Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Monologues

A nine-year-old amateur inventor, Francophile, and pacifist searches New York City for the lock that matches a mysterious key left behind by his father, who died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

If the sun were to explode, you wouldn't even know about it for 8 minutes because thats how long it takes for light to travel to us.

For eight minutes the world would still be bright and it would still feel warm.

It was a year since my dad died and I could feel my eight minutes with him... were running out.

My father died at 9-11. After he died I wouldn't go into his room for a year because it was too hard and it made me want to cry. But one day, I put on heavy boots and went in his room anyway. I miss doing taekwondo with him because it always made me laugh. When I went into his closet, where his clothes and stuff were, I reached up to get his old camera. It spun around and dropped about a hundred stairs, and I broke a blue vase! Inside was a key in an envelope with black written on it and I knew that dad left something somewhere for me that the key opened and I had to find. So I take it to Walt, the locksmith. I give it to Stan, the doorman, who tells me keys can open anything. He gave me the phone book for all the five boroughs. I count there are 472 people with the last name black. There are 216 addresses. Some of the blacks live together, obviously. I calculated that if I go to 2 every Saturday plus holidays, minus my hamlet school plays, my minerals, coins, and comic convention, it's going to take me 3 years to go through all of them. But that's what I'm going to do! Go to every single person named black and find out what the key fits and see what dad needed me to find. I made the very best possible plan but using the last four digits of each phone number, I divide the people by zones. I had to tell my mother another lie, because she wouldn't understand how I need to go out and find what the key fits and help me make sense of things that don't even make sense like him being killed in the building by people that didn't even know him at all! And I see some people who don't speak English, who are hiding, one black said that she spoke to God. If she spoke to god how come she didn't tell him not to kill her son or not to let people fly planes into buildings and maybe she spoke to a different god than them! And I met a man who was a woman who a man who was a woman all at the same time and he didn't want to get hurt because he/she was scared that she/he was so different. And I still wonder if she/he ever beat up himself, but what does it matter?

And I see Mr. Black who hasn't heard a sound in 24 years which I can understand because I miss dad's voice that much. Like when he would say, "are you up yet?" or…

And I see the twin brothers who paint together and there's a shed that has to be clue, but it's just a shed! Another black drew the same drawing of the same person over and over and over again! Forest black, the doorman, was a school teacher in Russia but now says his brain is dying! Seamus black who has a coin collection, but doesn't have enough money to eat everyday! You see olive black was a gate guard but didn't have the key to it which makes him feel like he's looking at a brick wall. And I feel like I'm looking at a brick wall because I tried the key in 148 different places, but the key didn't fit. And open anything it hasn't that dad needed me to find so I know that without him everything is going to be alright.

And I still feel scared every time I go into a strange place. I'm so scared I have to hold myself around my waist or I think I'll just break all apart! But I never forget what I heard him tell mom about the sixth borough. That if things were easy to find...

And I'm so scared every time I leave home. Every time I hear a door open. And I don't know a single thing that I didn't know when I started! It's these times I miss my dad more than ever even if this whole thing is to stop missing him at all! It hurts too much. Sometimes I'm afraid I'll do something very bad.

There are more people alive now than have died in all of human history, but the number of dead people is increasing. One day, there isn't going to be any room to bury anyone anymore. So, what about skyscrapers for dead people, that are built down. They could be underneath the skyscrapers for living people, that are built up. We could bury people 100 floors down. And a whole dead world could be underneath the living one.

Hi, you've reached the Schell residence. Today is Tuesday, September 11th. Here's today's fact of the day: It is so cold in Yakutia that breath instantly freezes with a crackling sound they call "the whispering of the stars".

I started with a simple problem... a key with no lock... and I designed a system I thought fit the problem. I broke everything down in the smallest parts... and tried to think of each person as a number... in a gigantic equation.

But it wasn't working... because people aren't like numbers. They're more like letters... and those letters want to become stories... and dad said that stories need to be shared.

I had anticipated a six minute visit with each person named "Black"... but they were never just six minutes. Everyone took more time than I had planned for... to try and comfort me and make me feel better about my dad... and to tell me their stories. But I didn't want to feel better and I didn't want friends... I just wanted the lock. I wasn't getting any closer to my dad... I was losing him.

What if you could ride an elevator down to visit your dead relatives, just like you take the bridge to see your friends in Brooklyn, or the ferry to Staten Island? Dad once told me that New York used to have a Sixth Borough, right next to Manhattan. But you can't visit that anymore, because it floated away and no one knows where it is.

I'm sure people tell you this constantly, but if you look under "incredibly beautiful" in the dictionary, there's a picture of you.

You might want to know, the key wasn't meant for me. It was meant for a Mr. William Black, who maybe needed it even more than I did. I was disappointed... obviously. But I'm honestly glad that it's where it belongs. And I'm even glad to have my disappointment, which is much better than having nothing.

Doesn't anybody know that there isn't anybody in the coffin? We should have filled it with his shoes or something. It's like a pretend funeral, for a goldfish or something.

I didn't know what was waiting for me. Although my stomach hurt and my eyes were watering I'd made up my mind that nothing was gonna stop me. Not even me.