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Monologue Mania Day # 153 by Janet S. Tiger Grave Sight July 15, 2014
Monologue Mania Day # 153 by Janet S. Tiger Grave Sight July 15, 2014
Grave Sight
(from the one-man show BEN)
A monologue by Janet S. Tiger ©
all rights reserved
tigerteam1@gmail.com
(Benjamin Franklin comes
onstage. He is not happy, holding his hand in a handkerchief, he picks up his finger, looks at it, wraps it again in the handkerchief and shakes his head.)
A paper cut....some things never change!
(He holds the finger up)
And in a few days, this will be healed, as if the cut never happened. This never ceases to amaze me!
(He looks at the audience)
Most people have no idea how their
body works. Even today, in your time, do you know?
(He looks into the audience, points at a person)
Are you a doctor? If you are,
then maybe you know why the blood pours out of one place, but drips from
another.
Why one person gets sick, and then
heals, where another gets the same illness, and dies.
(The lights change, and it is dark and damp looking)
Where are we now? In the home of a dear friend in London. Not in the pleasant section, with the wide windows for the odd ray of sunshine, or the beautiful brocade couches and paintings from France......
No we are below. Three stories to be exact. There is the main floor, then underneath is the kitchen, where the servants prepare the food, below that is the storage level......and then, where we are now. The basement.
(He walks around touching the 'walls' and pulling a hand back - it's slimy here.)
The basement in these old buildings
is not a place to be sick......but it is the only place deep enough, and far away from prying eyes......and, most important......cold enough where one
can be sure the smell of the dead bodies we have stolen from the grave can be
hidden until we dissect and examine and learn all that can be learned before .......returning
the remains to the earth. Sometimes, we do not have the chance to take the bodies up, so they remain here, for you to discover them in a few hundred years. And wonder what happened in this place.
Not many of you know that I was
involved in these experiments. Some of you will still villify those of us
who did these things.
But....I have been punished
enough........the death of a friend is never easy, but when you fear that it
was your own involvement which created the situation leading to that death, the
guilt that engulfs your brain, your heart, this guilt is not easily calmed let
alone extinguished.
In your day, a cut like he had
would probably not have killed him, but in our time, the sight of the swelling,
the dark lines on the skin, the......I won't go into the final stages of blood
poisoning, but suffice it to say, it is not pleasant to endure, nor to watch.
The helplessness is the
worst.....to watch a young man, a brilliant young man, married to a young woman
who you love like a daughter,.....to watch this, is like going through a hell
that Dante could not envision.
William Hewson, Bill to his
friends, was very much the man who wanted to learn, despite the societal
restrictions of our time. His mistake was a scalpel too sharp, or perhaps
he was tired, or the lamp not bright enough......who knows why the blade cut
him, and the putrid decaying flesh spread into his healthy body, killing him in
just weeks.
I had warned him, we had all warned
him, of the dangers. Being caught robbing a grave, or doing these
experiments, could result in serious consequence - ostracization of polite
society being the least problematical.
(Franklin shakes his head, he is truly affected)
There are those among you today
doing the same - hiding in laboratories, disguising their results and concepts
until such time as they are more acceptable to the public.
But they all share a common problem
- what to do when what you do catches up with you. And hurts you - how do
you tell? Who do you tell?
I never liked when he did the cuts
on young ones, even though the expression 'dead is dead' does come to
mind. There is something extraordinarily sad about a young person who has
died - the promise never coming to fruition.......
(He stares off)
Like my son. I chose that he
not be innoculated against the smallpox. I felt he was too young.
Unfortunately, he was not too young to die. He was four years old. I did not want to take the chance and have
the thread with the smallpox……(hard for him to say)……go into him. Perhaps if I had thought it out with more
logic, perhaps if I had heeded what some said to do…..perhaps…he would have
lived. There was no guarantee……life
rarely has. And my choice has haunted me
all the days of my life, and affected my every decision.
(He takes the handkerchief
off his hand, looks at the wound.)
I told William that it was
dangerous to do what he did – but for the sake of all humanity, he should
continue if he felt it best.
And so he did, and his discoveries,
even though he died young, helped others live.
Did my son’s death help me make
decisions in a better way? To choose
life, to take a chance to save lives, to save a country that was just young and
needed to live past four years…….I would like to think so.
(He
puts the handkerchief into his pocket)
I doubt I will remember to wash
this handkerchief properly, it is here for memory sake. In this time, you have many ways of removing
stains….perhaps one day, you will find a way of washing away the pain of
……mistakes……
(He
exits. End of scene)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This monologue is based on some
facts from Franklin's life -
http://mentalfloss.com/article/30448/time-they-found-those-bodies-ben-franklins-basement
and
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2653186/
Janet S. Tiger 858-736-6315
www.JanetSTiger.weebly.com
Member Dramatists Guild since 1983
Playwright-in-Residence
Swedenborg Hall 2006-8
www.JanetSTiger.weebly.com
Member Dramatists Guild since 1983
Playwright-in-Residence
Swedenborg Hall 2006-8
This monologue is based on some facts from Franklin's life - http://mentalfloss.com/article/30448/time-they-found-those-bodies-ben-franklins-basement
and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2653186/
Janet S. Tiger 858-736-6315
www.JanetSTiger.weebly.com
Member Dramatists Guild since 1983
Playwright-in-Residence
Swedenborg Hall 2006-8
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