Engulf The Evil Ashes: A dramatic monologue from the play, For My Silent Sisters by Tara Meddaugh
My full-length dramatic play, For My Silent Sisters, gives voice to four young people who struggle to escape the dark world of human trafficking. *Before I discuss the monologue and play, please note that while I write with great respect and care, this monologue contains references to human trafficking and violence and may not be suitable for all readers.* Please also note that while the play is fiction, there are many experiences, very similar to the ones I give voice to, which have happened to real people. No country is immune to this egregious crime. At the time I’m writing this, criminals are trafficking an estimated 25 million people worldwide. For more information on human trafficking in the USA, how to help or report, visit the Human Trafficking Hotline or Polaris.
For My Silent Sisters journeys how criminals use manipulation, lies, or force to commit this crime. But it mainly journeys how four teenagers survive within this world, hold onto hope, strength, friendship, and how they all eventually leave that world—one way or another.
Engulf the Evil Ashes is a monologue from Marta. Marta, an excellent student from a large family in Romania, sees her way to a brighter future by accepting a position as a translator in England. However, after leaving home with the job recruiter, she discovers the role she thought she would receive does not exist. Instead, she is taken to a “training facility” in the woods in Albania, a place where girls are “trained” for forced prostitution (enslavement), then sent to other countries to make money for their enslavers. While their situation is terrifying, Marta immediately bonds with a confident Romani girl, Tasaria. They share stories, looks, secrets; they become closer than sisters. Tasaria develops a plan for them to escape the facility, but when the moment comes, Marta does not follow her. Tasaria’s escape attempt fails and she is killed. Marta is devastated.
In this monologue, Engulf the Evil Ashes, Marta has been punished, by friendship association, for Tasaria’s escape attempt. She is placed in the ground, simulating being buried alive. Though grieving, her rage and determination give her strength, and Marta comes up with a plan for freedom. She hides sticks from the outdoors and brings them with her when she is placed in an isolated room inside. During the course of a few hours, she is able to start a fire and begin burning down the old wooden building. While the building goes up in flames and smoke, Marta only smells freedom.
This monologue is about 2.5 minutes long, suitable for a mature teenager or young adult looking to sink into a dramatic monologue. It is a moment of empowerment, a moment when a frightened and beaten-down person finds strength in righteous anger, a moment when she finds a powerful voice, not only in words, but in actions. A moment when she changes the fate for herself—and hundreds of other girls.
To learn more about Marta and the other voices in For My Silent Sisters, click here. For an excerpt of Marta’s monologue, Engulf the Evil Ashes, read below:
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MARTA (out)
My ashes engulf the evil ashes…I do it for her. For us. For my silent sisters. (pause) As they fill my mouth, my lungs with dirt, sticks poking at my beaten skin, I grab one. I grab two. They’re small. Not even bigger than the palm of my hand, but I grasp them through the powdery dirt. If this is not the end for me, I will do justice for Tasaria and I will take these sticks with me. I’m naked, so I put the sticks the only place I can hide them. (pause) When they let me back in, they make their mistake. They don’t burn me too or search my naked body. They put me in a room. By myself. They think that seeing my best friend burned to death, feeling myself be buried alive for hours, and now sticking me solitary confinement—this will be punishment enough. This will break me. This will end my resistance. But it doesn’t. And I am not by myself in here. I have two sticks. (pause) I take out my sticks and I blow on them until I feel dizzy, waving my hands over them to dry them completely. It’s dark, but I don’t need light. My mind rushes back to when my brothers and sisters and I would camp in the woods behind our house. My father made us start a fire on our own, no matches. In the wild, we would not have matches, he’d say. We’d race to see who could start their fire first. I never won, but I never gave up and my fire would eventually burn as brightly as any of my brothers’. When my sticks are dry, I feel for the other thing they left in this room with me. My hair. I grab a fistful of dirty hair and I pull. END OF EXCERPT
Click below for the entire digital copy of the monologue, Engulf The Evil Ashes by Tara Meddaugh:
Click below for a digital copy of the entire play, For My Silent Sisters by Tara Meddaugh: