The Tragedy of Manlius Caesar
Mickey McCollum was just trying to survive high school, but his greatest challenge was Mrs. Helena ‘The Hammer’ Hildebrand’s Latin class. The teacher refused to use "Mickey," declaring it "pedestrian." On the first day, she boomed, "You are no longer Mickey. You are Manlius." Mickey felt the name sounded less like a Roman general and more like a brand of questionable canned anchovies, but the name stuck.
Manlius soon found himself cast as the lead, Julius Caesar, in the annual drama production. The props were basic—mauve bedsheet togas and hilariously bright orange plastic knives—but the assassination scene relied entirely on a solitary sound effect.
For the moment of Caesar’s fall, the director hired ten-year-old Brenda, a violinist who specialized in playing one profoundly, soul-crushingly sad funeral dirge. The music was so relentlessly despairing it sounded less like political tragedy and more like a houseplant realizing it hadn't been watered in a month.
On opening night, Manlius delivered the fateful line: "Et tu, Brute?" As the Senators charged, Brenda’s mournful wails filled the auditorium. The music was instantly overwhelming, drowning the assassination in a ridiculous tide of sorrow. Manlius executed his pre-rehearsed, dramatically spinning collapse and hit the floor with a magnificent thud, lying still for thirty-five agonizingly musical seconds.
The audience wasn't crying; they were trying desperately not to laugh at the sheer, over-the-top melodrama. Backstage, Mrs. Hildebrand patted his shoulder. "A noble performance, Manlius," she declared.
Manlius, peeling off the mauve sheet, finally understood. As Manlius Caesar, he had given the world the most absurdly entertaining death in high school theater history. The name Manlius, ridiculous though it was, had definitely shed its "pedestrian" label.