Monologue.
(Man sitting down on grass leaning against head stone, quite relaxed and looking confident. He is average height, average build, average age with average hair and an average stare. The only thing slightly odd about the Man is a slight vagueness to his features. )
Don’t you hate it when people look right through you? I seem to get it all the time. I swear no one even knows I exist. I know I am great lookin’ and all but `Jesus is it too much to ask for a little attention! I walk the streets that I once bounded down tall and proud but now, no matter what, even if I back flip the full length of the town no one takes a second glance. I feel like I have done some unthinkable crime that everyone knows I have committed but am too scared to mention it. But no it’s not even like that; I look in these peoples eyes and I see nothing. Surely if I had murdered a mother and her 2.4 children or blown up some bus I would strike fear into these people, they just look blankly at me. It’s like those guys you see from time to time that just have something about them; they have an innate power surrounding them that just tells you they have shot a guy. Obviously I do not possess this aura. In fact I am the complete juxtaposition of power. I talk now about killing but I could never go through with it. Don’t have any guts you see. I could never be one of those guys. I wouldn’t even know which way to hold a gun let alone take someone’s life. And if I’m honest I can’t back flip down the street; my arms don’t seem to work like they used too, I can’t even hold a cigarette anymore.(Looks at wrists)
In fact I find it hard to do anything with my hands now since that black out I had a few weeks ago? I’ve just sat around lump in the ground for days on end, doing nothing and…(Shakes head, rubs his eyes and then looks back)
Anyway every human needs companionship don’t they. I wish some one would acknowledge me in some way. Heck, I’d even take a smack in the mouth above this ignorance people show towards me(Smirks slightly).
I’ve got a lot to give, you see. Even though my accent is, as my Father would put it, common I am a well educated man and have a degree in art under my belt. (Pfft) What fucking good that ever did. I should be flying high, going to artsy fartsy parties, getting wasted, fucking celebrities but I seem to have been dealt a bad hand. I have worked hard all my life at school, in Uni, at work but still people haven’t noticed my potential. My Dad had a good name for the youth of today when I was young; wasted potential. And I had become the very thing I swore I would rise above. Ah well who cares, in the end we are all the same. Then again if we were all the same then I could at least get some action(Smirking again).So that’s a loada twaddle.
You may be thinking I have always been lonely and always been an old windbag, whinging about his life but I was once happy. I met this woman. She was young and beautiful. We fell in love. We went out. We got married. We had a child. We were happy. We were average… We were bored. I had the ‘perfect’ life and then I went and fucked it up.(Bangs back of head on the cold stone behind.)
In hindsight sleeping with my secretary was not the best of ideas but at the time I needed something exciting, to make me feel alive. However that one night of passion followed by awkward day at the office led to a sexual harassment charge, me being sacked from the museum and my wife subsequently taking her perfect self and our Jeremy away with her. That bitch took him away from me, my own son, just because I hand a fling with the office whore.(Looking away, suddenly thinking).Saying that if I knew the consequences would I still have done it? …Probably.
When I was growing up I had a pressure placed on me to succeed. It was my dad. He was always pushing me to do well ever since I did my first Jackson Pollock at the age of four. He forced me into art school and then of too Slade, in London, which led to my degree. After that however I became THE disappointment.(He lets out an ironic chuckle.)
I guess I just wanted a bit of love but I left behind my art and went to work in the Natural History Museum, where I had spent most of my weekends and by then had acquired a great passion for the subject. This shocked him and I was forever labelled as the black mark in the family. Now you may say the Natural history museum curator of fossils is a respectable job but when you have a sibling in government and the female Einstein for a sister then you can see why I am seen as the weak link. But I was always told I would be special. And I became ‘the wasted potential.’(Shrugs shoulders and slouches, losing confidence)
Naturally when I settled into my mediocre job and my mediocre wife and acquired my mediocre child I became very, very, very bored. The love died and Jayne became one of those ‘soccer mums’ you hear about complaining to head teachers about a staff member telling of her precious child because he just threw a ball at another kids head. I began to look on my family with distain and this led to the affair, my family leaving me and then the drinking. One day I just went down to the local Co-op, bought a bottle of Famous Grouse and a remake of some 80’s horror film, went home and drank the whole bottle. (Sitting up)
Now I didn’t get addicted; I’m not going to whine about how I crave liqueur like those people you see on daytime TV shows, crying how they have destroyed their family and then blaming it on alcohol. I just chose to drink. That simple. It gave me something to look forward too and to take my mind of stuff. It made me happy.
Anyway back to my point, I wonder why people ignore me. These past two weeks have been hard, with her leaving me and now I can’t seem to connect with people. It’s like my chord with reality has been cut; I’m watching my life through a plastic screen. Why is that? When she left did she take more then my car?(Leaning forward, resting head on his hands)I don’t know. it’s all a blur really.(Shaking head in a confused manner)Maybe the drink is blurring my memory. Actually what have I been doing this past fortnight? It’s all jumbled.(Sitting bolt up)Graveyard?(Looking around him)I’ve been hanging around this graveyard? Yes. I remember, yes, I have been spending a lot of time here at the local graveyard. Don’t ask me why, I just have been drawn to it, in my alcohol ridden state I ‘spose. I always sit by this new headstone too…(Points over his shoulder)…only been here two weeks I think. I just sit here, thinking drunken thoughts, having these nightmarish flashbacks to memories I haven’t lived through. There’s always this man in my dreams, a downtrodden man who’d been dealt a bad hand. I see him sat in the bathroom, empty bottles surrounding him. He is sat propped up by the bath, sat in a pool of vermillion liquid. There are slashes on his wrists. It’s Blood…(Stares forward)… His blood!?(Turns around and reads the headstone. His face suddenly takes on a transparent look and he slowly fades into the damp earth.)
Charlie Quainton
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