The Audition – Ollie Billingham

The Audition

Ollie Billingham

As Rick Shaw stepped off the gondola the sights and sounds of Venice swarmed around him: the overcrowded restaurants, the softly lapping water and the jumbled side-streets. Quickly, Rick checked his audition letter. It had arrived just after a heart attack had almost robbed the dark haired, middle-aged actor of his life. Death still clung to him like cobwebs. He was ready for a fresh start.

He arrived at the theatre well past five o’clock. Shadows were eddying around Teatro Oscura but lights shone a dim welcome as Rick mounted ebony black steps, his feet drumming like heart beats, gradually slowing as he reached the summit. Automatically, he clutched his chest.

A shrill voice echoed down over blood red carpet towards him.

“Rick Shaw, your turn.”

A deadly cold feeling froze his body as a hand grabbed his arm. Rick looked around and then down. His heart missed a beat. The person whose grip on Rick’s arm was slowly tightening was half Rick’s size, darkly hooded and staring straight ahead.

“Good luck!” Rick blinked towards another voice. The person looked familiar. Where had Rick seen him before? It had been at the hospital, in intensive care. How could that be? Rick opened his mouth but the hand pulled him on.

As the Renaissance interior began to lift his spirits, abruptly Rick stumbled. He glanced down and gasped. A sculpture of a man lying on the floor entwined his feet. The man was dead, “Winners never cheat, cheaters never win,” read the inscription.

“Have you cheated anything recently?” asked his hooded guide.

Rick didn’t have time to answer. Wax masks of screaming faces stared directly into his soul.

“Does that look like me?” he thought.

A door swung open. A feeling of familiarity washed over him: an audition room. As he walked inside Rick could see no director, but a maggot of a niggling thought told him someone was there.

“Let’s charge again! Let’s give him everything!” Dread crept up Rick’s spine. This was no Shakespearian audition script. This was his life; the words the very ones spoken around him as he lay dying in the hospital. His voice faltered. He couldn’t recite it. He couldn’t relive it. He shook his head. The audition was over.

Leaning back against his hotel room door, the sweat already dried to salt on his forehead, Rick chuckled to himself. What a fool he was! Glancing out of the window, he saw a coffin sitting on a black gondola. He squinted. He could make out the name. Could it be? The words ‘good luck’ rang again in his ears. No, it couldn’t be him, his fellow survivor. Rick slapped himself. He needed a drink.

Ice clinking in his glass, Rick opened the envelope given to him at the theatre.

“Audition failed,” was all the letter said.

The next morning Rick Shaw was found dead in his room.