THE KILLING OF AN OFF-BROADWAY PRODUCER

Desperate Times Short Story Forum Presents:

THE KILLING OF AN OFF-BROADWAY PRODUCER (an excerpt from MUSICAL THEATRE PUNK)

I would shake and cough and twitch in rehearsal. Maybe I gave myself away. The producer didn’t like me. She cut me from THE show. Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten myself so emotionally attached.

She was my first victim.

I learned I didn’t like hearing them scream while I sliced them up, so; If I knew things were going to get A) Messy or B) Loud – I took precautions.

I wanted to make sure this woman suffered.. I wanted her to feel the pain of my rejection. I knew this was impossible. She could never feel the way I felt. How could she objectively see what she had done to me? She couldn’t. But at least I could still torture and kill her.

I stuffed her mouth full of crumpled up Playbills and Gaff taped her mouth shut. The tears were pouring down her wrinkled old face now. I didn’t like hearing her plead – it tugged at my conscience.

I had seen an ad on late night tv for the 'Butcher’s Boy Blade', a knife so sharp that it could "CUT THROUGH BONE" (according to the ad) so I decided to test it out on sweet cheeks over here.

I drew myself closer and closer to her face – shooting her with my eyes, drawing out the moment of anticipation as much as I could before I started smacking her around. It was fun toying with her. She couldn’t speak, but her eyes begged me to let her go.

I raised my blade high in the air and brought it down with swift vengeance. She shrieked like a banshee and blood spewed everywhere; but that’s what tarps and gags are for.

I picked up her hand and started smacking it against her face.

“Hey. Quit hittin’ yerself. Quit hittin’ yerself.” Hah.

I cut her up and down her wrinkled shriveled body. She bled. She cried.

“Slice, slice, snicker snack. Here’s a blade across your back.” I sliced her diagonally from shoulder blade to hip; and she bled.

For the next few minutes my victim drifted in and out of consciousness. And I realized I had a rehearsal to get to.

She was trying to say something.

“What? I’m sorry I can’t hear you with your mouth gagged like that.” I ripped off the gaff tape, along with her bottom lip.

“Please” she cried “I’m sorry. Please don’t!”

Sweat and blood poured from the old woman’s head. She had pissed herself several times already and the room was starting to smell.

“You’re sorry?” I joked “Really? You’re sorry.”

“I was wrong. I should have –“

“Yes you were wrong. Oh so very wrong. And now you’re sorry…” I let out a sarcastic sigh. “Let me hear you say you’re sorry again.”

“I’m sorry!” she screamed through blood and tears.

“Not good enough.” I plunged the blade into her chest and carved out her heart; making sure she lived long enough to watch it stop, beating.

I made a plan to burn her remains.

Ah Rehearsal.

I feel a pop in my brain; then a loud pinging sound. It grows louder by the second – Black blood courses through my veins – I feel my head pulsing. The pain gets worse. My left arms goes numb and my feet start to burn. I grind my teeth from side to side and wish for a new stomach. Someone get this monster out of my head.


It’s a low sky out tonight; Foggy and bitter, like a head-cold.



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Home Alone with my Friends

Desperate Times Prose Series Presents:

Home Alone With My Friends

My blue friend makes me nervous

My white friend makes me still

My brown friend makes me dizzy

my green friend makes me chill

My blonde friend changed her hair - and now it's something dark;

like my soul on a Sunday night, chewing idea tree bark.


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Desperate Times Presents: Prose from the Wasteland

Before the Dark

Data on the screen and in my head
Neither have wisdom
and I'm filled with dread

My heart is a colander; emptying out my love; holding on to my pain
The screen snows flickers
I've learned it's refrain

No more for my room
full up is my kitchen

The oven burns
The heart churns

The screen shorts out -
the sound is gone

The embers have grown
A faulty extinguisher am I
A faulty human.

I see the fire burning up the curtains
I focus on the screen
I can not move, but to breathe in the smoke

My chest contracts and I cough
I gag and wheeze and contort,
but I still see the Data on the screen

The room grew bright


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Desperate Times Presents: Prose from the Wasteland

The Light

"Send me solace!" He cried; naked and alone - he walked - in the dark
- not knowing where he was - or how his legs were suddenly functioning

His miraculously cured paralysis did not astound him as much as the destruction laid out before him.

The skyline was gone.

Only rubble and rock, dust and ash remained.

He walked...

The clouds rained scarlet tears - He sought shelter and wept; and decided that he would gladly trade his newfound mobility for the world he knew

The air reaked of sulfur

The Old Man's chest pounded and he grimaced

The man fell; and he watched his knee cry the same scarlet tears as the clouds

The man walked on.

The man called out to any that would listen;

"Am I not worth being heard?!" He cursed his maker.

Sulfur seemed to filled his lungs... the Man could not breathe.

The man fell a second time; and remembered cigarettes.
Coffee; the Man remembered the smell. He remembered donuts.
The man remembered his life and cried.

"I miss you"

And a voice seemed to acknowledge his declaration.
The Old Man sighed and wished for light.
He knelt and closed his eyes.
The sun came out - and as the radiation burned away his skin and muscle tissue, the man smiled his last.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Glibbery-Blibble-Bleck

I don’t like gooky mess. Does that sound gay? Whatever, maybe that sounds gay. I don’t care – I can deal with a mess – I’m a bit of a mess – but I hate – yech – that gooky feeling of sticking your hand in a pumpkin, removing the guts and seeds and juices and whatnot so the pumpkin doesn’t rot - (Yech) - it’s that awful swirling gloopy bubbling feeling of something alive that shouldn’t be alive squirming around in your hand some Glibbery-Blibble-Bleck trying to suck off your arm – y-know what I mean? Disgusting. Absolutely gross.

I didn’t remove all the guts – that was three days ago - and now my pumpkin is rotting on my kitchen counter… I carved the interlocking NY that the Yankees use on their caps into the pumpkin. It kind of looks more like the interlocking NY that the Mets use on their caps. My stomach turns. I gaze into the pumpkin that should have read “[interlocking NY symbol] 2010 World Series Champions! Suck it Philly!” And my stomach churns. It turned out all wrong – I’m admittedly not half as handy with a knife as I like to boast. But half as handy as I boast is still quite handy indeed. The Pumpkin doesn’t look right. My stomach burns and I run to the bathroom to blast off.

Goblins

Desperate Times Prose Series: Volume XII

GOBLINS

Goblins grow in the shadows
I pretend the shadows will protect me,
I implore the shadows to protect me,
But the darkness of the afternoon sun doesn't fool.
Cold impetuous night has come
The demons have arrived.

Desperate Times

Desperate Times Hobo Prose

DESPERATE TIMES
Everything he says, he lies, things he says he lies, He says them just to lie

Won’t let me look him in the eye, look him in the eye, try, he closes off his eyes

His friends are all around, friends they do surround, His friends they all came down

To comfort, say goodbye, a comforting goodbye, never know when he will try again

Cause now they don’t know when, we’ll see you again, won’t see you again

Then his girl comes in, fingers to his chin, then he starts to grin

He needs comfort he needs love, not people up above, not those people up above

But Every word he speaks his false, words he speaks as false, words he speaks are false

He stopped telling time cuase he couldn’t lie, cause he used to lie about telling time

He stopped telling lies, couldn’t find the time, time to tell the tangible lies

Now he’s in desperate times, he’s in desperate times, he’s in desperate times –

Now he's Gotta find a lie, tangible little lie so he can get by -----

He’s been killed off by his peers, with scissorhanded shears, causes him no tears.

He’s shed so many tears, enough to last for years, what else to you really need to know.

Don’t believe he’s fine, Don’t believe his lies, when he says he fine.

He’ll cut you in your sleep, rest of us will weep and we’ll all be here much longer than we’d planned.

If he could have it his way – guess she woulda stayed, guess she would stayed, guess she woulda stayed

But He misses her today, yeah misses her today – days the day she left without saying goodbye

Opening Night

Desperate Times Prose Series: Volume X

Life Is a dress rehearsal
Death, is the real performance



A Note from the author:

You've heard the saying, "Life is not a dress rehearsal" - I disagree
You've heard the saying, "bad dress rehearsal, great opening night" - I completely agree

Over the Meadow and Through the Woods

Desperate Times Prose: Volume IX

Over The Meadow and Through The Woods
a tale of dreams...

Part One

Reboot. The computer screen flickers, stark black and white shades of infinity. I must get some work done tonight. Altho, my increasingly labored typing tells me I'm tired, I must go on. My fingers get heavier with each keystroke. I begin to drift. Light fades and colors bloom out of reality. The solstice is here. My computer gives birth to a triple moon. Light beams shoot forth and I run for dear life. Fate chases me through rainbow colored space; milky smooth waves pass over and under me. The waves grow fearsome, the claw at my face, shrieking unpronounceable curses. I see the end. I see light. I see peace. I see pain behind me, clear skies up ahead. Eternity slows down, I live life one thirty-second of a second, one frame at a time.

Each passing second fills me with the desire to tumble off in to a puckish green meadow of sleep. I close my eyes and dream myself a field. Unfazed by my feckless exploits, I lay in a puckish green meadow in peace. A raven circles overhead. Even though I know he will do me no harm, I still wonder why he has come to this place. Ravens do not prey. They wait for the nearly dead to expire, that they might feast on carrion. The Ravens can smell death approaching like a sixth sense. Perhaps this Raven smells death on me. Perhaps he has come to warn me. Or perhaps he has simply come to say hello.

I feel alive. I feel awake in this dream, far more so than in the waking. I think the Raven has in all actuality, mistaken me for someone else. I look at him looking at me. I must remind him of something; a previous version of myself maybe. Perhaps I represent the personification of an idea, a unique point of view trapped inside something corporeal, waiting, always, waiting to be unleashed. The ground quakes. There is a tree? There is a tree apparently. The tree simply appeared, I could swear it was not here when I first entered the field. Unnerved, I pick myself up. My overalls are covered in white wash and I lead a red wagon full of misappropriated toys down the path ahead.

Part Two

Sky smiles down upon me as I walk, the way a father smiles upon his son. The wagon seemed to vanish and I am no longer wearing overalls. Clothed in the colors of the forest I walk along the country dirt road. A small yellow creature slightly resembling a Sunday comic strip character follows close behind. The path, once blooming with flowers of every color imaginable, has grown gray and listless. A tree shrub groans in pain. I hear his cries; weary from a long life of being shoved aside and stepped on. A butterfly zooms past me. Frogs of every shape, size and shade begin hopping toward me in perfect synchronization. All of a sudden I am in a packed theatre, surrounded by dreamers and philanthropists from all plains of existence. An usher with six legs, a violin and a rather vegetative complexion ushers me to my seat. A private box has been reserved in my name. I have the best seat in the forest theatre. The lights dim, the curtain lifts, the orchestra readies and before I know it, I’m witnessing an all amphibian musical production of the Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass. Despite of, or perhaps thanks to the rather fantastical source material, I am startled, scared and downright impressed at how efficiently the frogs’ used dance to progress the plot. The music and lyrics reminded me of Gilbert & Sullivan, Robert Johnson and Elliot Smith. The music soared and pounded and exploded throughout the theatre and through the forest. My spirit had been lifted. So moving were the frogs in their individual roles and as an ensemble, that they had me in tears by the finale. After the performance I had the honor of being invited backstage to meet the creative team.

I told the Frogs how much I appreciated their obvious uncanny understanding of American Musical as a relevant contemporary art form. I complimented them on an all around stellar production and before departing, asked the artistic director if the company would be adapting another classic for next season. The artistic director responded by taking me aside and telling me how they’ve been adapting source material in to musicals for millennia. The artistic director, a yellow tongued, brown spotted frog name Slitherdin said my comments warmed his cold blooded heart and the hearts of his fellow amphibians, but that the company wanted to move in another direction. Next season would feature the frogs production of Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre on ice. Privately I thought that seemed like a bit of a step backward. Publicly I wished Slitherdin and his friends good luck and told them I would do my best to attend next season.

Part Three
The theatre disappears. The forest path lies in front of me. The light fades, my confusion grows. I look to the smiling sky, but the sky smiles no longer. Troubled by a line in the frogs’ production I ask myself; am I dreaming? Or am I merely part of someone else's dream? Were the frogs a figment of my imagination? Am I a figment of theirs? Clouds block my sight and I know what’s happening. It’s happened before and it’s happening again; I know it, I can feel it in my ventricles. My vision is being obscured my melancholy horror.

Part Four
Melancholy Horror had always been completely unpredictable. She took on many forms. There are legends, stories really, of her birth to Celestial parents. Some say she was the daughter of a bastard wolf and an evil sorceress. Some say she lives in all of us, in the deep recesses of the negative heart soul, buried underneath grief; hidden between nightmare and despair. Truth be told, the origins of Melancholy Horror remain largely unknown and highly suspect.

There stands before me a man, cloaked in gray. He carries a giant book in his hand. With a nod of his head, he tells me to follow the path down through the forest to where the wild oak tree forks the road. At the oak tree I take the path on the right. The skies grow darker. Who knew what manner of creature inhabited the forest. I hadn’t exactly taken stock of the patronage at the theatre, but it seemed to me that if my usher had six legs, then there was no telling what Sprites, Jabberwoks, Vernicious K'nids or Flugglecarps lurked in this unknown forest.


I longed to be lying in the puckish green meadow with the Raven comfortably perched on the branch of our mutual friend the redwood tree.

(Next Time: Part Five)

The De-Evolution and Re-Evolution of Current Existence

Desperate Times Prose: Volume VIII

The De-evolution and Re-evolution of Current Existence
as recalled by Jared Weiss

PART I - De-Evolution (Slowly dying Haiku)

1.

Something Brown gets down
In a Flemish kind of way
Leuven keeps movin'

2.

Flowers keep dying
Rain drenched Sunday shuts me in
Board game sales are up

3.

Focusing on wrong
Why not focus on what's right?
Refocusing now

4.

Dream King is calling
The soft meadows, fields of green
protect my slumber

5.

Representing loss
Surreality presents
dashed expectations

6.

Stood up and put out
Let down, drugged up, feeling down
Tie rocks to my leg

7.

Loneliest evening
Shadows creep up white walls
threatening violence

8.

Spend some time thinking
about how you've hurt yourself
Now try something else

9.

Stare at blind poets
On street corners, musicians
struggling to make the scene

10.

Find solace in the cold
From something unfamiliar
Old stories fade

PART II - The Poet's Last Waltz (Re-Evolution)

11.

A blind poet on eighth street curses a traffic cop
The man takes exception to the poet's arrogance but tries not to make a scene
The artist eggs him on with slang graffiti on the walls
While troubadours play sweet love songs on the café sidewalk

12.

The poet composes angry scorn for all the men who've done him wrong
Like the music mechanic of Times Square, who raped his words in to a song
The troubadours hear a voice truth pure, their lonely souls ache no more
"Sacrifice me for difference sake" the poet says – I'll be famous in death for sure

13.

City boy becomes a man as he takes a young girl's arm
She clutches his shoulder in blissful embrace, protecting her from harm
She's shy at first, but he's got a song that speaks of his hunger for love
He takes the guitar from off of his back and plays what he's dreaming of

14.

Entranced in the moment fireworks go off in the summer on the beach
A truth song frightens and inspires a young boy and the world seems just in reach
And all the men who've wronged the poet, show up on the right
To the left of the poet a cop shivers and quakes, not even supposed to be here tonight

15.

The sometime lovers overhear, the poet's song of truth
Reminds her of home and daddy, who moaned and yelled and sipped vermouth
The Markets over crowded with slaves of new found freedom giving way
To the new revolution east village child, down to seize the day

16.

His melancholic horror, evaporates with snow
We get drunk while we wait for the poet to explode, to numb us to the sight
For the poet dances naked in the streets, mind open and willing to flow
The Horizon line grows dim as the junky poet sets up for the night

17.

Sirens wail and bullets fly, Many here about to die
The poet runs through traffic, shouting words fantastic
Lithe as a kitten, the poet seems smitten with dodging through cars all night long
Swiped, now he falters, his game plan he alters, his goal now to sing one last song

18.

He spoke very slow, before he did go
He struggled to open his mouth
With a lift of his arm, ignoring the pain,
he stretched out his hand and began to sing

19.

"Alone she seems to sleep so sweet
As I blow sweet kisses in her ear
She dreams and prays her soul to keep
In the heart of fallen angels... sleep."

20.

Tonight, I saw a poet reborn
He carried scars, deserved scorn
No man alive could break his will
Or drive him to that righteous kill

The End