Tell me why…
Why What?
I don’t know.
You always act like such some big shot philosophy bum. That’s what your role is. Not who you are.
That’s how you define me as.
Are you anything more?
I don’t know…
Why What?
I don’t know.
You always act like such some big shot philosophy bum. That’s what your role is. Not who you are.
That’s how you define me as.
Are you anything more?
I don’t know…
Alexander Krow always arrived at the set at exactly six thirty four each day. He always wore a smile and gave everyone working that day a hearty hello before he got to work. He radiated charm, his hansom face and hearty smile winning over anyone he met. He seemed like charisma incarnate, and yet here he was staring in his first movie, not as the hansom and overly confident hero but as the slimy pest of a villain. He showed the world what acting could be, that even the kindest of men can turn their heart to stone for the camera. He showed unspeakable potential, but was headed down into a rut with his character.
He knew he would be defined by this role, as the many great talents before him. He regretted taking the job, but it put food on the table. It would give him the recognition his manager said he rightly deserved. Why should he care about his future? If this movie was a success he would be rich. He would be settled for the life he dreamed of. For the isolation that he found in himself. Or was it the isolation he felt as his character? Was he thinking like he should? Was the mask he wore on camera not a mask but his true face?
Alexander shook his head. No. He had to pay attention to the set; the climax was being shot today. As clichéd of a climax as it promised it would be. It was a gut wrencher to anyone who was fool enough to believe the ideals it upheld, and a stab to true art. But since when did art make money?
“Xan!” Shouted the director through his microphone “Pay attention you go on when John says ‘I know I must go on alone.’”
The director’s voice ripped through Alexander like a knife brining him back to reality. “Okay I got it. Just spaced out for a second.”
“You had better not space out again. Film is expensive!”
Alexander tied black cloak on his back and dawned his mask. The pour of false rain began and the daring hero said the words a million heroes had said before him and what another million heroes would say after his death. “I will… I must go alone…”
A flash entered Alexander’s mind. And he smiled beneath the mask.
Since when did anything have a happy ending?
He entered from the side and shouted his lines drawing his sword. And thus began the climactic battle of good versus evil. Where loud music would have been there was only the claps of the chorographer as the two dueled to the beat.
“I cannot let you succeed!” The hero shouted.
“All I want is freedom!” Alexander responded tearing a hole in the script “I just want to be free!”
Suddenly the clapping stopped. A few people gasped. The director who had had the word ‘Cut!’ on his lips for the last second turned pale. A crimson line dripped down the thought to be dull blade of Alexander’s sword.
“Tell me why good always prevails?”
The mask fell from Alexander’s face and he saw the eyes of the victim- his victim. “What have I-“he whispered in a gasp. He looked down on the mask that he had dawned no more than two minutes earlier; a crack ran down its center.
He went limp.
The movie never aired. The murder was hushed quickly, the villain of the show was barely mentioned, his name only stated once or twice in the articles that bothered to write about this freakish event. It was all forgotten. Even the culprit lost memory of why he sat strapped up in a padded room whispering: “Tell me why? Does a villain not deserve revenge for that made him what he is? Is it not the hero who decides who is evil and seeks to destroy them? Is it because they are different? Are they truly dark on the inside at birth or are they created?” Or repeating again and again “Tell me why?”
