The curtain rises, the lights fade, the audience left in a suspenseful cloud of darkness. A darkness so penetrating that it seemed to consume all life within it, but the lingering death the darkness forced upon the crowd diminished with the spotlight which brought new life to the room revealing a single man at center stage…
His performance on the particular night was extravagant! He swayed the crowd’s emotions into an intimate theatrical relationship with his grace and contorted his role into a thing beyond beauty. A thousand eyes memorized his every move that night, never leaving his side even for a moment as they watched him glide over the stage.
Of those eyes enthralled with his performance that night was his understudy, silently observing off stage where the cloud of darkness still hung. Over the years they had grown to know each other in a way no one else on set had: they both learned the same lines and almost became the same person because of it, but when it came time for the play to begin, the understudy took his rightful place backstage and watched his friend gain glory and fame.
As he watched that night the avarice embers inside him burst into flames, swaying him into an intimate relationship with his friend’s spotlight and contorting him into a thing beyond a deathly denizen of darkness. A thousand thoughts raced through his mind that night, but none as prevalent as the lingering image of a knife in his friend’s back!
The curtain rises, the lights fade, the audience left in a suspenseful cloud of darkness. A darkness so penetration that it seemed to consume all life within it, but the lingering death the darkness forced upon the crowd diminished with the spotlight which brought new life to the room revealing a single man at center stage…the understudy.