( Melbourne, Australia )
Monologues for an Apocalypse
Voices out of darkness
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There's this point where all of a sudden
There's this point where you wish you were back having breakfast and everything all smooth and like it was
It seems like heaven that hell you just left it seems like heaven and you just wish you could undo what you did and be back like smooth and clean like a baby with nothing to cry for but you'd have to go back then back to when you were a baby back before you remember back before it all started going wrong but you can't think it's all tangled up
It's your whole bloody life and you wish
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Once upon a time there was a boy he lived in a big house opposite the factory and it had a brick fence and his mummy and daddy lived in the house and the telly was on and the news said today today today and he had a lizard he kept under the bed and then it died and mum said throw the bloody thing out Tom it's disgusting throw the bloody thing out and the news was on it said today today today and then he won a million dollars on the sale of the century and he was famous the end
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You have the right to remain silent
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You just wish you could you wish you had the guts to top yourself but it's all fucked it's all fucked up it's all fucked
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If you can't say it's alright.
It's alright.
Pause
I mean it's alright.
Babe I trust you it's just alright if you can't say
It's alright I just want you to know it's alright
If you can't say
For fucks sake
That's you all over a good time that's all you think of
Who's all the fucking same what do you mean?
Just leave it just leave it alone for fucks sake
Who's the fucking same?
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and he was lying on the bed like that with the sun streaming in the window and every tiny hair on his body was lit up like gold and I thought I really thought this is like paradise
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I spent my whole life wishing. It's like this. You spend your life like a kid with his nose pressed up against a sweetshop window. And inside the shop. Where the other people go and buy what they want. Inside the shop it's just. Beautiful.
Beautiful.
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There
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And everything tells you. Everything says. You're shit. You'll never be there. In the club with the beautiful girl laughing on your shoulder. In the black car with the tinted windows. In the hotel lobby. Stepping off the plane.
You polish your shoes. You do your hair. Just the right lapels. You hang out. You look. You stand there. You look.
It's like this.
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There there there
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Hello?
Yes, that's right.
Who?
I don't -
No.
I don't have anything to say.
He's my son, what do you expect me to say, he's my son.
I don't want -
No, I don't care.
He's my son, I said.
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For scum like me there's one way.
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A phone rings and no one answers it a man speaks and no one answers him the question remains the cry echoes the weeping continues uncomforted unheard unrequited under the distant music of the city
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and dad says she's gone I don't know where she's gone and I didn't know for years
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the eastern arterial is slow this morning with an accident at the intersection and now to
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I always hated junkies. Dumb rich bitches with dumb hippy eyes.
Or that boy. Eyes like a girls. So sensitive he was. Tormented. His olds lived in a palace. Nobody understands he'd say.
They were the worst. The rich scum. Wanting you to wipe their arses. I used to nod.
Business is business.
A fat roll of money. I held it in a clip. A big wad of fifties. Slapem on the bar. Big time.
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where your dreams come true relax in exotic tropical surroundings with every luxury at your fingertips
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Yes, you
What you fucking doing?
Hey -
Hey don't
Just
O god don't
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Catch and kill your own
I had a dream who said I couldn't have a dream
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the morning pale as the skin of a dead child creeps shyly over the buildings and imperceptibly flushes until the golden disk of the sun shoots its level rays through the deserted streets an everyday resurrection
we know that no one is looking (how do we know) we know that no one is looking
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and he pushes you over into the wall and you fall onto the floor and then he drags you up and hits you and then he kicks you and he hits you again and he says you're lucky I'm not closing my fist cold and cruel like do you want me to close my fist I'll hit your face will I hit your face would you like that you bitch you whore you stupid bitch would you like that would you like that you're lucky he says
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The nourishment goes into a man and it passes through him and is expelled. If it doesn't he's in trouble the filth doesn't move through him it stays in him and rots
That's the trouble you see that's the trouble it's like society
Like down in the rooming houses with nothing they got nothing a man's got to make his way in the world or he gets expelled he has to have his place he's a father he's a son he's a brother he's a employee he stands up and people know he's a man
That's what I said to him and he don't take no notice
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You have the right to remain silent
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I haven't anything
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I haven't anything to say
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There's nothing to say
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There's nothing
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Stuart is my best friend and sometimes he comes over to play but not very often and we watch tv and his dad is real nice
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she looks at me with this look this look she has and I knew what she's been doing she didn't have to say nothing I just look in her eyes I know what she's thinking
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over and over again you're nothing he says you're nothing without me you're nothing and it goes on and on and on and when he stops hitting he keeps on and on and you just sit there and agree that you're nothing but all you can think is is he going to hit me is he going to hit me again please don't don't hit me again and something in you curls up like an animal like an animal in pain and knowing doesn't help it never does you know it's true but it doesn't stop it he still hits you and you know he's getting you back he's getting you back for something that you never did and so you can't ever stop him because you never did it in the first place
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a tiny boy pissing on the wall his mother standing by shielding him the urine arcing bright gold in the sunlight
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Filth the filth is unbelievable I've never seen anything like it how can people live like that
You just have to walk away you just have to
It's a cloud a cloud that sweeps over the city a black invisible cloud the whole city
What can a man do?
If he stands firm if he stands strong in his beliefs if he stands up like a man a man might do something
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eeny meeny miny mo
catch a tiger by the toe
if it hollers let it go
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was assaulted last night during an attempted robbery. He was taken to Western General Hospital and is in a satisfactory condition after
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and it hits you the next morning you wake up shaking and if you hear his voice you start shaking and your kidneys ache with terror you know you smell like fear like a frightened animal and you can't help it you can't stop it you don't know any more you don't know anything any more the ground has gone underneath your feet and you're alone with a black wind howling through all your bones and you know you know you know he's going to kill you
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the rush I tell you the rush there's nothing like it listen
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a voice in the dark maybe it's god talking maybe
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over the wall and out I tell you there's nothing to it just into the yard and out the back you'll find the stuff you'll find it easy money but if the old man gets you. He sat out once for a whole month with a shotgun and when they went in his yard he blasted their heads off. True story. A whole month and it's just fucking engines rusting in the dirt.
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a young girl blazing like a field of corn or a young man
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so you stay very quiet you stay you stay very quiet and small and hope that no one notices you if anyone notices it's bad it's very very bad you stay quiet and maybe nothing will happen maybe things will improve but he's bigger than you he can break you he can kill you if he wants to and you can't do anything about it
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what's mine is mine and no one's going to take it from me no man no woman no wog no chink no black no fucking smart alec shit with a mobile phone pasted to his earhole
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sometimes I wake up and mum's there and I feel all right but then I realize
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No.
No, he's not in. He's not here, I said.
Just fuck off. Where's the warrant?
Don't you talk to me like that.
I beg your pardon. Officer.
I told you, he's out.
No.
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how can you pick that moment when it turns when it starts to turn and you know later that you're fucked and if you knew at that moment you could have turned it back but you didn't know you didn't ever know you were too stupid you didn't listen you thought you knew whatever whatever it is and then it's gone
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there's no way there's no fucking way
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the angel blazes in a sudden movement of the hand a modulation of the voice a head abashedly bent the angel blazes
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I always loved the night the neon and the hot air in summer and the fast night streaming past the windows of the car the white fallen face the shadow you can't see the smell of blood the smell of sweat the splash of glass that's so slow like water it's the death in it I loved the death in it
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a cry so far inside your heart that even you can't hear it
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she won't talk to me she won't come back the bitch the fucking bitch
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a voice in the dark god maybe
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the death in it
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you have the right to remain silent
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you just wish you had the guts but you never had the guts you never did all your fucking life you were scared to death
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if just living can do this to you
living is terrible
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the death in it
© 2002 Alison Croggon
(NOTE: "Monologues for an Apocalypse," commissioned by ABC Radio Arts and broadcast in 2001, was first performed at La Mama Theatre, Melbourne, directed by James Clayden with Helen Hopkins, Peter Green, Shelley Lasica and Tom Wright, with music by Tim O'Dwyer.)
Cheryl Dodds - Eye Music
I - Persephone in the Field
II - Debris of Dreams
III - Are You Listening?
Ace Boggess - Abuse Cycle
Marty McConnell - girl on the tracks
Julie Bonaduce - The Company Of
Gary Whitehead - Tableaux
Alan Catlin - in the pitch of citrus
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