daisy fuentes

Towards the middle of the semester, Mrs. B. devised an assignment where we had to act out a soliloquy from any Shakespeare play. I chose Marc Antony’s “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” speech from Julius Caesar. As we had to be in costume for extra credit, I brought a flat sheet to school to fashion into a toga of sorts. There was a supply closet in the front of the room where people could change. Boys would pretend to peek in the closet when girls were changing. There wasn’t much to see for the most part, as girls might throw a long night gown over their clothes to play Juliet. The door locked on the outside when closed completely, so the few kids with major changes could do so with some privacy.

“Oh, that’s boring. Come back here,” she said a bit too loudly. “Let me show you some nice pants.”“Uh, I don’t think…”“What size are you? You look like a 33 by…36 maybe?”“But it’s not for…” she handed me a random pair of pants.

He raised his gun and put a round between her eyes, causing Bojena to collapse like a puppet with its strings cut. All of the illusory bullets he hit her with before made her flinch in momentary fear, but this was different. At that moment, she felt death in all of its horror. She felt the darkness, the chill, the metallic taste of the end. This man, she had heard so many rumors about him, and he had defeated her so easily, but now she was left to wonder, was Death itself standing over her?