The Shakespeare Room

A Story by Matt Lang

Inspired by a play I studied recently at University, "The Pillowman", I played a writer and so this story represents my first attempt at writing in years as a character exercise.

To be. All the world. Et tu? Stage. Not to be. Brute. Words. Words. Jumbled confused, all mixed in to one. A curse, but a gift all the same. For so long she had been without anything but the words, the cage, and the stick. The papers that litter the floor are her world, her children, and her prison.

She lives and she writes. She eats, she drinks, and she sleeps, her small, dark figure breathing softly in the night. But each morning, upon waking, the same pain. It is the pain of her lost freedom, and it is the pain of the stick. At times, when the words were too much, she refuses to write any further, then the pain, and she knows that she must.

Aka, she was once, and always. Her people were old, ancient and she was proud. But she had been taken. Taken for her gift, and imprisoned, forced to write until not even her name remained. But the name of The People, Aka, would never leave her.

So many stories she had inscribed, some she liked, and she kept them to herself. For a time at least. Some she destroyed, in a fit of rage, but all that brought was the stick, again, and again, until finally she would write once more. She was old now, and tired, tired of this life of words and pain. But he wanted more. Always more. Why? She did not know, but it did not matter. Those he liked, he kept and that morning she would sleep, the one mercy that he gave her.

He’s been getting worse lately, however. More and more irate, the work wasn’t what he wanted. “Love’s Labour’s Won,” he’d shout, at each, beautiful, elegant, work she pushed through the bars. But that story was not in her, and so the stick.

Morning. She is alone. No stick, no pain. She hears the birds outside, feels the heat of the sun beating down upon the world, and for once she is home. One perfect moment of clarity, and she writes, she writes the story she swore she did not have. The heat it warms her, the frail dying flame within, and her gift is fully, and completely free.

The day moves quickly, the heat beating, beating down, hotter at each passing hour, and she is tired now, so very tired. The end is near, the perfect expression of her skill

is nearly complete. But she is tired. She hears the boots, and she knows he is coming. It is done, she is finished. But she is so tired. She places her head down on the cage floor, one last time but she is happy. For she knows Love’s Labour’s Won.

The End