Episode 2 - Shakespeare
Episode 2 - Shakespeare
[18 minutes, 4906 words] When a Shakespeare performance goes wrong, very wrong.
If you are new here, Welcome! I am Arjun Agarwal and this is my newsletter. This is the second episode of my serial story about Prof. Benjamin Hawking and Edwana. Once you are done with this, You should read the first chapter and the third chapter
Don’t worry, it’s not chronological.
I was studying Psychology when I heard a voice, “Edwana! Why am I directing the university play?” Professor Benjamin Hawking shouted.
“With all due respect, can you please stop breaking into my room?”
“Doesn’t answer my question.”
“The drama club selected you.” I nonchalantly said.
“And who nominated me for this position?”
“That has to be me.” I replied, still focusing on my work. “Do I look like someone who likes to direct plays?”
“You have a degree in literature and have multiple papers on Shakespeare.” I finally turned to him.
“Having a degree isn’t the same as having the will to direct a drama.”
“If you don’t want to do that, please don’t. The drama teacher resigned because no student could cry properly,”
“What?”
“I just suggested your name, in our case you were a good dramatist. There is some extra pay and I am sorry for being concerned.”
“Well done, Ed. I’ll accept whatever pickle you’ve put me in.”
He walked out of the room.
The next day, I was in my theoretical physics class. “I am taking Edwana.” Professor Hawking entered the class and rudely announced.
“Well I am in the middle of a class here.” The physics lecturer, Dr Jacob Linkletter said, not turning from the board. Dr. Jacob Linkletter has wrinkles all over his face, is stout and short. A clear reminder of him could be Dr. Sturgis, of course, from Young Sheldon. Both of them are equally creepy because of their so-called technically scientific logix.
“I can clearly see that you are in the midst of chapter 69, motion,”
“Well observed.”
“Well scuff motion, the future is quantum physics.”
“How dare you!” Dr Linkletter threw the piece of chalk on Prof. Hawking's forehead. A few children also echoed after Dr Linkletter, “How dare he!”
“Come on Old Fogey, there is nothing very serious in this chapter. The textbooks just over-explain overcomplicate things; overdo everything really.”
“I wrote the textbook.” Dr Linkletter picked up another chalk from the table and threw it towards Professor Hawking. “Ouch! That hurt.” Professor said rubbing the part of his forehead where the chalk had hit.
“It also hurt me.” Dr Linkletter said, rubbing his arm. “Throwing that chalk made me stretch my elbow.”
A few students literally rushed to help Dr. Linkletter and escorted him to the medbay. Foolish people!
“What are you guys waiting for? Dr. Braineater is gone for a while. Move to the next class.” Professor addressed the class.
Literal literary drama society looked messed up. Firstly because everyone was hell-bent on occupying the front seats. Secondly, they were so extremely hellbent that they were quarrelling for the seats like nursery kids. Third,
“Okie-Dokie, We are gonna perform a Shakespeare play. I say we go for Hamlet,” Professor suggested.
“What about the Comedy of Errors?” Simon Chelster, the drama club secretary asked.
“That whole play is an error; nothing comedic about it.”
“What about Tempest?”
“If you would like to evacuate the entire premise faster than a hurricane then go ahead by all means.”
“What about A Midsummer Night Dream?”
“More like a nightmare.”
“Any other comedy?”
“Over my dead body. Oh wait, with the amount of people dying in Shakespeare comedies I may as well.”
“Don’t worry, Simon. He’s always like that. It's psychological.” I whispered.
“So you just decided on Hamlet?” Simon asked.
“Now you get it. I have these scripts for you.” He passed everyone some scripts.
“Why are they topped with the MIT logo?”, a girl asked. “Also why are there social media links to the MIT drama club’s profile?” A boy added. “Also why does it smell like old canned tomatoes along with the pungent odour of expired oregano? and also why is there some stick mozzarella on a corner?” Another boy asked.
“Joshua, those must be your hands from making the pizza.” I said.
“No! My pizza sauce is made with fresh Italian tomatoes along with fresh herbs. It's an old Weissman family secret. Also who puts stick mozzarella on their pizza? The soft, round, fresh ball mozzarella is the real deal. The pizza which fell on the script is an unholy abomination called the Chessed Hulk.” The boy stood up. I don’t understand, why on earth is this guy, Joshua Weissman, here in the drama club. Oh my god, he cooks damn good and I don’t want to miss his food, so his presence is appreciated.
“He downloaded them from the web. Copy and paste. Didn’t even care to remove the header and the social links. Also he ate a Chessed Hulk , used the scripts as mat and dropped some cheese on it. Utter disrespect to the legacy of Shakespeare.” Simon smirked, “Also we had to make some changes to the script. To give it a new perspective.”
“I am the detective here. We’ll make some major changes, don’t you all worry.” Professor assured.
“Like make the play a comedy?!” Simon asked.
I was enjoying their dramatic quarrel. It was pretty entertaining.
“Not that big. Shakesphere is already a tragedy.” He replied. “Please learn your lines. We’ll meet 4 weeks later.”
“So we will do the rehearsals in one week?!” Josua asked.
All were astonished and a bitt panic-stricken. There were whispers and murmurs all over the room. What can we even do about professor OVERCONFIDENCE, I thought.
“Pretty much. I have faith in all of you.” Professor left.
After week 1…
“Professor, we’ve just got to rehearse, just 28 days…”
“Dear student, mind your work, I’ll manage with mine”, professor taunts. “Since when, this dear student…”
He ignored me and went. The heck!
After week 2…
“Professor, 21 days just..”
“Edwana, you worry too much”, and again, he went.
After week 3,
“Professor…”, and this time, he didn’t listen to the rest as if I didn’t exist.
Just 1 week left…
“SIR! Just 1 week left! You’re supposed to handle the drama..”, “Edwana,”, he finally interrupted with that don’t worry-look of his where I was thinking that my emphasis had worked and he’d listen. But no, Hawking’s Hawking stubborn.
5 days left…
“Professor, We have five days left. Can you please...”
“What the hell! My internet crashed. How am I supposed to watch cat videos?” He looked up and realised I was there. “What the hell, Edwana? There are five days to the play and you show up now?”
“Professor...”
“Stop arguing. Call everybody to the auditorium.”
Finally the universe moved Professor to actually help with the drama. I was not gonna jinx it. I went and called everyone to the auditorium. It was the first rehearsal, we skipped onto the costumes and backdrops. Also I forgot to make them along with the art team. Pressure is on.
“Hamlet Scene 1, Action.” Prof. Hawking called.
“Elsinore. A platform before the castle. Thunder and Lightning surround the place as a ghost enters.” The narrator described the scene out loud.
The guy playing the ghost entered.“ Fair is foul, and foul is fair. Hover through the fog and filthy air.”
“Enter Hamlet and Horatio.” The narrator announced.
“So foul and fair a day I have not seen.” Hamlet said. The second line was said. Professor got up from his seat, “What the hell is going on?”
“With all due respect sir, We are nailing our lines.” Horatio replied.
“Where are the scripts?” He shouted. Simon, or Hamlet, walked calmly to the backstage and got his script. He threw it disrespectfully towards Professor Benjamin.
Professor riffled through the script, almost tearing the pages. “THIS IS NOT HAMLET!” He yelled. “This is freaking Macbeth.”
“With all due respect Dr. Benjamin, if it were Macbeth, wouldn’t there be a character called Macbeth?” Simon objected.
“Act 5, Scene 2. Why in the damn world is Gertude saying the classical ‘out damned spot’? Isn’t that a line by...”
“Lady Macbeth” someone blurted. Professor mockingly bowed.
“This is the drama club. How in the universe did nobody ever see this? I can understand for other characters, but this is a classic line. Someone should have seen it. Who is Queen Gertude?” He yelled.
All the students had gathered on the stage. Leela,who had the blackest and lustrous wavy hair, and shining brown eyes, raised her hand. “You are so shakesperecially dumb, obviously you don’t know what it means.” He then sat down and breathed. “I’ll arrange for beds and stuff. No one leaves the auditorium. We have a saboteur in here, and I am catching the saboteur.”
“Edwana,” Professor called, outside the art room. “Yes, Professor.” I came out, wearing my paint stained appren.
“Transfer all the art things and people to the drama room, Find a Nick Fury and a Black Widow. Ima scooby doo this shit”
“What?”
“A Manager and a logistician.”
After almost half an hour of searching, negotiating and old school lifting, I had fulfilled all the requirements of Professor Benjamin Hawking. “Profesor, I have got all the required art people in here. And as for a logistician, you already know Natasa.” I was interrupted.
“The maths girl who went and took photos of the crime scene?”
“Not the ideal description but yes. Now as for someone who can manage rehearsals, um..”
“I am all ears.” He told me.
“Dr. Jacob Linkletter.” I said.
“Old fogey who teaches theoretical physics?” He asked.
“Old fogey who teaches theoretical physics.” I said.
Professor had printed out the Hamlet scripts and distributed them out to the students. Dr. Jacob Linkletter was helping the students memorise the lines. Till then Natasa and I had arranged three chairs on one side of a table and one chair on the other. This was in the now emptied storage room of the auditorium.
“Are you girls ready for some interrogative investigation?” Professor walked in.
“Some what?” Natasa asked.
“Interrogative investigation, i.e. interrogating all the suspects and witnesses and using discrepancies in their statements to pin down the culprit.”
“And why am I here?” Natasa asked.
“To make sure we get it done before the play. And have fun interrogating” Professor said.
“The play is in trouble and you are thinking of fun?!” I shouted.
“Be optimistic, Edwana,” Professor said, “Enter Simon Chelster, Hamlet”
Simon entered the room. He sat on the lone seat facing us.
“Simon, you took all the scripts from everyone before leaving. Can you tell me what happened after that?” Professor asked.
“I tore them into pieces and then threw them into a bin. Then I opened my desktop and made a document containing the Hamlet script. And then I sent it to Joshua.” He said.
“Same day?”
“Yup. In 5 mins.”
“So you sent Joshua a Hamlet script, not a Macbeth one?” I asked.
“Are you accusing me?”
“No, I am not. I am asking.”
Simon lost his cool “It sounds as if you are accusing. Maybe you are the one who switched them.”
“That's not true.” I gave him a death stare.
He nonchalantly shrugged, “I am the club secretary and I am being interrogated. Who gave you your criminology degree, Dr. Hawking?”
Professor banged the table “Do you realise that I have the power to throw you out of the drama, if that is how you want to behave.”
“Heat of the moment. Won’t happen again. Sorry, sir.”
“Say that to Edwana also.” Natasa replied.
“Edwana, I am sorry.”
“Better.” I replied.
“Get out. Send Horatio.” Professor dismissed Simon.
Joshua, who played Horatio, took some time to come. But when he came he was accompanied with mouth-watering homemade pizza.
“I just wanted to get the professor to taste a true Italian pizza, which is not a disrespect to all Italians i.e. what pizza chains serve.”
The pizza was topped with extra mozzarella and filled with bell peppers and red paprika. It was relishing. It smelled like I-can’t-wait-at-all pizza.
“It’s bloody brilliant,” Professor said with his mouth full of pizza, “What did you do with the scripts after Simon gave them to you?”
“Oh, I made myself a bunch of fries, topped them with rich burger sauce and creamy mornay sauce, and added some caramelised onion...”
“Skip on the food.” Natasa grumbled.
“So I made some fries and proof-read the script. I cut down some scenes and deleted some characters. Then I forwarded it to Rick for formatting.”
“Who?”
“The guy who plays Claudius.”
“Same day?”
“Yup. The fries took two hours and the play two. ”
“Was the play you received Hamlet?” I asked.
“Quite certainly.”
“How are you so sure?” Natasa pointed.
“I myself deleted the ‘to be or not to be’ line.” He replied.
Professor said,“An interesting choice… one might say that line is the most important one in Hamlet…..”
“Nah. I feel like it's quite overrated”
“Did you, by any chance, edit the rest of the play into Macbeth?”
“Are you being serious right now?”
“No, I was just joking. Unless….”
“Okay I am going”
“Just send the guy who plays Claudius on your way out”
Joshua exits
“Rick, What did you do when the script reached you?” Professor asked.
“I formatted it nicely and sent it to Leela.” Rick said. Rick was a curly blondie, li’l plump and cheeked face.
“Who and Why?” I asked.
“She plays Gertrude. She works part-time at the print shop. Gets a lot of pages for free.”
“Doesn’t the university pay for all this?” Natasa pointed.
“They do, at the end of the play.” He replied.
“Also are you sure that you sent her Hamlet?” Professor asked.
“Uh, I don’t know about that. I was listening to some sick songs while I copied and pasted scenes per character into their respective files.”
“And what might these ‘sick’ songs be?”
“Some Danny Fernendaz and Chloe playlist?”
“Who are they?”
“I don’t know, some artists, I guess?”
“Ok, leave now. Send Leela.” Professor dismissed him.
Leela entered the room. “One question: When did you print the scripts? When did they reach everybody else? How?” Professor rapid fired.
“Those are the three questions.” she said.
Professor made an irritated sound “Three Questions: When did you print the scripts? When did they reach everybody else? How?”
“I printed the scripts at eight. I then came to the campus and had my dinner in the dining hall. I myself gave the scripts to everyone by nine.”
“Dismissed.” Professor said before I could say something.
As soon as she left, Professor pulled out his pocket note and started writing. Natasa and I kept still for a few minutes. He then kept the note on the table, “We have a closed circle of suspects.” Profesor explained. “It has to be one of these four: Simon, Joshua, Rick and Leela”
“How do we know that Leela didn’t lie? You didn’t even interrogate her.” Natasa asked.
“I just needed her to close the loop. If we can not prove the guilt of the other three, she is the guilty party.” Professor explained. “Now let's go through the series of events. We all disband at some time T. Simon sends Joshua the scripts at T + 5. Joshua does the formatting and sends the script to Rick at T + 245. He sends it to Leela at T + 245 + x, she prints them out at 8 and distributes them by nine.”
“There is a huge chunk of unaccounted time between Joshua sending the scripts to Rick and the scripts reaching everybody via Leela.”
“I wished Dr. Linkletter afternoon that day. The class was for one hours. His bottle was half finished which meant we were done with half the class.”
“I left while thinking about some series adding the sum of prime factors of N. The hours and minutes were next to each other.” Professor recollected.
“Were reparations added?” Natasa asked.
“I think yes.”
“So the hour hand was at 12. So we can say that Sopfr(n+1) is the minutes, provided Sopfr(n)=12. That means you left your office at 12:10, 12:18 or 12:43.” Natasa calculated.
“What does sopfr(n) mean?” I asked.
“Sum of prime factors of n. Reapeating factors are not removed.” They both said at once.
“So considering Edwana was right about the class being halfway done, we can say that I left at 12:43.” Professor returned to his mathematical discussion.
“It took me 2 mins to get to Edwana. So we may have disbanded at 12:55, after the pep talk and all. So Joshua sent the script to Rick at 4 pm. That means that there were four hours between the script reaching Rick and it reaching everyone else.” Prof. Hawking said.
“That's sort of anti-climatic?” I remarked.
Professor scratched his chin “Glad you said that. If this was in a book and I were the reader, I would feel that one of the authors used his maths background to find a suitably simple series using the OEIS and just pasted it here. Surely it saved him a lot of time by doing this.”
“What is OEIS?” I asked.
“On-line Encyclopaedia of Integer Sequences.” They both said.
Then they all leave. Everyone is busy with the play the whole day. No investigation occurs. I took time to understand and accept why professor love investigating so much. Math in drama club! Who knows!
So a new day. Today we were gonna pursue enquiries to find the exact flow of time. I wake up in the morning to the greatest breakfast sandwich in the world. A sandwich with nice moist sweet buns, containing a fried chicken, a fresh cream sauce and topped with a runny egg.
My dress was stained beyond repair, but it was worth it. I then left the room for the print shop where Leela worked. The shop was empty for an aged man who was starting up the computers.
“Does Leela work here?” I asked.
“No, you can find kela in the grocery shop” The man replied.
“NO, I am asking if Leela works here.” I shouted.
“I don’t have any pizza.”
“No uncle, I am asking if Leela works here in this shop?” The third time was the charm, sort of.
“Oh! The Indian girl. She works here. I think you are a friend of hers. How can I help you?”
“I just need to know if a boy, Rick ,came to meet her last month?”
“She got married last month? She didn’t even invite me!”
“No uncle, I just need to know if a boy...” I gave Rick’s description again.
“Wow this boy sounds nice. I am very cross with her now for not inviting me”
I pulled out my phone. I walked to the gentleman and showed him Rick’s photo.
“Oh, This boy came and said something about electricity mail. Back in my day, we only had paper mail. I had to walk 4 miles uphill to deliver our mail and 4 miles uphill again to come back. Anyways, the boy electric mailed it.”
“How could you go uphill both ways? That doesn’t obey physics!”
“Physics wasn’t invented yet”
“Okay, nevermind. Did he mail it?”
“No, He electronically mailed it.”
“Thanks a lot.” I said before leaving.
When I returned to the drama hall, the situation had taken a turn for the worse. “Somebody hacked and cleared out everyone's search history.” Natasa told me.
“Was the inbox also cleared?”
“Last Night.” She replied.
“Where is Prof. Hawking?” I asked.
“God knows. He muttered something to himself about Ip bridges and VPN’s.”
The whole day was wasteful from investigation perspective. I worked with the set design and we were on track. Professor came and went a few times a day. The drama practice was going well, Dr. Linkletter seemed happy. But we got nothing investigated, though, I still don’t understand why it was necessary
Next morning we woke up to another delicacy prepared by Joshua. Even if he is the saboteur, I don’t think I will catch him. In three days, we had to perform the drama and the pressure was real. I normally focus on the bright side but even Joshua’s sunny food wasn’t bright enough to distract me from the fact that everyone was messing up their lines, there was hot pink paint on the backdrops and the saboteur who did this was loose.
I spent the whole day working with Joshua to create the posters and tickets for the play. The backdrops were being fixed by the art guys, and Prof. Hawking was nowhere to be seen.
Tomorrow is the grand rehearsal, in front of the dean, the donors, the sponsors, the critics and the rest of the students. And we have a new problem. Remember the hot pink paint? Well turns out it wasn’t just paint. It had been slowly corroding the backdrops and now we had holes in them. We patched up the best we could using cardboard and cleaned the rest of the paint/acid from the backdrops.
We practiced once, maybe twice if I am liberal. The rest of the day was wasted. Professor Hawking was still not with us. I think he has given up on the play and has handed his responsibilities to Dr. Linkletter.
It's the grand rehearsal, and Professor finally appears. I was backstage helping with the entry and exit. It was the final act, final scene. Hamlet was to play fencing with Laertes, in front of King Claudius and Queen Gertrude. The backdrop of the castle was set. The foils were ready. Everything had gone well till now. And everyone was about to set foot on the stage for the finale of the play.
All of a sudden, Professor walks in. “Leela, you are out of the play. Edwana you are replacing her.”
“What?” We both say.
“You just have to die by drinking the poisoned wine. As for Leela, I am not having a saboteur here.” He explained. I would have protested but everyone had taken their positions on the stage.
This is where things start to go wrong. I didn’t have lines for almost the first half of the scene. Hamlet has asked Laertes for forgiveness because he apparently killed his wife and child. Laertes says no unless an elder of honour says otherwise, which was a bit difficult as no elders with honour were present in the court. Claudius announces that all will drink to Hamlet’s health if and when he scores a hit, but we all might die of old age before that happens. Gertrude keeps quiet and looks at the fight. Hamlet scores a point. Hamlet refuses to drink till the bout is over. Claudius keeps the glass aside. Laertes and Hamlet duel again, Hamlet scores a hit. King Claudius feigns happiness.
I see the Professor signals me to make a toast. I pick up the cup and raise to a toast, “He's scant, and fat of body. Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub my brows; The queen gets drunk to thy fortune”
What I see in front of me is a mixed reaction. Half the audience is amused and the other half horrified.
Claudius(Rick) decides to go on, “Gertrude, Do not drink.” he says.
I see professor signalling me to drink. “My king, I have made the toast. Now it is only the code of honour that I drink. To our son’s fortune.” I say before gulping the wine. Professor signals to not die yet.
This time the duel is won by Laertes. Hamlet starts bleeding. See normally fencing is not dangerous as the swords are blunt, but Laertes is cheating on Cladius’s command, as though he needed a reason to cheat.
Hamlet is angered and he runs to Laertes. In the scuffling the rapiers fall and Hamlet challenges him to a tie breaker. This time Hamlet wins the duel and Laertes is bleeding. The rapiers were switched in the scuffle. Laertes is dying to his own treachery. Professor signals me to fall. I obey.
“Look at the queen there, ho!” A courtier says.
“They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?” Horatio(Joshua) asks.
“Why, as a woodcock to my own springe, Horatio; I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.” He replies.
“How does the queen?” Hamlet(Simon) asked.
“She swounds to see them bleed.” Claudius tries to cover up.
I fall over. The rest of the actors look at me expectantly. I suppose I might have missed a line.
The audience greeted it with surprise. Laertes improvises, “No, no, the drink, the drink, The King must have poisoned it.”
The audience bursts into cheers. Laertes improvises further. He reveals that the blade he held at the start was poisoned as well as sharpened. It then got exchanged. They both were gonna die in less than half an hour.
Hamlet joins the improvisation club. He stabs the king and says, “Don't worry gentle Laertes, for Horatio did hath't foreseen the king's treachery and hath't arrange for an antidote.” The cheering grew louder.
Joshua pulled out a bottle from his pocket and passed it to Hamlet and Laertes. Claudius curses his bad fortune and dies. The curtains fall.
We were all still acting when the curtains fell. But I suppose even though this isn’t where it ends the professor thought it was good enough.
When we return to the auditorium after changing out of our costumes we are greeted by Professor Benjamin Hawking, who was now standing on the stage. “That was one of the best performances of Hamlet ever.” He clapped. We all hooted. “However, while Dr. Linkletter directed this play, I was busy directing a whole different play, a play with an even more surprising ending.”
“It is common knowledge that we had a saboteur among us. And it is not Leela, for I plan to unmask him tomorrow, on the stage, while I play the ghost of King Hamlet. Get ready to improvise a lot more.”
Our scripts were the same till act five. The only change was that we were now performing the same ending, the one we made today. However, I found no other changes. Also I was no longer Gertrude, the role was given back to Leela.
It was the day of the grand play, the halls were full. People were excited, the critics who came yesterday had given a great review it seemed.
The first four acts were not changed a bit. The crowd gave no strong reactions. Then came the final scene of the play. I was backstage, helping with the costumes, when Natasa comes to me, “Best of luck! You are up next.”
“What?” I asked.
“Professor told me to have you on the stage.” She replied.
“No not again! As if I wasn’t embarrassed enough the first time!”
“Tough luck”
“What role am I even playing?”
“The same one”
I take a deep breath and enter the stage once again.
We came till the duel. Hamlet won the first two rounds. I drank the poisoned wine. Laertes wins a round. Hamlet bleeds. They both have a scuffle. There swords get exchanged. Hamlet wins a round. Hamlet and Laertes both fall down bleeding. I fall down. Laertes revealed the king's motivations. Hamlet was about to stab the king when the ghost entered.
“Cease mine son, cease before thee commit the greatest sin! What mine brother hath done is not justified by all lengths but killing him is not the way.”
“But didn't thy ask for revenge, mine father? Wherefore art thee contradicting yourself?” Hamlet asked.
“I was foolish then. Killing him equalises thy with him. Isn't killing thy uncle as lacking as killing thy brother, if 't be true not worse?. Mine son, thou been mistreated by fate, thou hath suffer many deaths, but reflecting thy misfortune on others is not the sign of a true spirit. This will giveth thee, rather thy ego, immense satisfaction. But bethink about the legacy, bethink about the ordinary who is to bear witness. Is this what thee want to present? The power rests in thy hand for I am just an apparition. But recall, with most wondrous power cometh most wondrous responsibility.”
The crowd went wild. Hamlet dropped his rapier. He took the antidote from Horatio. He gave it to Laertes, his mother and drank some himself. The guards walked in to arrest Claudius. Neither the ghost(Profesor) nor did Hamlet(Simon) say anything more. Professor knew everything but his eyes and lips said nothing at all. Horatio crowned Hamlet as the king and beamed towards the ghost. The ghost nodded. The crowd was jubilant.
The play was over and what a journey it had been. After changing when we were all bidding adieu to our beds in the auditorium and heading to our dorms. The last person to leave the auditorium, a woman, curly black haired, slim, she was, was talking to Professor. “I got to hear that the position for a performing arts professor was open here. But it looks like they got a suitable replacement.” She said,
“I assure you it's still open. I was just holding up the mantle for this play” Professor assured.
Her phone beeped. She checked it. “The timing is impeccable.” She remarked to herself.
“For what, my lady?” Professor asked.
“I just got hired as the performed arts teacher.”
“Then I guess we’ll be seeing each other more often.”
“Nice meeting you, Professor Benjamin Hawking.” She was about to leave.
“Wait. What's your name, like we’ll be working together, so I just wanted to know.”
“Miss Merrita Slavic.” She said.
THE CURTAINS FALL.
Written by: Arjun Agarwal, Kush Agrawal, Rishita Kinra
Based on Hamlet and Macbeth by William Shakespeare. Plot elements based on Murder on The Orient Express by Agatha Christie.
The cover image is called Shakespeare Minimalist Poster 1 by Lukas Karaba via devinart.
The end credit header was made by me in Krita.
Thanks for reading,
Warm Regards,
Arjun Agarwal.