Sorry I haven’t written in such a long time! I hope you guys enjoy this short story!

Enter Macbeth onto a misty moor

            MACBETH. How do I happen upon this dour moor? Last I remember, I felt the unforgiving steel of Macduff (Shakespeare V.VIII.36). How this moor chills me yet burns my soul. Say, what are those figures I see just ahead?

Enter Lady Macduff

            LADY MACDUFF. Your soul is blacker than all the curses I could slash you with. May your soul be forever in torment, may you ever lack in food and water, may you always lack in strength to pick yourself out of the bloodied mud.

            MACBETH. My lady, please, lash me not with your words. But how is it that you stand before me? For my… informers told of your untimely demise.
            LADY MACDUFF: Informers indeed! Wretched murders more like. Just because I am a woman does not mean I am daft, though that could be said of you. As for how I stand before you, do you truly believe you still tread with the living? Indeed not! You tread with the souls departed.

            MACBETH: So, you know who stole away your lives. But please bear with me I… 

            LADY MACDUFF. Halt! Say no more! You beg for mercy and plead for understanding. I have not even a crumb of mercy to give in your starved state. You have no children to understand my torment and your wife was a witch. My heart shreds at the sight of my husband, so bent in grief. You in one swift motion took all that he held dear and desecrated it (Shakespear IV. III. 211). As for understanding, I understand all too well. The Macduffs bore threat to your throne and you did to us as you did to your friend Banquo. You in fury took the blade to the entirety of the Macduff household. Only one escaped your grasping hand, the head of your snake.

            MACBETH. My lady please my actions were not my own, my head was full of the false prophies from the three double-headed sirens.

            LADY MACDUFF. Ah but there was a fourth foul witch that corrupted your feeble mind. She dug her nails into your flesh. But for her you would have waited for fate to take her course. Who this retched creature is, you ask? Why it is the very woman you call your wife. Your actions may not have been yours to start, but did your wife beg for you to take Banquo’s life and make an attempt on that of his son? Nay, you refused even to tell her. Did she beg you to destroy Macduff? Nay, those were your actions and your actions only. Take your punishment like a man, if you even are still.

            MACBETH. Do not doubt my worthiness as a man, Lady Macduff.  Give me that small comfort. I had honor and died as any man should, with blade in hand.

            LADY MACDUFF. You wag your tongue like a gabbing woman! You speak of honor when you have none – none whatsoever. Young Siward had more honor running in his veins than you have in the tip of your finger. He died protecting Scotland while you died rejecting her (Shakespear V. VII. 12). Young Siward was a greater man than you could ever wish to be. Though you were twice the elder he was twice the greater. And yet you slew him out of callousness. Shame upon you, shame!

            MACBETH. You rend my soul. Lady McDuff. But I now see the total wickedness of my soul, I know also where I head now. And it is not where I have always dreamed to be.

            LADY MACDUFF. Your judgment is now complete. See behind you four figures. The three witches and your dreadful wife, they come to welcome you to Hell.

Then out of the deepening chasm a voice is heard. A voice full of age. And rage.

VOICE. A drum a drum Macbeth doth come (Shakespeare I. II. 30).