Failure - Jason

On the writing:

This week is the start of a story with the topic of failure.  So, I developed a story about a man in the midst of failure who discovers and unexpected way out.  I think in the longer version this beginning might even need to be added to, the pacing still feels a little rushed to me.  Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

Thorn of the Rose

“The thorn of the Rose,” the cheaply printed half sheet had called me. It was not the first sling or arrow I had suffered, but this was not some clumsily tossed poison apple. Today the comment hit the mark. I had been playing second to Athelwold for years, which meant without my brother’s support I would not have had enough grain to feed my family. I could bear it no more. I read the words and they burned into my brain. I didn’t just see the letters. I saw the disgust on the wife of my brother’s face as he handed me that which he had earned. I heard the jeers of the crowd. I hated what had become of me. The stage had devoured me.

It did not start that way. I was a man of promise, with patrons and reporters who loved me. "Pleasing to the eye," some said. "You would pay to hear him read you a lottery ticket," said another. I was expected to be the leading man of my generation. That was all before Athelwold. He was taller. His voice was better. His shadow, it seemed, was too deep for me to get out of. Between the two of us, he was the one they loved. His patrons made sure he wanted for nothing. Even I loved him more than myself. The damning comparisons were harder to take because they were true. As he grew, I shrank.

My weakness, though, was not in my thoughts alone. Two months ago the coughs began. At first I thought I had some common ailment, but soon they became fits of sputtering. I would take a tonic before hitting the stage, to help hold back the choking, but at as I removed my costume from the final scene, the fits would start again. It did not get better. In fact, it got worse. Soon the tonic would not help and I would have hard coughs in the middle of a scene. I would have to constantly carry a handkerchief with me, to cover my facial contortions and keep any expectorant from getting away. My body was turning on me, too. It was the just the day before that awful half sheet when speckles of red first appeared on the white cloth I held in my hand. This was not an illness for a time, this was the one to take me. This was the conclusion to a morality. Every cough was a reminder that I would soon leave my my wife and children. I would leave them with nothing.

It was this morning when I saw Gregor mixing the tonic, from common items. In weeks past I had seen the pile of coins. I knew how much there was to be made, but from these bits of nothing? My mind raced. I knew what needed to be done.

He was not selling some magical formula to fix what I had, it was probably the spirits which had initially calmed my cough and nothing more. Gregor was selling hope. I could do that. I could give hope to the hopeless. If the stage had taught me anything it was that it is easy to make happy an audience who wants to believe you will make them happy. There is a spell which is cast when you offer what people want. Once they believe in you, the mistakes will be forgiven.

If Gregor was selling health, I would sell prosperity. The people here wanted that, they needed that. I would let people onto the ground floor of a new Arabian country. I would sell to them rights to develop, to mine, to farm, plots of desirable property. I would show them how the value was soaring and sell travel plans to go visit. Sure it would not exist, but could you really put a price on the hope I would give to my friends and neighbors?

What I didn't know, as I wrote these words, is sometimes success can be just as difficult as failure.-