On A Break: Instructions for a Performance

I wrote this monologue for a competition that I didn’t win, so I thought I might as well share it here. It’s also bittersweet, as I wrote it over the few days where we went on a break and then resolved it, but he broke up with me 2 weeks ago. It’s not depressing though, don’t worry! 

[Begin sat cross-legged downstage wrapped in a duvet and/or fluffy blankets so only the face can be seen; when she stands up/discards duvet is the choice of the actor but both need to happen at some point- can happen at the same time or one before the other]

I can’t even be angry - that’s what really fucking pisses me off.
Okay, well, maybe I can be angry, but I feel like I shouldn’t be, I know I shouldn’t be, [all in one breath] but I also know it’s a natural human response and I’m entitled to my emotions and don’t let it get too far as he’s not in his right frame of mind but it’s still a hurtful and angering situation and I need to allow myself to be hurt and angered and-
Yeah, my mum’s a therapist.
I wonder what a therapist would have to say about me talking to myself right now.
‘Natural human response’ probably. It turns out as a natural human I have a lot of those. Who knew?

Allow me to set the scene: my last four months at school vanished without a chance to say goodbye, but we’re a few weeks in- I’m coping until I’m not. And I don’t know whether it’s my PMS - because, you know, the joys of being a woman don’t pause for a pandemic, even if you’re running low on tampons - or the fact that my boyfriend is definitely avoiding my messages but am I just being paranoid?, or maybe (probably) (definitely) it’s a healthy combination of the two, perhaps (presumably) (absolutely) with a sprinkle of, oh I don’t know, the stress of a raging global pandemic. So I don’t know whether it’s the PMS (it is) my boyfriend ghosting (yes) or the stress of a raging global pandemic (take a wild guess), but I’ve just sobbed through every single scene in the last two episodes of Sex Education, even if they weren’t even sad or in emotional in any way. Imagine being my sister and walking in on me bawling my eyes out as the Very Shouty Man off Horrible Histories attempts to talk dirty while wearing suspenders. 

Consider the scene set.
My parents and I return home from our lovely stroll, cut short on account of my uncontrollable sobbing (I got the sense that even minus the social distancing people would’ve been crossing the street away from me anyway). I dive straight into bed, exhausted, ready to cry my way through another comedy show, and that’s when I get the message. 
‘We should take a break.’
[long pause, looking incredulously at individual audience members as the irony sets in]
Is a national lockdown not a big enough break for you buddy?
I wonder if you can guess what I did next?
Started uncontrollably sobbing, you say? Ding ding ding! Got it in one. Fancy doing this monologue for me? No? Suit yourself.
I’d been holding it together pretty well until that day - my sanity, that is, which believe me is no mean feat, even without the stress of a raging global pandemic tearing my final year at school into bitter little shreds with its ugly rotting teeth. I feel like the guinea pig of the fates: [old woman voice, hunched back and hobbling] ‘You know what ladies, she’s not suffering enough. Reckon it’d be a hoot to throw several months worth of physical and emotional pain at her all at once. Let’s see how much her puny mortal body can take before spontaneous combustion, shall we?

My mum sent me an article the day before called Love in the Time of Corona. [snorts] Love in the time of corona my arse. Hardly Romeo and Juliet, is it? [Shakespearean, dramatic] Two households, both alike in isolation, In fair Corona, where we lay our scene. [turn to the left] Oh Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? [turn to the right, picks up two metre sticks stuck together with Richard Osman’s face taped to the top, adjusts it as if measuring distance from ground to balcony] [Northern accent] Well according to my calculations about half a metre too close. Back up a bit would you love, [switching back to self, bitterly to audience] I think I need some more space. See what I mean? No parties for Gatsby to throw for Daisy. Four Weddings and a Funeral? Postponed. Don’t even get me started with Roman Holiday. They all stood two metres apart until marriage anyway in Jane Austen’s novels, so I guess it’s not bad if you classify ‘love’ as ‘lingering, brooding looks from a long distance from a man you couldn’t possibly marry due to social circumstances’. That actually fits pretty well.

‘Distance makes the heart grow fonder’ seemed to work out pretty well in Pride and Prejudice didn’t it? I can give you a comprehensive explanation for why that is: it’s fiction. Distance makes you question, distance makes you uncertain, it makes you “lose feelings”. Direct quotation. I know. Ouch.

You see, I joke, because that’s what the kids call a ‘coping mechanism’, but as someone with a crippling fear of rejection at the best of times, it feels like all my internal organs are being pummelled and ripped apart by a tag team of sumo-wrestlers, kangaroos and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. As someone simultaneously overly-trusting but also highly skeptical, my brain is torn into a ferocious shouting match of ‘How could he do this?’s against ‘I told you he never loved you’s. My one comfort that I cling to for dear life amidst the storm surging through my entire being, is that at least there’s no way he could’ve met anyone else. They say young love is fickle, but that’s dangerous logic because it becomes an excuse.

There’s just so much anger. For all the rainbows and singing celebrities and funny tweets and hope, I’m angry. But what’s there to be angry with? A virus has no conscious decision making, it’s not deliberately fucking up the lives of the entire global population, that’s just a by-product of what it’s programmed to do. I’m pretty sure whoever ate that bat is dead, he’s already paid the price for his actions. When we don’t have anywhere to channel our anger, resentment rears its grimy head and takes the wheel. Love and hate are easily confused, but resentment can grow like a fungus from love until it’s suffocated and unrecognisable. Just the rotting memory of what once was.

Okay, maybe I’m being dramatic. It’s just a break after all. He’s not ended things entirely. But when someone hasn’t seen you for weeks and says they need a break, isn’t that just the beginning of the end? [gradual growing sense of urgency] What can I legally do to change his mind while also respecting The Break? How can I trust him not to always run when things get bad? How can love survive without contact to sustain it? Memories only get you so far until they become bittersweet then lose their sweetness. I can’t see you, talk to you, listen to you, smell you, taste you, touch you- how am I supposed to maintain my love when you’ve cut off the last of my resources?

So I feel anger. Love, too, though resentment is beginning to claw its way to the surface. But what I feel most is panic, debilitating panic, because the longer I wait, the further he drifts, I can feel it, but I’m scared if I act I’ll push him even further- if only things were different- if only we’d not wasted so much time- put so much off- realised that one day ‘maybe tomorrow’ wouldn’t be a viable option- if only- if- if o-on- so many if onlys-

[Phone buzzes on the other side of the stage]

[She goes completely still, barely breathing, staring bug eyed at the phone as if it’s grown six legs and performed a tap dance]
[Painfully slowly crosses the stage, picks up phone without looking at the screen yet, clutches the screen to her chest, face upturned, eyes closed, seemingly mumbling words of prayer.]

[Finally, still slowly, brings screen away from chest and forces her eyes down]
[With all the tension in the world emanating from her entire being] He responded to my story.

[Reads aloud] ‘You’re so beautiful, I miss you, I’m sorry’.
[Looks at audience] [Releases all tension into a shrug] Cute selfies. Work every time.
[Thinks for a moment, speaks aloud as she types] ‘I think I need some more space.’