I was re-reading some of the play Deep Into That Darkness Peering that I wrote with my friend Mark Rector. Here’s a monologue I wrote for the top of the second act but we ended up not using it. It might be able to be cut down and used as a contemporary monologue for auditions. Or not.

POE

Thank God you’re still here. The walk refreshed me. I am calmer now… Did anyone come for me while I was out? My enemies haunt me and I no longer know whom to trust… There is something I want to tell you… the reason… the true reason… but I have to be so careful. I fear that to be thoroughly conversant with man’s heart, is to take our final lesson in the iron-clasped volume of despair.

I have not been completely truthful with you. I hardly know where to begin. The money I so desperately need from you is not for an advance for a lecture hall. The fact of the matter is I have already borrowed far too much money. I have spent my entire life in debt and the time has come for me to pay it back but I do not possess the means.

I know the man who is chasing me. Have known him my entire life. And he frightens me. He means to kill me if I do not pay back the money. Shh! He listens carefully at the door.

POE

I was on my way to New York from Baltimore to give a lecture there to raise some money when I noticed he was also on the steamer. I quickly got off before we set sail with the hopes of eluding him. I went to a local tavern to collect my thoughts. No sooner had I taken a seat at a table in the back when he sat down next to me. My heart started pounding in my chest, my breathing became quick and shallow. Sheer terror filled my body. He simply gazed at me and said in a very low and terrifying voice, “Let us have a drink.”

I told him I had no money to pay for a drink but he insisted. “Let us have a drink.” Again I tried to explain to him that he of all people should know that I did not possess the funds to pay for a drink when he interrupted and made a proposal. “Give me one of the stories from your valise and I will buy you a drink.” The tone of his voice was such that I dared not refuse. So I gave him one of my stories and he purchased me a drink.

We sat there in silence. Drinking. His gaze never leaving me. The anxiety of it all was too much for me to bear. I quickly finished my drink and offered him another story for another drink. Again we drank in silence. He simply sat there …staring at me. I feared for my life. I offered him yet another story. This continued until my valise was empty. What happened next I cannot completely recall. It is all so cloudy but somehow I managed to escape from him and I wandered the streets in desperation. I laid down to quell the pounding in my head. I awoke in a graveyard, my valise by my side. I had no idea where he was so I quickly ran to seek safety. If I do not pay him back, he will kill me. I desperately need your help.