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Published: 2005-12-20 14:57:39 +0000 UTC; Views: 368; Favourites: 0; Downloads: 5
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Not until last month had I actually considered zooicide a form of revenge. Zooicide. What a quirky word. Well, believe it or not, just an hour ago I stealthily tiptoed down Loft Meadow Lane, clad in black, a large but intricately designed red velvet tote bounced at my hip as I traveled down the street, searching for the dreaded twelfth house. I don't truly fear the house, or the person in it. I fear four simple turtles. Snapping turtles, as a matter of fact.As I peeked into the window, I envisioned myself as the infamous Tom, ogling Lady Godiva. Sue was sleeping. Thank God. I remember that the lattice on the side of her house climbed steeply up the wall, which, as you can imagine, posed a great difficulty. I felt like Romeo, gazing into the oblivion in which my Juliet may appear, except I passionately despise her. Oh, how glorious the sky looked. Like a scene from a romantic movie. Perfect. An incredibly large moon, a few snowing clouds, and an endless void of stars. But time wsa running out. I silently slipped open her ajar bedroom window. I guess that's the fortunate side of having a tall, scrawny figure. I can fit anywhere, including small spaces.
Once I was in Sue's bedroom, I gasped in sheer bewilderment, ogling the walls. Could someone possibly be more obsessed than I? I think not. Her room was beautiful, gorgeous, stuunning! I had no idea. Against one wall, there was a shrine, dedicated to acting. I couldn't help but let out a concealed chortle. Sue stirred. The shrine was covered with movie ticket stubs. At least 50. The illustrious, gold plated comedy and tragedy masks hung side by side on the violet, along with the Phantom of the Opera's porcelain white mask. I didn't have time to see the rest. I lifted the lid off of the aqua-terrarium and slipped the four turtles into the red tote. Clumsily, I tore the lattice of the side of the house as i descended. I have no idea why. I have had just oh so much yoga and climbing lessons. In fact, just last year, I played Spider Man at Radio City Music Hall. She arose to her window from hearing such clamor. Luckily, I wore a black ski mask and gloves as well, so I blended right into the side of the house in the darkness. Now... what to do with these turtles...
I feel ever so nervous on audition days. Especially this one. I had never had intentions of auditioning for a cursed play. I was rather infamous among the casting directors of New York. I was a little, how do you say, too nervous. But, as I do everyday, I got out of my king-sized, red satin bed and put on some black tuxedo pants. I thought just the pants and a white collared shirt wouldn't make an extraordinary first impression, so I put on a silver collared shirt. Even better- with black leather shoes. No wait! Black leather shoes with matching silver spats. Not only did I look ready, but I felt ready. My cheeks were a little more flushed than usual and my heart was throbbing like hell. No, I must learn to speak without cliches. The most brilliant plays aren't written with cliches. Or are they? I don't know. I'm too nervous to even want to find out. As I made my way down the block, my agent, Brett, stopped me mid-stride. We embraced and kissed eachother's cheeks.
"Hey, hey, hey, darling! Where do you think you're going? You had better not be auditioning for any plays today. Especially any cursed ones. The Ides of March is in four months- exact! And you remember what happened in Shakespeare's 'Julius Ceaser', right?" he crooned gaily. He read my blasted mind! He's just an amazing agent, but ever so odd. I argued with him for minutes, even though they passed like hours. I fretted I was going to miss my audition. I blurted out, "Just give me my resume!" He showed me two resumes. One labeled "Eugene Oz"; the other labeled "Simon Oz". I laughed as I took the "Simon Oz" resume. To think that at one point my name had actually been Eugene! I just recall sauntering away, acknowledging his advice. My wool winter scarf billowed over my shoulder. Thank God. I was on time. Not on time... early. My apprehension eased. How peculiar though. I saw a girl with blonde hair, just over 5 1/2 feet. That's not what gave me a fright, though. She was carrying a glass tank with three turtles in it. Turtles?!?! Who the hell brings turtles to an audition? Nevertheless, It was a great conversation starter.
How, how would I kill these turtles? There death could not just be mortifying. It had to me dramatic. Utterly dramatic. Nothing would get in the way of my flawless plot. Perhaps I could drown them? With chains entwined around the four turtles, I would toss them into, say, Sue's bathtub. How dreadful would it be to find her four pet turtles drowned in her own home! Suicide, perhaps? I could place the turtles, bleeding all over her bed linens, with scalpels bound to their arms. No, no, she would never believe that, though it would just be incredibly comical. Or, perhaps, I could brand their chests. The black marks singed into the skin against the white bellies. Burning. He he. What a satisfying idea. Burning... burning... brilliance! I brought the four turtles into the vomit-scented kitchen with baited breath and closed the door behind me.
What mischeif could she possibly cause? Oblivious to what was about to happen, I broke the ice by asking her if she was nervous about the audition. I never got an answer though. She immediately began telling me a story about the turtles.
"I'm not the most fortunate of actresses. I just don't, how do you say, get into many plays. I've auditioned four a mere four plays in my life. At the same time, I had a pet snapping turtle, named Missy. I was forlorn, and so was she. We were pretty much the same. I assumed that whenever I got an award, she should get one too. Ever since then, I have gotten a snapping turtle for every play that I have had a part in. I know, they're large and inconvienient to carry, but I raised Missy from just a darling little turtlet. I found her on the side of the road when I was 16."
I was amazed. She carried three turtles, meaning she had only been in two plays. "Honestly, darling," I cooder sarcastically, "shall we rehearse together before we are called to the stage?"
We started on scene three of act one. I was... Oh, I hate to utter his wretched name. Why must it be so cursed? I was... Macbeth. She portrayed Banquo. "Stay you imperfect speakers, tell me more..." I said all the lines from memory holding a dented wooden brick in my hand as my voice projected proudly throughout the room.
"Newbird, Sue and Oz, Simon. The director will see you now" a voice called from behind the auditorium door.
I turned on the gas stove. With an evident lack of wood, I started to take apart the furniture. What a poleasent pleasure burning was. The gas stove had fed a small bonfire that was just tall enough to blacken the ceiling above me. I grinned as the turtles, now lying on the counter top, screened themselves from the flame. I thought about what these turtles had done to me. Four obtuse, illiterate snapping turtles. They had done almost nothing to me, and yet I hated them so much. I had once been a sophisticated young man. My hair was once tidily combed and side-parted, shining like glazed mahogany. My hair had become a dishelved wreck upon my scalp. My life was once a dramatic play in which I was the star. Now, I am the villain. Whatever happened to that handsome, youthful personality, I do not know. The fire was getting high now. I could feel the flame reddening my already blushing skin. If I did not put something on the fire to douse it soon, the ceiling would surely collapse. Excellent. Starting with Missy, I dangled the turtles by their arms, their legs and tails slowly blistering in the heat. Oh, yes. I loved torturing the turtles. This sadistic pleasure at once replaced the heart, melodramatic personality that had once been mine. "Oh, darling turtles," I mimicked, "what is evor more painful than staring into the abyss? The deadly, mortifying abyss? Watching a blackenedy smoky sky above you as hell nips at your toes! You must feel so desperate to live. Imagine what your precious Sue will say when she finds the remainder of you. The charcoal-crusted remainder of you! Whatever in Hell's name has made you so execrably cruel?" I put a very large emphasis on that last line. How fun it was to talk to turtles. It was like being schizophrenic without going insane. Before I knew it, all four turtles were dangling over tha flaming hell-pit.
Oh, why must I be ever so nervous? Regardless of the fact that I enjoy acting more than anything else on this wretched planet, I constantly fear first impressions. Suppose I were to make a mistake, such as accidentally becoming dislexic and reading the words backwards? I would never get accepted! What in God's name would I do then? I grasped, for whatever reason drove mt do doing it, Sue's hand. She glanced at me and smiled. "Break a leg," I whispered to her as we walked to the stage. "Good luckt o you too," she murmered back. That damned Scottish play. Since when do fellow thespians say good luck to one another? How dreadfully immature of that mediocre amature. What hideous misfortune will I face next? No matter how well we did in the waiting room, I hoped that we would do much better on stage. "So fould and fair a day I have not seen," I started. My voice was pleasently loud and filled the entire room. I must say, as boastful as it sounds, that my handsome voice sounded quite charming as it bounced from every corner of the room back into our ears. I read the first few pages with the witces. Sue portrayed the first witch. I thought she did pretty damned well, too. I'd be surprised if she didn't get the part. No one could possibly even begin to imagine how surprised I was. When Sue went up to read the lines of the part she wanted, I heard from her lips, "Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still..." I stood on stage, my mouth hanging open in awe, ogling her voice in bewilderment. Her voice... what she said... Sue Newbird recited mylines! My lines! The lines that I had obsessively memorized before the audition. A threat? I had though not. But oh, how erroneously wrong I was. "Honestly," I screamed aloud, "She's a blasted woman!" So much for first impressions. The director just gazed at me for a moment, then went back to eye-balling Sue's "talent".
You turtles! You crazy turtles! Will you stop staring at me! Only less than an hour ago, these turtles became covered with a thin blanket of snow when I opened my sack to admire their captivity, just before I entered my house. This was a month after the audition. The Ides of December, I guess. The snow drizzled off their backs, into the fire. The snow revealed the turtles' black beady eyes. How I hated those eyes. So amazing. Much like the eyes of the Mona-Lisa. The eyes folowed me everywhere. "Stop stalking me!" I cursed at the turtles. Their eyes were like searchlights. No matter where I moved, the eyes followed. The phone began to ring. To occupied to answer, I let the machine pick it up. "Hey, darling. It's Sue. I was just checking up on you, making sure everything was OK... by the way, congratulations for..." her voice ranf throughout the room. I tore the phone from the wall and hurled it across the room before she could finish her sentence. Sometimes I would like to have heard why she was congratulating me. "Leave me alone!" I roared after the splintered shards of plastic and metal. I couldn't handle the anger, so I let it out on the turtles. I was amazed by the fact that after almost 30 minutes of scorching, I could still distinguish the turtles' legs from their arms. I grabbed the one that I presumed to be Missy, and tore off her tail, with great difficulty, pouring what was left of her blood onto the fire. Her beak snapped ferociously at the blood that had splashed below her. I eventually acquired 4 turtle tails by the time I had calmed down. "My poor, tailless turtles. I pity you; honestly, you know I do so ever, ever much. But there are four of you. And I despise with all the fiery pasiion in my hear that I could ever produce, the number 4." I looked over at the fire and saw the turtles' black, beady eyes blistering into black holes.
When the audition was over, I walked Sue home. I was still confident though. How on Earth could I lose a part to a girl?! She carried her 3 turtles home. "Wait!" I called out after her. She turned and came back. As instantly as she had returned, she departed, leaving a small kiss on my cheek. Perhaps she was wishing me luck. Not that I would need any at all, though. Two dys later, I got a letter in the mail. I barely read it. All I had to do was skim the text. After I had finished skimming, four words stuck into my head. "Sorry", "Sue", "is", and lastly, the most devastating word of them all, "Macbeth". I didn't know how to handle myself. My dramatic personality slipped away like mercury through my fingers. My life was dissipating. Twenty years of obsession, all for losing a part to a girl. Why, why, why? What would I do with my life? My obsession? My dedication? I had auditioned for every play that I could possibly be in during my lifetime. Within the last twenty years, I had intentions of being in thirty plays. Thirty wretched plays! Tragically though, I had been rejected from 10% of them. A measly three! And look at me now!
By now, the turtles were almost entirely black ashes. Feeling desperate, I threw my lucky block of knocking wood into the fire. It became soot before my eytes. All of a sudden, I felt an instant need for luck. I thrust my hand into the fire and pulled out the wood. Only the outside had charred. Though I had just singed my hand and practically all the light whisps of hair on it, I took pleasure in the pain. I licked the raw flesh and blood from my hand. Nevertheless, my pain eased as my own blood trickled down my arm, dripping off my elbow to join the burnt blood of the turtles. The turtle shells were all alone as the fire began to die down. No matter how much pain I or the turtles felt, I must seek revenge on Sue Newbird. Instantaneously, I had an idea. A cruel, tragic, comical idea. "I no longer need to be Simon Oz. No one will ever care. From this point on, I am Eugene Oz," I exasperatedly cried into the solitude of the kitchen. I would repeat the effects of the curse. Critics have died, theatres have burnt, actors have been slaughtered! I needed to let her now though. I took my luck wood, and wrote a word ontop of each turtle shell. When arranged correctly, the turtles shells spelt out, "MACBETH'S CURSE WILL PREVAIL." Ha. And again I say ha. No longer do I fear the cursed name! I myself am the curse! Without me, this whole twangling, shotten-herring conspiracy wouldn't even exist! Damn you Sue! Damn you to hell! As soon as I had finished screaming, I keeled over crying. By midnight that night, the four turtle shells were placed upon Sue in her sleep. One upon her brow, one upon her bosom, one upon her abdomen, and a final one upon her legs. Oh, the surprise she would discover tomorrow morning.
I was so upset! So terribly upset! I could hardly walk!I vomited over the kitchen floor. I was at a loss of a reason to live. I pulled a knife from the kitchen drawer. A fillet knife. I staged my own death perfectly. It would be like in Romeo and Juliet. I would kill ymself over Sue's sleeping body. Just as I have done it so many times b efore in the theatre. But then, I had a better idea. I would create the ultime Shakespearean revenge. But first, first I would attack her heart. An entire month passed as I plotted the downfall of Sue Newbirds acting career. This is it. This event would be my big break. It was the crucial role, the role of a lifetime. If I am to fall, I will fall as the ultimate Shakesperean killer! That insinuating whoreson varlet! She may take away my roles, but never, never will she take away my dignity! It was December 15th. Not until ast month had I actually considered zooicide a form of revenge.








