Monologues for Women

Agnes of God

AGNES OF GOD 

by John Pielmeier 
AGNES

Where do babies come from? Well, I think they come from when an angel lights on their mother's chest and whispers into her ear. That makes good babies start to grow. Bad babies come when a fallen angels squeezes in down there. I don't know where good babies come out. (Silence) And you can't tell the difference except that bad babies cry a lot and make their fathers go away and their mothers get very ill and die sometimes. Mummy wasn't very happy when she died and I think she went to hell because every time I see her she looks like she just stepped out of a hot shower. And I'm never sure if it's her or the Lady who tells me things. They fight over me all the time. The Lady I saw when I was ten. I was lying on the grass looking at the sun and the sun became a cloud and the cloud became the Lady, and she told me she would talk to me and then her feet began to bleed and I saw there were holes in her hands and in her side and I tried to catch the blood as it fell from the sky but I couldn't see any more because my eyes hurt because there were big black spots in from of them. And she tells me things like--right now she's crying, "Marie, Marie!" but I don't know what she means. And she uses me to sing. It's as if she's throwing a big hook under my ribs and tries to pull me up but I can't move because Mummy is holding my feet and all I can do is sing in her voice, it's the Lady's voice, God loves you! (silence) God loves you. (silence) I don't eat because I have been commanded by God. I'm getting fat, there's too much flesh on me. I have to be attractive to God. He hates fat people. It's a sin to be fat. Look at all the statues. They're thin. That's because they're suffering. Suffering is beautiful. I want to be beautiful. Christ said it in the Bible. He said, "Suffer the little children, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." I want to suffer like a little child. I am a little child, but my body keeps getting bigger. I don't want it to get bigger because then I won't be able to fit in. I won't be able to squeeze into Heaven. I'm too fat! Look at this--I'm a blimp! God blew up the Hindendburg. He'll blow up me. That's what Mummy said. But if I stay little, it won't happen. She says God presents us to our mothers in bundles of eight pounds six ounces. I have to be eight pounds again. I'm being punished. I don't know why. (she holds out her hand, bleeding) It started this morning, and I can't get it to stop. Why me? Why me?