Who Are We?

Short one-act play, half-serious, half-political

People are waiting for a bus at a stop near a market. Some have a well-filled basket, one merely has a big fish under his arm, whose head peers out of its wrapping of several layers of newspaper. The last one has nothing.

The people are all from different ethnic communities.

Someone

Where are we going?

Another

Nowhere together, looks like.

A Third

Then why get worked up and in a fluster?

The First

But what things of importance are being said these days?

The Second

And what if we didn't have a bus any more?

The Third

Nothing.

The Second

So why do we talk then?

The Third

Do we even know where we are, apart from being here at this bus stop?

The First

No, of course not.

A Fourth the one with the fish

But of course we know. We are in a boat, and there still isn't any wind or current.

A Last Woman

Where are the oarsmen, where are the captains in your boat?

One of Them

The helmsmen are pondering, just like always. Soon the storm is going to lift and we will be tossed about like any common old dried coconuts.

He Who Has Not Spoken Yet

We are coconuts, dried and smooth.

When the storm has passed, we coconuts will find ourselves on the sand again and be dried out happily in the sun.

When the curtain falls, the sound of a bus can be heard as each of the people says in turn: 'It's not mine! It's not mine!'