A beginning?  An end?  The performers deliver this text in direct address, most of the time speaking alone, occasionally in chorus.  Perhaps to start they are lighting matches in the darkness, then picking up torches to illuminate their faces, then gradually they are lit from above or even below...

Is this enticing?

It was a night just like this night

When we said our goodbyes

Our toodlepips

Bade our farewells

Auf wiedersehen pet

Ciao ciao bella

Adieu

We had a calling

To travel to pastures new

To venture forth into the unknown

To journey to a land far far away

To voyage to the stars

We made our excuses

We took a gap year

We made the break

It was time to take a hike

Get on our bike..s

Hit the road Jack, and don’t you come back no more no more no more no more

We checked out

One by one…we discharged ourselves

We left the answering machine on

We left a calling card

We decided tele-transportation was the only way

We rode off into the sunset

We left you in the lurch

We left you in the pudding club

We jilted you at the altar

You were worried sick we’d had a car crash

(We had)

We resigned

(All of us)

(At the same time)

We forgot to clock out

It was a toilet break from which we never returned

We took early retirement

Incapacity benefit

Bribes

We got the hell out

(While the going was good)

We disappeared under mysterious circumstances

We thought sod it, let’s desert the sinking ship, there’s only rats here anyway

We crept away in the dead of night

We slinked off

Slunk?

It was time to abscond

Our numbers were up

We gave up the ghost

We passed on, we passed away, we kicked the bucket

We never stood a chance

We went boldly where no man had gone before

We gave you the slip

We flounced out

We’d never known a night like it and we didn’t fancy the journey home neither

We slung our hooks

We were evacuated, deported, extradited, ejaculated

We went into hiding

We melted into thin air

We were buried in mass graves

We were beaten to a pulp

We were burnt at the stake

We were dropped from planes

You can still find parts of us in the woods in shallow graves

We turned a corner just…

So we were just out of view

Just out of touch

We mosied on out

We abandoned ship

We executed the exit strategy

We were guillotined, quarantined, left for dead

We walked the plank

We bowed out

We left the building

We went into hiding

We hopped/ skipped/ jumped/ beat it

We scrammed, while our fearful heads were still on

We said we may be some time

We never left a note

We never said a word

Nobody knows what happened to us.