The actor supreme.

“I can’t do it! I just can’t I want to back out home now!”

“Listen to me” She grabbed his shoulders and gently shook him.

“There are so many people out there!” He pulled the curtain back to gaze out into the massive crowd that was busy finding their seats.

“Charles focus on me! You have rehearsed this part for months. This is opening night the show hinges on your character you have to go on.” She said in as slow and steady a voice as she could muster.

“He looked her in the eyes and said, “I play a talking tree! I am forty years old playing a talking tree. I can’t do this.”

“Hey wait.” She paused. “What’s that noise?”

“What noise?”

“Sounds like water running.”

“Oh my gosh!” he said frantically.

“You seriously peed yourself? Come on Charles.”

“See I-I can’t go on. Please don’t make me. I will die.” Charles fell to his knees.

“Would you get up!” with that her husband began to regurgitate near her white tennis shoes. “Chuck! Are you insane?”

“I am sorry,” he mumbled as he preceded to pull his toupee off of his head and wipe up the vomit.

“My god!”

“I am sorry would you like some assistance?” asked an elderly lady.

“Please Mrs. Rushford, please don’t make me go on please!” Then tears began to roll down his flushed red cheeks.”

“But Charles yours is a crucial part of the drama.” She said in a motherly tone.

Charles promptly clutched his stomach and fell to his side. “But I am only a tree!” the kindly old woman knelt beside the sobbing man.  His face was now covered with all of the fluids his cavities could hold. “But Charles you’re the tree he sees when he is hallucinating on acid you need to be in the scene.” He reached up and grabbed the woman by her golden scarf. He exhaled as if he were dying and said.

“Please! Won’t you do it?”

The old woman looked to Charles’s wife. “Charles honey you look like a fool. You have acted before in dozens of plays. Even several television commercials so what is so different about this one?”

By now the man was wallowing in his urine and mucus, writhing as if he were a child in pain, “please, please I can’t. I will just die I can’t go on.”

“I have never seen anyone act in such a manner.” The older woman said.

“What can we do?” asked Charles’s wife.  The applause erupted. The curtain went up the actors began there run onto the stage. The older woman grabbed the wife by the arm and pulled her to the side as the spot light landed on her husband.

“Nooooooo!” He wailed. The actors turned, the audience fell silent. “What are you doing?” an actor whispered.

Charles’s eyes widened. He looked at all of the faces now staring at him. He tried to stand up but slipped on the fluids that were now puddled around him. “I, I” then he fell on his face. His nose was smashed from the impact and had begun to bleed.  He quickly pinched his nose trying keep the blood from flowing. “I am sorry” he stammered as he shuffled backwards. He looked off stage to his wife who by now was hiding her face in shame. He looked to the older woman who also was hiding her face in shame. He then looked to the cast who also turned from him as they too hide their shame. And then.

“Charles! Charles.” He looked up from the floor.

“Uh what?”

“It’s almost time for the curtain to go up.”  He quickly looked around. “I don’t think I can.”

“What do you mean?” she asked as she straightened his tree branches.

“Well what if I, well what if I wet myself?”

“Charles!?”

“I am feeling queasy about going on.”

“Oh honey you will do fine. You will only be on for a few minutes.”

“But what if I throw up?”

“Would you relax?”

“I am having trouble breathing. Maybe the costume is too tight.”

“It is fine just calm down.”

“I don’t think I can. I think something bad will happen and I will look like a fool. I might forget my lines”

“Line.”

“What?”

“line Charles you have one line.”

“Besides how much more foolish could you look?  A grown man dressed like a tree?”

“What!? Oh god your right this is ridiculous take it off. Take it off!”

“You can’t take it off, it’s three minutes till curtain.”

“Jill I can’t do this.”

“You’re starting to panic. You wanted to be an actor, didn’t you?”

“Well, uh yes i-“

“Alright then calm down take a deep breath and relax.”

“Oh no I forgot something.”

“What is it Chuck?”

“I need my good luck coin.”

“Chuck, you don’t have a good luck coin.”

“Well maybe I need one!” he screamed.

“Well if you’re going to scream at me I am leaving.”

“No, please don’t go, please I am sorry. I am nervous I just don’t want to do something stupid.”

“You know I was there when you did the hemorrhoid commercial, I was there when you did the adult diaper commercial, and I was there when you did the commercial for erectile dysfunction. And Chuck I mean come on is any of this worse than any of that?”

“Well, no I..I guess not.”

“And you remember the commercial that paid you in antidepressant drugs?”

He grinned, “Yeah, yeah I remember I took them and defecated on myself and sleep for three days.”

“And there was the eye drop commercial.”

“Oh yeah boy that burned I still hit walls when I turn left.”

“And then there was the breath mints.”

“I am glad I finally got the taste back in my mouth.”

“So see you can do this.”

“You know you’re right.” Charles placed his costume on firmly.  And then the curtain went up he stepped forward and-well his foot got tangled in a foot light cord and he fell from the stage and landed in the lap of Mrs. Wadsworth the director.” The end