- 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.
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To start at the beginning - Feb. 13, - click here.
For a list of the blurbs from each day, click here
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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
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note - Due to popular request, I am including this monologue in honor of Jonathan Dunn-Rankin - (see Day # 304) for whom I wrote this, and I will always hear his voice in it. In deference to the rule of a new monologue every day, or one that has been re-worked, I have added some of Jonathan's suggestions. Thank you for your support of my work - always! Rest in peace, sweet prince.
GET
A COLD
(Monologue from THE END OF DEATH)
© Aug. 26, 2005 Janet S. Tiger all rights
reserved
(The set is fairly simple, a modern chair, table, box of
kleenex, small garbage pail.
The man -this could also be a woman, as long as she, too is old- comes onstage. He
is very old, wearing a simple, toga-like
outfit. His hair is wild, and he is
exuberant.)
Now,
my friends, I have to tell you about my favorite part of this process. Those of you......
(He indicates the audience)
......who
are not as old as I am will probably not remember what I’m going to tell you
about. Those of you who lived before the
dawn of our new technology might have experienced this many, many years ago.
Being
my second birthday – that’s two million days for those of you who just came in
– I wanted to fully know what it was like….to have a cold.
I
can see some of you shaking your heads – who wants to have a cold. But I was born after colds and other illness
had been eradicated – so I never had the joy.
I can hear you laughing again, (mimics)
‘Why not use RT – revisiting
technology – to go back and see what a cold was like?’ I suppose that’s one option, but let me ask
those of you who lived during the electrical energy age – how often did you
return to the pre-electrical age for fun?
I’m not talking about blackouts, but turning off electricity for a week
or two, just to remember what the 1800s felt like.
(Listens)
Not many did.
But
this is different – this is the end of my time in this plane of existence, so I
want to go out not having missed one thing.
So I set out to catch a cold.
This is a funny expression in itself.
There’s catch a fish, catch a train, catch a plane, catch a shooting
star – all with wonderful connotations.
But
to catch a cold – that’s like saying you want to catch a broken leg or catch
…well, you understand. But then, I
caught the cold. What happened was that
I stopped all the morning wellness injections.
Nothing happened for awhile, because I did it slowly. I’ve read that if you stop cold turkey you
can die the next day because your immune system is so affected!
So
I slowly eased off, and waited. And I
was well for awhile – and then, it happened!
(He sneezes very loudly) That’s
how it starts you see – with one of those – they’re called (enunciates very
clearly) a suh-neee-zuh! And they feel
fantastic! What a sensation! You can feel it through your whole body! It’s almost like - yes, it’s like that!
Anyhow,
the first sneeze is followed by….(he sneezes violently several times). Many more.
They are not as much fun when you have to do it a lot. And your throat gets sore – very
painful. And it feels like it’s swelling
up. And then your head gets all stuffy
(starts talking as if he has a cold) add
you stad talking like dis….And your nose starts dripping…..(he gets the kleenex
and starts blowing his nose)
These
are the most amazing invention. I went
into the archives and the first of these were cotton....
(Shows a cloth handkerchief)
Very unsanitary, but then. So were all those
days. But these ...
(He holds up the kleenex
box)
Ingenious. See how they pop up all
by themselves!
(He pulls a few out)
I could do this all day!
And
then you get a fever. Now, from what I
read, not all colds get a fever, but I was lucky enough to develop one. Now that is a sensation! First, you get very, very cold. Not like outer space cold, but from the
inside out, it actually feels as if the inside of you, all your internal
organs, bones, everything, is freezing.
These
are called blankets (holds them up) They
were used before radiant heat panels, so I decided to try them for
authenticity. They don’t get you warm at
all! You shiver and shake with the cold,
even when you have five of them on you!
But
then, the shaking stops and you start to boil!
The sweat drips off your face and you stay under the covers because if
you put on a cool breeze you feel worse!
It is an astonishing range of concurrent sensations! I highly recommend it!
Once
the fever has calmed down, a new stage begins – total ennui. You have absolutely no energy. I see some of shaking your heads – why would
someone choose to have no energy? Good
question! No energy means you just
sit…like a big lump of….being. You can’t
think too much with the congestion - it’s very hard to think straight. But all you want to do is just exist. No running to other galaxies for the
weekend. No visiting the exploding star
of this year. No….nothing. You can listen to music, that’s
pleasant. You can stare at the wall or
read if your eyes aren’t too blurry.
But most of the time all you want to do is…nothing. Time is very strange – I don’t think
Einstein or Wanderly ever thought of time in this way – slowing to a crawl
because of a virus. Of course, perhaps
they didn’t like colds because they couldn’t avoid them, but time becomes a
part of your soul. And it is mind
altering in that way.
Because I had studied up on colds, I wanted to do the
things that were done thousands of years ago.
(He holds up a book) This is a
very old communications manual known then as a book. They were in use before screen generators
were invented. They are actually
fascinating to look at – and much easier on the eyes when you have a cold. They even feel good to touch – and the….these
are called pages….make a lovely sound when turned.
Anyhow, in the book, it told of the remedies for colds in
that time. (Laughs) It’s funny, they even had a
saying….Prevention is nine-tenths of the cure of a cold. Of course we don’t say that anymore because
we know prevention is 100% of the cure!
But getting back to remedies, even then it was known if you left a cold
alone it lasted one week, but if you treated it, it only lasted 7 days!
So I picked one of the most controversial remedies - made out of some animal boiled with spices
and vegetables – and it was called …chicken soup! I know it sounds gruesome, but please
remember in those days, laboratory creation of meat and other food items was in
its infancy. But to aid in the
authenticity, I went to one of the Natural Life colonies…you know, the people
who refuse to live forever and continue to use only technology from before the
year 2078. They only survive a mere few
hundred years, but they are an incredible source for all this ancient stuff.
I
even got to see and touch a living chick-en.
Frankly, they are not attractive animals, but I have to say, their sah-oup
is delicious! Even though your brain
knows intellectually that the soup is in no way curing the disease – or even
shortening the duration! – it doesn’t matter.
Your brain and whole body is filled with this warm, loving soup that makes
you feel better – even if you’re not. It
is a conundrum that your brain thinks about because it can’t do much else.
I
have to be honest, there were a few moments – just a few – where I considered
using our modern methods and ending the misery of that moment. But I resisted, because the overall was so
much better than any one moment. And,
slowly, the cold started to go away. Why
they say ‘going away’ is also a mystery to me.
If you try to catch a cold, wouldn’t you be releasing it?
Anyhow,
(Blows his nose loudly) as the cold continues, the nasal passages are totally
clogged. You have to blow your nose constantly.
(He blows loudly to illustrate)
And then you have to keep blowing.
(Again, long time blowing, slows, then blows again, slowly dying out,
then one last gigantic clearing.) It
does get a little tedious at the end, but the tedium is relieved by what is
coming out of your sinus cavities! The
kleenexes become filled with the most fascinating colors of green and yellow
mucousoid structures. (Blows again and looks at it) Of all shapes and sizes toward the end of
the cold. By the way, I saved some to
show you –(but when he sees the reaction, he stops) perhaps later.
And
one amazing side effect is, well, because your nose is stopped up with all this
slithery stuff, you have no usable sense of smell. I did not bypass this symptom with the brain
access codes, because I wanted to fully enjoy every symptom.
Eating
becomes like, (thinking of a word), like chewing on paper or swallowing gooey
things. There is no urge to eat – the
appetite dissipates and it is possible to lose several flesh meters during the
duration of the cold. Your skin can
become all wrinkly like this….(He holds his chin and wriggles it at the
audience) It’s a strange sensation! I know none of you have this type of skin, so
let me tell you it is a great deal of fun to play with! It is one of the many enjoyable aspects of
this experience.
When
I say enjoy, I can see how you people react, so let me explain. The skin, the blowing, the not eating is not
pleasant – but when you get well – oh, my goodness! Everything tastes so incredibly (searches for
word) powerful! It’s as if you taste
things for the very first time! The
juice of oranges almost burns your tongue but you don’t care! A piece of lightly burned bread –they used to
call it toast – with yellowed dairy and crushed strawberry –butter and jam –
what a gastronomical delight!
Each
day that passes, the cold symptoms reduce in quantity, if not quality. I read that a little cough can develop, but I
did not get one with this cold. Perhaps
next time – I have something to look forward to!
And
that brings me to a special part of the experience and that is - the total surprise! You don’t know when you’re going to get one –
or even why you get it. It’s better than
the time travel movies of other people’s lives – because this is a surprise in
your life! You can’t appreciate this
until you’ve lived through it. Not knowing
what is going to happen…….(he is quiet in thought)
And
then one day, you wake up and you realize you are completely well! The air
smells fresher! The light is
brighter! You appreciate being healthy
again! You have energy, an interest in
the worlds…you have a sense of your whole body being….happy! It is as if you have been…. reborn!
So
for all these reasons, I highly
recommend a cold to everyone!
(He
starts to exit the stage)
Now,
getting diarrhea - that’s another
story…..
--------------------------------------------------
This was the first piece written for the play THE END OF DEATH http://theendofdeath.com/
I wrote this for Jonathan - it was produced as part of my first year as Playwright-in-Residence at Swedenborg Hall. Without Jonathan, I would never have gotten to this point. Thank you.....you may have passed from this dimension, but you will live forever in our hearts.
This was the first piece written for the play THE END OF DEATH http://theendofdeath.com/
I wrote this for Jonathan - it was produced as part of my first year as Playwright-in-Residence at Swedenborg Hall. Without Jonathan, I would never have gotten to this point. Thank you.....you may have passed from this dimension, but you will live forever in our hearts.
------------------------------------------------
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
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