A late July day in Memorial Park. Margaret is standing by the fountain. A loud bang goes off in the distance. The screams of children playing in the background. Trees are blowing in the wind.
Margaret starts picking coins out of the fountain. She wants the coins to buy a tub of Ben and Jerry’s chocolate ice-cream because she is feeling unhappy. She needs her favourite ice-cream to lighten her mood. She’s thinking about the friend that she lost.
A voice in her head says, ‘go check on Mark’. She’s heard this voice before. She turns around to see Barry the Gorilla, her silver-back emotional support animal. He first appeared when she was 13 and going through a rough phase in her life.
Mark is at home sitting on his bed, staring at the wall. There’s a big poster of a hockey team on his wall and he’s dreaming of becoming a hockey player. His laptop is sitting on his desk, but it is turned off. He doesn’t want to use it anymore because he wants a new PlayStation. There’s a Smyths catalogue open on the PlayStation page and more of them scattered around the room.
Margaret suddenly barges in and shouts, “MARK!”
Mark says quietly: Get out”.
“Don’t talk to me like that,” says Margaret. “I came here to apologise and now you’re being rude.”
She picks up a loose page and asks: “Why are there so many catalogues in your room?”
Before Mark could answer, she’s already moving on and starts speaking loudly and sarcastically.
“We both lost a mutual friend, and I know I didn’t deal with it the proper way, but you can’t hold that against me, I was angry.”
Mark looks sad and begins to tear up and says: “It’s your fault he’s gone”.
Margaret answers. “It was an accident, it was out of my control”.
He continues to stare at her and cry.
Margaret suddenly notices Barry standing in the doorway, she hears his words. “Invite him for ice-cream.”
“I don’t have enough Barry,” whispers Margaret, as she counts the coins in her pocket.
Barry rolls his eyes. “Just share your tub!”
Margaret says to Mark: “Let’s go get ice-cream.”
“No,” he replies. “It’ll be like old times,” she says.
“It won’t, he won’t be there.”
Margaret considers this and says: “Well, we can make new times.”
Mark gets up from the bed feeling a bit happier.
He goes with Margaret to get ice-cream.
