Monologue – Takunda to Adrian
(Setting: A quiet graveyard, late afternoon. Takunda stands beside David's fresh grave. Adrian stands across from him. Wind whispers through the grass. After a long silence, Takunda speaks, without turning to look at Adrian at first.)
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Takunda:
I never thought I'd be standing here without him. Not like this.
Not with the kind of silence that feels like it's judging you for surviving him.
But here we are. You and me.
Strangers, somehow, yet tethered by the same man… the same ghost.
(He glances at Adrian, eyes tired but kind)
You probably heard stories about me. Maybe even from David himself, if he still believed in stories.
But what you don't know… what he never told anyone…
Is that before he was "The Listener," before he was the boy everyone thought they could lean on,
he was just a scared kid with too much noise in his head and no one to share it with.
And I — I was just another broken piece trying to fit into the puzzle of that orphanage we both called home.
He used to sit by the old swings, knees drawn in, pretending not to cry.
And I used to sit two feet away, pretending I didn't notice.
It was an unspoken thing between us.
Two boys learning to be quiet in a world that didn't ask if we wanted to speak.
But David…
He had this gift, you know? This strange, painful gift — he could hold your pain like it was his own.
And somehow, without even touching you, he'd make you feel lighter.
Only… I don't think anyone ever asked what carrying all that weight did to *him*.
(He pauses, taking a breath)
You know, Adrian, people always talk about what David did for them.
How he listened. How he never judged.
But they forget — David bled in silence.
He buried so much of himself to be what everyone needed him to be.
And in doing that, he forgot how to be David.
I failed him too.
There were moments I should've pulled him back, moments I saw the cracks but said nothing.
He'd tell me, "I'm fine, Taku."
And I… I let him be fine.
Then life happened.
He went away. I stayed.
He lived and burned quietly. I watched from the outside, thinking I was protecting his story by staying out of it.
But maybe that's the curse of men like us.
We learn to protect others but never ourselves.
(He finally looks fully at Adrian)
He loved you, you know.
Even before he knew who you really were… he loved you.
In the way he watched. In the way he softened around you.
In the way he kept coming back — even when it hurt.
And now… he's gone.
But what he carried doesn't have to die with him.
(Takunda steps closer)
He told me once, "Silence is only noble when it doesn't kill you."
And it did kill him, Adrian.
Piece by piece.
But maybe you —
Maybe *you* can be the voice he never gave himself.
So if you want to know who David really was…
Don't ask the world.
Ask the silence he left behind.
Because it still echoes with everything he never said.
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(Takunda lays a single white flower on David's grave. Then steps back, silent again. Adrian is left standing in the moment — the weight of legacy slowly taking shape.)
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I met him at the grave. I didn't know who he was at first. Just a man in an old coat, standing with his hands in his pockets like he was trying to keep everything from falling out — sadness, memory, maybe even guilt.*
He didn't ask who I was.
He just said, "You have his eyes. But your silence is your own."
And that's when I knew — he had known David before David became The Listener.
His name is Takunda.
The way he spoke about David… it wasn't like how others do.
It wasn't about the stories David left behind or the people he healed or the myth he unintentionally became.
It was about the boy. The scared, quiet boy in an orphanage with too much ache in his chest and no one to tell it to.
Takunda told me about the swings.
The silence.
The way David used to pretend not to cry.
And how he, Takunda, used to sit beside him pretending not to notice.
That wrecked me.
Because for the first time, someone wasn't telling me what David was to the world.
They were telling me who he wasn't allowed to be.
He said something I don't think I'll forget:
"David bled in silence. He buried so much of himself to be what everyone needed him to be. And in doing that, he forgot how to be David."
And then he looked at me. Right in the eyes.
Not like someone looking at a stranger.
But like someone who had just recognized a ghost.
And he said:
"He loved you. Even before he knew who you were. In the way he watched. In the way he softened around you. In the way he kept coming back — even when it hurt."
I couldn't speak.
Because I remembered.
The way David used to linger a little longer when I laughed.
The way he'd sit with me during hard days and say nothing — but it was everything.
And now he's gone.
Takunda left a white flower on the grave. No words. Just silence.
But it wasn't the kind of silence that stung.
It was the kind that understood.
He said:
"Don't ask the world who David was. Ask the silence he left behind."
And that's what I'm doing now.
Writing this.
Searching the quiet for answers.
Trying to become the voice he never gave himself.
And maybe, just maybe… learning how to carry his truth — not as a weight, but as a bridge.
One that leads me back to who I was always meant to be.
Adrian.
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