Rose's Story

I wrote this monologue last week and it will be performed tomorrow night as part of a series of pieces by a local drama group. The other monologues are from playwrights like Chekhov, so I’m in good company.


ROSE: I blame cook, you know. If she’d not told me about the ink cap mushroom I’d never be in this place. It must have been about ten years ago, you must remember that very long hot summer? [pause] I’d have been about fifteen and just started work in the kitchen at the café. And as the weather got hotter and hotter, father’s temper got worse and worse. It got to the point where we all dreaded him coming off shift from the station. For Mum and us kids he was like a living nightmare.

Well it just happened that I was walking home one Friday evening when I saw them. The dark ink dripping from their gills in the early evening light. They were by the hedge in the field where the brewery kept the shire horses. Now I couldn’t just walk past. They seemed to beckon me. I stooped down and took them along with a few field mushroom that were growing near the old oak. Well what did you expect me to? Walk on by. [pause] We all really enjoyed the mushroom soup on Saturday evening. Afterwards father had a large brandy as usual while the rest of us washed up. Now cook was right, they are completely harmless unless you have alcohol.

The doctor didn’t know what to do. First came the flushes, then the tingling fingers, the headaches and the violent vomiting. He died in agony a week later. [pause] Life never felt so good. Now we were free from his tyranny and abuse. Until then I never realised that death could bring such happiness. And do you know what happened next? No you don’t. This is your first visit. Well you’ll never believe my luck – come Christmas they moved me to wait on. That’s when I knew that I’d been chosen.

Some of the old men who came to the café for tea were just like him – coarse and aggressive. I really felt for their kids and I knew what I had to do. A couple of weeks later I started baking on Sunday morning. Rocks cakes in two batches, one for us and one for them with a special ingredient that I got from the rat catcher. I chose them one at a time and gave them my special treats over a few weeks. It felt good to see them get weaker and weaker until they never came back for tea again. [pause] Each death made the world a happier place and I would have kept going if they hadn’t caught up with me. [pause] I never had a trial. The café hushed it up as it would be bad for business. I ended up locked in this place with all the men in white coats. And do you know what they said about me? [pause] They said, that I couldn’t live without the smell of death.

(500 words)