ACT III
Ozymandias
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1
Macbeth
Chicago, Illinois
Frankʼs Slaughterhouse
October 31st, 2014
Time: 6:30 AM
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Meat.
Macbeth hung Frank on a slab of meat.
As sunlight illuminated the restless, inner city streets of Chicago, hungover drinkers, clueless German tourists, the scent of rotting decay overwhelmed him in a way that made blood appealing. Blue collars and espresso drinkers were as scantily clad as the hookers and chain smokers that tried to fade back-to-black, make the world young again by descending into darkness, and in the depths of his depravity, there was blood.
Frankʼs blood.
It spread across the floor like his eyes; vague, squinting pupils scanning the crimson meat; the shoulders, forelegs, haunches all greedily tearing into his haggard form like Frankʼs lifeless eyes. The fowls of the Slaughterhouse were streaked in animal fat, swinging on the hooks listlessly as the crescendo of cracking bones rang across the room. Screaming, crying, like the feet of the croaking hens and the croaking men, like the bulging eyes that bled; fatigued and in agony. Pinching the plump flesh between Frankʼs hands, Macbeth admired his handiwork from an appreciative distance and frowned at the way he ricocheted against the hook.
Why did Frank have to be so fat?
A beat.
Grunting, he moved, and fire violently struck the ceiling of the slaughterhouse before smoke settled back in. Pressing the sole of his feet against the floor, he heard a crackle – an audio recording – so sweet and so faint and so terrifying in his ears, and listened, the sound deep and visceral:
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said – "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert...
Near them, on the sand,
"Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
"Shelley," Macbeth whispered to himself, curious, so curious...
Kneeling, Macbethʼs hands instinctively traced the phone with a fondness, with a familiar pain. Ozymandias...it was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley; a name that almost burned with nostalgia on his tongue, whose depth of Romanticism knew no bounds. It was a poem that came almost seven hundred years after his death, a poem of ruin, and somehow, it was etched into his memory as if Marjorie recited it to him. Her sweet, sweet lips drinking in corrupt, impure literature.
Percy Bysshe Shelley...
There was a great white light.
As the classic poem blared through the cracked phone, static more than comforting, there was a light. With stealth, and with silence, Macbeth picked up the phone and felt smoke flooded his lungs. Rapidly, furiously. Staring up at the shattered glass and the windows, the sky split into a trifecta. A multitude of horrific colors that shouldnʼt have existed came to existence in that moment, and as he slid the phone into the pocket of his ripped gear, fire poured from the sky in pillars.
Glorious, in its terror.
Hissing, snarling.
Snaking around him, constricting him.
Like meteors, the fire clasped to wings, actual wings, and began raining hellfire on earth. Steely-eyed, Macbeth watched as the smoke enveloped him like a serpent and relished. In every bitter burn, every blistering scar, every single way the stark white fire nicked his skin and exploded into a mirage of molten blood red. As the fire melted it dissipated into smoke rings that rose from the ashes like a phoenix, he watched the asphalt around him rise – bulging outward, groaning as it filled the air, flooding it, the asphalt cracking in half like brittle bone.
The fire attacked.
Slapping Frankʼs body, and the thugʼs, the fire imploded. As the asphalt cried out, and concrete slabs began lunging to the left and right of the slaughterhouse, it opened like a roaring maw in the middle of the street. It christened a fireball that a cloud choked out and it ravaged; tearing a new one into the floor, the ground shakinʼ like an earthquake. Smirking, Macbeth clenched the muscles of his back with anticipation and his eyes glowed that mesmerizing black, black, black. The fire hit his skin with a hiss, and as the fire leveled the ground; a huge pile of dirt caved into the sides of the slaughterhouse and took Frank, thuggie, and the slabs of meat down with it.
Come get me, you stupid son-of-a-b*tch.
The fire grew more violent, more greedy. Ruptured gas-lines billowed into flames, blinding him with harsh whips, and in the midst of the chaos, it emerged from the flames with a ruffle of feathers. A soulful creature emblazoned on the collapsed asphalt. As it ruffled its wings – black as the night – clung to blackened and torn power cables, Macbeth listened to the flap like it was music. Observing the monochromatic, platinum grays of his eyes, the rigidity of his posture; the blood that smeared his face, Macbeth was amused.
The angel, Orion, however, stared at Macbeth with a piercing hate and Macbeth returned the glare with a bright olʼ smile.
He was clearly not amused.
"A legion of angels behind you and the most you can do is level a slaughterhouse and an obese American? Pathetic," Macbeth told him, wry.
Orion smiled. A wicked smile, a callous smile, the corners of his lips likes knives sharpening his predatory teeth.
"Itʼs funny. Your filthy species. This...earth," the angel boomed. "So completely enamored by the fact youʼre hairless apes that spend their time suckling Abbadonʼs teat and drinking babyʼs blood for sport while you search for a cheap f*ck. Millions of demons willing to back your every play because demons are arguably the most terrifying force on earth, and you spend your time stealing pizza and crying over your dark flower. Pathetic," Orion spits.
A beat.
"Touché," Macbeth settled. "What do you want?"
"Isnʼt that the question of the day?" Orion countered, smoothly. "Still, want is such an abstract concept. I like to think of it more as satisfying an itch. You see, I heard whispers from a djinn in Barbados and an ifrit in Versailles about the Dark Prince, and lo! I caught the Mad King of Scotland who managed to rejoin the living at just the right time instead. Isnʼr it funny; how much of a b*tch karma truly is?"
Macbeth skidded down the sinkhole and approached Orion languidly, a predatory hunger crusted deep in his soul, and when he stepped forward, Orionʼs bat-wings mirrored the black hatred that he harbored in his eyes.
"What do you want?" he repeated with a throaty growl, his skin shaking. Getting in his face, Macbeth huffed and Orion fed of his lack of self-control, his proclivity for violence, and the blood-lust that sang in his veins like a fire.
"Want is such a fickle thing, Macbeth. Let's negotiate instead, darling."
He snapped his fingers–