Free Doppelganger by David Stahler Jr.

blood. Shakespeare didn’t depict the actual murder, but I wish he had. All I could see were my hands around Chris’s throat, and that look of confused terror in his eyes. I can only imagine what he must have been thinking when that old man strangling him suddenly turned into a slimy monster. What a way to go.
    At one point I almost bolted from the classroom. It was the part where Macbeth has just come back from Duncan’sroom, fresh from the murder, and there’s this weird moment of confusion with his wife—they’re both jumpy as hell, big surprise. And then Macbeth looks at his hands, and they’re all covered with blood. “This is a sorry sight,” he says. It’s like I could feel the panic in him, the instant regret, and it made me feel all panicky. Once again I got that weird rush, that sick sort of full feeling, and I thought I might throw up. I looked around at the other kids. A few were looking at the ceiling or writing notes, the rest were reading along, but none of them seemed particularly bothered by any of it. None of them had done what I’d done.
    The scene after that was better. That bit with the gatekeeper was pretty funny. Ms. Simpson called it comic relief, which I guess is a good name for it because it made me feel relieved. Then there was the discovery of the body. Pretty soon you’ve got the characters running around upset, and in the middle of it all you’ve got Macbeth trying to act like he’s all outraged by the killing, but doing an awful job of it, to the point where Lady Macbeth has to step in and pretend to faint to distract everyone from his guilt. Listening to that I suddenly hoped I was doing a better job pretending than he was. Macbeth just wasn’t good at it. He talked too much.
    When we finished, Ms. Simpson asked us what we thought, and a few kids talked about it for a while. I looked at the clock—only a minute to go. At that point I was more than ready to get out of there. Then somebody asked Ms. Simpson a question.
    â€œBut I still don’t get it,” the girl next to me said. “Everybody loved him. He was, like, the big hero. Why didhe feel he had to go and kill like that?”
    Ms. Simpson nodded. “Good question,” she said. She looked around the room for a second and then her eyes fell on me again. This time she didn’t let me go. “So why does Macbeth do it? What do you think, Chris?”
    Everyone turned and looked at me.
    I shrugged. “Maybe that’s just who he is,” I said. “Even if a part of him doesn’t want to do it, it’s just what’s in him.”
    She raised her eyebrows. “Interesting. I think that’s what Shakespeare might be suggesting. That’s the horror of it. Even more horrible is the thought that, in the right circumstances, any one of us could wind up in the same position. It’s easy to sit there and say, ‘Oh, isn’t it awful what Macbeth did,’ but maybe Shakespeare’s trying to tell us we all have a little bit of Macbeth in us. We just have to hope it never comes out.”
    The room was quiet for a moment. Then the bell rang. Everyone jumped to their feet.
    â€œHave a great weekend, everybody,” Ms. Simpson chirped.
    Â 
    I was stumbling numbly toward the buses lined up in front of the school, looking forward to going home and collapsing in front of the TV, when Josh grabbed my arm and spun me around.
    â€œWrong way, pal,” he said.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    He laughed. “Yeah, I can see why you’d say that, but if we head over now, maybe we can get you changed up before Coach sees you’re not wearing your jersey.”
    He laughed again, but he seemed all nervous and scared. At that point I was too tired to share the sentiment.
    â€œGood thing I got you to watch my back,” I said.
    â€œScrew you,” he said, “I just don’t want him to get pissed off and take it out