Break a Leg

"Break a leg."

He cringed. It was a good luck wish, he knew. But it hit too close to home.

This was the night. His first performance since that fateful day when "Break a leg" took on a new meaning for him.

He'd just finished the show. Opening night, and he was Hamlet. It was perfect.

Until the party. He'd run down the staircase to get some more beer. Apparently he'd had too much already. It wasn't the staircase, but the front of the stage. He dropped to the floor and clutched his ankle, howling in pain.

And that was it for Hamlet. The rest of the shows had been played by his understudy. And he'd been out of commission for 2 months. It had taken another six months to get another role. And of course, he wasn't cast as the lead this time. Nope. He'd pretty much made a wreck of his lucky break. (And whoever said "lucky" necessarily meant "good luck"?)

And there was Joel, the understudy-turned-Hamlet, now acting the lead on a small stage off Broadway. "It should've been me," he murmured, not for the first time.

Apparently the answer to the question was that it was, in fact, not to be.

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