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Prolific Writer
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: USA
Posts: 227
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Love, Death, and their Consequences
Hi. When I wrote this story a few months ago, it was a piece of crap. I have edited it a lot since then and would like to know whether or not it is still a piece of crap. Thanks!
Love, Death, and their Consequences
She was a plain and simple girl.
Molly Johnson pondered all this and more as she studied her reflection in the mirror in her dressing room. At the top of the mirror was a row of light bulbs that shed glowing masses onto her features, making them none the better. She had pale skin, dull blue eyes, and hair the color of dead autumn leaves. Her eyes were too small, her nose too long, and her eyebrows too sparse.
Onstage, she was neither plain nor simple. She was none of those things she really was. She was charming and gorgeous and bold. She was Courtlyn Rosalie Holloway, daughter of a duke and heiress to a fortune.
Molly made a fish face as one of the makeup artists swept rouge along her chubby cheeks, making her cheekbones come to life.
All the same, it did not matter in the least. Molly Johnson, plain and simple, was engaged to be married. Not only that, but every day she was able to execute her theatrical passion to the greatest extent of desire imaginable.
Molly adored every aspect of being an actress. Gracing the stage as a complete stranger. Merging her soul with another, becoming another, and bringing that other to life. Being who she was not and all that she dreamed to be. Lights blinding her eyeballs, blinking exaggeratedly fake eyelashes in protection. And the audience. Oh, the audience. Laughing, sobbing, all at her power. And the satisfaction of bringing her part to its fullest.
She could not ask more from life.
With this attitude, Molly prepared unknowingly for her death.
*****
Patrick Dalton was getting married.
I’m getting married, he told himself, a smile playing upon his lips.
To the most breathtaking creature he had ever and would ever know, Molly Johnson. At present, Patrick was attending a play she starred in. It was remarkable to him how much joy Molly took in the art of theater. He loved her for loving something he could not understand.
Patrick took seat in the front row, eagerly awaiting his fiancé’s debut. Running his fingers through his wild red hair, a stupid grin locked on his lips. He did not care how stupid he looked, for he was in love. Love was a disease. A mental illness. He was mental and overjoyed to be so. Patrick’s heart fluttered anxiously, unsuspecting the events that would lead to its demolishment.
*****
Annette Rackham wanted to see a good show. She was old enough to remember when performers had to sing, dance, and act all at the same time. Currently, they only had to change expressions like masks and be attractive to the eye. Hoping this show would be better, but highly doubting it, Annette settled in her seat.
Her husband, Clark Rackham, sat beside her. They had been married for so many years, it was impossible for her to remember the exact number and improbable that she actually cared enough to figure it out.
Clark and Annette hadn’t been (this is what Annette told her family) sailing down the tunnel of love as smoothly as usual. Their relationship, put simply, was suffering. Clark was no longer her knight in shining armor, but her bum who ate, slept, ate, slept, and ate and slept some more. She had insisted that he take her out, and after some batting of the eyelashes, and more effectively, threatening to stop buying potato chips, he obliged.
“I imagine this should be an outstanding show,” Annette said untruthfully, attempting some sort of amiable conversation with her bum.
Had she known the way in which these words would become truthful, Annette would have left the theater right then and there, bum and all.
*****
Reuben Gotwals waited backstage with permission as “a friend of Miss Johnson.” Reuben chuckled. Not only was he not entertaining a friendship with Molly, but the girl herself had allowed Reuben backstage in hopes of a truce.
He had loved her. He still did. The Webster’s Dictionary’s definition of love did not even define his love for her because his love was neither describable nor comprehensible, but powerful and intangible.
Molly and Reuben had dated regularly for several weeks. She had appeared interested in him and he had loved her. Interest and love, he had come to realize, were far from the same thing. As the days had passed, Molly became detached. Finally, she withdrew completely, unrequited love slapping him in the face.
She had caused him much pain. Much unbearable pain. And now she was engaged to some freckled, carrot top, farm boy. If Reuben could not have her, he did not want her to be an option to anyone else. With Molly being so bewitching, he thought this impossible and therefore resolved that his only means in ensuring she was not an option to anyone meant ensuring she was not an option at all.
He bitterly vowed that he would destroy her to destroy his pain. She was the source. Eliminate the source.
“Yes,” said the voice in Reuben’s head, or rather the pain in his heart, “Eliminate the source.”
*****
Molly put her costume on, which was a beautiful Victorian wedding dress. With all its layers and parts delicately wrapped around her, Molly fancied she looked like a white rose. None could disagree.
“Five minutes ‘til show time,” said a voice that made Molly’s stomach do a little flip.
Gathering herself, the actress trudged to the curtains. The massively intimidating curtains billowed in the light breeze circulating around the stage. The curtains were of the finest velvet material. Taking some of the fabric into her hands, she rubbed the soft material over her face, taking caution not to smudge her makeup.
She swirled around when a voice greeted her.
*****
“Molly!” Reuben exclaimed.
Right there stood his bride. Exactly as he had dreamt she would look. He was extremely pained. Emotional and physical pain had long since blended into one.
“Reuben,” she said, “Hi.”
He simply smiled and walked away.
*****
Patrick had utterly enjoyed the production. His eyes had not abandoned the stage once, save for the kissing scene. Having practiced the script several times with Molly and attended all dress rehearsals, he knew the show would end in approximately five minutes.
Thinking only of Molly, Patrick pardoned himself as he rose from his seat and marched out into the aisle, determined to present his fiancé with flowers the moment the show ended.
*****
“Wake up,” snapped Annette, whacking Clark with her program. He had been sleeping ever since they sat down.
Following a quick glance at his wife, the old man snapped his eyes shut again, leaving Annette disgruntled.
Her eyes fell on a young man walking in a purposeful air to what seemed like the stage. He held a bouquet of roses.
There’s something peculiar on that stage, thought Annette.
*****
Only the flowing, scarlet curtain protected Molly from him. Reuben waited until the right moment to strike.
“I can tell you now, our lives together will last for several generations to see,” said the man that played Courtlyn’s husband.
With both hands, Reuben made a slice in the curtain, brushing the blade by Molly’s dress. She immediately spun around. His dark eye looked at her. Stared at her. Gazed at her inside and out.
“Say: I will not live that long.”
Reuben allowed the glint of his blade to catch Molly’s eye. Her lips froze.
“Say it,” he hissed.
Voice lacking animation, she echoed, “I will not live that long.”
*****
Patrick did not remember Molly’s character saying that line. Had it been a last-minute change? Or had Molly forgotten her lines and improvised? Judging by the male lead’s astonished countenance, he highly doubted it. Patrick quickened his pace.
*****
“Wake up!” Annette demanded of her listless husband.
Clark did not even stir.
“It is important. Something is going on. I think you should see it,” Annette said, not knowing why.
Clark forced open an eye.
*****
Reuben whispered another line in her ear. Desperately, Molly searched the crowd.
Wasn’t Patrick in the front row? Where is he now? There is an empty seat. It must be his. Why can’t I find him? Where is he? He would not leave before the end of the show. Is he okay? In the aisle. Roses. Oh!
She made to give him a terrified expression in hopes that he would be able to tell that something was wrong and thus save her, but he instead tripped over his own feet, his eyes flying in another direction. She laughed. Laughed aloud for all to hear.
The blade crept closer.
In a shaky voice, she rasped, “I will die right now.”
The curtains rushed across the stage, the audience applauded, and Patrick handed Molly the roses. What a beautiful bride she will make, he thought, admiring how his bouquet fully completed her costume.
Not having time to tell Patrick how much she loved him before Reuben stabbed her, Molly put on her most loving look. Seconds later, her eyes lost their spark, her mouth lost its grin, and her body lost its soul.
Molly fell into a heap on the wooden floor. Blood poured out onto her snowy white dress, looking strange and foreign.
*****
Annette wept, tears zigzagging around the wrinkles under her eyes. It had dawned on her.
“I love you,” she told her husband whereupon he immediately returned the phrase.
It was of the most morbid melancholy that a young girl with her entire future ahead of her had to die for an old bat like Annette to realize how lucky she was.
It was the best play, she thought in disgust at herself, that she had ever seen.
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A bit of advice for my fellow human beings: Read Jane Eyre!
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