I'm an actor! (Short story)

Sometimes life is strange! I just can't understand it. You feel you'll never make it anywhere, and suddenly you get an opportunity to make it big. Right there, out of nowhere that faint ray of hope enlarges into a big tunnel to your ambitions. And then when you have travelled a long way, with a lot of hope and happiness, you find out that the tunnel actually ends in a cliff! A very deep cliff! That is where I'm right now! At the edge, on the verge of falling into this abyss! All my hard work and effort are going to go down the drain. Aaaaargh! I can't believe it! How can this happen to me! And why should it happen to me at all?

In the beginning I wasn't making it. I knew that. I was nowhere in this wide ocean, and was swimming against the tide. I was a mere drop in the vast ocean. But you have to agree, I worked on it. I worked like hell on everything, right from my face, to my body language, accent, on every damn part of me, till I got it right! Till I could be called a decent actor! And I did make it big, didn't I! Weren't there papers that called me the next face of cinema?!

But now.. now that my fourth movie didn't make money, they want to blame it on me? What about the faulty script? The drab screenplay? Who the hell is that critic to blame it on me? What the hell does he know about acting, anyway??Does he know the grueling practice sessions, the acting school hardships? All he knows is to watch movies for free, happily sitting in a special couch and write the crap that he is asked to, depending on the amount he is paid by you-know-who! Critic he calls himself! Bah!

Acting! Acting is an art! I know.. I know it is the most clichéd line, but you have to accept it, that it is a fact! Acting Is an Art! Period!!

It is not just wearing the grease paint and going there and enacting the part given to you. You have to understand the soul of the character. You have to get under the skin of the character. Understand the layers of role. The emotions, the reactions.. everything. You have to keep digging into it, until.. until you just become the character! Yes! That is it! You just start living the role! If he laughs, you feel happy, if he is sad, you cry! If he has OCD, you wash your hands 5 times. If he gets hurt, it pains you. Yes, it is no longer him. He is you! An actor lives so many lives in his lifetime, people don't understand. It is difficult for others to understand. You stand on the stage with the limelight on you, hundreds of faces turned towards you, looking at each move, and then you understand what it is to be an actor!

What do people know?

And now.. now it pains. It is like some acid that is trickling down my throat. I can feel it burning every cell that it comes in contact with. My whole body is aching. It is like some poison running through my veins. I can feel its course over my body. Slowly it is spreading all over. Slowly.. very slowly. My eyes.. they are getting hazy. Eyelids are heavy.... My whole body is on fire. I cannot.. cannot take it anymore..

******

"Hey! Where is Vaibhav?"
"That weirdo? He said he was going to do a final rehearsal. Look in that room, he must be mumbling to himself.. it was a monologue."
"Ah.. there he is! Some rehearsal lying on the floor! Idiot!"