The Francisca With No Last Name (Monologue)

Maybe I could pull a rich kid in Hollywood move and fake my own death! I mean, what kind of ‘love and light’ gibberish is the universe playing at here - a crossroads between two options of selling the only accomplishment of a thrift store you have to a company trying to get you in jail, or keep the store and the perfectly polished facade of the long-haired mystery girl who sells star-studded jeans and army boots for a living…oh yeah, and then also, still anger the company trying to buy you out and possibly- well most likely, go to jail. Nice one, Francisca. I bet if I had stayed with the first foster care family in Chile I wouldn’t be the laughing stock of my own decisions. “The young Brazilian woman of Chile that rollerblades through the marketplace every morning get evicted from an apartment complex with no family to run to”- oh the pity parties I’d have thrown in my name are already circling around in my head. I never had much ambition here, I’ve sort of always thought of myself to be living in a time loop of sorts where I’m the main character and the only thing that changes over time is the length of hair or the songs the neighborhood plays on the weekends. And now? ‘Hey Francisca, remember how you flushed your memory down the drain to throw yourself into a whole other identity so no one would throw sob stories at you for being an unmarried orphan? Yeah, a pack of white men who stuff their mouths with money is threatening to make a spectacle out of it if you don’t sign to a sell-out.’ God, I wish I would have gotten that notification bell sooner. My supposed ‘sister’ or in other words plant mom of a roommate whose parrot might as well render me deaf to a tornado- isn’t any help at all. The woman just sees me leaving as more living space for her- lazy swine. Okay, Francisca, enough stalling, I can have my existential crisis once I’m sure I’ll still have a bed and job while I’m at it- how can I find my way out of two routes that both lead to framed jail time? And why is faking my own death suddenly looking so much more doable right about now? Okay no, if I spend one more hour staring at the ocean without having an epiphany of sorts I might swell turn myself in right now.

I’m at what the aunties downtown call the ‘ripest age for marriage’. Tough talk knowing the only remnant that I have from my birth family is a memory. Thinking about having someone to run to makes me feel like a little girl but it would be nice you know? I’d do the unspeakable and chop half my hair or in other words, my extra limb, to go back to running the store by day and living in the glowing lights and laughter that is the uptown bar with people who only know me through dance by night. I mean, the only thing I can remember that’s even remotely close to my family is being in a dark forest with people whose faces I can’t make out just that they had piercing green eyes while someone brown and one green eye. Just thinking about it plays it in slow motion; glowing lanterns were hung up on tall vines around us and I remember feeling anxious- like we were hiding something or hiding from someone. A woman in a dark hood approached- no, ‘appeared’ like a ghost at the foot of our little sanctuary and the next thing I can recall is her grabbing what I presume was my mother’s wrist and the words "warning" echoing from her mouth as I passed out. Aside from that is just the morning after of seeing the crops around us dead and being thrown like a rag doll on a ship amidst a rising storm with men I had never met…I wish I had more to leave behind when I go to jail.

But no, this Francisca with no last name is a shell of a fairytale memory and an unknown face in a bar. That’s just it right? Doesn’t matter how long I stay here or bargain the only two options that both lead to the same dump ending, I have no one and nothing parts of me, right? I…Hold on. What if there was a third option, could there be? I’ve nothing to lose- okay that’s a lie, there’s the thrift store that keeps me from marrying someone for money or going homeless but I’m serious, no one knows I’m here and no one knows of how I got in Chile in the first place. I’m just a dancing blank slate among thousands. Faking my own - no. I’m looking in the wrong direction. I shouldn’t be running towards the future here, how can I without piecing together my past? Wow. Love how it took me the weight of jail time to think of a family reunion but…Nothing is stopping me. No one will know. If I were to stay I would be found and tried. The green land in the distance ahead of the fog all of a sudden looks more alluring right about now, cruise ships leave the port a mile east to the islands every evening, and it's already sundown. Think about it, who in the world would search cruise ships for a runaway? Who in the world would look for me? The woman with no last name, the woman with nothing to lose or gain…Chile and the metal bars can dance to their own music. I think it’s time to find where I can make my own. Francisca is coming, mother. I am coming back home.