Student [Patriot Day Monologue]
Cast
TEENAGER – male
Production Notes
Monologue
Lights come up on TEENAGER.
TEENAGER:
I caught bits and pieces of conversations in the hall about some kind of catastrophe in Manhattan as I walked from my first period class to my second. When my teacher solemnly turned on the television, my heart sank as I remembered my dad went to work that morning. At the towers. Within minutes of the collapse our school was evacuated to a nearby shelter. I spent the rest of the day anxious for any word on my dad, trying to convince myself that if anyone made it out safely, he would.
Most of the student body was forced to spend the night because our homes were too close to Ground Zero, but I couldn’t sleep. The video of the towers endlessly looping through every news feed, was now firmly embedded in my mind. Over and over again I saw the collapse, and over and over again I wondered if my dad was one of the people buried alive.
The look on my mom’s face the following morning when she was finally able to get through the blockades told me what I could not bear to hear. Dad was never coming home again. I fell to the floor weeping, at the injustice, at the insanity. In one moment life as I knew it was over.
My dad was gone, and I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye.
Lights fade on TEENAGER.