A Floating Monologue...

This is a monologue I'm working on that I haven't found a place for yet,the protagonist is a young boy. I realize it's quite long, but if you can get through it, I'd like to know what you think?

I heard once that every time you sneeze, your heart stops. So, at the end of life, if everyone added up all the time they had spent sneezing, and if the definition of dying is your heart stopping, I wonder how much of our lives we would actually spend being dead?

I asked my piano teacher that question one time. He thought it was depressing, that was before I thought things like that were depressing. he told me that it wasn't worth thinking about, that made me sad. People who think that there are things that aren't worth thinking about always make me sad.

I read a lot more than most kids I know. The most recent book I read was "The Old Man and The Sea" by Ernest Hemingway. When I took it back to the librarian, she asked me how I liked it.
"I liked it."
"And what did you get out of it?" She was always asking what people got out of things.
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know?"
"I don't know, the old man defended the fish for two days straight and came home with a carcass, I don't know."
I couldn't decide if that made me sad or happy.

In the drawers of the desk that my keyboard is on, I keep my writing. I'm always writing. I try to write poetry, but it never turns out the way I want. I think I'm either too literal, too bland, or too dumb, maybe it's a little of all three.

Anyways, my spirals are all full of writings, most begin as poems but then transform into letters. I write letters to whoever the poem is about, I guess I'm not good at articulating my feelings. I keep drawers and drawers of unsent letters, all written on paper.

I feel guilty for using so much paper, just like I feel guilty for buying new sweaters at department stores, or like I feel guilty for eating at big restaurants and staying in hotels. Everything we build is built on areas that used to be nature, and as our cities get bigger, nature gets smaller. That is scary. Especially because of photosynthesis, which I learned about in biology. We need plants to turn our carbon dioxide into oxygen. The human population is growing, putting out more carbon dioxide, and the plant population is getting smaller, putting out less oxygen. Eventually, we are all just going to run out of breath. Running out of breath is definitely a problem for me, but so is figuring out what to spend my remaining breaths doing.

We live in a neighborhood in the hills above the city by a lake. Sometimes I go for walks late at night and stand at the top of the hill. I look out over the lake and towards the lights of the city. I like to pretend that the lake is the sound and that I am Jay Gatsby looking for a green light.

Light is another thing that pollutes. In the city, we only see the brightest stars, so I didn't realize how many stars there were until two summers ago in the mountains of New Mexico. I went camping with my Mom, Dad, and my brother. I had never seen so many stars, and now that I know they are up there, I miss them when I'm here. On the last night there was a meteor shower and my brother and I snuck out of the tent and down to a nearby clearing where we laid on our backs for hours watching the comets. Comets are strange because they can be so destructive, but are so beautiful. Comets show the fury and the beauty of the universe.

The Universe is another thing that confuses me. I think it's interesting how everything is shaped in circles: the planets the stars, the orbets, comets. A circle is the only shape with no beginning or end, and in order to find the circumference of a circle you have to multiply by pi, which is the only number that doesn't end. The fact that there are things that have no ends and that our universe is full of them makes me think that God exists.

Living in the city, my ears are constantly full of the sound of traffic. I have gotten to the point where I just tune it out. Traffic has become the soundtrack of my life. At night its OK because I just pretend that the sound of traffic is really the ocean outside my window. Then I dream of whales and I fall asleep.

I once read a book about humpback whales and their mating rituals. When a male humpback is looking for a female humpback he begins to sing a song as he swims, and he sings and sings and sings, not stopping until he finds a mate. I like that he sings, I like that he finds a mate, but most of all I like that he continues to swim while he looks for his mate instead of giving up, or stopping and waiting for his mate to come to him. Maybe its a bit sad that most of my romantic inspiration is drawn from the mating ritual of the humpback whale.

I like girls and I like the idea of a girlfriend, but I wind up spending most of my time alone. Sarah told me once that my ultimate goal should be to be comfortable being alone. A life spent being permanently comfortable is one of the saddest things I've ever thought about.