A monologue from the play by Molly Kirschner
Quentin, a college freshman, is speaking to his new roommate, Simon. He has spent the last several minutes trying to convince Simon that the whole room belongs to him,
Quentin, as he needs a medical single, and insisting on putting up a poster of Nietzsche, much to Simon’s horror.
After assuring Simon that Simon’s personality is “flaccid and women aren’t attracted to that,” Quentin continues to assert his dominance over Simon, describing his own great successes with women.
Quentin (eighteen)
We’re roommates. We gotta help each other out. I’m just trying to show you as much of the ropes as I know.
Which isn’t a whole lot, I’ll admit. But once I liked a girl. Yeah. In high school. Elissa. She was on the model UN team.
I think she was also a model. If she wasn’t she shoulda been. Anyway I used to pick white and purple violets for her.
I’d tape them to her locker. Sometimes dandelions. I think she liked it because after a while she caught on and started smiling at me in the hallways.
But then winter came and there weren’t any more flowers but I did find this dead baby snapping turtle so i taped that to her locker.
And she acted all weird about it. Like she stopped smiling and even looking at me in the hallway even though she obviously saw me.
And one day I saw her and before she could breeze by me I said, “Hey, Elissa! What’s your problem?”
She didn’t say anything so I explained to her that the flowers were also dead they were just better smelling.
I didn’t kill that baby snapping turtle, but I did kill those flowers. Flowers don’t die when they dry they die as soon as you pick them.
After that she didn’t act any different but I could tell she realized I was right. She went to the prom with a jock who was a jerk.
Anyway, I’d never go out with a girl who didn’t get Nietzsche. I met him first.
And the thing you vegans don’t get or have an impossible time digesting is that plants are conscious and you have to kill to live.
