A Monologue by Jean-Pierre Martinez
Should I lie down or…? Okay… I’m not quite sure where to begin… I found your contact details in the phone book… You know how it is – you can ask a friend if they know a good, not-too-expensive dentist who won’t cause too much pain, but… someone like you. So, I consulted the phone book… And then I randomly picked your name from the rather long list… Quite a job paid in cash in these times, isn’t it? They say you don’t need a degree to do your job. That all it takes is to have been a client to start your own practice… Is that true? So, after this, I can consider myself in training too. But doesn’t it bother you a bit that all your clients become potential competitors? Can you imagine? I visit my butcher, buy a calf’s head, and as I walk out, I open a butcher shop right across the street… Not likely to happen, mind you; I can’t stand meat… I even have trouble with eggs. Well, I eat them occasionally, but… They say birds are descendants of dinosaurs… So, an egg is a bit like a dinosaur foetus, right? In reality, I didn’t pick your name entirely by chance. You were the last one on the list… Since your surname starts with a Z… I probably wanted to right a wrong… It’s my Zorro side. Yes, I imagine others always choose the first one on the list… Mr. Aa, Mrs. Ab, or Mr. Bb… I can imagine what you must have endured during your studies… If you had any… Always the last one in line for everything… I’m okay with it. I’m in the S… Towards the end of the line, but still… It’s funny, my last name is Stone even though my father was Spanish… I don’t know why I said “was,” because he still is… I mean, alive. Well, I think he is… But can we still say he’s Spanish? He was naturalised.. American, I mean… Not stuffed… Or frozen… It’s crazy, all those women who put their kids in the freezer, right? Between fish sticks and ice pops… If only kids could do the same with their parents… Preserve them in the freezer until they figure out what to do with them… Why am I telling you all this…? Oh yes, the Z! So, I have to tell you everything from the beginning, right? From A to Z. Or rather, from D to K… Since they call me Dick… I’ve never liked my short name… Did you notice? The designated idiot is always named Dick… Take, for instance, the show “Bewitched.” Are you familiar with it? Well, Samantha’s husband is the classic idiot of the story. You won’t believe it, but the two actors who successively interpreted the role were both called Dick ! Samantha spends her entire day rescuing him from the embarrassment of being taken for the genuine idiot he truly is. And she has to use all of her magical powers to prevent that. Well, she loves her husband because he’s a nice guy. Nice, but an idiot. That’s the general idea of Dick, usually. I have a daughter too. I should have named her Tabitha. I don’t mean to say my wife is a witch. She’s more like a fairy… To put up with me… That’s what my mother always tells her: “How do you put up with him?” My mother is from Normandy. Like the cows. So, milk, butter, cream… We’ve had our fill… I can’t digest butter, you see. I must have inherited that from my father. In Spain, it’s more about olive oil. He always used to say to her: “Why do you put so much cream in the soup?” He should have asked her why she didn’t put more soup in her cream… Apparently, she couldn’t help herself… It’s in the genes… Eventually, my father found someone else to serve him soup… At home, it’s me who cooks now. That way, at least, I know what I’m eating. You’re not saying anything… You’re surely wondering why I came to see you. If I knew, I probably wouldn’t have come, I guess. Well, there is something, after all. How can I put this? The more time goes by… the closer I feel to minerals. I don’t know why. You know the saying: “The more I know people, the more I love my dog”? Well, for me, the more time passes, the more people bore me. Dogs too, actually. It’s with stones that I truly feel at ease… A human life… It’s too short, isn’t it? So, a dog’s life… Whereas a stone doesn’t age… Even trees don’t mean anything to me anymore. Though some are over a thousand years old. But a tree also eventually dies. It can even get diseases. And then it’s eaten by worms, just like everything else. It eventually goes back into the food chain. A stone, no. Nobody eats rocks! Except maybe hens, it’s true… To make the shells of their eggs. You’re right; we can’t really say that stones are truly eternal either… Do you think dinosaurs also ate rocks to make their eggs? In that case, what’s the point of being a stone? If it’s just to end up as empty shells after making an omelette… So why do I like stones, doctor? I mean, Mr. Z. Do you think it has something to do with my name? Dick Stone…
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A sketch from the collection Like a fish in the air
Link to the collection for free download (PDF)
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