Soliloquies of Mr. and Mrs. Macb.

     A small bar of glycerin soap floated in the sink full of bloody water (reader: observe here how an author's readiness to shield his public from something unsavory leads directly to a repudiation of fact. In point of fact the sink in question is full, but only with blood, no water to speak of except that constituent to the former, that is. Sparing readers is to no purpose if it deviates from the—we're getting hand signs now from the author not to raise so much sand about it here, but the fact that our sympathies lie with the struggling author instead of his long-abused readers, however many dozens there might be, is now known to you. Well, no, I'm not the publisher, not even anyone in his employ. Well, it doesn't matter who I am: the point is, the author was trying to spare people's feelings over the spectacle of a sink full of frothy, foamy red blood with little hydroxylic fluid in it, except for what occurs naturally in blood, I'm certain the clotting agent cells are not as numerous as the aquatic cells, but I'm no hematologist and no biochemist, either. What would we have to account for, hemoglobin, platelets, lymph, hormones, but still some water, well okay, but the gist is, the sink—whoops, another hand sign from the author, he's been holding his breath, and he's—)

     A small bar of glycerin soap floated in the sink full of blood, but Lady Macb. didn't have time for the dishes, she'd wiped her hands off already to work with the calculator. This log of a husband of hers, dense as a birch! Whenever he slaughters someone, he's just as apt to leave the body out for all to admire, she had to do everything to keep his mayhem concealed. The idiot was just as apt to leave his stupid “Victims Lists” lying about the throne room: just as she'd predicted, they'd already provoked suspicions once, yet stuffed in her apron pocket was one she'd just retrieved before returning to the kitchen. Still, the lists did help keep track of things, but at least he didn't have to leave them lying about!

     In less than forty minutes she had the costs completed for two masons to create a new interior wall of three foot depth, ten feet in length and eight feet in height with a pediment up top, plus the added costs of getting the two masons roaring drunk by midnight (the two bodies would have to be deftly inserted no sooner than the wall was six feet high, the masons' second round of libations could be monitored and timed accordingly) and the costs for further pifficating the two masons between the bodies' insertions and the pediment's installation. She could see no costs associated with leading the two drunk masons for a stroll around the castle at the third hour and to the top of the ravine overlooking the west gorge, in fact, the costs of their prior payment could be recovered with robbery before clubbing them and pushing their carcasses into the gorge. Most of the remaining costs were associated with the masons' materials, no great surprise there.

     The sink was indeed full, but now her towel was dripping.

     In the west annex to the throne room, Mr. Macb. meanwhile was drafting a speech he was readying for the Cawdor Academy of Propaganda and Disinformation Studies. He had not gotten very far:

     “While death is much more stubborn than life ever proves to be, murderers are objectionable whenever they interfere with the practice of suicide: meddlers and busybodies, these homicidal fiends have never learned the virtue of keeping to themselves and minding their own business. Their charity and impatience is often unnecessary and often can prove unwelcome. Murderers subject to execution should never be hanged: the only proper way to dispose of them is by launching them from a catapult or trebuchet, strategically mounted adjacent to a rocky gorge or a churning sea, not to expose them to velocity per se but to as expansive an arc as possible just prior to their collision with a . . .”

     Here Mr. Macb. reflected for a moment on the contrast between the terminal (end) and the liminal (boundary), then he rummaged briefly before pausing to scratch in another name to his fresh Victims List, he seemed to've misplaced the one he'd started earlier. That silly wife with all her hand-washing! How many times had he had to tell her how conspicuous a display this was becoming, that and her incessant demands to pick up more soap each and every time he ventured down to Edinburgh!

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