(Scene: an arid plain in what used to be Egypt. THE ALIEN wanders on, wearing a protective suit and respirator that looks like a pharaoh’s headdress. Checks the atmosphere with a wrist gadget, then tentatively takes the headdress off. Crouches, takes a handful of sand, and watches it play through the fingers of their glove as sad music starts to play)

INTRO: What can you say / when your love’s gone away / and the only thing left is a memory? / where do you go / when the love you used to know / has been burned up by nuclear weaponry? / you made your choices – that’s understood / we had our moment and the moment was good / but now that we’re here and the planet’s baked clay / I’ve stopped by / for a while / just to say …

I’ve … been …

… here all along
with science and song
and loved you fulfilling yourselves
you were clever enough
but it was never enough
to keep you from killing yourselves
I guess I should’ve known
the project was blown
when you used my knowledge for ill
my tech getting weaponised
I’d never have recognised
the madness inside you, but still
we had such a time
as I brought you on line
to civilisation from primordial slime
now it’s such a damned shame
you’ve gone up in flames
your beautiful planet
a scorched pomegranate…

(THE ALIEN breaks down, wipes away a tear. Eventually recovers itself to continue)

so … this … is … the …

hardest of divorces
of course it’s
quite true
and the problem
we’d gotten
was always me
not you
I thought you’d be cool
with my alien tools
I brought you in BCE 3202

and those pyramids
we did
so the spaceships were hid
were funny as hell
and the codes as well
cute and absurd
all those beetles and birds

but the cones got blown up
and the grown-ups
flew doughnuts
and the whole world went so nuts
and smoked the place overnight

as I watched from Andromeda
the dreadful phenomena
and couldn’t believe
the feed from my thermometer

but…

What can you say / when your love’s gone away / and the only thing left is a memory? / where do you go / when the love you used to know / has been burned up by nuclear weaponry?

(Somewhere an alarm starts to sound. THE ALIEN takes one sad look around, then hurries off)