Dementia Monologues

(I)

Arc lights high above, too bright. Burning.

Footlights turn my dazzled eyes inward

Into the magnificent darkness, bending over a bottomless well

Of lost memories.

Gaping holes in the web of time staring back,

Like empty sockets in rows of skulls

Where eyeballs should have been.

(Take me home!)

(II)

Is this where I'm come? What is

This place, that I should know,

and yet can't seem to find remembrance

In any nook or cranny? O monstrous shapes!

Can someone take me home, please!

Please! I beg you! What? This is my home?

This stage? Never!

(I want to go home!)

(III)

Painted faces…Go away!

You're not my boy! My little girl is dead! Dead! Dead!

Horrid faces and twisted dreams!

Leave me alone!

I'm cold! Tom's a-cold,--O, do de, do de! Freezing!

Alone, cold, and freezing

They've left me all alone, all, all

Alone! In this slaughterhouse.

With aliens and monsters! And butchers, of course!

Yesterday. Tomorrow I went home to endless fields of snow!!

Oh, babbling again.

"...for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a' babbled of green fields."

(I've wandered too far from the fields near home; am I home yet?)

(IV)

On acres of the flaming desert!

Oh! What is this fever? I'm eating up!

Let me go! Hello?

Is anybody out there?

I'm an old man, don't play with me!

Take me home, please!

End this game! This sordid play…this rotten

Stage! This great wooden O!

Thank you, dead ladies, and gentlemen!

(Are skeletons men? Or women?)

Thank you, kindly! I bow to you again! And again!

Oh! long enough! Thank you, dear, sweet ladies!

Thank you…to you and...to you!

Water! Please! Slake my bitter, parched tongue.

My lines…all forgot,

My act... long done. Long, long ago...

"Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!"

No, that's not how it goes.

O Fool, this must be madness,

'Cause, there's a method to it!

(This is my home, my own gulag till the end of Time.)

(V)

What is today? Who are you?

What's on this tray? Food? I'm not

Touching that!

All you smart folks in this place, in white lab coats with

Syringes and needles peeping out of your pockets.

You think you can fool me with your

constant prodding and probing? I know what you're up to!

Do you know that yesterday, I woke up and saw four men

Digging a perfectly pure square hole

In a purely perfect round plot in the garden? 

When I asked them why, one guy whispered,

"Because we went down to Chelsea and saw three little pigs

with no hats!" What? You're laughing at me!

like my son! He says I spout nonsense these days!

Says I'm old and losing my marbles, he does!

Do you know what losing marbles means?

But you, sir! You my son are not! I have no sons.

They left me here alone. Let them rot in Hell.

I don't need anyone!

(I just want to go home!)

(VI)

What is this place? What are you...

Horrid! A painted grin on a pointless

Mask, twisted into my little boy's face!

No; you're Cordelia with a white beard!

Ha! Caught you! No? So, you're mocking me. Pray, do not!

You are a spirit I know: when did you die?

"No, sir, you must not kneel."

But of course - Lear must kneel.

Was all his fault, after all, wasn't it?

Water... I'm parched! Please! Water!

My little boy! Dead! Dead! Dead!

Oh! Where is he? Someone killed him and he's dead!

And so. Going home! Turn it off. Turn it off, goddammit!

Turn off the TV! blatting away, incessantly!

It's over. All done! I'm done….

The show's over…home...

let's go….no

More…No one….lights off!

(Curtain's down... !)