‘The Marionette’

INT: A Back Drop: A Warm Sunny day out in the hills

Anonymous: ‘His had was warm and caring as he helped me across the style.
He had always been like that, careful, intent and happy to help.
We had our friends dogs with us and they were zigzagging our path
before us, retrieving the ball, then fighting over it, before
relinquishing it to us. I couldn’t have been happier.’

INT: A Back Drop: A full noisy office

Anonymous: ‘The telesales staff are yackerting their daily spiel to
bemused clients, who often hang up, yet get called back, whether
they like it or not.’
‘I’m trussed to my telephone headphones, like a dog on a leash,
calling customers that owe us money. They didn’t realise that
they needed to pay us – ‘Oh that contract…Really? Well I haven’t
any money!’ ‘It doesn’t sound much, but it gets to you after a
while.

INT: A Back Drop: The Managers Office

Anonymous: ‘The manager seems in a good mood today, but last week he was
having a right go at me, despite me getting in a record £150k
in one week! He says I need to do more. Does he realise that I
am already at crisis point, and I feel like I have been beaten
up every time I get up from my desk? I don’t need this as well!

‘I mention my depression. He considers it for a while, then seems
to realise the consequences of pushing me too hard. What a
greedy horrible man he is!’

INT: A Back Drop: My bed one Tuesday Afternoon

Anonymous: ‘I am crying my eyes out. I feel like I have been run over by
a tractor, followed by its trailer and then a ten tonne truck.
I have no energy. I have called in sick due to this agnosing
state I am in and I am not receiving any sympathy.’

INT: The Pub: A Friends Birthday

Anonymous: ‘I have spent all week doing relatively little so that I have
the energy to go out tonight. People say how well I look, yet
I feel miserable inside and ache all over. I feel like an
old woman by the end of the night, desperate to sit down and
sleep! Whatever is wrong with me seems to be invisible to other
people; they just don’t get it. All I get is: ‘You’re strong
and young, pull your socks up, grit your teeth…’
‘That I fear is why I am like this in the first place!!’

INT: Back Drop: The Rheumatologists Clinic

Anonymous: ‘I have brought in a hand drawing of where I hurt. The Dr.
looks at it and asks if she can keep it. This upsets me as it
is part of my proof that I am ill, yet I let her take it anyway.
She takes 10 minutes to diagnose me with Chronic Wide Spread
Pain Syndrome; there is NO cure. I will have to change my
life and try physiotherapy – my only option.

INT: Back Drop: A Picture of a Marionette

Anonymous: ‘This picture behind me? Yes. That’s me. A puppet who has
worked tirelessly for other people. Holding down 3 jobs at
times. I have always done my best, strived to keep everyone
else happy, and to what end? You may well ask!
I am but a shell of my former self. I can no longer walk up
the street with a spring in my step. Nor can I laugh at the
dogs as they zither arounds the fields. Nor can I take in
views from our local hills, as i can’t walk up them.

I am a broken woman, whose strings have frayed, whose joints
have stiffened , whose manipulator gave up on her. There’s
no more work for me now. No more independence, no more feeling
of freedom. My name is Lizzie Ross and I have Fibromyalgia.’

The End.