Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Monologue Mania Day # 168 by Janet S. Tiger Hero July 30, 2014

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Monologue Mania Day # 168   by Janet S. Tiger  Hero (c) July 30, 2014


                                             Hero
                                           A monologue by Janet S. Tiger   
                                                © all rights reserved                                                                                                                                   tigerteam1@gmail.com      

            (A man walks on hesitantly, shielding eyes from light.  Reluctantly he goes to the center of the stage and shakes hands with someone, then stands up straighter, listening, hands behind back.  Then he steps out of his shoes and leaves them, walking to the other side of the stage, as if observing himself.)

Hero.  They call me a hero.  That I saved those lives.....

       (Shakes his head.)

I told them not to do this tonight!  I hate things like this!  Not for me, not for what I did......

       (Listens)

I'm no hero.  I'm just a teacher.  A science teacher at that.  I'm a father with a wife and 2.2 kids and a mortgage, and a car that breaks down.

        (Listens, bitter)

How can they say those things about me? 

       (Takes a deep breath)

I keep seeing that moment frozen in my brain.  I close my eyes, try to sleep, still there.

I didn't do anything special.  It was instinct.  Training.  I heard the sound, and I knew how close it was, and picked up that hammer that I was about to use in the experiment and I heard the door opening.  It was all in slow motion.....I saw the tip of the gun.....and I threw the hammer right at him...

How would I know it would hit him in the head?  Killed him instantly.   Although they tried to save him.  How could they try to save him, he just killed four kids in the hall, wounded six others.

          (He looks off, he is in horror)

I had twenty-six second graders in my class that day, only one kid absent.  The  gun clip had a rotary magazine with over fifty bullets left in it......how many of us would have died if I didn't have that hammer in my hand......if I hadn't been trained to kill, even though all I did in Iraq was supply socks and underwear for the troops?

Fourteen.   Fourteen years old.

I killed a kid.

A fourteen year old kid.  (Almost in tears) I have a son almost ten, in four years will someone kill him? 

Hero.

Some hero......

         (He goes back to his shoes and steps back into them, shakes hands again, taking a plaque or award of some kind.  He smiles weakly, nods at the crowd, starts to walk off, then looks back.)

Had those paramedics saved him, would they have been heroes, too?  Hero......what a strange word...

        (He squares his shoulders, walks off.  The end.  Maybe one day....the end of school violence.)

  
   
           

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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