Lanaya, a quirky and sweet young woman, shows off the scar on her tongue, but that’s not what’s taken her voice away.
ACTOR: Female, late teens, early twenties. In college.
Note: This is a monologue that occurs during a rape. Sexual assault continues to go unreported, especially among college-age females. To make matters worse, those in administrations fail to acknowledge assault and take action against the perpetrators. When performing this play, it may be helpful to bring this to light, as a pamphlet or post-performance discussion.
Past productions: Fertile Ground, Portland, OR, 2015, starring Jayne Ruppert; NoMore Fest (Crooked Heart Theatre), Los Angeles, CA, 2015
(LANAYA, late teens, steps out on stage. She is sweet and quirky.)
LANAYA
I have a scar on my tongue. And it’s not from a piercing either. See?
(She sticks her tongue out.)
Pretty cool, huh? I always win the I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours contest. Gall bladder surgery? Meh. Appendix scars? Seen ‘em. One time Jordan Powani showed me the scar from when he fell off his bike. Twenty-eight stitches to his head, which was pretty cool, because it created this funky part in his hair when it healed. But he was a dorkburger for riding without his helmet and now he’s not quite right in the head. So I win, again!
Well, sort of. I don’t have the greatest relationship with knives, you know? My mom even says I get quiet around them. It’s true. Like, have you ever had something pokey pointing right at your head? Like when you’re talking to someone and there’s the tip of a branch handing down, kind of aimed right between the eyes, and the more you try to ignore it, the more it bores into you? I’ve always hated that, ever since…well, forever. As long as I can remember. It kind of gives me a headache and then I just…stop paying attention, like the world just…goes away.
(She laughs.)
Woooo! Sounds crazy, right? My dad says I talk too much which is why the knife got my tongue.
When I first showed Sofia, she imagined I was an audience volunteer at a knife-throwing exhibition. That I stood there bravely with a cherry hanging out on the end of my tongue when the knife flew by, grazing my tongue as it pierced the cherry. She’s imaginative.
Kadin says I must have been eating an apple with a knife, the way people slice it and bring the the knife up to the mouth with it. ‘Cause that’s what he does. Kadin’s not so imaginative. And he’s a bit of a narcissist.
So…let’s say you’re a surgeon, and you were out late the night before, had a bit too much—You can already see where this going, right? Yeah, but wait. It gets better. Because you’re not just any surgeon. You’re a friggin’ obstetrician and you’re called in to perform a Cesarean on a mother. And whoops!, you accidentally cut too deep. And the baby who hasn’t even been born yet, who hasn’t had her first fight, who’s never been to battle or had enough Hot Pockets to even cause her to need her gall bladder out, has already been scarred for life! Talk about wicked intense, am I right? I mean birth is painful enough on its own, right? Like who wants to be born, anyway, when she’s got her own warm, cozy get-down lounge and not a care in the world, getting fed without even needing to open her mouth.
Except it was. Open. My mouth, that is. Bummer for me. Dad says I’ve been a loud mouth since before I was born and always will be. But that’s not true.
Like right now, I’m not saying a word. Kadin—the guy with the knife and the apple, he’s got the room across the hall?—he’s doing all the talking. Between the slicing and the eating, it’s all him. Blah blah blah.
I just wish he’d put the knife away. He knows what they do to me. But he says I could use a little desensitization therapy. So he’s talking about…something…who knows?, he’s a bit of a flirt and every other word out of his apple-filled mouth is about what chicks want. And he’s eating and gesturing with the knife. And every time he gestures, the tip points at some place on my body, like my belly, or my heart, or my throat. Or it feels like it’s hovering in front of my face or my forehead. And without it even touching me, the energy starts boring into me. And that’s when I get the headache.
You know, it’s not my fault. Just recently I was visiting my parents and I came across the insurance bill from my C-section and that loser of a surgeon got an extra 5 Gs for stitching my tongue back up. But I was the inconvenience because he didn’t get to go home right away and sleep off his bender. And Dad was all, “Mistakes happen,” and he was looking right at me, like I was the one who made the mistake.
But Kadin’s all right. He’s just goofy, sort of, ‘cause he’s feeding me pieces of apple to make my headache go away. Except he cuts the piece off and the knife’s still in his hand when it brings the apple to my mouth. The apple is bitter. It tastes bitter. What kind of apple is bitter?
I wish I could be more like Sofia. She’s strong, you know? And she doesn’t shut up when guys talk at her. Yeah, no. Guys don’t mess with her.
But the headache is gone—That’s good, right?—and so is the rest of the world. Gone, that is. The lights go out. I have a vague sense of pressure, a loud beating in my head. I can’t move or speak. This must be what it’s like inside the womb. That’s it. I’m back in the womb and the last thing I want is to leave. You know? The out there should stay that way.
But then there’s the force, the push, the pounding, the pain. Over and over again, it just doesn’t stop. I guess no one can stay in the womb forever. Oh, I’m not complaining. I’m not really the loud-mouth my father says I am. And there’s already one scar there, so why risk another? You know? Like, why would I open my mouth again? Why get caught speaking of just deserts, like before, like Dad says I did? All those unreasonable wishes I ever had are…somewhere, but they’re not on these lips.
And now the life cuts through to me. The light is a glaring fluorescent. And my lips are shut.
(As LANAYA finishes her speech, she closes her eyes and is bathed in a blinding, stark white light from over head.)
(Quick to BLACK.)
(End of Play).