Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble

"Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire…" the three sisters chanted in unison until Jasmine broke the flow with a sneeze that had her doubling over.

"I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me. Fair is foul and foul is fair; Hover through the fog and filthy air," she said, lapsing into a cackle heavily laden with labored breathing and the sound of phlegm-filled lungs."

"Jazz," Ariel said, "you need to get to an apothecary or a shaman or a wizard or someone for a breathing treatment."

"Ariel's right," their oldest sister, Tiana, responded. "I don't know how many times we've had an incantation go bad with your allergies and unfortunate lungs. Remember what happened at Banquo's five years ago?"

They all laughed.

"We never should have told him to allow Duncan's fool to name his first born son," Ariel said. "I mean, 'Fleance?' What kind of name is that even?"

"What do you think will happen with the 'double, double?'" Jasmine asked.

"Don't have a clue," Tiana said. "Hopefully nothing too serious."

***

As it happened, though, the truncated incantation was not without intent and set in motion a series of events…or did it?

King Duncan was throwing a banquet for his goon squad who had been marauding, pillaging, laying waste to, and generally defiling their own countryside but decided instead to pin it on the Irish. It turned out that the Irish had exaggerated how many men they were bringing along to toss Scotland. Their threats were idle things overhead by, again, Duncan's fool, in a public house on a very late Saturday night. The whole score could have been settled in a bar brawl, but the fool's story grew larger, more elaborate, and more dire with every re-telling.

It was tragic, really, that anyone believed someone who would name another man's son 'Fleance.' But, it was an error in judgment, and Duncan's men couldn't come back empty-handed or without the tall tales of a skirmish. Of course, the Norsemen showed up after seeing the flogging of the Flaherty brothers by MacBeth, Banquo, and their cronies.

The Scots didn't get to go home after their destruction of their own lands and the mouthy Bobby Flaherty and his like-mouthed brothers. No, they were face to armpits with 500 burly Scandinavians; but, as luck would have it, no one was truly in the mood for gratuitous bloodshed, though, and Gustavvsen or Henriksen or someone like that agreed to split the bounty MacBeth and Co. had scored.

There was, however, a fly in the ointment: Macdonwald threatened to spill the T. No one liked Macdonwald. He was a sleep farter and a snitch, and universally, everyone went to great lengths to avoid the former when encamped on the battlefield and hated the latter almost all the time.

Macbeth came up with the brilliant idea to tar and feather the stinky bastard, and Banquo thought a good drawing and quartering might endear them to or cause great fear and consternation from their Norse semi-co-conspirators. Macbeth was further enraged when Macdonwald threatened to blab to Lady Macbeth about her husband's debauchery up and down the English isle. It wouldn't do at all. Banquo was just up for a good time. And so, things stayed mostly on track. They couldn't return to court without at least one casualty.

The banquet was held shortly after Jasmine's sneezus interruptus. Over years of rabblerousing, Macbeth had neglected to tend the home fires, which was his undoing. After the lamb, goat, boar, and beef had been served, a strong, fetid wind blew into the grand room where the festivities had continued to crescendo in gaiety. At once, ladies drew their fans and kerchiefs to their noses. Men drew their chalices to cover their noses.

One soldier could be heard to exclaim, "Not it!"

And yet another cried, "Doorknob!"

The wind grew in strength, eventually blowing out the candles throughout the room. The darkness was interrupted by a ghastly smelling presence embodying a ghostly light.

"Goddammit," Banquo said under his breath. "He'd better keep his mouth shut about the battle."

"Goddammit," Macbeth said, "that weasel better not fuck things up for me and my lady."

"Goddammit," Lady Macbeth said, "that smelly fucker better not say anything about when he walked in on Duncan and me."

And last of all the king said, "Huh. I wonder if he's still angry I didn't make him my fool."

As Macdonwald made his way toward the center of the room, he was followed by the clanking of chains and the smell akin to the stench of the belly of a horse left to rot on the side of the road for a summer.

"Hey, guys," Macdonwald said. "Surprised to see me?"

Everyone, even the individuals visibly vexed and perplexed at seeing Macdonwald, nodded solemnly.

"Thought so," said the specter. "Well, I can't stay long. Saint Peter is actually waiting for me, if you can believe that one! I just wanted to come back to share something with you."

The ghost made his way to where Macbeth and Lady Macbeth were seated. They were to the left of Duncan, and Banquo was to the right. The ghost leaned close to Macbeth's ear and said, "Your lady has been having it off with the king and your best friend."

He scampered away from Macbeth just enough to see the look of anger and defeat sharing a space on his murderer's face. Banquo nearly chortled, "See you…or maybe not…you may never get to reach Saint Peter's pearly gates." And suddenly the air cleared, the candles re-lit, and the head table was rendered a morass of hatred, jealousy, and the violated feelings of betrayal.

Banquo attempted to stand, but was pinned to his seat. Macbeth was quickly in his face, "You're my best friend. I'd walk across the coals for you, and yet you fuck my wife? You deserve to have a son named Fleance. Always, I felt sorry for you, but no more!"

"Mac, it wasn't just me fucking your wife. Half the men in this room have had her. She's practically giving it away, brother. She seduced me, not the other way around!"

Macbeth spun on his heel and stalked toward Duncan, "And you, my king…why would you take my wife? You could have anyone. Why the wife of your most devoted servant?"

"So, I'm not going to kid you, Macbeth, but your wife is crazy, and she's a cat between the sheets. I mean, anything goes with that one. I haven't had anyone like her before or since, and I don't mind telling you I'm probably going back because…what she does to a man…mmm, mmm, mmm," said the king, drawing his knuckles to his mouth and sinking his teeth into his flesh.

And finally, Macbeth faced his wife.

"Save it," she said. "After your romp about the countryside a year or two ago, you brought home pubic lice. Now, how do you think I liked that? I was itchy and scratchy for a week, not knowing what was going on. I changed our linens. I bathed two and three times a day. Finally, I went to the apothecary. Who do you think I saw there?"

She paused.

"WHO do you think I saw THERE?" she screeched.

Macbeth remained silent. He wasn't a smart man. He had been known to let his ambition blind him, but he wasn't smart, and he wasn't tactical, and he wasn't tidy with his sexual toolkit.

Lady Macbeth raged at her husband's silence. A gleeful smile crossed Duncan's lips, and he may have been sitting on his hands to keep from clapping at the drama unfolding. And, of course, there was a tent forming underneath the silk brocade napkin sitting on his lap. Lady Macbeth strode over to Banquo's side, reaching down the side of his torso to remove a dagger in a strap around his waist.

"I saw the Weird Sisters when I went to the apothecary," Lady Macbeth crowed. "If I hadn't contracted pubic lice from you, they wouldn't have had the opportunity to tell me what they had seen in their visions…you with every milkmaid between here and Brighton."

"No," Macbeth whispered, aghast.

"Yes," Lady Macbeth rejoined. "In their visions, they saw that you buggered a few of your men here and there, and maybe some livestock along the way, and I thought to myself what an insane idiot I had been thinking an oaf like you would ever be faithful." She approached Macbeth holding the dagger in front of her, poised in front of his eye.

"I wanted to be the Queen of Scotland, and you're too stupid to take me to the pinnacle. I set my sights, though. I've been with most of your men, and who do you think pulls the strings there? You?" She tossed the dagger from hand to hand, never taking her eye off of Macbeth's gaze, which was trained on the blade, not her. If he thought he could disarm her and save the day for himself…

"Ah, ah, ah…no you don't." She stepped back from her husband and called to no one in particular, "Hey, is Mercutio here somewhere? Can he take this dagger? It would be a shame if it landed in the wrong hands."

A small Italian boy holding a water jug came to the table, and Lady Macbeth tenderly caressed his cheek before plunging the dagger into the vessel. The boy scurried away. "His mother—you may remember her. She's a milkmaid on the continent. Mercutio…he's your son. I purchased him."

"No," Macbeth whispered, forlorn.

"Men," Lady Macbeth called. Every man in the room looked to her for direction. "Please take all the guests and servants and vacate this hall." In no time the room was empty, save Lady Macbeth, her husband, Banquo, and Duncan.

With trepidation, Banquo asked, "My lady, should I stay?"

"Be gone," she said in a sweet tone, and as he passed by her, she groped beneath his kilt to fondle his manhood, and then he, too, was gone.

Lady Macbeth stood in front of Duncan, removing the pin from his kilt, splaying the fabric across his lap. She raised her own skirts and mounted him. Macbeth staggered toward the tableau of the woman he loved and had wronged so often that he'd driven her to command his army, best friend, and king.

As he drew nearer and the sexual fervor and frenzy between Lady Macbeth and Duncan climbed toward that summit of ecstasy, she turned her head to see the apoplectic expression on her husband's face. He raised his own blade, and as she screamed in pleasure, Macbeth halted. In that moment, she drew Duncan's dagger tipped pin across her husband's neck, puncturing his jugular and carotid arteries. His blade clattered to the hard floor, and he grabbed at his neck in a vain attempt to staunch the blood pulsing its way from the life he had lived so callously.

After coming down from her orgasm, Lady Macbeth hopped in a spritely manner off the king's lap, and knelt down beside her husband as he lay dying. "Remember Jasmine? The Weird Sister with the long black hair? When I was at the apothecary's, Jasmine was there to get a poultice for a lung infection. Her sister Ariel was there, too. You might remember her. She has long, red hair? She, too, shared the same affliction as I did that day, don't you know. I didn't need a vision to know whose plough had sown her field or what have you. She still smelled of you. It was at that moment I was sworn to my path, you dim-witted, limp-dicked twit. And to think," she mused but for a moment, "I used to miss you when you were gone."

She glanced down at her silken gown, woven in the Duncan plaid, now marred by the blood of Macbeth. She rubbed at it, then tossed a bit of water on it, only making the stain steep and grow. She tore off the gown, standing stark naked over the dress, and Duncan marveled at her, giving a slow clap.

He said, "Approach your king, my queen."