Instant Monologues
Past Instant Monologue


PAST

INT: A BEDROOM.

Ellen is writing in a notebook. Whether it is a letter or a journal entry is unclear.

ELLEN

I didn't miss any one thing about you today. It was just a general sort of bad feeling. I woke up and it was suddenly September, 2010. Not our anniversary or anything, just that morning we woke up after a thunderstorm and the whole room was awash in light as yellow as butter. We didn't even have a bedframe then, just a blowup mattress on the floor. The air was still warm and humid as anything, so your arm was inches from my bare shoulder, almost touching me, but not quite. I didn't know then that it was possible to be without you.

I don't miss those days. Kind of wish I did, if I'm being honest. I live them every day instead. Just over and over again and I wake up and it isn't today anymore. Instead I'm living inside small moments that end too soon and then replay themselves. Like the last time I watched you walk to your car with your dark hair starting to curl under that ridiculous linen hat you loved. I wish you had turned around. I wish I'd asked you to.

People are wrong when they say that you can't fix the past, that you can only change today. I can't do anything about the fact that these days I open my eyes and I'm cold and alone under opaque skies. But that memory…sometimes now I can wake up, and in my mind the light is still yellow, the blowup mattress dangerously deflated underneath me, and the air humid as anything, but your arm is around me this time, warm against my skin.






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