Friends...
© John Boylen

Lights come up on the scene of a living room of a house or flat that is occupied by a group of friends: Maria, Sherry, Helen, Garry, Dave, Phil. Maria enters the room, everyone else is there engaged in their own activities: talking, reading, watching t.v. etc. etc.

Maria: Okay, everyone, I've got something I think I need to share with you all, I've decided to end my relationship.
(All respond as if it were them who had been dumped)
Helen: What? Why?
Dave: Is there someone else?
Maria: Er, no.......it's just..........
Sherry: It's just nothing....you think you know someone and then.....then....
Maria: Things change, people change.
Helen: We didn't change.
Garry: So that's it, it's over, just like that?
Maria: I could go on pretending...
Phil: Yeah..okay.
Maria: No.....that wouldn't be fair to me, it wouldn't be fair to either of us and it wouldn't be fair to you guys.
Dave: Fair......who cares about fair? I just want things back, you know, to how they were.
Maria: Oh come on, I'm sorry.
Garry: Oh, she's sorry, that makes me feel much better.
Helen: (getting tearful) I just can't believe this, I had so many plans, you know and with the holidays coming up I wanted him to meet my parents.
Maria: It's not the end of the world, I'll meet someone else, there'll be others.
Others: (all speak at once but different lines) Yeah right/ sure/ whatever you say/ as if, etc. etc.
Maria: Are you lot going to be alright?
Dave: Yes....we're going to be fine...thankyou.....we'll just need a little time and space that's all.
Maria: I understand...I'll leave you to it then.
(Maria exits)
Dave: How could she do this to us?
Sherry: I know...it's all so sudden.
(short pause for thought)
Helen: Do you remember when we went to the lake and hired a boat?
Garry: Yeah..he could row like a Viking.
(Maria comes back)
Maria: (defensively) I really think you guys are taking this situation too seriously.
Dave: You don't say, how do you expect us to act? How would you feel if you had just been dumped?
Helen: Yeah....show a little compassion.
Maria: YOU haven't been dumped!!
Dave: That's not the point.
Maria: So would you like to tell me what the point is?
Dave: The point is.......the point that we're trying to make here is........what we're trying to say is....(now addresses the others) anybody jump in here and help me at any point, anybody? somebody please say
something......(silence) you see that's my point, they're all too mortified to speak.
(General nodding of heads)
Helen: I hope you're happy now, all I can say is I hope you have lots of money in a few years...
Maria: Why's that then?
Helen: So you can pay my therapist when all this trauma rears it's ugly head and gives me a nervous breakdown.
Maria: You're all getting far too carried away, when it all boils down to it, it has nothing to do with you lot anyway whether I stay with him or not. It's my life.
Garry: How can you be so selfish? YOUR life, what about us, you don't hear us giving it the old "it's my life" routine, we're a part of your life.
Maria: Exactly, you're just one part of my life and although it is a very special part of my life you have to understand that we all can't be involved in every decision of everyone else's life, it just doesn't work like that. I love you all and I need you all and I'm sorry but you're just going to have to live with my decision to end a relationship no matter how friendly you all were with him.
Phil: You're right, once again you're right, I think I'm right in speaking for us all but we love you and need you just as much as you need us if not more so.
Maria: And you can always have a coffee and a chat with him if you really need to, it's not as if he's left the area or anything.
Sherry: Now what we would want to do that for when we can sit and talk to you all day long.
Maria: And all night if needed.
Dave: What would we do without a friend like you? Group hug anyone?
(They all huddle together for a group hug. Lights fade to B/O)