Writing Sample: If I Was a Bird… (Monologue)
If I was a bird… hmm… I think I’d be happier, happier than I am now at least. I could just fly and be free to do as I please. I could finally leave the nest. I would have no need for a formal and costly education. I could just fly and be free to do as I please. All the knowledge I would need would be inside me already, as if I were pre-programmed. Except, I wouldn’t be – pre-programmed, that is – because I wouldn’t be one of those government drone birds, no. I’d be a real bird. A bird with real bones, a bird with real feathers, a bird with real flesh, a bird that takes real shits on the real cars that really pass beneath me really ruining my air, really ruining my land my ancestors and I have always lived on.
I guess that would be hard, though, huh? Constantly on alert for manmade and natural predators that could kill me, worrying about where I can get my next meal from, living in air and land that’s being destroyed and harming me in return while I cry my greatest “caw” in mourning for its demise.
Wait a minute, hmmm… these things sound familiar? Gasp! Am… am I a bird? Caw caw! Or is it that’s just what it is like to live now? Do we just live like birds? Because, yanno, I’m always on alert for predators, both natural and manmade. Look both ways before crossing the street, keep your bags close to you, never wear headphones outside, especially at night, keep your head on a swivel, don’t trust anyone. And I’m constantly coughing when I walk outside, the smoke and the ashes stealing my voice from my throat, sanding it down until there’s nothing left. And not to mention the cost of school and living and the shitty food I don’t want to eat practically forcing me into another eating disorder. I can’t even afford food when the school is charging so damn much and not offering me much help. So yeah, of course I wonder where or when my next meal will come from. I’ve never felt so unwanted anywhere or by anyone in my life.
If I was a bird, maybe nothing would change. Some people with guns will still want me dead and others will obsessively force me into my own patch of grass and sky, calling it protection. Maybe life would suck just the same, I could just fly now.
Show Shots
Mimi Marquez in RENT by Johnathan Larson
Inspector Goring in The Game’s Afoot/Holmes for the Holidays by Ken Ludwig