"Air" is from AFTER MATH, one of my most produced plays and one that is written specifically for teen actors. The play is set after a student is mysteriously pulled out of a math class in the middle of a test. Where did he go? What happened? Why is it that they've only noticed him after he's gone? This spoken word monologue closes the play, which is available from Playscripts, Inc. by clicking here!

(Warning: Using this monologue without permission is illegal, as is reproducing it on a website or in print in any way.)

STUDENT


First he is in,
Then he is out.
Gone no doubt, but to where.
A person does not simply vanish into air,
Exhaled like breath.
I can’t explain this social death,
But it keeps coming back--if I dare--to air.
Air that we breathe, air in which we must leave a trace:
Some documents, some audience, a look on someone else’s face
That explains why we’re no longer in that place:
Some disturbance in the air.
What’s the proof that he was there
At that desk?--taking a test.

Did it prepare him for the rest of the day?
How can I say when I don’t know
Where it took him--
Where they took him.
Did we take him seriously?
Who was he?
This boy.
This man.
This in-between.
(It is possible, depending on the age of the actor playing Emmett, to substitute thirteen, fourteen, fifteen or eighteen on the next line without disturbing the rhythm.)
Sixteen years since birth
Is a small amount of time on earth,
A small amount of space.
If the human race were a fire it would be a tiny spark--
Just enough to leave a mark
For us if we look.

But that’s the mystery
In the history of Emmett.
I can’t tell it
Until I invent it--no--until I find it.
(pointing at different audience members)
Until you do and you do,
Until we listen to his silence.
His absence we value,
But what about his presence?
Ignorance is no defense for this offense,
This violence we commit
Against the memory of Emmett
Before math.
He should have been more--
Less math, more person,
More of the sum of him in the air we took in
So we begin to understand
Where he came from
Is the same from--
So why this non-welcome?
(beat)
And if it’s too late to be undone,
What can we do for the next one?


(The lights slowly fade. End of play.)