contra vim mortis non crescit herba in hortis

Lucas laid on the futon in the back room of the theatre, waiting for sleep to come. But it didn’t. It wasn’t nighttime, but he was tired, too tired to sleep. He looked across the room and saw something he hadn’t thought about in a long time. His typewriter. Ever since he became the owner of the Sawmill Theatre, his focus on writing declined. Who wants to put on their own play? It seems pitiful. Anyone could see that. He thought about writing again, just for the hell of it. He enjoyed it. Or at one point he did. There was no point to it anymore, all the casting for plays was done by a separate company, so writing plays for certain actors was feckless. He was so tired, but at the same time he was restless. He decided to take a walk. He exited the theatre and passed Margaret, who was sitting close to the stage, reading.

He walked down H. Street and turned on Poplar Avenue, and as he passed the clinic his hair stood on end. Something was terribly wrong. The next moment he heard an awful scream come from the clinic. It wasn’t the kind of scream that comes from seeing a rat, it was guttural, sick. It was a scream of terror and fear, it cut cleanly through the air, and it stopped. The silence following the scream was almost as loud as the scream itself.

He debated rather to run in, or run away, and he chose the latter. He sprinted back to the theatre and crashed through the doors. Margaret had left, he was alone. Alone with his fear that was passed to him by that scream. He paced and let his nerves calm down, then found his bottle of bourbon and drank his thoughts into oblivion.

By nightfall the bottle was empty and he was full of liquor. He couldn’t feel his face and his thoughts themselves slurred. Margaret entered the front door quietly, with a worried look on her face. She tried to tell him something but he couldn’t comprehend it, she helped him to the back room and on to the futon where he quickly passed out. He had no dreams that night, only swirls of bad feelings, of anger and fear.

The day started with three light knocks on the door. Lucas lazily crawled out of bed, every part of his body screaming, his mouth parched and his head pounding. Margaret entered and sat down on the bed. “Why did you drink so much last night?” she asked. “I had a lot in my head that I needed to clear out.” “I wish you wouldn’t do that...did you even understand me last night? There was a murder. A woman named...Sile? I think her name Sile N’Bhrsomething...anyway, she was killed, the details are still unclear.” Lucas’s heart began to pound and his head swirled.

That was the scream. That scream was the kind that accompanies death, the fear associated with dying by someone else’s hands. If he wasn’t such a wimp, he could’ve prevented it. It was his fault, all his fault, that’s all he could think.

“Lucas...Lucas...” someone was calling his name “Damnit Lucas wake up...” there was sobbing now “Luke...” and he opened his eyes. He was slouched down in the chair with a bottle of bourbon next to him, Margaret had been shaking him for minutes, trying to get him to rise from his drunken state. “Is she dead?” he asked. “Who? How do you know?” “It’s my fault...it’s my fault...” he slurred. “Lucas what did you do?” But he couldn’t answer, he slipped back unconscious, left to deal with his feelings of guilt and disillusionment in his own head, as always.