Yours lovingly, Mr stranger

After years of hard work and some missed chances Jim was all but happy that he finally got a chance to work in the John Darrow's Broadway production "ALL THEY SAY IS ....ONLY THEY.." . After being associated with other Broadway plays ranging from comedy to drama, from Shakespeare to the modern day play adaptation of movies on stage to musical and on and on only to name a few of them he has finally got his shot. He auditioned for the role a few weeks ago and was selected by Darrow for two reasons

1)jim had that idiosyncrantic look required for the role

2) the company's top rated, mysterious too, actor had died due to myocardial infarction. So, yep, they needed a recruit

Jim who was always a kind of friendly but a strict "9-5 job type person" was little intrigued with the second reason. " what's that fella's name was? Umm.. Yeah Mr st... " but before hitting homerun the cab driver monotonously reminded him of his arrived destination and of course,the cab fares. So after doing away with the fare stuff he picked up his paperbag and entered the apartment with a breathe of suspense. He quickly glanced at the clock on the right side wall of basement which read 10.15 am. "good. Time to get a bingo " he paced up on stairs but was careful enough to not to make a noise as this creaky noises were the biggest problem for any tenant, a tenant who hasn't paid his rent for one and a half month. The owner usually leaves for work somewhere around quarter past nine but Jim was a man who had seen some twist (unfortunately and unexpectedly) to this fact. Last week he entered reassuringly at the same time only to find the owner to give him some.. Ahem... "ADVICE " on how to pay your monthly payment . "I" thought Jim "better try my hands on film auditions too, and that to more seriously to get break free from flat owners and taxi fares. " . He opened and entered his "own" room in a tiptoed fashion. He kept his paperbag on the table did away with his old overcoat and took out some necessary files and movie tapes along with script required for the role preparation . After adjusting himself on the sofa he took out some packets of chips and cokes which he usually did during role preparation. "OK Sean. Ready for the kill? " SEAN was his character's name . He had decided to call himself with this name till end of play. He started reading , after few minutes, started liking the script. After he was done with the script and with some few packets of chips and cokes too, he geared up for reading the file given by John Darrow himself. Given Darrow's reputation for obtaining perfect performance from his performers, Jim excitedly opened the file to see what kind of SPECIAL NOTES the great John Darrow had created, only to hit a road with a bump mixed with amusement and surprise. It read " a little bit of feelings of Mr stranger " he quickly surfed through the memories of his conversation with a friend of his, who has been working with Darrow's company quite a few months now and told him about the top rated actor of the production - MR STRANGER. His friend said that his colleagues hardly knew about him and he hardly spoke with anyone about himself. His only friend, a sort of, was John Darrow himself. Although some say that he was well mannered, the way he avoided conversation with others didn't do any good to his reputation. So Jim started reading the file which continued like this - "well I don't think u need to call einstein or netwon to interpret the title. I want this to be straight. I knew my colleagues would have been least interested to read it so I decided to give it to a new recruit. So let's begin " . OK Said Jim. It proceeded with a story - long time ago a king in Japan had a melodious and magical nightingale who sang so beautifully that even the boring verses by the court poets sounded brilliant. The king was very fond of her and with passage of time the nightingale herself became obsessed with her own popularity. She thought that the one who had walked on this earth will never be able to achieve what she has in terms of greatness and the one who was still about to descend on earth will never be able to achieve it. The growing popularity of hers added more and more fire to this perception and she became a fool, more and more . One day the whole kingdom was marking the death anniversary of one of the king's great grandfather. According to a tradition the whole kingdom was asked to observe a period of silence for a specific time and were also rested from doing any kind of work at that time. They were not forced by the king and the decision was left on the people who still agreed to it. Now the nightingale had a habit of practicing on a open garden of king, the only time she was kept out of the cage. So as usual she started singing and practicing when the king through his messenger sent a message and asked her postpone her practice a bit because the king thought that it will be a little bit of disrespect to hear romantic verses at the time of mourning. The messenger also said that if the nightingale that if she wants she can sing about the accolades of his great grandfather to honor him. By this time her pride was already a few inches taller than the king himself. She didn't liked it and she didn't like it to start all over again. She sang nothing but the same romantic songs, now in a high pitched voice. The king again sent his messenger only to get same results. He sent his ministers and even his general only to get a reply - my voice, my choice. She even went on to sing unethical songs on king and his ancestors. The king sat in deep silence not ordering anything. This lead to more tension among the officials. After the time period of observing silence got over, the king got up. With banging of big bells to declare the same the nightingale sensed something wrong and dissapeared with her magical powers. When the king came out and saw this he said " she didn't try hard enough. Let me correct her" and... The king started singing. He was singing as bad as he can with the some officials having a hard time trying to stop their laughter. At last the nightingale appeared furiously and asked "how dare you try to even match my voice. Never do this again " and the king really never tried again bcoz within a moment he ordered his guards for her execution and the order of execution was executed perfectly. So the moral of the story is... But then Jim closed the file and understood what was this all about. He understood that the nightingale in the story was the stranger himself and the singing talent was equal to his obsession of the stranger for dramatics. He understood what he really wanted to convey. The whole story was all about a man bathing in water, a water, filled with essence of perfectionism only to get drowned in it and having a regret of not enjoying much of the world . A man who could all but wanted to enjoy the slice of life only with destiny to have some other plans.