drewkopp

[drewkopp]

Burning Out: A Dramatic Monologue - Part 3: Cooldown

I’d love to get some feedback on this piece and the other two parts that follow, which were written as part of a collab between my local writer’s group and the local theater group. I’d specifically like to know if I captured the narrator’s psychopathy through their voice and if their character arc is clear. Each part has to be under 500 words.

Dear Diary

…Hey.

I’m sorry I left you to gnaw on that little cliffhanger for a few months, but I’ve been too busy to check in with you.

A lot’s changed since we last spoke, but one thing’s stayed the same: I still don’t feel like putting other people’s property to the torch.

Don’t worry; my creative juices haven't gone dry or anything. My art’s just taken a bit of a new form, that’s all.

Molotov’s helping me shear away my artist’s block. You remember Molotov, right? The punk I kidnap- removed from an unsafe situation? Yeah, them

Neither of us ended up frozen because Molotov made magic happen with a bottle of hand sanitizer they swiped from the refugee center’s bathroom. Their technique was still mediocre, but I didn't mind giving them a pointer or two. Last week, they got our campfire going with nothing but a stick, a handful of dry leaves, and a dictionary so soaked that the only words I could read from it were  “Hope,” “Springs,” “Eternal,” and “Marmalade.”

Molotov also came up with the idea of selling fire. Huh. Writing that didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.

We were passing through the skeleton of what I think used to be Saskatoon when we ran into a herd of ex-frat boys trying to turn their three-seater sofa into a cooking fire by using a shattered Budweiser bottle as a magnifying glass. 

My apprentice offered to help them get a blaze going if they shared a bit of the deer they wanted to grill up. Did you know Deer Heart Salad is a thing? I didn’t. Yet another fascinating nugget of Molotov wisdom.

Being a fire merchant scratches my artistic itch better than I thought. If you’d told me that most people don’t know how to start a fire before the apocalypse, I wouldn’t have believed you. It doesn't matter which direction Molotov and I wander; we always find at least one poor smuck who doesn't know how to relive their ancient ancestor’s greatest triumph.

It’s a pretty satisfying dopamine cycle, honesty: Molotov and I meander around until we find some poor soul whose mind has not yet been opened to the ways of pyromancy, then we hook them up if they can match our prices. 

Even when we don’t stumble upon any customers, lighting a campfire and sitting under the stars with Molotov makes me feel like I’ve done something right. I’m almost okay with counting my anti-hypothermia fires as art.

…Almost.

I think I’ve finally realized why I lost my mojo. My work… it’s an act of rebellion. Before, it was a rebellion against a civilization that decided by lottery whether or not people were worth taking care of. Now, it’s a rebellion against the ignorance that civilization allowed to fester.

Being a fire merchant should be enough to keep me busy.

At least until civilization thinks it’s safe to come out of hiding.

#showyourwork #writing #blog #theatre #theater

[drewkopp]

Burning Out: a Dramatic Monologue - Part 2: Flashover

I'd love to get some feedback on this piece and the other two parts that follow, which were written as part of a collab between my local writer's group and the local theater group. I'd specifically like to know if I captured the narrator's psychopathy through their voice and if their character arc is clear. Each part has to be under 500 words.

Dear Diary

So, I’m still alive.

Yeah, the meteor didn't hit hard enough to blow us all into goo. All it did was give the Atlantic the push it needed to swallow the Eastern Seaboard. 

Bummer.

Also, I might be having an existential crisis.

It started at the refugee center. You know,  the refugee center that was supposed to complete my daily creative output streak for this week?

The “guards” didn’t search me well when I arrived. I know loose bundles of sticks don’t qualify as questionable carry-on material these days, but they looked like they were the ones who wanted to be pat down. It was just… sad.

Things only got worse from there. It took me two days to find a halfway decent spot to start working on my latest project, and it was already taken! 

Yes, I finally ran into another artist who works in burnt orange and ashen grey, but they weren’t anyone special: just some fourteen-ish-year-old punk trying to set the public restroom ablaze with a pile of laundry dipped in paint thinner! Heck, their clothes were coated in the stuff, so they probably would have lit themselves up if I hadn’t knocked them out first.

And after all that, I just… couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make a piece, so I’m back home at the cabin… where I have apparently misplaced my ability to start a simple campfire! So I might die of hypothermia, and the kid will see it happen!

…This is also the story of how I got a roommate, by the way.

I couldn’t just leave the kid there. I would have become a wanted criminal again if I’d let them go, and I HATE killing things in ways that don’t involve combustion. Therefore, they’re staying tied up in the corner until I’m ready to burn something again.

…

I never had artist’s block before the impact. My work just isn't giving me the jolt it used to. Something’s changed, and I know it isn’t me. People don’t jump when they smell smoke anymore. Unchecked fire is just another tooth in the jaw of our rabid world. My art is… derivative now! 

I. Don’t. Do. Derivative.

GOD, WHY ISN’T THIS FIRE STARTING!?

Oh great, now the kid’s staring at me. Hang on, I recognize that glaze over their eyes. They’re… bored. They’ve been kidnapped by the last true scholar of the pyrokinetic arts, and they’re bored!? 

I COULD BURN YOU ALIVE RIGHT NOW, YOU LITTLE MOLOTOV!

…

No, I can’t. And the kid knows that. They know they’re going to die, but they know it won't be because I burn them. It’ll be because I can’t save us from the cold. They’re about to die because fire doesn’t matter in a world where no one’s afraid to burn.

…

I’m going to untie the kid. Nothing left to do but let them have a crack at this.

#showyourwork #writing #blog #monologue #theater

[drewkopp]

Burning Out: A Dramatic Monologue - Part 1: Ignition

I'd love to get some feedback on this piece and the other two parts that follow, which were written as part of a collab between my local writer's group and the local theater group. I'd specifically like to know if I captured the narrator's psychopathy through their voice and if their character arc is clear. Each part has to be under 500 words.

Dear Diary

They let me out of the looney bin because of the world’s impending death-by-meteor, and I wanted to kick off my reintegration into society by doing something special. So, I lit up the local campground with my art. 

Gathering the necessary materials wasn’t a bother. Soldiers of the Faith were handing out free pamphlets at every street corner, and the barbarians scrambling in and out of Kroger’s weren’t aiming to stab someone over a jug of cooking oil.

The hospital even gave me back my lighter, probably hoping that I’d be dead before I could use it. 

The first person to argue that you cannot pin a price on human life had to have been born before the barter system. The right to sit down at the nearest campground cost me a can of beans.

The place really needed a touch of warmth. I haven’t seen people so frozen in their own misery since the group homes. Remember those? Everything within those walls was ice; the clearance-sale mattresses, the boxes of expired Cheerios, that one tobacco-scented worker paid by the hour to tell you that someone somewhere cares about you… 

My allotted patch of dirt was right behind the grandest RV on the lot. The air circling the roving residence smelled like nail polish remover and toasted marshmallow perfume.  

I’m glad I started timing my artistic process before I was sent to the hospital. Everything fizzles out eventually, but I knew that long before oblivion manifested as a blot on the sky.

I tied and cut the cord in 7.6 seconds, 4 milliseconds shy of my pre-commitment record. The bundled wad of doomsday scripture reached total saturation in 24.5 seconds, but I chalk that one up to physics.

I hate how similar all of my artwork looks in its larval stage. Greasy and hunch-backed, like a teenager who finally learned the world will keep twirling after they’ve turned to dust. 

Remember when I was a pre-cooked adult?  

Yeah, I don’t either; I was on way too many antipsychotics.

I let my lighter burn within a stone’s throw of overheating before I married the flame on its lips to my soggy patchwork bible. Then I stepped back and chucked my newest seed through the RV’s rear window.

There’s something magical about the moment a fire is born. It’s a liminal space, a short-lived gateway that chews up cold, dead things and spits out beasts that run faster and farther than any creature on Earth. And I love being the first person to document the emerging species.

My latest piece, “Smokey Bear’s Rebellious Cousin,” was well-received by the local community. Communal art is the best art, and I hung around until Yogi was flogged into a premature hibernation.

I should get going. The apocalypse’s closing in, and I still have ideas for a few new pieces blowing around in my head.

#showyourwork #writing #blog