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Monologue
Mania Day #173 by Janet S. Tiger Crackle Aug. 4 , 2014
Crackle Tea
(for Book of Teas)
A monologue by Janet S. Tiger ©
all rights reserved
(T walks onstage and starts to prepare two bowls of cereal. She still has a Southern accent)
You gotta eat somethin, honey, and a bowl of Rice Krispies with blueberries is just as good as anythin else right now, maybe better. I think it's the commercial value......
(She stops to think)
I can't remember how old I was, but I started hearin' things. It wasn't voices, just noises, cracklin sounds. Where were they comin from? It would drive me crazy. I'd lie there quietly - or sit at the table, and try to place where they were comin from. Crackle, crackle, click, was it some damn bug? The South has more bugs than anywhere on earth, I presume, but this was no cricket, no June bug, the sounds were too irregular. It like to drove me crazy - crazier than I thought I already was.
Then one night, lyin in bed, I turned my head and there it
was, that cracklin sound, right in bed with me and I had what Mrs. G used to
call an an epiphany. It was no bug, no imagination, it was .......me.
My bones and joints had started creaking and cracklin like a fire, like an old house.
My bones and joints had started creaking and cracklin like a fire, like an old house.
I came to the sad conclusion that I sounded like a living bowl of Rice Krispies.
Sometimes
people ask me - what's wrong with you? I tell them, it's a a case of
Galloping Old Age.
Not
creepin', not walkin, not even runnin, but now it's gallopin.
And
I am along for the ride - and it is no fun like the roller coasters of my
youth. It is the white knuckles of a white water ride as we approach the final drop.
My
friend Honey, you remember I told you about her? She has always been the
optimistic one -always lookin on the bright side, the half full glass, she
calls it.
I
remember talkin to her - was it a few weeks ago? A month, a year? A
decade? Who the hell can remember?
Anyways,
I was complainin about the Rice Krispies in my bones, and she laughed and said
why not enjoy them? Have them with some milk and bananas? Maybe a
berry or two?
I
said what the hell are you talkin about, Honey? You want me to get in the
tub with a bunch of raspberries and blueberries and milk?
Oh,
T, you are so funny!
Don't
see what's so funny - all this cracklin in my head makes it hard to hear
anythin you're saying - let alone understand it.
I
just mean, enjoy what you're livin through - maybe look at it, like it is a roller
coaster and maybe this is just one of the ups and downs - does that make sense?
Of course not. On a real roller coaster you know when the ride is goin to be over.
Of course not. On a real roller coaster you know when the ride is goin to be over.
Not
the the first time, T, the first time you just hang on for dear life -
remember?
We
had gone on the roller coaster together at the County Fair - it must have been,
oh my God, is it 75 years ago?
Where
did those years go?
And
yet, when she mentioned that magical day, I remembered it as clearly as if if I
was there again.
Now
if you ask me about the week before or after, I would not have had a clue, but
that day, the first day you remember at a fair - that you never forget.
The
sounds, the smells, the excitement, the food!
It
stays with you forever.
The
roller coaster was not really big, I remembered going when i was a teenager,
and thinkin, this is small. But to a five year old, it is as high as a
mountain. And scarier than what's in your closet when you wake up in the
middle of the night.
You
remember, T, I can see see it in your eyes, and she squeezed my hand, and it
was as if we were on that ride together, holdin hands against the scary.
Maybe
the end of life is just the last part of the coaster, the biggest and scariest
drop, and you keep your eyes closed a little, but you peak out the side to see
if it's really comin to an end.
And
it does. It finishes. And it is is calm and peaceful as the ride
slows and stops at the station, waitin for the other fools to get on and have
their fun.
Maybe
it's like that for the end of our lives, T, maybe it's just speedin along and
we peak a little and enjoy the last few moments.
There's
a big difference, Honey- with life, we can't get back on the ride for a
nickle....
How
do you know that, T, you haven't finished the first ride yet.
Honey
is so annoyin that way- she has her own logic, and she sees the whole world
with those honey covered glasses.
Forget
rose colored with Honey, it's all about the sweet.
She
sure does love her chocolate, that girl.
I
remember once she told me she ate an entire box of chocolate covered cherries
that her cousins brought from New York. Everyone was furious at her,
because they were supposed to be for the whole family, but Honey got into them
and couldn' stop. She told me it felt like she was gonna have a baby
chocolate covered cherry her stomach hurt so bad. I guess we shared that
love of overindulgence - when I told her about the Petit Fours, she was the
only one who completely understood.
Maybe
she's right about this, maybe the last leg of the race is the best. Maybe
all this sufferin is just pleasure in disguise. Let me think about this for a
moment.
(She takes the empty bowls and puts them in the sink, turns to go and stops, looks back.)
I have thought, and no, she's just crazy.
(End of scene)
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Janet S. Tiger 858-736-6315
www.JanetSTiger.weebly.com
Member Dramatists Guild since 1983
Playwright-in-Residence
Swedenborg Hall 2006-8
