All the World's a Stage

It is Valentine’s Day. A man clutches a loaf of bread under his arm and remembers quite frightfully that his girlfriend would like a gift. Either she gets a gift or he will be suffering three weeks of soggy eggs for breakfast. He is perplexed. Perspiration beads his brow and his underarms. Luckily across the street is a florist’s shop. What now, our young man thinks, is good enough to defray his lady’s fury? But one must careful. And our young man realizes that too. A rose? A bouquet of carnations? A head of hydrangeas? Our young man would like to think, but his vocabulary is limited to red flower, yellow flower. But our youth is intrepid. Anything should do as long it is big, splashy, a cavalcade of the heavens. And so he bursts across the street and then is ruinously run over. The driver had been rushing to check on the reservations for his Valentine’s Day dinner.

Rest assured, the bread is not wasted. Two stray dogs lops by and have themselves a Valentine’s Day dinner expertly flavored with blood and lost dreams.

***

Welcome to open mic.

People yak, they spill coffee over their precious macbook pro, they wonder if Henry is twenty minutes late because he’s screwing the perky intern. A minute ago, someone exalted the pleasures of cannabis and organic shea butter. Now someone is playing their acoustic guitar, singing about love, true love, great love, deep love, love, love, love. Then someone comes through the backdoor, a glock in hand.

Bang. Next! Bang. Next! Bang. Next! Bang ... I will not bother you with the details of blood and screaming because there’s no blood and screaming. People are still yakking, now wondering if Henry has been screwing their best friend Amy, and they spill coffee over the iPhone. And the music trundles on, love, love, love. The singer is less canorous than before, definitely less vibrato in her voice.

And bang. Next! Bang. Next! Bang.

The gunman stands before the singer now. She lifts her head and raises her hands in the air, says “I’m just the guitarist—” Bang.

The gunman takes the stand, and the guitar. He plumps himself on the stool and begins a movement from the Concierto D’Aranjuez.

***

A woman has a bird problem in her bedroom. I would not say it is a real problem as much as it is a conundrum. There is a pigeon which lives on the window sill. Every night, when it is dark, it struts to its nest. But in the morning when she tries to take a closer look at the bird snug in its nest, it totters away. This has gone on for three months. But tomorrow will be the day, the lady thinks as she closes her eyes to sleep. 

However, an intruder happens upon her bedroom. Yes blood, blah blah blah. The measly atavistic deed, blah, blah, blah. And a knife to the throat blah blah blah. The intruder leaves, I imagine, content. And the pigeon is content, too. It has the window all to itself for the next three months until the new owner clears out the nest.

***

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Our man, translator of time and space, plays the Revolutionary Étude to an audience stiff-necked with wonder. The song is quite fitting because what everyone doesn’t know is that the universe is about to tunnel out of its false vacuum. Now what, you say, do I mean?

Some think that the universe inhabits a false vacuum, a metastable state. Imagine, a ball perfectly balanced on the back of a spoon. It is stable but any slight motion will set it rolling away, and so is the same with our universe. It has lived this long, why roll now? I cannot give you an answer nor can anyone else. But back to our distinguished pianist.

A bubble of unrest sparks in his left hand. He feels nothing because it is just a nanoscopic bubble. Hear those glissandos. Hear the rumble of the lower keys. The audience are too afraid to blink, or they might miss a laudatory moment from the Chopin genius.

But that bubble is a pesky bubble. It fizzes into other bubbles, eating up tendon and bone. But harmony plays on. The left hand is a like mad octopus over the keys. Silence enthralls the audience. Four fingers are gone now. The fan whirrs an appreciation to one-fingered left hand playing. What of the chords, you say? The pianist is a master of interpretation. Lessons since he was three, an adolescence sacrificed to fugues and scales then adequately rewarded with a trophy at the Van Cliburn competition. A master of melody he is, even after the left hand is a raw stump to nothingness.

The woman dabs at her runaway heart. Another woman holds back her cough in reverence. The audience lean towards the piano and player. The show does continue. Finger pecking does deliberate a genius.

Hands are gone, stumps bang out discordant chords. At last the triumph of atonality at the end of world. Arms crumble into the void. Head bangs against the ivory keys till that itself is gone.

The silence and void become one. Only then does a man propels out of his seat and darts for the fire exits. Panic calls upon panic. Blah, blah, blah. 

Rest assured, the universe does fall into its true vacuum, kicking and screaming.

That’s all folks!

Vote, comment and tell me how crazy I am.  Better yet read my other books. They are much less nihilistic.