The curtain closes. Through rounds of applause the ensemble make their way onto the stage to take three bows.
What? Did you think this was real life? That a double homicide was being solved by a highly depressed man? Possible and valid, but no.
This isnât real life. This isnât even fake life. What youâve just witnessed is the unraveling. The moment when Players become human and humans become players.
If youâre asking things like: who did it? Did we catch the killer? Youâre asking the wrong questions and you missed the point.
It was never about who did it.
As You Like It [The Globe Theater] - Act 2, Scene 7
Jacques
All the worldâs a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurseâs arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistressâ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannonâs mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon linâd,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipperâd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well savâd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.All 100 Word Stories
The First 100 | The Second 100 | The Third 100 | The Fourth 100 | The Fifth 100 | The Sixth 100 | The Seventh 100 | The Eighth 100 | The Ninth 100 | The Tenth 100