7 Best Elsewhere Monologues

Category: Play Role: Celia From: Elsewhere

Celia says

So many things put me on edge all day long. I look out the window and I get nervous. I read a book and it drives me crazy. I turn on the TV and I have to turn it off again right away. I sit down, I stand up I sit down again. I’ve tried crocheting and knitting and sewing. I’ve played classical piano, made clay pots, built towers from popsicle sticks. But none of it helped. It all made me crazy. Cooking calms me. Especially cooking for someone like you. So serene. How do you do it?

Tell me, what is your secret life? What are the things you think that you never tell anyone? What do you do that you don’t want anyone to know about. What makes you different? What excites you? What makes you emotional? What makes you, you?

Category: Play Role: Celia From: Elsewhere

Celia says

I dug you up because I wanted to play with you Teddy, but you’re dead for good, aren’t you? Oh, what did I do? I’m so stupid. I knew I would regret it but I did it anyway, didn’t I, and here you are and anyone can see, you’re no fun anymore. In that back of my mind there’s always that voice saying you can dig him up again after, but I always forget that once I get you back, you’re not going to be any fun at all. I thought, maybe a little bit of fun. I could move your face around and pretend like we’re having a conversation, but I see you now and I just don’t want to. It seems pointless.

Teddy, we must live with the mistakes we make. That is the lesson here. Not for you, of course, but for me. You must live with the mistakes you make. So I’m prepared to live with and maybe learn from this mistake. I’m beginning to think some of my loneliness may be my own fault. Ah, but you would have left anyway, and when I saw you it would make me lonelier still. But lonelier than now? Perhaps not. I think nothing is lonelier than now. I guess I should put you back in the ground. I just don’t want to let you go. Let me look at you for a bit. That’s it. Don’t move. Just let me look at you.

Category: Play Role: Celia From: Elsewhere

Celia says

(CELIA is on the phone)

Physics has a name for the things you can’t see. Elsewhere. Like if I’m transmitting something light years away, the time it’s in transmission, we lose it. During that time it’s elsewhere. It’s unknowable. Irrelevant. My sister used to bury my favorite toys when we were kids. It took me a while to figure out what was happening. I would get a new doll and I would tell everyone how much I loved its yarn hair and its jagged smile and before I knew it, it was gone. When I finally figured it out, I was able to unearth some of my toys. Never the ones I wanted most, but I found some, digging all day long, day after day in randomly chosen places. Eventually the adults got involved and my excavations were shut down.

Maybe I should have become an archeologist. Are archeologists lonely? Do they stay up at night thinking about civilizations they wish they could have been a part of? You know, loneliness is the only thing I can’t get over. I accept that they’re dead. I accept that I’m terrified of leaving the house, but I can’t stand how much it hurts to be alone. It burns with lack. The emptiness. I could take all the rest if there wasn’t such an emptiness. Sometimes I order things I don’t want just so the delivery man will show up and talk to me for a minute. But he just hands me the package and leaves again. What about you? Is your job lonely? It must be nice talking to people all day. No, I know, but still. Oh, right. I’m sorry I wasn’t letting you talk. Oh, well I don’t have a car so no, I don’t need car insurance. Hello? Hello?

Category: Play Role: Celia From: Elsewhere

Celia says

I want you to stay pure. Teddy, promise me you won’t let her taint you. She’s a bad influence, always has been. That’s why I make sure she’s asleep with me. I used to wake up and check on her but I sleep through the night most nights now. I’m not sure why. Maybe I’ve been eating right. It’s almost like when I was taking those ó no. No. Is she drugging me? She’s not coming to your room, is she? When we were kids, my parents gave me the task of walking in on her with her boyfriends. I was to keep any trouble from happening. And I did for a long time. But then she rebelled. She had something on me. I forget what. But after that, I would walk in on the most disgusting things. Her body. She used her body in such ways. You couldn’t imagine. It was horrible. And the men didn’t care. Some of them liked it. They would come back for more. It would make me feel so strangely. It was so disgusting. I’d hate to think she’s getting up in the middle of the night and doing things like that to you. She’s not coming to your room, is she, Teddy?

Category: Play Role: Celia From: Elsewhere

Celia says

Oh, Doggie, I hear you. I feel for you. I do. The nighttime is the hardest time. We regret things at night, don’t we? (The dog howls again.) Even if at the time, everything you do seems like the right thing to do. Even if during the day, you think all your decisions are reasonable at all times, at night you start to wonder. And then the cold seeps in, too, at night.

Oh, Doggie, how do you deal with the cold? Does howling help? (She howls. The dog howls. She howls. The dog howls. They howl together. She sighs.) I don’t think it’s for people, howling. People must be rational. We must not yelp like animals in cages. But what then?

What do other people do? I don’t see other people much anymore. There’s Teddy sure, but everyone else I only see from a distance. They seem content enough, capable enough, out in the streets, buying groceries, saying hello, getting their newspapers. But then if you turn on the news, everything they do is terrible. Maybe when they go in their houses and close their doors and shutter their windows, then they all do terrible things, things that can be discovered and reported the next day. It makes me feel better to think that. How about you, Doggie?

(The dog does not howl.)

Now, you’re quiet. Maybe you’re asleep already. I wish I was asleep.

Category: Play Role: Celia From: Elsewhere

Celia says

It’s best, I think, to just assume that everything you do will work out. If you think too much about details, it’ll only make things more complicated. Just do what you do. Everything can be justified if you think hard enough. And once you have your justification, well, you can just hold onto it. It’s yours. It’s there to help you. Who cares if it’s true? As long as it makes you feel better. I feel the same way about love. Don’t you?

Well, I’ll tell you something. Consider it a parting gift. Love is . . . What love is, really, when it comes down to it, it’s the thing that makes the day bearable. It doesn’t matter if it abides other people’s rules. It doesn’t matter if it involves a certain amount of sex or a certain amount of kissing or if someone gets hit. It doesn’t matter what the actual mechanics of the relationship are. At the end of the day, if it makes you feel better, then you should do it, everyone else be damned.

Category: Play Role: Celia From: Elsewhere

Celia says

All the dishes are broken. Are you happy now? I’m going to have to have new dishes delivered. I liked those dishes, Teddy. Those dishes were my favorite dishes ever. I got them when I moved in here. They have sentimental value. I don’t know why you made me do that. Maybe you were unaware of the sentimental value of the dishes. You’re oblivious to my dishes, of course you are. But have you no heart? Each broken dish was a part of me. A part of me I can never get back. Whenever I eat on the new dishes, I will always remember this day and how you caused me to be cold at night even though there were things you could do to prevent it. When I’m dying of pneumonia, I will eat my last meal off these new dishes and I will remember you and curse you for your unfeeling nature. You are the devil. You are the worst creature to ever walk the planet. I will die. I will die of neglect unless you intercede. It’s your choice. I’m drowning. All you have to do is reach out your hand to pull me from the icy water. Do you understand? Either you sleep in my bed or you have to move out.