Scene: The Bridge of Death
(Derrida, Barthes, and Foucault arrive at the ominous bridge, the swirling gorge below them. The Bridgekeeper, unimpressed by their scholarly airs, steps forward.)
Bridgekeeper: Stop! Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three, ere the other side they see!
Derrida (adjusting his scarf and peering at the Bridgekeeper as if he were a problematic text): Ah, but is it not the very concept of “questions” that must first be deconstructed?
Bridgekeeper (confused but determined): What is your name?
Derrida: My name is Jacques Derrida—but what is a name if not a construct that binds the identity to a fixed essence, which I must immediately refute?
Bridgekeeper (growing wary): Uh… What is your quest?
Derrida: My quest is to critique the metaphysical underpinnings of Western thought and dismantle the logocentric tradition.
Bridgekeeper (eyes glazing over): And… what is your favourite colour?
Derrida: My favourite colour… is différance.
(The Bridgekeeper's brain breaks. He crumples to the ground. Derrida saunters across the bridge, declaring it an act of "textual resistance.")
Barthes (stroking his chin and smirking as he steps forward): This is a narrative! A classic structure of the hero's journey. Let us proceed.
Bridgekeeper (shaking off his existential crisis): What is your name?
Barthes: I am Roland Barthes. Or rather, I was, until I declared “the death of the author.” Now I am merely a conduit for semiotic interpretation.
Bridgekeeper (hesitant): What is your quest?
Barthes: To expose the mythologies embedded in everyday life and to reveal the ideologies encoded in your… gestures … bridge.
Bridgekeeper: What… is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
Barthes (leaning in conspiratorially): Ah, but the swallow is a symbol—a myth, if you will. To answer your question would only reinforce the binary opposition between knowledge and ignorance.
(The Bridgekeeper howls in frustration and flings himself into the gorge. Barthes strolls across, writing mental notes for an essay on bridges as semiotic battlegrounds.)
Foucault (adjusting his glasses, taking in the scene with calculated detachment): Fascinating. The bridge as a site of power and knowledge—an apparatus of control.
Bridgekeeper (increasingly exhausted): What… is your name?
Foucault: Michel Foucault.
Bridgekeeper: What… is your quest?
Foucault: To interrogate the systems of power that shape discourse, and to critique the historical contingencies of your very existence.
Bridgekeeper: What… is the capital of Assyria?
Foucault (smirking): Ah, but you see, the notion of a “capital” presupposes a centralised authority, which is itself a historical construct.
(The Bridgekeeper, utterly overwhelmed by the trio’s relentless deconstruction of his reality, walks off the bridge and disappears into the mist. Foucault crosses with a wry smile.)
(On the other side, Derrida, Barthes, and Foucault exchange knowing glances.)
Derrida: The bridgekeeper was, in the end, merely a trace of power.
Barthes: And now, the bridge itself is a text—forever reinterpreted.
Foucault: A structure of domination dismantled.
*(They nod, satisfied, and walk off into the horizon, leaving a very confused goat to guard the bridge.)
