This Heat in My Brain
By Tara Meddaugh
(c) 2019
DETAILS
Genre: Thriller/Horror/Drama
Cast: Male/Female
Age range: Teen through adult
Setting: An alley
Time period: Present
Running time: Approximately 1.5 minutes
Description: SLOANE speaks to a person he has just accosted then assaulted. He justifies it is the heat in his brain, similar to the burning heat of sand on a hot summer day, which has forced him to harm the person. He believes this attack is the only way to cool down his brain and implores his victim to sympathize with him.
EXCERPT BELOW
SLOANE
It’s this heat—I feel it in, I feel it in my face first, my head.
(pause)
That’s the most dangerous place, isn’t it? It controls everything. My brain. So when my brain is hot, then…my body, it gets hot too and it just…it does what my brain needs to have done. I don’t want to twist your wrist until I hear those little bones crackling. I just feel so hot and it’s the only thing that cools me down. Oh…you look so sad. So scared…
(pause)
Have you ever walked along the beach in a heat wave? Felt the sand so hot under your feet that it stings? Thousands of sizzling dagger blades, twisting and burning and pressing, invading your body. Have you felt that?
(pause)
It’s unbearable, isn’t it? You look—END OF EXCERPT
Click below for the complete thriller monologue, THIS HEAT IN MY BRAIN.