MONOLOGUES TO LEARN ( 1 monologue per Role)

 

🔹 Man (30–33) – Expanded Monologue with Mood Twists

 

(Calm, deliberate — drawing the listener in)

“Time is no river. No gentle current that carries us onward. No. It is a grinding maw of gears and blood. It devours us, piece by piece, with perfect hunger.”

 

(A sudden, sharp intensity, almost taunting)

“And yet—look at me. I walk between the wheels, untouched. The rust does not stain me, decay averts its gaze. Why? Because the machine knows me. It bends to me. Perhaps it fears me.”

 

(Dropping voice, intimate, unsettling)

“Some whisper I am a savior. Some choke my name as a curse. They are both wrong. I am neither salvation… nor damnation. I am only the echo of hours you already squandered. The shadow of the choices you buried. The debt you cannot repay.”

 

(Shift to reflective, almost mournful)

“Do you not hear it? That ticking—behind your eyes, beneath your ribs. Every breath you draw is measured. Every hope is already broken, waiting only for its turn to fall.”

 

(Suddenly sharp, almost cruel, testing the audience)

“You still believe in freedom, don’t you? In choice? [laughs softly, darkly] Choice is the sweetest lie time ever forged. You are prisoners—blind, obedient, marching in circles while the wheel grinds your bones.”

 

(Slows down, voice softens, almost seducing with fatalism)

“But I… I walk within the jaws. I am not ground, I am not swallowed. I am the stillness at the center of the turning. The one who remembers what you refuse to see.”

 

(Explodes with sudden, commanding power)

“So call me what you will! Curse! Phantom! Omen! It matters not. For when the last cog turns, when the final spring uncoils—your gods will not come. Your prayers will not matter. It will be me standing in the silence, after the ticking stops.”

 

(A pause, leaning in, quiet and terrifying)

“The last witness… of your undoing.”

 

 

 

Girl (18–19) – Rebellious, Curious, Youthful

 

(Restless, mocking authority)

“They say: ‘Be patient. Sit still. Keep quiet.’ But why should I? Silence is a coffin, and I refuse to lie down in it.”

 

(Pauses, softer, curious)

“Sometimes… I wonder what lies behind the ticking. It’s not just clocks—it’s something alive. Something breathing in the shadows. I hear it calling, and I want to know its name.”

 

(Sharp turn, with a smirk)

“But no, they would rather I stay blind. A good girl, obedient, waiting my turn. Waiting for what? To be broken, like the rest of them? No. I will not wait. I will never wait.”

 

(Shifts to a hushed, daring whisper, leaning in)

“Maybe the curse is real. Maybe it waits for me, sharp-toothed and hungry. Maybe if I press too close, it will eat me whole. But tell me—” [grins] “isn’t that worth the risk?”

 

(Bursts out, fierce and reckless)

“I would rather burn in the jaws of the curse than suffocate in their chains! I would rather tear the darkness open with my bare hands and see what bleeds out!”

 

(Voice cracks slightly, softer, vulnerable)

“And if I fall… if it devours me piece by piece… then at least it will be because I chose. Because I lived. Not because I kept quiet.”

 

(Final shift, steady, rebellious smile)

“And no one—no one—will silence me again.”

 

 

🔹 Old Man (65–69) – Wise, Grim, Marked by Time

 

(Low, deliberate, almost weary)

“I have listened to the ticking longer than most of you have drawn breath. It began as a whisper in my cradle… and it has never stopped. Not for an hour. Not for a heartbeat.”

 

(Pauses, sharper now, with steel in his tone)

“You think the curse is a story? A warning told to frighten children? (Almost screaming) Fools. The machine does not need your belief. It eats you all the same. I have seen it strip kings to skeletons, and drag the proud screaming into silence.”

 

(Leaning in, voice quiet, haunting)

“Every gear remembers. Every tooth is sharpened on our bones. You think time is gentle? That it carries you kindly to your grave? No. It gnaws. It chews. It feeds.”

 

(He stops, gaze distant, softer — almost mournful)

“And yet… there are moments. Small, fragile moments… when I wonder if the curse is not punishment, but memory. That the wheels turn not to destroy us, but to remind us what we have already destroyed.”

 

(Sudden flare, voice booming, furious)

“But what would you know of that? You—young, loud, blind! You march to the ticking like cattle to the slaughter, and still dare to laugh at the old man who warns you!”

 

(Then stills, slow and quiet, dripping with inevitability)

“You will learn. Oh yes… you will learn. For the wheel turns for all. And when it finds you… you will hear it as I do. Not as a whisper. Not as a story. But as a sentence… already carried out.”

 

 

 Young Fighter (27–30) – Athletic, Determined, Combative

 

(Strong, clipped, like he’s pacing)

“I don’t care what the old ones say. I don’t care what shadows whisper in their sleep. I was not born to kneel and wait for the gears to crush me.”

 

(Leans forward, voice sharpened with challenge)

“I have fists. I have blood. I have fire in my lungs. And I’ll spend all of it before I let the machine take another soul without a fight.”

 

(Brief pause, voice low, dangerous)

“You hear that ticking? To you it’s a lullaby. To me—it’s a war drum. Every second that passes dares me to strike harder, move faster, bleed deeper.”

 

(Flare of rage, explosive, almost shouting)

“If the curse wants me, it will have to earn me! I will smash its cogs until my bones shatter! I will wedge my body in the jaws of the wheel, and if it grinds me down—then it will choke on my remains!”

 

(Softens slightly, voice steady, resolved)

“Because I don’t fight for myself. I fight for those too weak to raise their hands. I fight because someone must stand between the curse and the helpless. If no one else will—then it will be me.”

 

(Final, strong, unyielding)

“So let it come. Let the gears turn. I’ll meet them head on. And even if I fall, the machine will remember the day it bled to kill me.”

 

 

🔹 Dominant Strategist (45–50) – Authoritarian, Calculating, Commanding

 

(Measured, calm, confident)

“The curse is not chaos. It is order. Cold, merciless order. And like any machine… it can be understood. Controlled. Bent to my design.”

 

(Pauses, smirks faintly, voice dripping with superiority)

“While others cower in fear, I study. While they tremble at the ticking, I map its rhythm. Every tooth, every wheel, every pattern of its hunger. There is no chaos in the grind—only structure. And structure can be mastered.”

 

(Sudden edge, sharp, authoritarian)

“Do not mistake my patience for mercy. The weak cling to faith and fables, begging for salvation. But I do not beg. I command. And if the curse is a god, then it will kneel like all the others before it.”

 

(Leans in, voice quieter, cutting, threatening)

“You call me ruthless. Yes. Better ruthless than devoured. Better feared than forgotten. What is your kindness worth, when the wheels grind it into dust? My cruelty is survival—yours is suicide.”

 

(Explosive, booming with conviction)

“I will bend the machine to serve me! If it must drink blood, then it will drink at my command. If it must take lives, then I will choose whose. That is power. That is order. That is how you break the curse—not by prayer, not by rebellion, but by mastery.”

 

(Final shift — calm again, with cold certainty)

“So call me tyrant. Call me monster. It changes nothing. For when the last gear turns, when the final spring winds down… it will not be your gods, your heroes, or your children who decide your fate. It will be me.”

 

 

🔹 Little Girl (7–8) – Innocent, Imaginative, Unsettling

 

(Bright, playful, almost singsong)

“Tick-tock, tick-tock… the clocks are talking again. Can’t you hear them? They don’t speak to you, do they? Only to me.”

 

(Pauses, tilts head, voice softer, confiding)

“They tell me secrets. They say the world is broken. That the gears are hungry. That they’ve been eating us for longer than anyone remembers.”

 

(Giggles suddenly, mischievous)

“But it’s a game! If I find the right key, I can stop them. Or start them again. Or maybe… make them dance instead of devour.”

 

(Shifts to quiet, somber, eyes distant)

“But sometimes… the voices cry. I hear them weeping in the dark. They sound like children, like me. They ask me why it hurts. They ask me why no one helps them.”

 

(Sudden burst of innocence again, eager, hopeful)

“Maybe I can help! Maybe I can fix it. If I try hard enough, if I believe enough… maybe the clocks will love me instead of hurt me.”

 

(Long pause — voice drops to an eerie, chilling whisper)

“Or maybe… they’re only waiting. Waiting for me to fall asleep… so they can take me too.”

 

Woman (23–24) – Brave, Intelligent, Mysterious

 

(Calm, composed, almost scholarly)

“Everyone fears the curse because they don’t understand it. But I have studied it. Listened. Watched. And the truth is… it isn’t bound in the clocks. The curse is bound in us.”

 

(Pauses, a knowing smile, voice sharper)

“Every choice we make winds the spring tighter. Every betrayal sets another gear in motion. We are the ones who feed it, stroke by stroke, tick by tick. And then we dare to ask why it devours us.”

 

(Steps closer, voice quiet, dangerous, drawing the audience in)

“Do you see? The machine is not a prison. It’s a mirror. It shows us what we are. Cruel. Hungry. Afraid. That is why you hate it. Because it does not lie.”

 

(Sudden flash of heat, defiant, fierce)

“But I am not afraid. I will not kneel before gears or gods. If the curse is truth, then I will wield it as a weapon. Better to hold the blade than to bleed upon it.”

 

(Slows, voice soft, layered with mystery — like a secret she almost doesn’t want to tell)

“And yet… there are moments, when I wonder… if by seeking its heart, I am already its servant. If the curse has been guiding me, whispering to me, bending me to its shape.”

 

(Final shift — steady, resolute, but cloaked in ambiguity)

“But even if that is so… I will follow it. Not with fear. Not with obedience. But with fire. Because knowledge is sharper than steel… and I am not afraid to cut.”

 

 

Woman (21–22) – Fragile, Empathic, Expressive

 

(Soft, trembling, almost like a confession)

“Do you hear it? The ticking… it hurts. Not in my ears, but here—” [hand to chest] “—in my heart. Every turn of the wheel feels like a cry I cannot silence.”

 

(Pauses, voice quivering, pained empathy)

“They think it’s just a machine. But I can feel it. The gears ache. The springs groan. It suffers, just as we do. It weeps, and no one listens… except me.”

 

(Voice rises slightly, emotional, desperate)

“I wish I could comfort it. I wish I could take its pain into myself, hold it until it stopped hurting. But I am too small. Too weak. And still… it will not let me go.”

 

(Sudden crack, near breaking, almost pleading)

“Do you not feel it too? The sorrow pressing down on us? Or are you blind, deaf, content to pretend while the whole world grinds itself to dust?”

 

(Long pause — her tone softens, vulnerable, but with quiet strength)

“Maybe I am fragile. Maybe I am foolish. But I would rather break beneath its sorrow than harden myself into stone. At least then I will still be human.”

 

(Final shift — calm, steady, almost serene, like resignation)

“And when the last tick fades, when the silence comes… perhaps the curse will remember me. Not as a fighter. Not as a master. But as the one who listened when it cried.”