Monologue (294 words)

What is there to tell, my dear? This tired old tongue is not suited to lengthy storytelling, and this tired old head wishes very much on wet, gray evenings such as this to rest on a pillow. We have toiled very much this past week, my dear, we have toiled that we do not find ourselves at the end of our days without the necessary tools to journey into the next world. Would that there were a next world! But we are a slave to our knowledge.

We wish we were sick at times like this, sick and debilitated, so that the unseeing, uncaring eyes of the gray ghosts around us could turn their stony gazes at our person, and consider us. We confess to seeking the favor and propitiation of those gray ghosts. Their tongues are steely, and how cold are their words! You have not, then, heard them speak; or you have heard them, but have not paid them enough attention. Their words are ice against our tired heart – the colder, because we try to pretend they are sincere.

But they were never our friends. Did you believe they were? Well, they were not true. They did not care as much for us as we did for them; and we learnt very late that it was best not to repose one’s affections in another, for people are vicious and cruel. Do not make the mistake we made: live your life, the numerous years of it that you have left, by yourself, and you will be the happier.

We – we have our books to entertain us. They were written by gray hands, true, by faces we have never set eyes upon. But it is not necessary to know that when one is reading.