About A Goth, published in the volume Me, As A Penguin

Tom Wells

WHO    Nick, seventeen, a goth.

TO WHOM    The audience (see note on ‘Direct audience address’ in the introduction).

WHERE    Unspecified. Perhaps Nick’s bedroom and then his kitchen, you decide.

WHEN    Present day.

WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENED    This speech is the start of a much longer monologue that forms a short play.

WHAT TO CONSIDER

•	The play, narrated by Nick in the present tense, traces the events of a life-changing day. It is intercut with recollections from the past.
•	Nick is gay.
•	He has feelings for Greg, and later on in the play it seems as though these may be reciprocated.
•	Nick’s love of the Existentialists. You might like to read Camus’ The Stranger, if you have not already done so.
•	By the end of the day, Nick is no longer a goth.

WHAT HE WANTS

•	To give vent to his feelings of frustration.
•	To separate himself from the herd.
•	To provide for himself a strong identity. To what extent does being a goth give him this?
•	To find an outlet for his intelligent and highly sensitive nature.
•	To figure out, firstly, why Greg has not called, and then, subsequently, what Greg’s postcard might signify.

KEYWORDS  (there are many) coffin  hate  die  stains  dark  tragic/tragedies  turmoil  burden  loneliness  foreboding  misery

NB  This play offers a number of other speeches from which to choose.

Nick

As beds go it is passable, I suppose. Obviously I would prefer to sleep in a coffin but as my mum has so hilariously pointed out, they don’t sell coffins at IKEA.

Yet.

[…]

I check my phone but. Nothing. Greg still hasn’t replied to my text. It has been three days and eleven hours now, which seems a bit relaxed even for someone as simple as him. Look in my sent messages. It’s there in capital letters:

I HATE MYSELF AND I WANT TO DIE.

I wonder if I’ve been too subtle again. Probably. I forget not everyone is as emotionally mature and sensitive as me. I decide to have a wank, but even that is doomed. Halfway through, I start worrying about getting stains on my new black duvet cover. My heart isn’t in it after that. […]

Breakfast is depressing as usual. All I want is to read Camus and eat my Coco Pops, but it is so hard to concentrate with Dad’s armour clanking and Mum clattering about with her tankards in the sink. […] Honestly. It’s tragic. Everyone else’s parents lie and cheat and have inner turmoil and chuck teapots at each other. I get the world’s most cheerful medieval re-enactors. My mum leans over, dangles her fluted sleeve in my chocolatey milk, passes me a postcard. It’s got a donkey on the front. Looking jaunty.

‘Camping is amazing.’

Three exclamation marks.

‘Weather perfect.’

A further two exclamation marks.

‘Dropped my phone off a cliff to prove it is shatterproof. It’s not. That was my old phone. Brilliant.’

Underlined.

‘Bet your missing me.’

‘Your’ spelt wrong.

‘You big gay.’

No comment.

‘Greg.’

And a kiss.

Pause.

‘Fancy finishing off this mead?’

Mum holds out a bottle.

I give her a long, stern look.

‘Wench, I do not.’

The bus isn’t due for another ten minutes so I undo one of my badges and self-harm for a bit. I don’t draw blood cos my cloak is dry clean only but it helps pass the time. The bus stop smells of piss and regret. It’s a very sunny day, the worst kind of weather for a goth, so I lurk in the shadows contemplating the great tragedies of my life. The burden of my intelligence, for example. Loneliness.

I am an only child.

Unless you count Lizzie, my sister […]

Right on cue, she drives past the bus stop. […]

‘Alright, gorgeous,’ she says.

I could vom.

‘Need a lift into town?’ […]

I get dropped off at the mini-roundabout. There is a sense of foreboding and quite a big Starbucks. I buy a Mint Frappuccino, the most gothic of the available drinks, and finish it in the cemetery next door. […] I’ve got a muffin too but I’m saving it till afterwards. Give me something to live for. Cos looking round me, the graves have never seemed more inviting. In the end, though, it’s time. I slurp the last minty dregs and head off for another two hours of misery.