For this one: You must convince your younger sister to approve of your decision to blow up an island. Matt's note: This one is sourced from Coriolanus's speech to the senators in Act 3, Scene 1. The original text follows this monologue.
TYRANT (any gender, late thirties through late life)
Reckless... environmental... DESTRUCTION? That's what I'm doing? Jenny, the whole world knows this place as TERROR ISLAND. The name even skipped past Urban Dictionary. It's now an official term. You know WHY? Because this is an island filled with OVERSIZED MONSTERS.
Grasshoppers the size of construction vehicles. Stomping down entire plantations.
A hut got turned into slime thanks to a slug the size of a hippo.
Thirty foot rats. Not only eating humans but spreading baseball sized fleas. The scientists are saying you don't need a microscope to see the plague. You don't even need a magnifying glass.
But noooo... if I propose to nuke this rock... well, I'm just INSENSITIVE. And by the way? At the press conference? That was a really uncalled for. You've got your animal research. I've got my military background. We should have been arguing on those merits. But you bring up our past? I never picked on you. No more than any older sibling does. Okay, I gave you a noogie from time to time. So what? That makes me a sociopath? A tyrant to all things innocent and weak?
Lemme tell you something, Jenny. You weren't any kind of angel. You were always playing mom and dad against me. I missed about fifty meals growing up because of all your tattling. YOU were dangerous.
And so are those monsters. In one hour, the helicopter is coming. From a safe distance I will give a command to headquarters and then the island is going to turn into a beautiful glowing blob.
[shift focal point]
But ah! Wait, wait, wait. What have we here? Is it me, Jenny or does that look like a Terror Tarantula over there? Very famous on this island. You want to show it's misunderstood? Go over to it. If you can make it look like a cuddly little victim, I'll call everything off. You can give ME a noogie at the NEXT press conference.
Copyright 2016 by Matt Haynes. If you would like to use this piece, please credit: "Courtesy of Matt Haynes and The Pulp Stage
SOURCE TEXT
For the mutable, rank-scented many, let them
Regard me as I do not flatter, and
Therein behold themselves: I say again,
In soothing them, we nourish 'gainst our senate
The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,
Which we ourselves have plough'd for, sow'd,
and scatter'd,
By mingling them with us, the honour'd number,
Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that
Which they have given to beggars.