The Monologue:

(Sitting in a chair) Cancer? Really? You’re sure? Can it be treated? How long? (pause) Brilliant… Well of course you’re sorry! You’re not the one with the bloody cancer, now are you? No! You’re the perfect doctor with the perfect health–a bloody perfect life! Nothing like this could ever happen to you! I mean, you are married, right Doctor? That’s right, and I’m bloody alone–just as I always will be. (pause) I should have known something like this would happen… Even after college, my life had no direction. No purpose. You’ve always known what you were doing right, Doctor? All through medical school, you always had everything planned out? (pause) I had no idea where I wanted to go. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I could never imagine myself getting married or having a baby. Even when I tried. Not that I wouldn’t want those things, because it’s true–I would enjoy either one. I look back now and I can see how I took for granted the opportunities that were laid out before me. (pause) I had a fiance once. His name was James. I had never truly loved a man before James. He was amazing. A really good person, you know? We met in that small pub down on the corner of Bill’s Grocery, you know the one? Yeah… He came in all handsome-like. Sat down at the bar next to me. Well, to make a long story short, we fell in love, he proposed, I said “of course,” then I buggered it up and now I’m here with you. I have no idea where he is now–he could be in bloody Africa for all I know. It’s just that I wonder… Had I not let him go… Had I not been so scared… Like if James were here with me right now… Then maybe my life wouldn’t be threatened. (pause) No matter how many times you say you understand, Doctor, you will never truly know what I’m going through. I don’t care how many other patients you’ve had–they could never know and neither could you because none of you are me! You don’t know what I’m thinking! You don’t know what I’m feeling! So don’t sit there in your leather chair and nod your head at me like it’s comforting, Doctor, because I guarantee you–all it does is reassure me that I am going to die! (pause) I mean, let’s be honest with each other–this is what you do for a living! You sit people in your office with the window curtains pulled shut only to remind people of how much darker their life is about to become! Well, I don’t want a dark life, Doctor! (pause, stands up, crosses to window, pulls window curtains open, pauses at the light shining in) Whatever time I have left, I’m going to fill it with light. (pause) And no cancer can stop me from doing that. No one can stop me from doing that.

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