“It’s not that I want you alive – quite the oppo­site. I’ll even kill you myself, after my dra­matic monologue.”

Meh. You can do better.

“He’ll find you. He’ll kill you. He’s not so dif­fer­ent than I.”

Still not right.

What does it take to prop­erly tell some­one you are going to kill them, and more impor­tant, why?

You’d never kill some­one with­out telling them why.

Just an ego thing. Not like they actu­ally need to know: they’ll be dead in a moment.

Ego.

It’s all about your ego.

A great mono­logue does won­ders for your ego, irre­spec­tive of its effects on your soon-to-be victim.

“I don’t care whether you live or die. Wait; that’s a lie. I do indeed want you dead, but – ”

That was terrible.

Per­haps you should start with the point.

“I want you dead.”

Sim­ple. Clean. Sticks to the facts.

Any other facts?

“I want you dead. So does he.”

How to fin­ish? You con­sider “But, I don’t want him to find you.” But, you don’t like start­ing sen­tences with “But.”

You go back to those three sim­ple rules: Sim­ple. Clean. Stick to the facts.

“I want you dead. So does he. I don’t want you and him to talk.”

Bah. This sucks. You can’t get it to work.

Now, it is time for some dra­matic license.

You’ll have to leave the expo­si­tion for later. Your audi­ence – and rest assured, you will have an audi­ence, for what is a dra­matic mono­logue with­out one? – won’t under­stand why you want this David dead; why you don’t want him found; why you don’t want him to kill David; why you don’t want David to talk; why you don’t think he is ready for it.

You said you’d never kill some­one with­out telling them why. This should teach you never, ever to say never – ever.

You hope your audi­ence will be will­ing to sus­pend their dis­be­lief, as you don’t really think this mono­logue is ter­ri­bly real­is­tic. A real per­son wouldn’t say some­thing like this.

Then again, you’re real enough, and you’re say­ing it.

You do think it is ter­ri­bly epic.

---

You have to admit, sushi is entic­ing. But there are more urgent mat­ters to attend to.

You point the bar­rel of the gun up his nose, and his eyes go wide.

You open your mouth, and begin to speak.