Canadian Monologues

Here is a list of our favourite Canadian monologues. A few of the plays listed here might be hard to track down. It is always preferable to read the play your audition monologue is from, but if you are struggling use whatever context you can get from the text and create your own world around that. Canada has rich theatre scene and some of these monologues are great choices for auditions.

Canadian Male Monologues

STORIES by Morris Panych

MAN: You see-my faith in the days of the week has been seriously undermined. When I woke up this morning, I wasn’t exactly sure what day it was. And for that brief moment – it was only a matter of seconds – I think it was seconds – I stood – or should I say I “lay” on very shaky ground. After all – how could I act with assuredness. How could I rise up and plunge headlong into Friday’s world, if it was actually Saturday? And so I lay completely still for a moment, pondering this question. That’s when I noticed my hands. I’d never noticed them before. How they moved with amazing dexterity. But this flexibility, this movement of hands, can never extend past the boundaries of its own flesh – can only reach as far as the fingertips and no further, much as the movement of time is restricted by the days of the week. So I got up and tried to erase these things from my mind. I tried to get dressed. But then I began to understand other things – for example the meaning of shoes. They were little prisons for my feet. Absolute definitions of space. I could run a million miles, in any direction, and still not escape them. And my hat – forming a firm idea around my head, as if to say, “Well, that’s about the size of it.” My mind could never expand into infinite space, and still never change the shape of my head. I saw in the mirror a condemned man, serving a life sentence inside his body. Even the car – I drove – to work. My car. This thing. This instrument of liberation. It wasn’t freedom. It was merely the idea of freedom, bound in metal. A kind of hope, but with a speed limit attached to it. Now I was travelling an unknown route along a familiar road. It led in exactly the direction I was going, but not by coincidence. The asphalt was not laying itself a path in front of me. I was merely following a prearranged course and then something happened, something that had never happened before. When I finally arrived in town at my usual space it was taken. I was late for work you see and there was another car in my space. Someone had taken my space you see. I sat in my car for a moment, not knowing where to go. Just staring right ahead. And then, I put my car into gear and drove into it. Drove right into this other car. There didn’t seem to be any other choice. No place else to go, you see.

So I put my car in reverse, backed up, and rammed into this car again. And then again, and again and again, until finally this other car, this intruder of my space was smashed up against the side of the building, like an accordion. So now I had my space back, and I parked. I got out of the car, and turned to head for my office. That’s when I realized. It wasn’t my space at all. Somehow I got completely turned around. This wasn’t anywhere near where I work. I didn’t know where I was. I hadn’t any idea. I had always depended on the road which led there. The way I’ve always believed that one thing leads to another. Then I saw this building. I thought I’d come up here to get a better perspective on my exact situation. And from here the view is quite clear. There are no spaces left, you see. I have no place to park my car.

BILLY BISHOP GOES TO WAR by John Gray with Eric Peterson

BISHOP: Yeah, it looked like it was going to be a great war. I mean, all my friends were very keen to join up, they were. Not me. Royal Military College had been enough for me. Now the reason I went to R.M.C. is, well… I could ride a horse. And I was a great shot. I mean, I am a really good shot. I’ve got these tremendous eyes, you see. And R.M.C. had an entrance exam and that was good because my previous scholastic record wasn’t that hot. In fact, when I suggested to my principal that, indeed, I was going to R.M.C., he said, “Bishop, you don’t have the brains.” But I studied real hard, sat for the exams and got in.

He imitates an R.M.C. Officer

Recruits! Recruits will march at all times. They will not loiter, they will not window shop. Recruits! Recruits will run at all times when in the parade square. Recruits! Recruits will be soundly trounced every Friday night, whether they deserve it or not.

As himself.

I mean, those guys were nuts! They were going to make leaders out of us, the theory being that before you could learn to lead, you had to learn to obey. So, because of this, we’re all assigned to an upperclassman as a kind of, well… slave. And I was assigned to this real sadistic S.O.B., this guy named Vivian Bishop. That’s right, the same surname as me, and because of that, I had to tuck him into bed at night, kiss him on the forehead and say, “Goodnight, Daddy!” I mean, it’s pretty hard to take some of that stuff seriously. One of my punishments: I’m supposed to clean out this old Martello Tower by the edge of the lake. I mean, it’s filthy, hasn’t been used for years. Now I do a real great job. I clean it up real well. This upperclassman comes alone to inspect it.

UPPERCLASSMAN:
What’s this in the corner, Bishop?

BISHOP:
That?

He has another look.

That’s a spider, Sir.

UPPERCLASSMAN:
That’s right, Bishop. That’s a spider. Now you had orders to clean this place up. You haven’t done that. You get down on your hands and knees and eat that spider.

BISHOP: to the audience
I had to eat that spider in front of all my classmates. You ever have to eat a spider? In public? I doubt it. Nuts! Now, whenever I’m not happy, I mean, whenever I’m not having a really good time, I do one of three things: I get sick, I get injured or I get in an awful lot of trouble. My third year at R.M.C., I got into an awful lot of trouble. This friend of mine, Townsend, one night, we got a bottle of gin, eh? And we stole a canoe. Well, we’d arranged to meet these girls on Cedar Island out in Dead Man’s Bay. Well, of course, the canoe tips over. Now, it’s early spring, really cold. We get back to shore somehow and we’re shivering and Townsend says to me, “Bish, Bish, I’m going to the infirmary. I think I got pneumonia.” And I’m sitting there saying, “Well, whatever you do, silly bugger, change into some dry clothes.” Because we couldn’t let anybody know what we’d been doing. I mean, we were absent without leave, in possession of alcohol and we’d stolen a canoe. What I didn’t know was the officer on duty had witnessed this whole thing. Townsend goes to the infirmary and is confronted with these charges and he admits everything. I didn’t know that. I’m rudely awakened out of my sleep and hauled up before old Adjutant Perrault.

At attention, addressing the Adjutant Officer.

Sir! I’ve been in my bed all night. I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Sir.

PERRAULT: Come on. Come on now, Bishop. We have the testimony of the officer on duty. We also have the full confession of your accomplice implicating you fully in this. Now, what is your story, Bishop?

BISHOP: to the audience
Well, I figured I was in too deep now to change my story.

To Perrault.

Sir, I still maintain…

PERRAULT:
Bishop! I’m going to say the worst thing that I can say to a gentleman cadet. You are a liar, Bishop!

BISHOP is sobered briefly by the memory, but he quickly recovers.

BISHOP: to the audience
I got twenty-eight days restricted leave for that. It’s like house arrest. Then they caught me cheating on my final exams. Well, I handed in the crib notes with the exam paper! And that’s when the called me the worst student R.M.C. ever had. They weren’t going to tell me what my punishment was until the next fall, so I could stew about it all summer, but I knew what it was going to be. Expulsion! With full honours! But then the war broke out and I enlisted and was made an officer. I mean, for me, it was the lesser of two evils. But everyone else was very keen on the whole thing. They were.

LEAVING HOME by David French

JACOB: (to Bill) If you only knowed what my poor father went t’rough with the Catholics. Oh, if you only knowed, you wouldn’t be doing this. My own son a turncoat. And back home, when we was growing up, you wouldn’t dare go where the Catholics lived after dark. You’d be murdered, and many’s the poor boy was. Knocked over the head and drownded, and all they done was let night catch them on a Catholic road. My father’s brother was one. Poor Isaac. He was just fifteen, that summer. Tied with both arms behind him and tossed in the pond like a stone. My poor father never forgot that to his dying day.

And here you is j’ining their ranks! T’ree weeks of instructions. By the jumping Jesus Christ you don’t come from my side of the family. I’m glad my poor father never lived to see this day, I can tell you. The loyalist Orangeman that ever marched in a church parade, my father. He’d turn over in his grave if he saw a grandson kissing the Pope’s ass. Promising to bring up your poor innocent babies Roman Catholics and them as ignorant of Rome as earthworms.

Oh, it’s a good t’ing for you, my son, that he ain’t around to see it, because sure as you’m there he’d march into that church tomorrow with his belt in his hand, and take that smirk off your face! Billy, my son, I never expected this of you, of all people. No, I didn’t. Not you. If it was your brother, now, I could understand it. He’d do it just for spite…

DOC by Sharon Pollock

EV: If you want to know about this crazy bastard-if you want to know about him-when I needed a friend at my back, in a fight, in a brawl? This silly son of a bitch in sartorial splendour has saved my ass more than once-and me his- I’m gonna tell you a story. Now listen- we used to drink at this hole in the wall, this waterin’ hole for whores and medical students, eh? And we’d sit there and nurse a beer all night and chat it up with the whores who’d come driftin’ in well after midnight, towards mornin’ really, and this was winter, freeze a Frenchman’s balls off-and the whores would come in off the street for a beer and we’d sit there all talkin’ and jokin’ around. They were nice girls these whores, all come to Montreal from Three Rivers and Chicoutimi and a lotta places I never heard tell of, and couldn’t pronounce. Our acquaintance was strictly a pub acquaintance, we students preferin’ to spend our money on beer thus avoidin’ a medical difficulty which intimacy with these girls would most likely entail. So-this night we’re stragglin’ home in the cold walkin’ and talkin’ to a bunch of these whores, and as we pass their house, they drop off there up the steps yellin’ “Goo-night goo-night” … ‘Bout a block further on, someone says: “Where the hell’s Oscar?” Christ, we all start yellin’: “Where the hell’s Oscar? Oscar! Oscar!” Searchin’ in gutters, snowbanks and alleys, but the bugger’s gone, disappeared! Suddenly it comes to me. Surer than hell he’s so pissed he’s just followed along behind the girls when they peeled off to go home, and he’s back there inside the cat house. So back I go. Bang on the door. This giant of a woman, uglier than sin, opens it up. Inside is all this screamin’ and cryin’ and poundin’ and I say: “Did a kinda skinny fella”-and she says: “Get that son of a bitch outa here!” “Where is he?” I say. “Upstairs, he’s locked himself in one of the rooms with Janette! He’s killin’ her for Christ’s sake!” She takes me up to the room, door locked, girl inside is screamin’ bloody murder and I can hear Oscar makin’ a kinda intent diabolical ahhhhhin’ and oohhhin’ sound. “Oscar! Oscar! For Christ’s sake, open up!” The girl’s pleadin’ with him to stop, beggin’ him, chill your blood to the bone to hear her. And still that aaahhhhhin’ and oohhhhhhin’! Nothin’ for it but I got to throw myself at the door till either it gives or my shoulder goes. Finally Boom! I’m in. I can see Oscar is not. He’s got Janette tied to the bed, staked right out, naked and nude. He’s straddlin’ her but he’s fully clothed, winter hat, scarf, boots and all, and he’s wieldin’ his blue anatomy pencil. He’s drawin’ all of her vital organs, he’s outlinin’ them on her skin with his blue anatomy pencil. He’s got her kidneys and her lungs, her trachea and her liver all traced out. Takes four of us to pull him off – me and three massive brutes who’ve appeared. Janette is so upset they send her back to Rivière-du-Loup for two weeks to recover, Oscar has to turn pimp till he pays back the price of the door, and everyone swears it’s the worst goddamn perversion and misuse of a whore ever witnessed in Montreal… what in God’s name did you think you were doin’ that night? Jesus Christ… silly bastard…

ZASTROZZI: THE MASTER OF DISCIPLINE by George F. Walker

ZASTROZZI: You are looking at Zastrozzi. But that means very little. What means much more is that Zastrozzi is looking at you. Don’t make a sound. Breathe quietly. He is easily annoyed. And when he is annoyed he strikes. Look at his right arm. (Holding it up) It wields the sword that has killed two hundred men. Watch the right arm constantly. Be very careful not to let it catch you unprepared. But while watching the right arm (suddenly producing a dagger with his left hand) do not forget the left arm. Because this man Zastrozzi has no weaknesses. Remember that. Or he will have you. He will have you any way he wants you.

Lightning. A long pause. ZASTROZZI’s face and body relax. He looks around almost peacefully. He smiles.

I am Zastrozzi. The master criminal of all Europe. This is not a boast. It is information. I am to be feared for countless reasons. The obvious ones of strength and the skill of any weapon. The less obvious ones because of the quality of my mind. It is superb. It works in unique ways. And it is always working because I do not sleep. I do not sleep because if I do I have nightmares and when you have a mind like mine you have nightmares that could petrify the devil. Sometimes because my mind is so powerful I even have nightmares when I am awake and because my mind is so powerful I am able to split my consciousness in two and observe myself having a nightmare. This is not a trick. It is a phenomenon. I am having one now. I have this one often. In it, I am what I am. The force of darkness. The clear, sane voice of negative spirituality. Making everyone answerable to the only constant truth I understand. Mankind is weak. The world is ugly. The only way to save them from each other is to destroy them both. In this nightmare I am accomplishing this with great efficiency. I am destroying cities. I am destroying countries. I am disturbing social patterns and upsetting established cultures. I am causing people such unspeakable misery that many of them are actually saving me the trouble by doing away with themselves. And, even better, I am actually making them understand that this is, in fact, the way things should proceed. I am at the height of my power. I am lucid, calm, organized and energetic. Then it happens. A group of people come out of the darkness with sickly smiles on their faces. They walk up to me and tell me they have discovered my weakness, a flaw in my power, and that I am finished as a force to be reckoned with. Then one of them reaches out and tickles me affectionately under my chin. I am furious. I pick him up and crack his spine on my knee then throw him to the ground. He dies immediately. And after he dies he turns his head to me and says, “Misery loves chaos. And chaos loves company.” I look at him and even though I know that the dead cannot speak, let alone make sense, I feel my brain turn to burning ashes and all my control run out of my body like mud and I scream at him like a maniac, (whispering) “What does that mean.”

 

Canadian Monologues for Women

DRAG QUEENS ON TRIAL by Sky Gilbert

MARLENE: (passionately) How can I make you understand? When a drag queen lies, she tells the truth. That is was defines a drag queen. Yes I was a boring little boy name Bobby Fitch, yes I lived in a horrid little house, not a thatched cottage, yes I had a pet frog, and his name wasn’t Desirée- it was Fred, and my motor scooter wasn’t pink, it was green like the motor scooters of the other children. Yes, I made up those lies about my past, but only because my past could never be my past, because I am too fascinating and romantic a human being to have ever had a normal upbringing in Winnipeg.
[…] Don’t talk to me about what is obvious. This may be a court of law but what about the court of the human heart. Let me tell you something. Yes, I admit I… (pause) was born a brunette. But to quote Norman Mailer: “Any lady who chooses to be a blonde is truly a blonde.”
[…] What is admissible? Just think for a minute. What was admissible for me, a little boy with dusty brown hair, for I had light-coloured roots, who was a blonde in his heart? Don’t let anyone tell you anything else, blondes do have more fun, and I made a pact with myself as a child that I would live my life as a blonde, no matter how much money I had to spend on conditioner. Before you condemn me, before you condemn the other little drag queens in the world, I want you to think about me – to world outside, a brunette yes, but born blonde, sitting in the living room of our two bedroom house in Winnipeg in the middle of a bitter Winnipeg winter, and it’s two o’clock in the morning and I’m sitting in front of the TV with the sounds turned down to nothing watching the signoff signal. And do you know why?
[…] No, it isn’t relevant to anyone, but it is to me, and all the other little drag queens in the world, because the last thing to appear on that screen was The Canadian national anthem and a collage about Canada, with picture of The Royal Family, and The Prairies and The Rockies and finally what I had been waiting for, two ballet dancers. A woman, blonde, who I imagined myself to be, and a man with his buttocks almost naked, holding her. Imagine me, at seven years old waiting for the station to sign off, terrified that my father would find me, for this was the image that kept me alive, the image of those ballet dancers during the “Oh Canada” signoff, during those lonely, bitter Winnipeg years. Find me guilty if you wish, guilty of being true to myself, guilty of being true to my innermost instincts instead of repressing everything honest, alive and real that is inside of me, like the rest of the population of this cold puritanical sad grey country where people have forgotten how to experience real joy, where bars close at one o’clock and marijuana is illegal, where people feel guilty for touching one another, where the only real happiness seems to be getting together on Saturday night and watching a bunch of idiots get their heads bashed in, in a stupid and savage sport they call hockey!

HARLEM DUET by Djanet Sears

BILLIE: No. Let it ring. I know who it is. I can still feel him – feel when he’s thinking of me. We’ve spoken… must be three times, in the last two months. Something about $500 on my portion of his American Express card, which they’d cancel if I didn’t pay the bill. Seems I did me some consumer therapy. Last time he called – mad – to announce that the card had been cancelled by AMEX, and that he hoped that I was pleased. (beat) And I was. Is that crazy?
[…] I used to pray that he was calling to say he’s sorry. To say how he’s discovered a deep confusion in himself. But now… (phone stops ringing) I have nothing to say to him. What could I say? Othello, how is the fairer sexed one you love to dangle from your arm the one you love for herself and preferred to the deeper sexed one is she softer does she smell of tea roses and baby powder does she sweat white musk from between her toes do her thighs touch I am not curious just want to know do her breasts fill the cup of your hand the lips of your tongue not too dark you like a little milk with your nipple don’t you no I’m not curious just want to know.
[…] The skin holds everything in. It’s the largest organ in the human body. Slash the skin by my belly and my intestines fall out.
[…] I thought I saw them once, you know- on the subway. I had to renew my prescription. And I spot them-him and her. My chest is pounding. My legs can’t move. From the back, I see the sharp barber’s line, separating his tightly coiled hair from the nape of the skin at the back of his neck. His skin is soft there… and I have to kick away the memory nudging its way into my brain. My lips on his neck, gently… holding him… Here, before me-his woman-all blonde hair and blonde legs. Her weight against his chest. His arm around her shoulders, his thumb resting on the gold of her hair. He’s proud. You can see he’s proud. He isn’t just any Negro. He’s special. That’s why she’s with him. And she… she… she flaunts. Yes, she flaunts. They are before. I am behind, stuck there on the platform. My tongue is pushing hard against the roof of my mouth… trying to hold up my brain, or something. ‘Cause my brain threatens to fall. From down through the roof of my mouth, and be swallowed up. Slowly, slowly, I press forward, toward them. I’m not aiming for them though. I’m aiming with them in mind. I’m aiming for beyond the yellow line, into the tracks. The tunnel all three of us will fall into can be no worse than the one I’m trapped in now. I walk – no, well hover really. I’m walking on air. I feel sure of myself for the first time in weeks. Only to be cut off by a tall grey man in a grey uniform, who isn’t looking where he’s going, or maybe I’m not – Maybe he knew my aim. He looks at me. I think he looks at me. He brushes past. Then a sound emanating from… from… from my uterus, slips out of my mouth, shatters the spell. They turn their heads – the couple. They see me. It isn’t even him.

THE REZ SISTERS by Thompson Highway

EMILY: Fuckin’ right. Me and the Rez Sisters, okay? Cruisin’ down the coast highway one night. Hum of the engine between my thighs. Rose. Rosabella Baez, leader of the pack. We were real close, me and her. She was always thinkin’ real deep. And talkin’ about bein’ a woman. An Indian woman. And suicide. And alcohol and despair and how fuckin’ hard it is to be an Indian in this country. No goddamn future for them, she’d say. And why, why, why? Always carryin’ on like that. Chris’sakes. She was pretty heavy into the drugs. Guess we all were. We had a fight. Cruisin’ down the coast highway that night. Rose in the middle. Me and Pussy Commanda off to the side. Big 18-wheeler come along real fast and me and Pussy Commanda get out of the way. But not Rose. She stayed in the middle. Went head-on into that truck like a fly splat against a windshield. I swear to this day I can still feel the spray of her blood against my neck. I drove on. Straight into daylight. Never looked back. Had enough gas money on me to take me far as Salt Lake City. Pawned my bike off and bought me a bus ticket back to Wasy. When I got to Chicago, that’s when I got up the nerve to wash my lover’s dried blood from off my neck. I loved that woman, Marie-Adele, I loved her like no man’s ever loved a woman. But she’s gone. I never wanna go back to San Francisco. No way, man.

LEAVING HOME by David Franch

MARY: You don’t know when to stop, do you? You just don’t know when to call a halt. What must I do? Knock you senseless? You’d go on and on until you brought your whole house tumbling down. I suppose it’s late in the day to be expecting miracles, but for God’s sake, Jacob, control yourself. For once in your life would you just t’ink before you speaks? Please! (slight pause) I have no sympathy for you. You brought this all on yourself. You wouldn’t listen. Well, listen now. Have you ever in your whole life took two minutes out to try and understand him? Instead of galloping off in all directions? Dredging up old hurts? Why, not five minutes ago he stood on that exact spot and stuck up for you!
[…] Yes, Ben did, and don’t look so surprised. Now it may be too late but there are some t’ings that just have to be said, right now, in the open. Sit down and listen. Sit down. (Jacob sits.) For twenty years now I’ve handled the purse strings in this family, and only because you shoved it off on me. I don’t like to do it any more than you do. I’m just as bad at it, except you’re better with the excuses. (Jacob rises.) I’m not finished. Sit down. (He does- slight pause.) Last fall you tumbled off our garage roof and sprained your back. You was laid up for six months all told – November to May – without a red cent of Workman’s Compensation, because the accident didn’t happen on the job. And I made all the payments as usual-the mortgages, your truck, the groceries, life insurance, the hydro and oil-man, your union dues. All that, and more. I took care of it all. And where, Jacob, do you suppose the money came from? You never once asked. Did you ever wonder?
[…] The bank! We didn’t have a nickel in the bank. Not after the second month.
[…] (She lowers her voice.) If Ben hadn’t got a scholarship, he wouldn’t have went to college this fall. He couldn’t have afforded to. It was his money that took us over the winter. All those years of working part-time and summers. All of it gone.
[…] And you say he hates you!
[…] Shut up. He’ll hear you! He never wanted you to know, so don’t you dare let on that I told you, you hear? He knowed how proud you is, and he knowed you wouldn’t want to t’ink you wasn’t supporting your family. (Slight pause.) Now, boy, who’s got the last laugh?
[…] I’m tired, Jacob. And you ought to be, too, by all rights. It’s time to quit it. A lifetime of this is enough, you and Ben. Declare it an even match for your own sake, boy, if for nothing else. I don’t want to see you keep getting the worst of it. You always did and you still do.

STORIES by Morris Panych

LILLIAN: Some years ago, I went to Paris to see the Mona Lisa. It’s in the Louvre, the largest building in the world, probably. But the Mona Lisa, as it turns out, is very small. So naturally I couldn’t find it. I kept looking for something – big. Then I saw a huge crowd of people all standing around – looking disappointed. And there she was – smiling as if she knew.

[…]

You do like a long story, don’t you. Let’s see. There was a young Frenchman standing next to me, in a terrible state of despair. He began talking to me as if he’s known me all his life. I didn’t understand a word he was saying, but he didn’t seem to take any notice. I thought I’d lose him in the crowd, but he followed me right out of the museum. He told me a very long and involved story, often punctuating the words with his fists. Occasionally he would sink into a sadness the like of which I’d never seen. And then he would start raving again. The further we walked, the more distressed he became- the more enraged. By the time we reached the Pont Neuf he was sobbing uncontrollably. It seemed very clear that he wanted me to say something. We hadn’t walked halfway across, when he started to climb over the side of the bridge. I didn’t know what to say. So I blurted out the only thing in French that I’d ever learned. “La pamplemousse est sur la table.” I don’t even know what it means. But he responded very positively. He thought about it for a moment, and then smiled. After that his mood was changed considerably. In fact, he was delighted. Whatever it was I said, it seemed to be something for him to hang his hat on. And he walked away a new man. Determined, it seemed, to live by this philosophy the rest of his life.

LES BELLES SOEURS by Michel Tremblay

ANGELINE: It’s easy to judge people. It’s easy to judge them, but you have to look at both sides of the coin. The people I’ve met in that club are my best friends. No one has ever treated me so well… Not even Rhéauna. I have fun with those people. I can laugh with them. I was brought up by nuns in the parish halls who did the best they could, poor souls, but knew nothing. I was fifty-five years old when I learned to laugh. And it was only by chance. Because Pierette took me to her club one night. Oh, I didn’t want to go. She had to drag me there. But, you know, the minute I got in the door, I knew what it was to go through life without having any fun. I suppose clubs aren’t for everyone, but me, I like them. And of course, it’s not true that I only have a Coke. Of course, I drink liquor! I don’t have much, but still, it makes me happy. I don’t do anyone any harm and I buy myself two hours of pleasure every week. But this was bound to happen someday. I knew I’d get caught sooner or later. I knew it. What am I going to do now? Dear God, what am I going to do? Pause. I always said that if I got caught I’d stop going… But I don’t know if I can… And Rhéauna will never go along with that. Pause. Ah, well, I suppose Rhéauna is worth more than Pierrette. She gives a long sigh. I guess the party’s over….

LES BELLES SOEURS by Michel Tremblay

YVETTE: Last week, my sister-in-law, Fleur-Ange, had a birthday. They had a real nice party for her. There was a whole gang of us there. First there was her and her family, eh? Oscar David, her husband, Fleur-Ange David, that’s her, and their seven kids : Raymonde, Claude, Lisette, Fernand, Réal, Micheline and Yves. Her husband’s parents, Aurèle David and his wife, Ozéa David, were there too. Next, there was my sister-in-law’s mother, Blanche Tremblay. Her father wasn’t there ’cause he’s dead… Then there were the other guests : Antonio Fournier, his wife Rita, Germaine Gervais, also, Winifred Gervais, Armand Campeau, Daniel Lemoyne and his wife, Rose-Aimée, Roger Joly, Hormidas Guay, Simmone Laflamme, Napoléon Gauvin, Anne-Marie Turgeon, Conrad Joanette, Léa Liasse, JeanetteLandreville, Nona Laplante, Robertine Portelance, Gilbert Morrissette, Lilianne Beaupré, Virginie Latour, Alexandre Thibodeau, Ovila Gariépy, Roméo Bacon and his wife Juliette, Mimi Bleau, Pit Cadieux, Ludger Champagne, Rosaire Rouleau, Roger Chabot, Antonio Simard, Alexandrine Smith, Philemon Langlois, Eliane Meunier, Marcel Morel, Grégoire Cinq-Mars, Théodore Fortier, Hermine Héroux and us, my husband Euclide, and me. I think that’s just about everyone…

WHITE BITING DOG by Judith Thompson

PONY: Excuse me, could you call the projectionist, please? He’s my Dad– I just have to talk to him for a second– I know– but the thing can run on its own, we both know that– besides, this is an emergency! Yeah! Thanks, thanks a lot… (peering) Dad? I can see the dustbeam but I can’t see you oh there you are hi! Hi… it’s me– no, no I’m not back, I’m not even in the Kirk, actually, I’m just– like this is gonna totally weird you out, but– I had to appear to you like this ’cause– in a couple of hours you’re gonna hear that– don’t freak out– that I passed myself on and– like– I didn’t want you to get too down about it so I thought I’d come and tell you myself that– it’s not at all a bad thing. It’s quite nice if you just give in to it. You know the feeling when you’re falling asleep and ya jump awake ’cause you dreamt you slipped on a stair? Well it’s like if you stayed in the slip– if you dove right down into it and held your breath till you came out the other end. I’m in the holding your breath part right now, so I’m not sure what’s on the other end, but I feel like I’m so big I’d barely fit into Kirk Community Centre– it’s weird, but… Dad? Dad? The main reason I came was to let you know that I didn’t… kill myself ’cause I couldn’t hack it or because the man I loved couldn’t love me back, it was ’cause… I was invaded, Dad, Dad filled by the worst evil… you ever imagined– I guess it happened when I fell in love, on account of I had to open my mouth so wide to let the love in that the evil came in, too… and living with it was just like being skinned alive; worse pain even than your kidney stones, and we know how bad they were. Now the pain has stopped, and there’s still the old Pony to give to my husband: ’cause he needs it, Dad, like a blood transfusion he needs it, and just like Mum would give you anything you needed, I’m gonna give myself to him. No, we didn’t get papers, but he’s my husband all right. His name is Cape Race, like the place, eh? Oh yeah, I told him about your mice and he was really impressed and uh– tell Wade there’s a stereo store down here that’s looking for someone and Mum– tell Mum not to go into the ditch about this ’cause I know they’re gonna let me come visit– to… straighten her fingers and… give her alcohol rubs… Well… I have to– finish my dive now… Oh Dad I’m so big now I’d never fit back on earth. Love… Pony.