“Can’t you just speak like a normal person?!” screamed Mrs. Shakespeare at her husband William. “I don’t know what your problem is, all I know is that your roundabout way of saying things just drives me crazy”.
“As you like it”, said William. “All’s well that ends well. Really, this is much ado about nothing”.
If she was completely humorless before he said this, her expression became a notch even more humorless, if that were even possible.
Concerned about the seriousness that charged the air like static electricity, William said “Perhaps my lady would have the pleasure of challenging me to a game of cards?”
“There you go again!!” screamed Mrs. Shakespeare. “Why do you have to say it that way? I find it very... very passive aggressive. If you’re going to insult me, do it directly to my face please.”
“My lady” William replied, and now his expression took on a new level of discomfort. “My lady, as you well know, since I was a lad I was schooled in the fine arts of applying my mind to rhetoric and wit, subtlety and complexity, and the endlessly unsolvable but infinitely describable mystery of our world. Everything they taught me prepared me for a life of crafting language in the most original and artistic manner possible. Do I hear you correctly that you expect me to interact in a most bland and unembellished way? How now?”
It was true. William thought that the whole point of it all - of civilization, of culture, of language and art, and in particular education, was to establish and revel in a certain level of complexity, to journey to the far reaches of it, as far away from mere simplicity and directness as possible. The idea of anything otherwise sent him into a deep state of confusion.
Mrs. Shakespeare sat there gazing at William, her mouth slightly agape, a look of great intensity and confusion also dominating her face. Despite the unhappy circumstances, her face, in fact her whole being, was pleasing to behold - something one of the Dutch masters might have painted with great feeling.
Right as William was thinking these thoughts, Mrs. Shakespeare produced a cigarette, put it in her mouth, ignited it, took a long drag, and then exhaled a smoky concoction of over 7000 chemicals, about 69 of which had been proven by the FDA to cause cancer. After that, she turned away and turned on the television.
- copyright 2020 by P.T. Gachot
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