small spaces, loud noises

I was sweating. Profusely. And I never sweat. I “perspire” like my aunt says. Women do not sweat profusely. They perspire gently.

Whatever. I was dripping. Drip-drop. That rhymes with tick-tock. It occurred to me randomly. If I suddenly started singing a disco tune sung by a blonde with a bull-ring through her nose, I might have killed myself. Rather than have the director kill me.

I tried not to sigh visibly. My line came. I said it with utterly convincing emotion (while dripping sweat off my forehead on to the tip of my pert nose) and walked off stage. In the wings Hema stood, ready with a powder puff. “What the hell is wrong with you? You *never* sweat!” “I know right? Hell. Gimme that,” I grabbed the powder puff and the compact fell to the ground with a loud clatter. We froze. I’d better kill myself now. Keshav was certainly going to chop off my limbs otherwise and watch as I bled slowly to death. The image came to mind. While I pictured my painful death, Hema picked up the compact, powdered me and sent me back on stage.

I couldn’t see anything in the audience because of the glare of the lights. The performance space was small. It was a weekend and apparently more than a handful of people had heard about the play, so the place was packed. I was either going to be hacked to death by said director or would suffocate. It occurred to me that I should stop thinking about how I was going to die. Especially since every imaginary scenario culminated with a death on the very same day I was thinking it.

After the painful scenes, my heart began racing as we approached the climax. Which involved my death on stage. I said on stage, don’t get your hopes up. The dialogues began to quicken and the pace and atmosphere visibly improved, my heart felt lighter. The momentous death happened. There was pin drop silence. My chest was bursting with delight and I thought “Ah, maybe Keshav will think this stupendous end was worth the sweat and clatter.”

And then I heard it. A loud fart ripped through the not-so-large performance space. And then a roar of laughter. I cracked open an eyelid and saw my fellow actors slowly cracking smiles on stage, and imagined a roar of fury that was my director. And the laughter quickly spread through the entire audience.