your boat")
Sow sow sow your seed
Gently down the road
Sadly sadly sadly sadly
None of it has growed

Altogether now (get everyone to sing in two parts)
...................................
Copyright Steven Muir, 2002.
If you perform this sketch I would appreciate knowing about it. Please email steven.muir@cdhb.govt.nz