After recently moving home on the heels of a break-up, a young man delivers this 2-3 minute dramatic monologue.
SPLIT
INT: A BASEMENT
Kyle is talking to his brother Zack about his recent move back home.
KYLE
Well, I seem to have ended up here again. I forgot how much of a crappy, dead-end town this is. It's so weird-I went to the city to follow Izzy's dream and I just hated the whole place. I hated being so far away from you and Dad and Aaron and Kim. I hated the faceless sea of strangers walking everywhere all the time, rushing past my apartment like spawning salmon. I hated being a thousand miles away from all my friends and being surrounded by people I didn't know. But the little stuff was the worst. I'd go get a burger and all I could think about was Mike's Burgers down on Ninth Street. I don't even like that place, I just couldn't get it out of my head. Or I'd be walking to work and every single person I passed looked like someone from here. I kept thinking I saw my old professor, or Karen, or Jacob…every day. Like being reminded of how alone I was in a crush of people.
I started thinking about how I missed this place. This house with the disgusting old carpet and the endlessly ticking grandfather clock and this pit of a basement. This quaint little town with the white clock tower and the temperate winters. I loved Izzy but she was just one person, you know? How was I supposed to balance my love for a single human being against my whole life? I mean, did she really mean more to me than my family and all my friends and the home where I grew up?
So here I am. And it's just so…quiet here. Everything closes by nine o'clock. I wake up alone and I go to the same coffee shop and it's always Diane from high school serving me and everyone is married now.
At least I don't see random former acquaintances plastered all over the faces of strangers anymore. Instead I just see Izzy, all the time, out of the corner of my eye. I see her red curls bouncing and I hear her big, brassy laugh everywhere I go.
Did I choose wrong, Zack? Maybe she did mean more to me than everyone and everything else in my life. Or maybe whatever I choose, I'll always be split and half of me will live one place and the other half will just miss wherever I'm not and it'll hurt like this for the rest of my life.
