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Brittany Adams
Professor B. Costello
Intermediate Creative Writing
September 7, 2011
An Abandoned Playbill Speaks Out
We were fresh off the press headliners, undeniably top news, or we would’ve been if
we’d’ve been newspapers. No, we were something better, something to enlighten the masses, a
window of reality-based truth stained in the black and yellow shades of artistic design and
advertisement! We were Playbills, and that meant we were part of an exclusive club. Now, as a
part of said club, we had a choice in the Broadway production we got to sponsor. I’d’ve
preferred overseeing the enjoyment of some Broadway classic, but my girlfriend just loved
eighties music, so I let her drag me along to showcase Rock of Ages; hey, with i’s like hers, how
could I say no? That’s not even mentioning that new book smell she always had, or her perfectly
angled body, or her pages and pages of twelve-point, theatre-oriented verbiage; it just drove me
wild.
Anyways, as I was saying before that little tangent, we had the whole world ahead of us:
performances, people, and, when we finally felt like settling down, a Playbill binder on a
bookshelf in some little suburban town. We were living the dream. No, I don’t mean the
American dream; I mean the one that started with literary works like the Magna Carta, the
United States Constitution, or the really old, really expensive comic books intense collectors
keep in glass cases and plastic sleeves. Every piece of paper can be shredded, burned, crumpled,
trampled, or even used to level tables, but find the right person, and we text citizens can last for
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centuries. Playbills endure longer than a lot of other literature, so our choice in occupation was
statistically indicative of happiness.
Everything started off with that silver limned glow of the perfect reality. We watched
show after show, matinees and evening performances, waiting for our turn to fall into the hands
of some amorous couple like ourselves, when it finally happened. Sure, the girl was wearing
more Rock of Ages paraphernalia than even the merchandisers, and the guy seemed to know
more about Zeppelin than AC/DC, but they were the hands fate dealt us and we couldn’t’ve been
happier; the way they mooned after definitively stated that we had found our future display case.
We sat anxiously through our last night in the Brooks Atkinson Theatre as our newfound
patroness mouthed the words to the complete musical score.
After the show, we rode along to this smoky piano bar a few blocks downtown, ignoring
the rough landing we received when we reached the table; what were a careless thud and lost
paper inserts compared to the happiness we would be introduced to in a matter of hours? Well,
what we were actually introduced to were a pair of poorly orchestrated dueling pianos and the
aggravated faces of our new landlords. We were able to ignore the mediocre pianists and
technical difficulties, mostly because we lacked the auditory parts to register sound, but they
couldn’t. In their frantic escape, they neglected to pick us up.
I assured my girlfriend that they’d be back for us, that no person with multiple articles of
clothing inscribed “Rock of Ages” could forsake a Playbill of the same name, but when this
skinny little pencil of a waitress came to bus the table, I knew it was over. How could she
understand the nature of our existence after suffering through that awful performance night after
ear-splitting night? By the time we fell into the recycling bin, all we could do was accept our fate
and cherish the last moments we had together.
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I recount this tale to you in a factory, uncomfortably hot as the source of my inevitable
rebirth bubbles ominously to my left: a heated tub of bleach and water, emptying out into an
industrial sized blender. I’m sure some part of me will be returned to show business, but I’m
more concerned about the part that doesn’t. Will the microscopic pieces of my being enjoy
telling epics and cleaning up spilt cocktails? I’m not even sure what my girlfriend would say if
she saw me now; we got separated yesterday after the violent ride to this glorified paper shredder.
I tried everything to console her while we were jostled along, but by the time we got here, her
cover had lost its sheen, her pages dangled broken from their binding, and every last word that I
had loved her for had faded into the diluted gray of waterlogged ink. My girlfriend was no longer
that energetic, pulchritudinous booklet of aesthetic information, but some thrown away fold of
yesterday’s newspaper. I had lost my lover, my headliner, my counterpart just one political
message shy of top news.
Well, she’s certainly top news now.