Football

Okay, so a dramatic monologue simply put is a play of speech that is performed by one person. I’ve seen one before, but I didn’t realise that was a dramatic monologue. Haha. Anyway, I was surfing (yeah, I still use that word) YouTube when I absent-mindedly clicked on this Australian short film know as The Language of Love a.k.a. La Langue de L’amour, written and performed by Kim Ho. The topic is more towards LGBT actually but I don’t mind that. I love all good short films. And boy, The Language of Love is amazing. So, I decided to write my own dramatic monologue. Well, probably I’m so not up to the theatrical level of monologue writing but it won’t hurt to try right? Haha. Let me present to you this one.

Football

By Mohd Afiq Bin Mat Razai

David is sitting quietly in the library while reading thick books. Items such as notebooks, stationeries, and a water bottle are on his desk. The other tables are filled with people doing their own work.

David:

Hey there.

So here I am in the library. I thought it’s gonna be a bit quiet around here but, uh, not so much. This place is supposed to a beacon for knowledge, not a place to heat up romance. Look at that couple over there. Smooching and I-don’t-know-what. Wonder if the guy’s going for sex books after this.

Anyway, at least they’re here. Some people said “library is dead.” Bullshit. This institution will stay alive until the next millennia… unless we humans annihilate each other first. As a species, we are pretty dumb.

Well, I am talking too loud. Some people are looking at me. Cranky because of my voice? I know I’m not Morgan Freeman or Tom Hiddleston reading that erotic E. E. Cummings poem. That one’s real good.

Anyway, here I am alone, amidst all these pairs or groups. I guess I’m used to it… have always been a friend to loneliness. Ugh that sounds terribly shitty.

Now that I think about it, this seems like a typical Hollywood film scene. You know, a guy with no friends, in the end he gets the most beautiful girlfriend. My life so far, not that, uh, fanciful.

Honestly, I don’t have lots of friends. Yes, I do have classmates, but that’s it. I don’t easily make friends. People look at me differently. You know like this guy beside me. He is looking at me as if I’m crazy.

But anyway, as I said, they look at me differently because I am kinda peculiar. You know how we have two genders? Male and female. Boy and girl. People see those two things as wholly different concepts. No spectrum between those two dimensions. You are either a boy or a girl. Me? For them I’m different. I’m a boy who has feminine-like characteristics.

Truthfully, I don’t really act that way, but, I am not that manly either. I know you’re confused but that’s how it is.

I can’t be a girl because I… I’m not one, but I can’t even play football.

Let girls be girls. Let them play with dolls, or makeup, or kitchen knives. Let boys be boys. Let them play football, or fight with each other because that’s what boys do.

Fuck. Boys don’t fight because that’s what boys do. Boys fight because they don’t use their brains. Just look at Bin Laden or Bush. Maybe I should lower my voice. A couple over there is looking at me. I suspect they’re Americans.

Football. Fuck football. God really, those Physical Education teachers, they never provide us with proper education. They tell the girls to sit in class quietly and do their work, while the boys, “All of you, football in the field now.”

I know the boys don’t want me in their teams. I don’t know how to play football. I just can’t comprehend the manly needs of boys to kick the object into the goals. I can’t kick the ball strong enough. I duck when the ball flies towards me at 50 kilometres per hour. Although in the end, one of the teams still accepts me, they pretend like I’m invisible.

Yeah, maybe some of you think that I don’t try to participate, but honestly, I would rather do other things. Drawing, writing English essays, read books. I love reading books. I learnt all about the Ancient Greeks, planets, countries, et cetera.

I don’t really talk about girls’ cleavage and boobs and stuff, so what? I’m weird because I don’t like to talk about… girls? Come on! Not everything in life is about girls.

I would be okay with that though if they leave me alone. But they don’t. They hurt me because I’m not like them. I am not physically hurt so bad, but still, they hurt me.

And they won’t stop calling me names. And they saw me crying.

I don’t know how to fight back. I only know how to cry. They only know how to taunt me further.

“David’s a cry-baby!” “David is a girl!” “David needs to change his gender” “David this!” “David that!” “David this!” “David that!” fucking over and over and over and over again.

People are definitely looking at me now.

The boys and the girls said I am girlish because I cried. A boy doesn’t cry, they said.

Is there a written convention anywhere saying that? Why can’t boys cry? Because crying is not macho shit? Because boys don’t deserve to feel emotions? Are boys expected to go through anything silently even if they are in pain? No guidance, no advice, nothing, just keep it all… in.

I’ve never told anyone the things happening to me because I don’t want them to say that I’m weak… but I cry. That means I am weak, right?

I still feel alone. I can’t even play football.