Dramatic Monologue - Written for Performance - Monologue - The old lady and the neighbours

[Media - home video - Scene - lounge setting, armchair positioned by window. An elderly lady is sitting looking out of the window. She turns to talk to the camera]

Who really knows their neighbours?

I make it my business to know mine. I don't like the idea of living amongst people that I know nothing about. Watching them like I do is really very enlightening and sometimes, somewhat frightening. [She nods, then shakes her head]

Take the old dear on the corner, Mrs Dixon, so sweet, so loving, so giving, so inviting, [raises voice and eyebrows] strange that everyone who has taken tea with her, regularly, becomes ill and dies. I don't believe in coincidence. Not that kind of coincidence, anyway. She invited me for tea but I declined. Have YOU taken tea with her yet? [Pregnant pause] hmmmm?

[She straightens up and peers out of the window for a minutes, then looks back at the camera] The vicar took tea with her every Sunday after church. Do you know where he is now? [Nods] he's six feet under in his grave...buried...is his own churchyard. No one thought to investigate his untimely death. They blamed it on his age, bless ‘im, but he was only 67. He died in his sleep, just like that, at 67 after taking tea with sweet old Mrs Dixon. Natural causes, eh, if you believe that...well [shakes head] On the surface she is such a sweet little old lady but underneath that mild exterior lies a psychopath.

The previous vicar died in his sleep as well, he was 65. Shortly before that, old George, the village gardener feel asleep in his wheelbarrow and never woke up...at just 62. That's no age at all. No age. He used to prune her roses. Have you seen her roses lately, huge thorns, and devils thorns? No one else has even realised that she is the Pay Street poisoner. She's paying everyone back for not returning the favour. [Mimics an old hag] who do they think they are taking tea with me and not inviting ME round to their house for tea in return? I'll teach them.

[She looks out of the window again for a minute or so, then looks back]

And what about that chap who lives at no. 3? Gerald? I've seen his picture somewhere before, well a photo fit anyway. On that programme on TV 'Most Wanted'. He's an axe murderer. He invites lonely, middle-aged men round for supper and drinks. He dines with them and then just before pudding he hits them over the head with the blunt end of the axe he hides behind the dining room door. That's why it's wedged permanently open [laughs] Any way when they're good and dead he chops them up into little pieces down in his cellar. That's why he's always banging around down there. He's not making cupboards or shelves or whatever he said he was making, he's chopping up the bodies and grinding the bones. The good bits he freezes for his gourmet cooking, the rest he pulverises and turns into fertiliser. That's why he's in the garden so much. Horrible [shudders] everyday he's banging, cooking and gardening. At night he's entertaining, serving and killing [looks around, wearily]

[She gets up and moves to the edge of the window, and peers out]

And. [whispers] there's aliens living next door. Aliens? [Laughs] They can't fool me. I know. I know. [Taps nose with forefinger] By day they're Mr Smith is a bog standard solicitor rushing around this way and that way, driving a big expensive car, seeing and advising his clients, some of whom just happen to be murderers, themselves. Mrs Smith behaves just like any other wife and mother and the children attend regular school but at night they turn into giant, fork tongued, green lizards with yellow black speckled beady eyes. They crawl under the foundations seeking out new victims ready to send back to their planet to have horrible brain curdling experiments carried out on them. That's why you haven't seen the couple from no. 18 all week. Oh, they'll be back. No one dies. That would be too obvious. They just think they've been on holiday somewhere, skiing in the Alps, perhaps or something like that but they'll come back with horrible colds, sneezing over everyone. So, be careful when they come back...if they sneeze on you...you'll be next!

[Sits down again and straightens skirt]

That chap at No. 5's a bit odd, too.

Apparently, his wife left him at Christmas. [Moves forward towards camera] I don't believe it for one minute. People don't just disappear like that, do they?

She seemed happy enough last time I saw her at the shops [shakes head] No, I believe he did her in. Did her in he did! He seems the type, quiet, unassuming, boring.

I'll bet she told him how boring he was and was going to leave him. I bet he strangled her and buried her in the cellar. He had a load of cement delivered in January, but he didn't do the patio so it must have been for the cellar.

[She shakes her head again, looks back out of the window]

Now he's seeing her from No, 10. They've been 'flinging' for about three months now. She's pregnant as well. I wonder if it's his or her husbands. I wonder if she knows which one is the father. That husband of her's is a bit of an idiot though. I mean, I know what's going on - so why doesn't he?

Thinking about it. Maybe that's why he killed his wife in the first place, the chap at no. 5, I mean. Perhaps he wanted her out of the way so that he and little miss toff could get it off [laughs] I made a rhyme, did you hear that? [Laughs again and nods at the camera]

[She stands up and looks straight at the camera]

Now now how long have you been standing there and I haven't even made you a cuppa. Do you want a cuppa? [Shakes head] No, well that's OK. I mean you don't even know me from Adam, do you? Or Eve, for that matter? I could be anyone couldn't I? A schizophrenic? A psychopath? I could be everyone I've been telling you about [pause]

[She looks thoughtfully through the window]

And you? You could be the Pay Street poisoner, the axe murderer, an alien or a strangler and not know a thing about it until one day you suddenly become normal again in the middle of one of your hideous crimes...the police catch you red-handed. You wave the evidence in their faces, deny any knowledge of the crimes, plead your innocence, scream that you didn't know what you were doing but they'll never believe you. They'll charge you and lock you away forever in an insane asylum.

You can't trust anyone.

No one

Not even yourself. [She gets up and walks toward the camera then passes it]

[Camera turns to watch a cell door slam shut on the room and turns back to where the woman had been sitting, the room is empty and bar with just a small window!]

copyright © leni sands 2010

All comments appreciated.