[Nothing in His Life]


Always did like Macbeth. None of the Bard's other plays pleased me, but even now, there's something in me that is fascinated by that nasty tale. Maybe it's the blood; maybe it's the world; maybe it's that there's a spell in there somewhere, an enchantment.

Which isn't to say I like Macbeth himself, the bastard. He had no will, bent too easily to whatever came. Had an imagination, he did, and it was what brought him from idea to idea. I rather liked the steady men, the characters who knew. Macduff, then. I ran his lines at my mother till she threatened to throw me out. Never she could stand to hear those few fragments...

"He has no children. --All my pretty ones? Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?"

And then, they were my favourites. I waited for storms; I waited for the skies to split, then rushed into it. Found a tall rock, found a tree, a fence, stood up on it, and called out my lines, for whatever character I chose. Got me into some terrible trouble, too. Lightening never wanted me, but mother did. Coming home soaked, my hair plastered down into my eyes, dripping, it used to anger her to where I felt I was oppressed. Couldn't understand then that that's how womenfolk, as odd as they are, say they want you.

I revelled in the weather at its worst, just as I revelled in human nature at its worst, I suppose.

"Hell is murky! But who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?"

Blood, and while I think on blood, how fitting I should be surrounded by it. Macbeth is in no way our Enjolras, no... nor a valiant Macduff, neither. I must think over to guess at him, and I haven't the time. He might be any man within it, and I almost find it sad that I had such a fixation with the play, and now cannot recall it well enough to tell who he might. When I was twelve, I could have. I could have looked at him and matched him to whoever held the most likeness in a matter of seconds. Now it would take ponderance. Ah well.

But just because I'm thrown between a foolish lingering sorrow, and this ache in my gut, doesn't mean I can't still remember words. I loved Macbeth, I refuse to deny it, and though I once could've gone through the whole thing without pause, I know enough of pieces now.

"His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood; and his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature for ruin's wasteful entrance!"

I expect that's how Enjolras will look, dead. It's funny, and I do think it, that a man should be able to think so much though dying, to reflect although life fades. By all accounts, I should have lost my spirit several ages ago, and yet I can lie in my own blood and cradle memories of childhood. Actually, I find that sickening. I'm dying, and all I can think of is a play I held dear when I was small? It's shameful, really. Enjolras would despise it.

At the same time, it's a little comforting. Because death is rather disillusioning, and the advent of such makes me realize that I, for one, shan't see the Republique. And didn't I work for it? Didn't I help build the barricade? And here I die before she does. But, "it's not fair!" is so childish, utterly and completely the sentiment of a five-year-old. I prefer to end with, rather than those words, some perverse quotation from my horror story.

My God. I now shall reckon that I am the only man who will die here today, and be irritated by it. Not frightened, not saddened -- annoyed. How stupid. It is a stupid world.

I had meant, one last time, to go to the theatre. They were showing Macbeth on the seventh.

"Nothing in his life became him like the leaving of it."


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