Monologue Mania: Monologue Mania Day #274 by Janet S. Tiger Curse of the Fisherman's Wife Nov. 13, 2014

Welcome to Monologue Mania- one new free monologue a day

                      - for a whole year!
Note: A few words about 'free' - all these monologues are protected under copyright law and are free to read, free to perform and video as long as no money is charged. Once you charge admission or a donation, or include my work in an anthology, you need to contact me for royalty info.
If you just started this blog and want to read the earlier monologues, please
scroll down for the previous days or go to http://www.monologuestore.com/ -click on the Monologue Mania button please scroll down.
     To start at the beginning - Feb. 13, - click here.
     For a list of the blurbs from each day, click here
Help a playwright and get more great award-winning monologues - MonologueZone.com
Thank you for your comments - and for liking and sharing this site

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monologue Mania Day #274 by Janet S. Tiger Curse of the Fisherman's Wife Nov. 13, 2014

Curse of the Fisherman's Wife

tigerteam1@gmail.com

            (The woman comes onstage wearing a brightly colored outfit with a basket filled with fish. She removes a knife from her apron and begins to prepare the fish for dinner.)

I was a little girl on a big island when my Daddy threw me into the water so I could learn to swim. It was not nice, I was very afraid and I remember it my whole life. But I swim. Because there is no choice. Swim....or die.

So......

           (She holds up one of the fish)

I hate fish because they can swim and they are not afraid of the water. I do not eat fish, because I hate them. Then my mother tells me it is time to marry, have children. There are two men who want to marry me. One is a man who builds. I do not love him, even though the huts he makes are very nice, and sturdy, even the hurricane does not blow them over.

But I am in love with the other man. And he is a fisherman. So I marry the man who is a fisherman. My mother tells me this is a not a good idea, because now I will not have a nice hut, only my hands will smell all the time....

           (She sniffs at her fingers)

My mother was right. I would not tell her when she was alive, but I hate the smell of fish on my hands.

And even though I love my husband, I hate the smell of fish on him. I make him rub coconut oil all over himself after he comes back from fishing. It works. So we have five children. All with names of fish...the fish he caught before they were made........'Mauri' our oldest boy, after the black-tipped reef shark.....Hokahoka, the second boy, very large, like the fish......first daughter, Karahi, full-grown minnow.......then the twins, same time born, very different, like the catch, Meoni the bass boy and Ngoiro, the girl eel.....

Still I hate the fish......Why do I hate the fish? Because the fish hate me. The fish want to kill me. When I was a baby, my mother give me fish, and I swelled up like a puffer fish.....

            (She puffs out her cheeks and stomach as if she is about to explode)

And then, when I am older, I cut myself when I am preparing the fish......the fish is in my blood and I stop breathing.....they have to dip me in the water and put papaya under my tongue.....I survive, but just barely.

So now, I do not eat fish. I hate fish. Because they hate me......because they can kill me with one bite...or one cut.....

Because I have the curse of the fisherman's wife, I cannot eat the fish.

            (She holds up the knife and the fish.)

So, if my fisherman husband, after we are married for many years, if my fishermanwants to love a woman in the next village, a woman who can eat fish.....then that is his choice.....(dark) ... and if I want to kill myself, it is ...my choice. It is.....easy. I just have to do this.....

   (She moves to take a bite of the fish, chews, then hangs her head, then raises it and lifts the knife.)

Or I can do this..... one cut....one touch of the fish.....

             (She take the knife and cuts herself, putting the fish into the wound. She puts the fish carefully back into the basket.)

And I will prepare this fish for my husband.......and it will now be my curse.....

             (She takes the basket of fish and turns to go)

........the curse of the fisherman's dead wife......

   (She exits. The end.....of the curse and the fisherman's wife)

------------------------------------------------------------------

Janet S. Tiger 858-736-6315

www.JanetSTiger.weebly.com

Member Dramatists Guild since 1983

Playwright-in-Residence

Swedenborg Hall 2006-8

--------------------------------------------------------