SOLILOQIUES OF THE DAMNED

act 1, scene 1

Setting: Plato's cave. The audience are the shadows on the cave. A noose is hanging

At Rise: M peacefully sits under the noose.

M

I could be a killer. I am not attached to people and often feel nothing, except hunger and

pain. The human body is so heavy at times, it can't carry itself. I must will for the legs to

walk and will for the bum to sit. I must will the fingers to grab the toothbrush and will the

fingers to squeeze the shampoo bottle. Without will, I have lost all desire to live. But

desire is not the same as need. I may desire my teeth to be clean, for some absurd reason,

but I need to eat. I need to relieve myself when I wake up every morning, but I desire to

hold another in my arms. Without this will, I would not exist. Yet existence tricks me into

living. The rain will fall on a Sunday morning reminding me of my thirst. The mud will

smell moist and heavenly encouraging me to crack open a window and smoke. I could

will myself to stay still, but life will be the siren which calls out to me and I will approach

her with awe. She will then chew me through socialisation and excrete me to society. If

my will makes me do, then my will could also be my undoing. If I choose to not do, I

would not be. But I have no will to torture myself in that way. I am already tortured

enough. I am Hades's chew toy, the laughing stock of Earth, I make Sisyphus seem

decent. (beat). I keep thinking. If the sun rose tomorrow and it was the most beautiful

sunrise anyone could ever experience. It would mean nothing to me. The ephemeral. It

only matters for a moment. What is a moment compared to the entirety of my suffering?

Joy is a shallow pocket and suffering is a black hole. I used to be a real brush your teeth

kind of guy. I was Mr Leather Shoes and silk handkerchief. Mr. Kiss the lady on the

cheek. The legitimate mamas boy and the sacred 'I'm afraid of my father' son. Then one

day I was walking and I fell into a hole. And as I was falling I kept on thinking, “They

must have forgot to finish constructing this street”. The hole was deep and I kept on

falling and falling until splash. I swam in the primordial waters for what felt like

centuries. I saw the past and foresaw the future. All the while, there was a man on the

topside world known as Mr Leather Shoes and silk handkerchief. Mr Kiss the lady on the

cheek. The legitimate mamas boy and the sacred 'im afraid of my father' son. He kept on

living his life like nothing ever happened. I was able to see his reflection through the

waters. I would watch him everyday as he would shake hands and say thank you. I

watched him as he would brush his teeth. Watched him as he bought his coffee and I

watched him through the eyes of the women he would kiss on the cheek. Then one day I

grabbed him. I took him by the neck and strangled him. I gripped him so tight, I heard his

neck snap and it brought pleasure to me. I saw the whiteness leave his eyes and it

pleasing. But now there's only me. The man I killed was fit to live in this world. He

worshiped that siren who chewed him through socialisation and shat him to society. It

was easier when life had meaning. But what will happen to me now that he is gone? How

can I live in this world with integrity, zest and hope?

Shadows, who have been sitting with the audience, arise and go stage. One of them

carries a crate written memories with them, another carries a crate written thought.

They place the crate under noose. The other Shadows prepare to hang M.

Is this how it shall be? I do not fit into your life so you want to be done with me? Your

life was meaningless anyway. I am glad to be done with it. Make it quick! I will be

rejoined once again with the primordial waters.

(Curtain)

(End of scene 1)

scene 2

Setting: A shopping mall

At Rise: L is holding a lantern like Diogenes. DEVIL lurks, waiting for the right moment

to capture L.

L

I wanted to succeed in this world, I wanted to feel something greater than worthlessness.

The greatness promised in billboards with white women smiling with their white teeth

and clinging onto their white husbands. I wanted that kind of symphony, the kind that

presents itself in concert halls and opening of cash registers in expensive stores. I wanted

the last sound they hear come from me was my high heels on my ceramic floor. No one

ever told us satisfaction was a myth. A myth like true loves. Now my life is a long

sideways glance away from my essence. It doesn't make sense, how can there be so

much of everything, yet I am still left with this dread. When did everything mean

nothing. Or is that how it always was. We sing everything is nothing with a song. A song

whose symphony is sang with our clinking champage glasses and swipping of our cards

in PDQ machines. Let the last sound that they hear from me be the sqeak of my kicks on

the marble floor. We know this story. Our children told it to us when we asked them what

they wanted to be. We told them to reach for everything. If not everything, then at least

something. We never told them that something meant nothing. But we taught them the

song. The song whose symphony is heard through the noise of everything. I think we're

all sad. We're all born sad. We're just in denial. So we cover it act with the act of doing

rather than being and accepting our melancholia. Our eternal vespertine. The suffering we

are doomed to live with. The people who hurt and feel it, true artists they must be. The

ones who hurt and feel it, how courageous they must be. If we don't hurt and feel it, we

are just doing. We become the minions of the earth.

Diogenes shines his lanters on her and takes her hand. They exit.

(Curtain)

(End of scene 2)

Scene 3

Setting: The park

At Rise: D is sitting scratching himself. She stands up once she starts speaking.

I sometimes think about death. I think what it will mean to live this earth and what it will

mean if my family left too. I don't want to be alone. So I try make sure that I never will

be. I'm always on my best behaviour so now they can't get rid of me. People like whats

good. They like the obidient thats why they made rules. You can only recieve love if you

are good. Being good means following the rules. Rules serve others, they're not meant to

serve you. You think I like wearing this collar and walking on four legs, no. I just do it so

I can be loved. Theres no force greater than love and we all fear it and want it deeply that

it gives a power to those whom we want to love us. We are at their whim. We only exist

at their gaze because without them there is no love and without love there is no living.

What do you do to be loved? I sit on command and roll over but I do not enjoy playing

dead. It is the one thing I refused. If I did it, they would love me more but I can't let

myself be that close to death. (he scratches herself). Humans respect you when you

respect them. I stay of their plate, they stay off of mine. Humans also want love.

Sometimes they want it too much and disturb me when I'm trying to sleep. I go along

with it because I need their love to. Without love I'd be out on the streets. I can never

forget where I've come from and the realities of the other dogs I know. J from the

neighbourhood is always looking through our trash, when she had her pups she got so

thin I thought she'd pass out. She would go out in the day looking for food for her young

ones and one night she came back and saw they weren't there. Someone took them, a

human I suppose. She spent the hole night crying and calling out to them. They were long

gone by then. On the waiting list to find a new family that will love them. Was it love that

tore them apart from their mother. I know it was love which made their mother cry. Love

is strange. It takes away and is painful to witness.

Weak weak weaknes. Enrergy fading blissness. I just want to go to sleep.

I can't deal with myself. Its me. I am to blame for all the suffering in my life. My

romancelessness. My defeat. Its all me. I saw you and I didn't walk back what is wrong

with me. Am i some sort of disease? Because illness is all I feel. A specific fading. A

lightness, where if I fell I would break. It feels as though my soul could leave my body

any moment. I feel it tugging me intot the other realm. Tugging me to the obsolete. The

nothingness I've ever been. Though I have not shed a tear it feels like I've been crying for

days. My face has that softness and my eyes that moistness. My expression has

permannelty worn itself into a frown. I am frowing at the thing I see everyday. The

person who is me. I wish I could escape myself. I wish I could be someone else. I wish I

could seldom exist. I wish to be that feeling that God gets when he blinks. A momentary

moment of bliss. Tell me, does the prisoner imagine a comet crushing into his jailsail,

giving him a perfect exit tunnel? Do we wish for the bizzare. The never going to happen

because we despretley need an escape from our lives. How desprete am I to escape mine.

How despertae have I been. I'm an itch to myself, how far have I gone to escape the

itching. Why I've tried to pretend the itching doesn't exist. I've called the itchiness drive, I

called it purpose, I called it heat. So through my imgination Why can't I free myself for

me. Is there a freedom past self? Self is a prison made of mirrors. Self is inevitable, thats

why it hurts us the most. Self is the birck wall we hit. The mountain snow we skid. The

quicksand which drowns us. Self takes pleasure in dying us. (something here baout

character)Death wants us all for herself. So she takes whom she pleases with no though

of what it does to the living. I am hungry for her. Yet in my starvation she makes no avail.

Death enjoys our suffering.

CHARACTER WHO CARRIES THE SWORD OF DAMACYLES

⁃ the sword is imaginarry and he or she or they fuck i don't know. Why are so many

of my characters masculine? Im writing from my unconscious, do plays just bring

out the masculinity in me, the same way poems bring out my femininity. Or

maybe the harshness I am seeing the world as in my plays requires that

masculinty. Maybe its masculine because its an energetically masculine play. I

don't know. Maybe its also a comment on hypermasculinty. Sidenote, I am really

glad that I have been able to draw boundaries with friends. And not do things just

because they are asking. Cos when I do that, i land myself into heaps of trouble

with me.

⁃ Ok yes in the end of this monologue, he takes the imaginary sword and presses it

to his chest. Falling down on a mattress or a bed, which will be symbolic for

falling asleep with our worries and allowing our dreams to further exercabate or

soothe them.

ACT 3 WILL BE ALL THE CHARACTERS DOING A WEIRD SUPERORGANISM

THING.

Act 2 then should be about how they got together, how they connected. Maybe its like a

flashback NO, reneactment of their lives. Their day to day human lives. And they're just

trailing along the stage mumbling sweet nothings to each other. We see how they're

connected. And when one character is down with existentailism, they pass it to the other.

Like a common cold. Thats where we should put the “sadness is like a common cold”

line.

And “presence hides behind past and imitates future” or is it presnece hides behind

future and imitates past.

EH: Trying, trying tired. I'm tired of you all. I'm tired of living in my damned state.

Wretched and etrnally cursed to move throough the existance of this living. May darkness

be etrnally me. Wretched in heartbreak. Am I living, am I moving. Is this existane is this

it, is this it, is this it, is it. This is it this. It is just this. Sisyphus be damned. Torus of

existance eat me. May the everlasting darkness eat us. Take us back to the state when we

were no things doing no thing. Darkness cover us. Agents of chaos arise, take your places

by the throne of thorns and destruct and disasemble all which has been created. Tear it

apart until there is nothing left. Disect it, only then can it be devoured. Let it all be

devoured and be released. Let it no longer have a name. Let it be devoured and destroyed.

Let it no long have a form or feeling attached to it. Destroy it. Make it ready for the great

obscuration which will cover us all. Structures. People. Beliefs. Morals. Must be touched

and wrecked by the agents of darkness. Suffering must be all that is known. Suffering to

lead us to the darkness. Your relationships will mean nothing. Your actions, efforts and

dreams will break before you. Meaningless. Oh sisyphus, hear my call. Great Torus stop

your spining. Absolute. Return us to darkness. Not beingness.