This is one monologue pulled from Voices A Monologue Collection for Young Actors which is available on Amazon or as a pdf download here on my website.
The Chair
It’s just a chair.
I know that.
I know it’s just a chair.
But there’s a thing that happens
when you walk into a room
and the first thing you see is the place where someone used to be.
And your brain — just for a half a second —
forgets.
And then it remembers.
And the remembering is the hard part.
Not the missing.
The missing is always there, like weather.
You get used to weather.
It’s the moment of forgetting
and then being handed the truth again
like something you dropped
and don’t actually want back.
I sat in it once.
After.
I don’t know why.
Just to see what they saw from there.
The window looks different from that side.
You can see more of the yard.
There’s a bird feeder I never noticed before.
(quietly)
I wonder if they watched the birds.
I never thought to ask.
I think about that.
All the things I never thought to ask.
I should have asked more questions.
I should have —
(stopping themselves)
It’s just a chair.
I know.