Monologue. Love at first sip

This monologue was written by me in 2021 and performed by actor, Jamie Mountain on season 2, episode 3 of The Monologue Podcast. 

Love at first sip 

Man - youngish man in search of love. Thinks of himself as a bit of a lad. Has a habit of running his mouth off. Probably plays a lot of video games. 

Man 

[Slightly flustered, as if arriving after running late] So there I was, minding my own biz, having a quick hair-check in the window of this little cafe. Oh now, don’t give me that look. Like you don’t check yourself out in any reflective surface in here. Anyway, I caught a glimpse of this chick — sitting alone. This waiter chucked down a coffee in front of her. It sloshed a bit over the side of the rim. It was one of those ambiguous white ceramic things built for purpose and bought in bulk. Kind of squat and clunky with a gold line painted around the rim of the cup and the saucer. Yeah, you know the one. And I bet you can imagine the kind of café too — a sort of nondescript, soulless place you might find yourself getting a quick caffeine hit before a meeting in a new part of the city... the part you don’t want to spend much time in. Picture it? That’s the place I saw her. And the coffee was shit, let me tell you. I went in after this incident I’m about to tell you about… but yeah, anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. Where was I? Oh yeah. Hot chick; shit coffee. [thinking about the shit coffee] Seriously. Bitter, yet still somehow watery. Not even sugar could revive it. [sighs] So all in all, a rather humdrum image, really. As exciting as watching golf— or a fly walk across a window. Dullidy dull dull dull. 

But then, as I walked past, she looked up! She couldn’t have meant to, it was one of those serendipitous coincidences in life that I like to read far too much into. Like that time last summer, when I got bitten by something. I would have thought nothing of it, but it was when I was at mum’s and I happened to be watching Men in Black. Classic. And that got me thinking. Bugs. [gathering momentum] I mean the whole premise of MIB is cockroaches, right? Big fuck-off bugs. So then I read way too much into this bite on my arm and got it into my head that the whole flat must be riddled with bed bugs. I turned the whole place upside down that night. 

But yeah, that moment she looked up at me was just like that. I magnified that tiny act — her looking up at the exact moment I walked past — into some massive deal. It was as if some invisible chord had been lassoed around the both of us and pulled taught by Cupid himself. He was smiling proudly from her to me and then back to her and then back to me again. Rays of sunshine bathed us both, like a movie. Her gaze lingered on me, all sultry like. And all I could do was play out the scene in my head of how I thought it would go: her gazing at me, and I at her. The two of us playing this game of tug of war with heartstrings. Then, as if moved by some ocean current of emotion, she would fling her shitty café coffee across the table. Then, then, flip the table too — for dramatic effect, you know — and she’d bound through the café door and meet me on the path. She’d pause for a second, hardly able to contain her lust. Like she knew the game was won. Then, she’d leap upon me in this awesome, passionate wet snog. Phwoar. [gets lost in the fantasy again] 

Anyway, the whole time I was fantasising, playing out this scene in my head, I was standing by the cafe window, a bit gormless looking. I even had my mouth open. Idiot. Yet, there she was. Looking at me through the glass. She had her head cocked quizzically as if trying to figure something out. Looking right at me! I had this surge of feeling come from my belly, really passionate like. A little tingle down there, you know. I was about to wave. I saw her hand move—she was going to do the same! My heart beat enough in that second for a whole week. I. Wasn’t. Breathing. 

[pause] 

But, she just rearranged her fringe. Turns out, it was mirrored glass. [pausing between each word] Never even saw me. Probably just as well. If I’ve learnt one thing from movies, it’s that coffee-shop romances never last. And after all that fucking drama with Lydia cheating… I’m not up for the game of cat and mouse anymore. The ‘tug of war of courting.’ Although, with this shit that happened at the cafe... that chick hadn’t even picked up the rope to begin playing tug of war! She just left me in heap on the floor with a lot of rope. ...I feel like there’s a moral — or a metaphor — in there somewhere? Fuuuuuuck. Dating these days is a minefield, eh? 

Anyway, that’s why I was a bit later visiting you than normal this week. Sorry. [chuckles despite himself] Got caught up in the soul-deadening game of love... Gran... Gran. Ethel?! Are you even listening?