In this monologue from the play, “Unidentified Feelings”, Jamie speaks at their first alien abduction survivors’ meeting.
JAMIE: Hi. My name is Jamie, and… I was abducted. (beat) I don’t know how this usually goes. Do I start with the bright light? The tractor beam? Or the weird questions? It started with this noise. Outside my window. Like… like a chainsaw and a karaoke machine had a really ugly baby. I thought maybe it was my neighbor Greg revving up his lawnmower again. You know, because he has no concept of quiet hours. But then, I looked outside… and it wasn’t Greg.
It was this ship. Floating. Hovering. Glowing this shade of green that I didn’t even know existed. Next thing I know, I’m being pulled out of my bed—like, literally sucked out—straight through the wall.
And then, there they were. These little green guys. Big heads, huge eyes, weirdly well-aligned spines. Like, I swear, they must’ve had a chiropractor on board or something. They didn’t hurt me, not exactly. They just poked me with… instruments. Metal things. Beeping things. Honestly, I think one of them was just a whisk.
And then they started asking questions. Not about Earth or humans or our culture. No, they wanted to know about taxes. Like, why do we file them? Why are they so complicated? And I just sat there thinking, “Even aliens can’t figure out the IRS. Great. Just great.”
But then… they put me back. Like I was an old library book they’d finished skimming. I sometimes wonder if I didn’t pass their test or something. I mean, I’m not even enough to get abducted for good? I can’t stop thinking about it. Why me? Why’d they pick me… and then just put me back? Like, did I fail some kind of intergalactic audition? Was I not… good enough?
I mean, what was the criteria? Intelligence? Charm? Bone density? I must’ve missed the mark somewhere. Maybe I wasn’t interesting enough. Maybe they scanned my brain and thought, “Eh, not much going on in there. Let’s move on to someone with… I don’t know, better hobbies.”
Or maybe it was the SpongeBob pajamas. I probably didn’t scream “mysterious and worthy of study” while covered in cartoon pineapples. But still, I mean… they picked me. They picked me. And then, two hours later, they unpicked me. Like I was some disappointing menu item they decided to send back to the kitchen.
What does that say about me? That even aliens—literal creatures from another galaxy—took one look and thought, “Nah, this one’s a pass”?
It’s pathetic, right? I’ve been lying awake at night, obsessing over why I wasn’t good enough to get abducted properly. Like it’s some kind of rejection from a really weird job interview. “Thanks for coming in, Jamie, but we’ve decided to go in a different direction. Best of luck in your future endeavors!”
I just… I don’t know. I keep hoping they’ll come back. Not because I want to go through it again—well, maybe a little—but because I want to know what I did wrong. Or if I did anything wrong at all.
Do any of you feel that? Like you weren’t… enough? Or am I just losing it?
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