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snippetsTitle: Life is but a Shadow
Fandom: Original
Rating: PG
Genre: Drama, General, Contemplative
Wordcount: 472
Author's note: My muse has been curiously absent lately. So annoying. Anyways, I wrote this next piece in free-flow so to speak. Aka, I was writing because I wanted to write but hadn't a clue what to write about. Still, I liked it well enough that I'm going to go ahead and post it, obviously. You should also be able to id what line in the fic prompted me to look up the below shakesperean quote.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle! Life is but a shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Macbeth, Act V, v19
Life is but a Shadow
When the curtain falls and the sun sets, what are we but the leftover fragments of a thousand lines and verses sung? We trudge in stops and stutters down the hallway, peeling back the masks and flaking paint from our skin, hearts belaboring under the unknown weight of half-forgotten bemusements.
Will these half-drowned stragglers ever find their way in a world that will not recognize them without the acoutrements of their art upon them? Will they be forever drawn to the dusky rafters and backdrops of a realm that, while not real, at least was theirs for a few minutes and hours?
Too late, they are doomed to drink bitter tears, their stage forbidden to them in the hours between curtain rise and fall. No more encores to whittle away the lonely hours; no more dramatic speeches to stop a lone stragler in his tracks as he passes by on the street, an enruaptured audience of one held fast by the sweeping gestures and lofty idealism of your monologue. No more will the stranger cry tears of laughter at the crudeness of a joke well spun nor tears at a tragedy well played.
Life is a stage, and us merely the players that live our lives surrounded by its gaudy walls.
And as time passes, the paint flecks peel and wooden beams bow with the weight of a hundred uncaring feet standing unmoved while the fools below weep and wail and laugh on cue. The wood begins to warp, hollowed out by a million termites of regrets and what-ifs. But the play continues on, uncaring. It is our only salvation, the stage that was built around us, for us and the play that was scripted before the actors were even gathered together.
And as the hall begins to crumble, the curtain falls, the actors leave the stage drained and broken. They gave it their all, in one form or another, because to the audience so gathered, it is life, it is truth. And as the evening settles and the stars begin to shine behind a cloud of smog, the actors return to the tattered rooms and threadbare sheets. Life was good on the stage, when reality could not intrude. Truth cannot feed a hungry stomach nor ease a troubled mind.
Never was truth a harsher mistress then to the ones who sought solace in a world of make-believe.
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Fandom: Original
Rating: PG
Genre: Drama, General, Contemplative
Wordcount: 472
Author's note: My muse has been curiously absent lately. So annoying. Anyways, I wrote this next piece in free-flow so to speak. Aka, I was writing because I wanted to write but hadn't a clue what to write about. Still, I liked it well enough that I'm going to go ahead and post it, obviously. You should also be able to id what line in the fic prompted me to look up the below shakesperean quote.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle! Life is but a shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Macbeth, Act V, v19
When the curtain falls and the sun sets, what are we but the leftover fragments of a thousand lines and verses sung? We trudge in stops and stutters down the hallway, peeling back the masks and flaking paint from our skin, hearts belaboring under the unknown weight of half-forgotten bemusements.
Will these half-drowned stragglers ever find their way in a world that will not recognize them without the acoutrements of their art upon them? Will they be forever drawn to the dusky rafters and backdrops of a realm that, while not real, at least was theirs for a few minutes and hours?
Too late, they are doomed to drink bitter tears, their stage forbidden to them in the hours between curtain rise and fall. No more encores to whittle away the lonely hours; no more dramatic speeches to stop a lone stragler in his tracks as he passes by on the street, an enruaptured audience of one held fast by the sweeping gestures and lofty idealism of your monologue. No more will the stranger cry tears of laughter at the crudeness of a joke well spun nor tears at a tragedy well played.
Life is a stage, and us merely the players that live our lives surrounded by its gaudy walls.
And as time passes, the paint flecks peel and wooden beams bow with the weight of a hundred uncaring feet standing unmoved while the fools below weep and wail and laugh on cue. The wood begins to warp, hollowed out by a million termites of regrets and what-ifs. But the play continues on, uncaring. It is our only salvation, the stage that was built around us, for us and the play that was scripted before the actors were even gathered together.
And as the hall begins to crumble, the curtain falls, the actors leave the stage drained and broken. They gave it their all, in one form or another, because to the audience so gathered, it is life, it is truth. And as the evening settles and the stars begin to shine behind a cloud of smog, the actors return to the tattered rooms and threadbare sheets. Life was good on the stage, when reality could not intrude. Truth cannot feed a hungry stomach nor ease a troubled mind.
Never was truth a harsher mistress then to the ones who sought solace in a world of make-believe.
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