Kill The Gerard
Define: Playwright
Gerard sat at his desk, frustrated and making trashcan origami out of his numerous ideas. The stage manager had demanded a complete rewrite of his script. He sighed as he scribbled on another strewn piece of paper. Cliché, his manager had said of his work. The musings of an undeveloped playwright, wistful and longing. But cliché? Gerard could not understand how he, of all people, had gotten there. He was the art school graduate who had ventured to New York. He had been living in an apartment over an off-Broadway theater.
‘Of course,’ he thought. ‘My life has become the perfect cliché. It’s the script of a C+ movie about a tortured artist. It tries to make itself look “artsy” and independent, but it comes off as an arrogant studio just trying too hard.’ Soon, in the movie in his thoughts, his tattooed, painter girlfriend would walk in from her job as a waitress to make ends meet while he squandered forests over his re-write.
‘How horrible,’ he told himself. He had always strived to be different, to be the weird kid on purpose. But even that sounded forced, a high school drama, needless rebellion against authority. He could only think in scripts. Not even decent scripts; instead, his brain seemed set on those movies where all the best parts are in the trailer and the rest is an hour and half of better-spent time. No wonder his manager had demanded a re-write. He sucked.
He looked down at the twenty or so forlorn pages of what he used to think of as his defining masterpiece. It had been reduced to trash in the space of a few syllables. The world wasn’t ready for him. The world was never ready for art. He had attempted a Shakespearean tragedy staged in an Americana town of the future. Ambitious for some, but merely a passing thought for Gerard Way. He stood up and stood in front of the window looking over the whole city.
“I can’t stand this!” he shouted. The script had eaten up his thoughts again. Of course he would get up and look out the window; it was all according to plan. He sat down on the dusty floor in an attempt to change things. Perhaps he was trying too hard. He should just write what the manager wanted; a short, simple, perhaps comedic play, not a meandering epic. He could feel his veins being pressed into a mold. Even Shakespeare sought to please his audience.
But there was another option. He could stop trying all together. He could just stop writing. He could end the script and break the typewriter controlling his moves. Gerard stepped towards the window again and glimpsed toward the ground. The suicide of a tortured artist…what a cliché ending. It flashed across his mind for a split second. It was the ultimate end in trying, not even trying to survive. He saw a pencil roll against the wood floor. A thought struck him again, so he picked up the pencil and scribbled his mind’s ramblings on a nearby scrap of the script. They might all come together one day.
He climbed the flight of stairs to the roof. It was gusty and cold. He remembered that the setting was included in the script. He looked towards the sky and aimlessly wandered on the roof. His foot hit a piece of left over air conditioning metal and slipped, falling to gravity’s mercy.
He hadn’t stopped trying; the script had, instead, come to its last line. In his apartment a thought was found taped to the window, as typical and well-placed as any playwright could think of.
Shakespeare died on his birthday
So did Gerard Way
‘Of course,’ he thought. ‘My life has become the perfect cliché. It’s the script of a C+ movie about a tortured artist. It tries to make itself look “artsy” and independent, but it comes off as an arrogant studio just trying too hard.’ Soon, in the movie in his thoughts, his tattooed, painter girlfriend would walk in from her job as a waitress to make ends meet while he squandered forests over his re-write.
‘How horrible,’ he told himself. He had always strived to be different, to be the weird kid on purpose. But even that sounded forced, a high school drama, needless rebellion against authority. He could only think in scripts. Not even decent scripts; instead, his brain seemed set on those movies where all the best parts are in the trailer and the rest is an hour and half of better-spent time. No wonder his manager had demanded a re-write. He sucked.
He looked down at the twenty or so forlorn pages of what he used to think of as his defining masterpiece. It had been reduced to trash in the space of a few syllables. The world wasn’t ready for him. The world was never ready for art. He had attempted a Shakespearean tragedy staged in an Americana town of the future. Ambitious for some, but merely a passing thought for Gerard Way. He stood up and stood in front of the window looking over the whole city.
“I can’t stand this!” he shouted. The script had eaten up his thoughts again. Of course he would get up and look out the window; it was all according to plan. He sat down on the dusty floor in an attempt to change things. Perhaps he was trying too hard. He should just write what the manager wanted; a short, simple, perhaps comedic play, not a meandering epic. He could feel his veins being pressed into a mold. Even Shakespeare sought to please his audience.
But there was another option. He could stop trying all together. He could just stop writing. He could end the script and break the typewriter controlling his moves. Gerard stepped towards the window again and glimpsed toward the ground. The suicide of a tortured artist…what a cliché ending. It flashed across his mind for a split second. It was the ultimate end in trying, not even trying to survive. He saw a pencil roll against the wood floor. A thought struck him again, so he picked up the pencil and scribbled his mind’s ramblings on a nearby scrap of the script. They might all come together one day.
He climbed the flight of stairs to the roof. It was gusty and cold. He remembered that the setting was included in the script. He looked towards the sky and aimlessly wandered on the roof. His foot hit a piece of left over air conditioning metal and slipped, falling to gravity’s mercy.
He hadn’t stopped trying; the script had, instead, come to its last line. In his apartment a thought was found taped to the window, as typical and well-placed as any playwright could think of.
Shakespeare died on his birthday
So did Gerard Way
♠ ♠ ♠
By Zakodia.