The Erosion Of A Man - Drama Monologue

T H E   E R O S I O N   O F   A   M A N

BY Paul William Fassett

You call me weak. Maybe you're right. You all think there's something wrong with me. You always have. Maybe you're right. Even as a kid. Let me finish. Even when I was little. 

I said let me finish!

You fucking people... You women wear men down. Chip away at us like a river through a fucking canyon and it's not enough that I'm worn away to dust, you keep taking and taking and you make it look like it's my duty to give. 

It started with mom. She did a number on me. That evil bitch of a teacher I had when I was in fourth grade. You remember her? Mom swallowed every stupid thing that woman said about me. She said that she thought I was disabled. She meant retarded. Mom came home and told you three and that was my new nickname. Retard.

Laugh. Go ahead and laugh. It's funny. I grew up thinking there was something wrong with me. I always second guessed myself. Looked to you and Mom for approval and here I am, still begging for it.

I'm glad she died and don't give me that: "She's your mother." bullshit. An asshole is an asshole, regardless of title.

Remember my Kung Fu teacher? The one with the toupee? Mom made me take a martial art because she was tired of me getting picked on. You remember how you used to fuck with me Sherry? You remember how you would pretend to be sparring with me when I would get home, slap box me and shit. Knock me fucking silly. Embarrass me.

Well we were at the dojo and everyone had left so me and Sifu worked together on my forms because I had a belt test coming. Mom called and asked: "You ready to go?" I thought for a minute. Do I want to go home? Because Sherry is going to start beating on me, Mom is going to lecture me about reading more and the rest of you are just going to gouge away, so I said fuck it. I'll stay.

We worked on my forms, and he stepped down on my thigh so I would get deeper into a horse stance and when I couldn't get any lower he would grab the muscle and say: "Flex." but he didn't need to tell me to flex because I was already tense. Everytime he'd grab me my body would seize up. Soon I relaxed and he relaxed and when he asked me to pull my pants down so he could look at my legs, I didn't think anything of it. When he asked me to take off my underwear, I knew something was wrong but he was strong and I was weak so I didn't disobey. I kept thinking: "Stop thinking so much. This is some kind of test, just go with it."

Before I knew it I was lying on my stomach, trying not to cry, clinching my teeth, imagining I was somewhere warm, that the stabs of pain were an ocean wave washing over my back, that my tears were just spray from the ocean bubbles popping on my face. I learned that night that if you concentrate hard enough you can create pressure in your ears and the world sounds like the ocean, so I concentrated and his grunts went into a tunnel and it was like I was being tossed around inside a wave, unable to breath, suffocating, every tiny breath of air making me more aware of the pain.

I passed out at some point and I just remember being in the car, a gentle reminder and a hand on my knee telling me that no one could know what happened. I bled. I bled for days and you made fun of me for being in the bathroom so long. Said I was jerking off. You had no idea because you never looked! You never asked. You didn't care...

All the guys in my class used to joke about Sifu. They knew what he used to do to other kids. They thought it was funny. Something to joke about in the locker room. I read in the newspaper they arrested him recently and I cried. I cried for an hour, sitting on the floor, clutching the paper, all the while feeling guilty for feeling like that. Because who was I to cry? I let him do it! 

Some kid spoke out, against all of his better instincts, against all his fears of ridicule and now the bastard is in jail.

I keep thinking to myself, why didn't I tell you, tell mom? If I told someone, they would have stopped him. Put him away. I let him get away with it, so all those kids he raped, I helped him get away with it by being silent. I was complicit.

You helped him too, by eroding me to an emotional nub, you are just as guilty as I am.

The Camping Trip - Villain Monologue

T H E   C A M P I N G   T R I P

BY: Paul William Fassett 

Yeah, my wife gets around. She gotten around to just about every house on the block. That's why I don't sleep with her anymore. It would be like raw dogging it with a prostitute. Don't know what kinds of exotic STDs you could get from that thing. As if it weren't bad enough my kids tore that thing up coming out of her, now I got every guy with half a hard on wearing her out like hobo with a dumpster coat. Don't look so surprised Brad. Everyone knows my wife has been sleeping around. The neighborhood knows it. I know it. You know it...

I can tell by the look on your face you're angry. I would be angry to if someone was bad mouthing my girlfriend.

Now you look confused. Well, allow me to clear things up for you, Brad. You have been fucking my wife.

You think that I didn't know? You thought this camping trip was your idea? You thought we would come out here, act like best pals, and you would break the news to me gently? You might have even prepared yourself for a little fist fight. We would wrestle around, hit each other a couple times and at the end we would hug it out. Best friends forever, bros before hoes!

Sit the fuck down!

I'm the one with the axe, Brad. So listen.

Did you think I was just going to let you run away with my wife, live in my house, raise my kids! And I wouldn't do anything about it! I thought you knew me Brad. Hah! I thought we were close.

Don't run away Brad. You're just making this hard on yourself!

Rickard Through the Veil: Frogs

Rickard Through The Veil

Frogs

Sometimes people will ask me: “What do you like to do?” And maybe I will say: “I like to be outdoors.” or “I'm kind of a club rat.” But it's a lie, worse yet, a fabrication.

I like to stay inside, with the doors locked up, the windows latched tightly, and music playing loud enough to hear, but not loud enough to disturb others. Most importantly of all, I like to be left alone. I don't like the company of others. I find it to be very much like a man in a straight jacket. Your arms are confined to mere shrugging motions, and the only thoughts allowed into your head are plans of escape. I experience every symptom of loneliness, yet I am not alone.

But I should explain, you see...

I was floating chest up in a pool of cold water. I remember asking why it was always cold? When you slice your wrists, are you so worried about the temperature? Then I thought about hot water, how good it would have felt right then, curling over my ankles with spirals of warmth. Then I thought about the cut. I thought about the rub burns from Jiu Jitsu, how after they soak in warm water, how badly they burnt. I couldn't imagine an open wound. But I could rest assured in the knowledge that I was in cold water, not because of an informed decision, or because I researched it. I did it because of a decision that a Hollywood producer made during the production of an art film I saw when I should have been enrolled in college.

I always think about how embarrassing it would be if you failed a suicide attempt. People would feel obligated to come and see you, and spend actual time looking into your face with nothing but caring thoughts because that's what brings us together. Crisis. Someone almost biting the big one, catching a wave to the undertow, the big goodbye, salutations, farewell, and goodnight.

But I wanted to be alone. That was the difference. I concentrated on the song playing in the living room. I put it on repeat, so the neighbors would complain. I didn't want to rot away in a pool of muddy corpse sludge. I wanted to have a nice looking corpse. One that people would say, man, what a handsome guy. He had everything to live for. Sob, manly hug, turn, and wipe eye with instep of thumb for maximum coverage.

I had nothing to live for. I had a job. A job is no reason to live. It's a reason to die. The water was turning to merlot around me, and I could hear old Layne crowing:

“Why's it have to be thissa way?

“Beeeeee thissa wayaaaayayyyyyyyy?”

And at that moment, when my eyes went black, I saw my first birthday. I didn't retain the memory so young, so in effect, it never happened, but somehow, just then, I saw it. It was as if I had stored it away somewhere, just forgotten where I put it.

So there it was, playing out in front of me like an old reel to reel projector playing on the wall of my skull. The color of the eighties, and the innocence of being too young to understand the crushing burden I have thrust upon my parents just by being born. This was one of the few innocent moments in my life, and it was gorgeous. Everyone was smiling. Relatives I hadn't seen since that day were there. They hired a clown. A clown! This was a celebration of all the good things you bring. You bring life, the potential of life, and the sorrow of loss, but you don't stay that way, and suddenly... I didn't want to die. I wanted to live.

I wanted to change my life forever and turn over a new leaf. If I lived through this, I would never take another day for granted. I would be the life of every party, the one everyone wants to know. Of course it was already too late for that, because the room was already black, and I had passed beyond some veil which covered me in shadow. All the light in the room was getting further away from me, receding back to a vanishing point in a black rippling fog. After a few moments the walls started to shake, and before I could react the water was pulled from the tub, and became part of the singularity forming at the base of the bathroom. The world was fluxing, and I felt my head, my body, then my legs being pulled into a tiny ball of light. The light grew brighter, and brighter, until I could not see my feet, then my waist, then my hands, and it was finally like falling face first into snow, but keeping your eyes open.

And then we exploded.