Real Friends

By Mansi Rathore

Characters of the play;

Fenrir he/him

Amalthea she/her

Pan he/him

Cressida she/her

Charon she/her

Fenrir, the young teenage boy of Dael town of planet Quercus, is starting the final year of his senior school today.

Scene; Fenrir's home, situated at the foot of mountain Tardonthea. He is sprinting around his room to get anything and everything required for the school into his grey backpack.

Fenrir: Don't bother with lunch mum. Not like I eat any of it anyway.

Charon: Just wait a minute, would you? You can't survive on street food the entire session. (Charon enters and hand him the lunch)

Fenrir: I might just eat with Amalthea. She brings the best veggie balls in the entire school.

Charon: (Pauses and stares sadly) Share this with her and Pan too. Now good luck for your first day and new session.

Fenrir: I have been going to this school for years mum.

Charon: You can't accept a pinch of happy wishes, can you Fenrir? Now go and don't cause any mishap on your first day. (Smiles)

Fenrir: You know I never do. (Winks and leaves)

Fenrir hops on his bicycle and paddles off into the streets of Dael. He passes a toddler with yellow eyes and pink hair, licking soil in the front yard, then an old man out on walk with his giant hound and a young woman practising hurdle race in the massive sports garden that's almost empty at this time of the day, which is very unusual.

Then comes the main street and there are many shops, big and small. Shops of food, fruits, utensils, juice shops. Nothing he has not seen before. People are passing and following him on their bikes, scooters, auto rickshaws and there is one age old car that probably has been in some rich house for so long to drag itself faster than a rickshaw. No one around the area he lives is rich and a shiny new

car is a rarity he doesn't long for.

He stops by a cycle repair shop to pump up the tyres when he notices an auto rickshaw's later one tyre stuck inside a marshy pit around the narrow lane right across from him. He runs over to help.

Fenrir: Here, let me help. How did you put it in there? You are not to drive by such narrow lanes and massive pits.

Cressida: My heartfelt apologies. I asked him to take it this way.

Fenrir, for the first time notices this girl behind the rickshaw. Her hair dyed all green with streaks of golden and had a massive cardboard box in her hand that looked like some mid-session assignment. She looks jumpy and nervous and with one look at her, Fenrir could tell she is not from this part of town or even this planet. She looks like the inhabitants of earth. He had only seen those on television. There aren't many earthlings on planet Quercus and most of them only live in the capital state Gaez. She had different colored skin, not at all yellowish like his own and her ears were not pointy.

Fenrir: You don't know this place much?

Cressida: No. Also never been to this part of the town before. It's fascinating, I must agree.

Fenrir: Is that a joke madam?

Cressida: Joke isn't said with a fluttering heart sir. Name's Cressida by the way. I study at Moon-Grey high school.

(Man drives rikshaw out of the pit with Fenrir's help.)

Fenrir: I should have guessed it on the first look. Only the rich won't bother to put down a cardboard box to help out a mid-class rikshaw to save their life. Take care of your precious box madam.

Cressida: Box isn't of as importance as its belongings are (proceeds to sit inside the rickshaw, take one step out and look back.) You might see me as rich but I prefer Cressida. If you don't mind sir.

Fenrir: Apologies. I am right about rich though?

Cressida: Guilty. (Smiles and leaves)

Scene; School playground, lunch interval. Fenrir, Amalthea and Pan sitting on the bench in the corner, eating off each other's lunch box.

Amalthea: One day, I will climb the highest peak of Tardonthea and this school will fall into the guilt of never knowing my existence.

Pan: They know you exist dear friend, just the company around you is too arid to approach.

Amalthea: You call yourself with negative humour. That's a good start for the journey to a self-loathing castle.

Pan: That is not my fault we are unimportant outcasts.

Fenrir: You might be one, I am not. Not anymore.

Amalthea: You are Fenrir.

Fenrir: You wouldn't say that if you knew about my today's adventures.

Pan: Cycling by your favourite cake shop without stopping by is barely an adventure Fenrir. This is my daily routine.

Fenrir: I appreciate your attempt at the impromptu witticism Pan but you must hear this. I met an earthling today. She did not look of our status and study at Moon-Grey school. My brain is fogged with the immense number of questions about her.

Pan: No. Is that real?

Amalthea: There aren't any earthlings in Dael.

Fenrir: There is at least one. She was likely new, nervous but with a bizarre brain.

Pan: All earthlings have bizarre brains it seems. I saw this one on television who liked biting onto their nails and another one who ate a lot despite not being hungry.

Amalthea: That's not bizarre. There are certain disorders and illnesses earthlings suffer from. It is mostly hereditary or induced by surroundings. Earth is an ill planet breathing its last. People are not happy there.

Pan: That makes me sad.

Fenrir: Don't be. Every planet has to die. We are not that far behind earth in the line of self destruction.

Amalthea: I will climb Tardonthea before that.

Scene; Next day Fenrir cycles to school and sees the same girl from earth in one of the juice shops on the way. Fenrir stops.

Fenrir: Greetings for the morning Cressida.

Cressida: (Smiles) Hello (a phrase of greeting from earth).

(Cressida leaves)

Shopkeeper: Are you alright kid?

Fenrir: (nods and leaves)

Next day, same time, same street, same shop. Fenrir stops at the sight of Cressida in the same juice shop.

Fenrir: Greetings for the morning Cressida.

Cressida: (Smiles) Hello Fenrir. (Leaves)

Shopkeeper: Do you want me to show you the way, kid?

Fenrir: No. (Leaves)

Next day, same time, same street, same shop. Fenrir notices Cressida in front of the same juice shop and stops.

Fenrir: Greetings for the morning Cressida.

Cressida: (Smiles) Hello Fenrir. (Leaves)

Shopkeeper: Can I offer you some juice, kid. It's biting hot out here.

Fenrir: No. (Leaves)

The same order of scenario goes on for a week. When at the end of the first week Fenrir arrives home from school, he sees the same shopkeeper from the juice shop and one of his teachers talking to his mother. He stands unnoticed in the hallway and listens to the conversation.

Teacher: He sits alone during lunch and talks to himself for thirty-five minutes. Students have heard him say his friend's names. Amalthea and Pan and occasionally Cressida. Today I met this good man who told me Fenrir stops by his shop every day on the way to school to wish some invisible person named Cressida, a decent morning. I feel it wasn't a good idea to send him back after such a short time.

Charon: He had been hallucinating for a while. It's the only thing that brought him out of the grief but trust me, this is not in any way, dangerous to him or anyone else. Cressida is just an imaginary friend he made whom he greets every day and talks about her to his— well his friends who are not alive anymore, for half an hour a day.

Teacher: How do we know it won't get worse?

Charon: I check on him at least once every hour. If it turns concerning, I will pull him out of school myself.

Teacher: Maybe tell him the truth. Again and again until he starts to believe it.

Charon: No. We have tried once before. It can be more damaging than good.

Fenrir steps back and out of their voice range. He climbs up the stairs of his house and reaches the open roof. Step on the edge and look down.

Cressida: Are you going to jump?

Fenrir: You are not real.

Cressida: Is it you who believe that?

Fenrir: I feel you are real.

Cressida: You birthed me. Let me show you the way back to life. (Hold out a hand) Do you want to live?

Fenrir: Would you be in it?

Cressida: (nods) Amalthea, Pan, you and I. On every step, in every lane. (Fenrir takes the hand).

Curtain

By Mansi Rathore