Excerpts from 3 Monologues

AARON — THE FAST TALKER

Exodus 3

Isaiah 17: 10 “For you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge.”

(AARON runs out in a pin stripped suit, sees the audience, straightens his tie, leans on his staff.)

AARON: O.K., O.K., I blew it. So whaddya expect? You woulda done the same if you were in my place. You look skeptical? Nice word. Listen up for I am about to set things straight. O.K. Moses, my brudder, has taken off you see. He leaves me with a few hundred thousand malcontent Jews while he’s up there communing or somethin’, with this God of his who hasn’t shown His face to any of us in the last few hundred years until . . . wham! bang! Kawpowie! Plagues, angels of death, and pillars of fire. I mean, none of us doubted anymore, after that, we just didn’t know what to believe. All these questions— and I didn’t know the answers. Moses just turns to me ‘cause I’m glib of tongue (that’s how HE puts it). Actually, I am a fast talker. Always have been. I’m at home in the city, you know, buying selling, talking the price down to the last denarius, smelling the kabob’s cooking and watching the kids play stick ball in the street. That’s where I belong.

CAIN: LOOKIN’ OUT FER NUMBER ONE

Jude 1: 11 “For they walk in the way of Cain, and abandon themselves for the sake of gain.”

(In a Cockney accent, he is cutting fish.)

CAIN: Pretty thing this. Knife goes through her clean as butter, then ya gut ‘er, little heart, little liver, just like us, you see– fish, fowl, lamb, man. All a little gathering of parts– we all be dumb beasts when it comes down to this. I run the butcher shop now. You see, I was never really cut out to grow veggies. Sides of beef, blood under yer nails, skin, bone thrown about–life doesn’t get much better than this. He, Him up there, now He accounts blood to be a measure of sorts, a propitiation if you like, a way to get through to him. Slaughtered two calf lings himself, he did, to cover me Mum an’ Dad’s private parts. That’s wha’ started the whole ball rolling, if ya ask me. Soon as the blood ‘it the ground all creation was moaning and crying for more. “More blood,” it cried, so I obliged. To ’im it’s just a way of making up, to me now, it’s somethin’ else. I make the best blood pudding and blood sausage in these parts. That’s wha’ it’s good for.

I know what yer thinkin’. He bopped his brother, busted him upside the head, first homicide–”what have you done”– echoing up hill and down dale. Shame and remorse–right! Fer a minute or two maybe. From the time I was two Mum was always tellin’ me to “watch over Abel”. Kid goes wandering off, I get the blame– well let me tell you I got tired of wiping that kids bum . He gets to watch the sheep. I ‘ave to build the fences. His sacrifice gets thumbs up, but it was me who slit their scuzzy little throats and laid out the chops with a bit of parsley on the side that he took to the altar. I’m the first born, I shoulda ‘ad me choice, I should. It wouldn’a been grubbing for tubers in the ‘ard earth I kin tell ya that. I mean, I got me rights, I do.

PHARAOH LECTURES ON THE HARDENING OF THE HEART

Exodus Chapters 7-12

Hebrew 3: 7-8 “Therefore as the Holy Spirit says, ‘Today when you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.’”

(PHARAOH stands before a drawing of a heart with a lecture stick.)

PHARAOH: You see before you the human heart. Over the ages much has been ascribed to this organ, this seat of life, this repository of feeling. Under the right tragic circumstances it is said that this organ can be broken, thus ‘broken – heartedness.’ If one is considered to be particularly brave there is the term ‘brave-hearted’ and of course the opposite would then be ‘weak-hearted.’ If you happen to be penurious or miserly you could run the risk of being labeled ‘small-hearted’ and, of course, the magnanimous of gesture, thought, and generosity are often termed, ‘big hearted.’ But today we will be examining another and quite separate phenomenon called hardness or hardening of the heart.

I must say that I am personally acquainted with this particular phenomenon and my personal encounter has been well referenced in the Hebrew Old Testament, Exodus Chapters 7-12. To refresh your memory, this is the section where Pharaoh, that’s me, has his heart hardened by God in the context of several different interviews with Moses. The result of this is nigh on catastrophic, several plagues which ravished the countryside, flies, frogs, darkness, blood, and finally the death of all first-born, which included my own son. The culmination of this hard-hearted attitude on my part also caused the escape of hundreds of thousands of slaves and the decimation of my mounted chariot forces all drowned in the Red Sea. . . all. The results have been recorded for all to read, but what I am going to talk about today is the process—the primary question being—what does it take, what are the essential ingredients that go into the hardening of this organ here called the heart? Of course we are not talking about fatty foods or lack of exercise. We are talking metaphorically, the heart being the symbol of our emotions and will.