Monthly Archives: June 2016

love, memory, video

IN SILENCE

Video Leave a comment

EXTENDED VERSION:

[A woman in her mid-thirties. Soft spoken but with an expression that denotes intelligence. She holds a cell phone.]

“My mother passed away recently… and quite unexpectedly.

The first few days after her death I missed her so badly that all I did was look at photos of her… I had this weird fear of forgetting what she looked like…

I went through every single photo she was in. I searched albums, shoeboxes, my phone, my computer…

I paid special attention to the portraits that captured her in a natural pose, unaware of the camera’s presence. I would stare at those images for so long… trying to get a glimpse into her soul, into her real self… and maybe because of that intensity, the photos began to lose their meaning.  After a while, they became mere representations of my mother… lies, in a way.

Then I moved on to her voicemails saved on my phone… dozens.

I listened to them over and over, very carefully, trying to find my mother in her short greetings, in her requests to call her back as soon as I had time…

They were satisfying at first…  like a comfort blanket…

Until one day her messages started to sound artificial… I could predict what she was about to say; I found myself mocking her inflections…

I realized that, like with the pictures, I had exhausted her recorded voice…

I was devastated, and frustrated. So much so that I began deleting all her messages, one by one…

Until I got to one that was almost two minutes long… I had always skipped it before because it was a butt call, you know, an accident…

All you can hear in it is a subtle breathing and some creaking sounds, maybe from the chair my mom was sitting on.

But that day I listened to the message, the whole thing this time…

I could feel my mother in that silence, as if she was alive, as if I was spying on her from behind a door. I was curious about her… asking myself what was she doing, what was she thinking…

I started crying half way into the recording.

I cried out of happiness because I’d finally felt her in that silence. I was more than happy, I was at peace… there she was, my mother, living in a question mark… in an unwritten story.

I deleted the other messages and kept only that one.

Sometimes I play it… but not too often… I’m afraid to wear it out too.”

Are you an actor or director interested in using this monologue? Contact us in ABOUT MONOLOGY!

 Copyright Abel Gonzalez 2016

destiny, love

IMPERFECT FUTURE

Leave a comment

[A good-looking man on a red polo shirt. He’s fifty, but you’d guess forty. He seems the pragmatic type, missing some deeper emotions.]

It’s so silly when you think about it…

I was eighteen… a friend asked me to go with him on a double date…

The other girl – who wasn’t that attractive I must say – claimed to be a psychic and insisted on reading my palm…. For shit and giggles I guess…

I didn’t believe in those things, but I wasn’t opposed either, or at least I wasn’t back then.

And so she began looking at my palm and telling me all these things about my life, my health, my studies; obvious stuff…

At some moment she turned silent…

I asked her what was going on, but she refused to tell me.

Of course, I insisted…

She then pointed at this line in my palm and said that, one day, I’d meet the love of my life, my true love… but that she would die soon afterwards.

Again, I’m not superstitious, but that prediction obsessed me for a long time

For starters, it made me afraid of falling in love… or more afraid I should say.

And then, on the other hand, those girls I took more seriously… well, those I got disillusioned with after a while… when I saw they weren’t dying.

Then I got over it and, a few years later, I met a girl.

We married.

I was happy, or at least I thought I was.

From time to time, I would remember that silly prediction and laugh at it…. And at myself for half believing it.

Then it happened…

My oldest son had just turned eight… he got invited to a birthday party.  My wife couldn’t take him, so I did…

That’s where I saw her for the first time.

Of course I thought she was pretty, beautiful in fact; but you know, I was married…

I swear I don’t remember how we started talking but, before we left that party, I knew I was in love with her, more than I had ever been with anyone else, including my wife.

She gave me her number. I called her and we met… in secret… she was married too.

We discussed a possible relationship; she said she’d think about it…

We kissed but never made love.

The next day she died… car crash.

Did I kill her by loving her?

Or did I decide I loved her just because she died?

My worst fear is that it was all mere chance.”

Are you an actor or director interested in using this monologue? Contact us in ABOUT MONOLOGY!

 Copyright Abel Gonzalez 2016

inmigration, politics

BORDER LAW

Leave a comment

[A man of thirty, military type, with muscles and a crewcut. He expresses himself with pride and confidence, but his eyes reveal doubt.]

I was always very much “by the book,” you know? Follow the rules. Respect the Law. That made sense to me. We’re given a set of instructions to live by so everything is clearly defined, good and bad, right and wrong…

My father thought the same way. He was a border patrol agent, and proud of it. Just as proud as I was of him, which is why I became one too.

I don’t want to come off as soft, but I hope people can understand we also feel bad for some of the illegals we detain at the border… mothers with babies, kids too young to be on their own…. we realize most of them are just trying to make a living, provide for their families.

But there’s a law. And someone needs to enforce it.

Still, I admit there are some…“special cases”.

Like this guy we caught about a year ago. Sergio was his name.

Homeland Security was holding him indefinitely. The guy had crossed the border one too many times before, and they suspected he might be in cahoots with something bigger… maybe terrorism or whatever.

He swore up and down he was just a cook though.

It was hard not to like the man; he joked around a lot and cracked everyone up… even the guards.

Anyway, about a week later, they said he was free to go. He was clean.

The night before the deportation, he offered to cook for us. He said he wanted to thank us for treating him so well…

We let him use our kitchen and even kept it secret from the higher-ups.

He made ribs. We all pitched in to buy them.

I swear you’ve never tasted ribs like those. Juicy, smoky, tangy… Dad would turn over in his grave if he heard me say it but, they were better than his… And my old man was as proud of his ribs as he was of his badge.

Everybody got a taste, including the other detainees. It turned into a party of sorts. It was fun…

The next morning Sergio was chaperoned back across the border, and all the time I kept thinking, how can doing the right thing feel so wrong?

Don’t get it twisted, I’m still an agent. I still believe in the Law.

But something in me changed that day.

I know because, last week, I stopped off at a random restaurant and ordered some ribs.

I immediately recognized the flavor.

So I ate, paid, and left… before I ran into the cook.

Are you an actor or director interested in using this monologue? Contact us in ABOUT MONOLOGY!

 Copyright Abel Gonzalez 2016