Emma monologue from People Places and Things

Emma’s monologue

Emma

‘I find reality pretty difficult.

I find the business of getting out of bed and getting on with the day really hard. I find picking up my phone to be a mammoth fucking struggle. The number on my inbox. The friends who won’t see me anymore. The food pictures and porn videos, the bombings and beheadings, the moral ambivalence you have to have to just be able to carry on with your day. I find the knowledge that we’re all just atoms and one day will just stop and be dirt in the ground, I find that overwhelmingly disappointing.

And I wish I could feel otherwise. I wish I could be like you. Or my mother. To feel that some things are predetermined and meaningful and that we’re somewhere on a track between the start and finish lines. But I can’t because I care about what’s true, what’s actually verifiably true. You’re able to forfeit rationality for a comforting untruth so how are you supposed to help me? You’re looking at the world through such a tight filter you’re barely living in it. You’re barely alive.’

[Doctor: You talk about your mother a lot. ] – I cut this line out when I did it.

‘Drugs and alcohol have never let me down.

They have always loved me. There are substances I can put into my bloodstream that make the world perfect. That is the only absolute truth in the universe.

I am being difficult because you want to take it away from me. So

Sorry. ‘

https://youtu.be/U8vnDkZCMNE

Excerpt for study and audition practice. Read the full play for context.