Leo wasn’t an actor, not really. He was more of a theater enthusiast, the kind who haunted the back rows of the Youngstown Playhouse, volunteered for usher duty just to soak in the atmosphere, and collected playbills like sacred texts. His apartment, a cramped walk-up overlooking a perpetually grey stretch of Wick Avenue, was a testament to this obsession, walls plastered with posters from local productions and shelves overflowing with scripts. So, when the Playhouse held its annual costume clear-out sale – a chaotic treasure trove of discarded identities – Leo was there before the doors even opened.
He wasn’t looking for anything specific, just browsing, breathing in the intoxicating scent of dust, old fabric, and decades of greasepaint. That’s when he saw it, draped over a mannequin in a dimly lit corner: a heavy, dark green velvet coat. It wasn’t just any coat; it was regal, imposing, with slightly puffed shoulders, intricate gold brocade trim along the collar and cuffs, and a weight that spoke of quality, of importance. A small, faded tag pinned inside simply read: “Richard III - Act V”.
Richard III. The hunchbacked king, Shakespeare’s charismatic monster. Leo felt a thrill. He remembered the Playhouse’s production from about ten years prior. It had been lauded, particularly the actor who played Richard, a man named Alistair Finch, known for his intense, almost frighteningly immersive performances. Leo hadn’t seen that specific show, a regret that always lingered. Holding the coat now felt like holding a piece of that legendary performance, a tangible link to Finch’s portrayal.
The velvet was worn smooth in places, the gold thread slightly tarnished, but it felt potent. He haggled briefly with the volunteer running the sale, a woman who seemed relieved to be rid of the bulky item, and walked away with the coat for a ridiculously low price. Back in his apartment, he hung it carefully on a sturdy hanger on the back of his bedroom door. It dominated the small space, its dark green velvet seeming to absorb the already limited light. It looked less like a costume piece and more like a deposed monarch waiting silently in exile. Just fabric and thread, he told himself, imbued with the harmless magic of the stage.
For a week, the coat just hung there, a dramatic but inert presence. Then came the invitation to a friend’s Halloween party. Costume required. Leo’s eyes immediately went to the coat. It was perfect. He didn’t have the full regalia, no crown or tights, but the coat alone was evocative enough. On the night of the party, he pulled it on. The weight settled onto his shoulders, heavy but strangely comfortable. He looked in the mirror. The coat transformed his silhouette, making his normally slumped posture seem straighter, more commanding. He caught himself tilting his head, a slight sneer playing on his lips as he surveyed his reflection. Weird.
He shook it off, attributing it to the spirit of Halloween, the power of suggestion. As he put it on, though, a strange sensation prickled his skin. It wasn’t just the feel of the velvet; it was a sense of… alignment. As if tumblers were clicking into place inside him. He felt a surge of something sharp and intelligent, a cunning awareness that wasn’t entirely his own. He practiced a line from the play, just for fun: “Now is the winter of our discontent…” His voice came out different. Deeper, resonant, with a subtle, almost imperceptible rasp, a hint of theatrical venom he didn’t know he possessed. He felt a fleeting, alien thought: This kingdom… mine. He blinked, startled. Okay, maybe he was getting too into character. He smoothed the velvet, adjusted the collar, and headed out.
The party was a blur of cheap decorations and loud music. Leo, usually awkward and reserved in social settings, found himself holding court, engaging in witty, sometimes cutting banter. He moved differently, with a subtle limp he hadn’t intended, one shoulder slightly higher than the other. People laughed at his jokes, seemed drawn to his unusual confidence. He felt powerful, charismatic, but also… cold. A detached amusement at the antics around him, a flicker of contempt for the mundane conversations. These feelings weren’t his, yet they flowed through him as easily as the cheap beer he was drinking. He only vaguely registered the concerned look a friend gave him when he made a particularly cruel joke at someone else’s expense. When he took the coat off at the end of the night, exhaustion hit him like a physical blow, but underneath it was a lingering residue of that cold, sharp intelligence, that unnatural confidence.
He hung the coat back on the door, but something had changed. The subtle shifts didn’t stop when the coat came off. Over the next few weeks, Leo noticed himself adopting mannerisms he’d only experienced while wearing it. The slight limp would appear when he was tired or stressed. He’d catch his reflection in a shop window and see that sneering tilt to his head, the calculating look in his eyes. His thoughts took on a sharper, more cynical edge. He became quicker to anger, his words laced with a sarcasm that sometimes bordered on cruelty. He found himself strategizing in everyday situations – navigating office politics, planning his commute – with a Machiavellian complexity that was entirely new.
His friends noticed. “Leo, you okay?” Sarah asked one evening over coffee at a downtown cafe. “You seem… different. Kind of intense.” He brushed it off, but her words echoed the growing unease within him. He was acting differently, feeling differently. He started craving richer foods, developed a sudden interest in Renaissance history, found himself humming discordant melodies he didn’t recognize. It was as if another personality was bleeding through, overlaying his own like a poorly registered print. He hadn’t worn the coat since the party, yet the character, Richard, seemed to be lingering, seeping into the fabric of his daily life. He didn’t connect it directly to the coat yet, attributing the changes to stress, lack of sleep, anything but the velvet hanging silently on his door.
Then came the pull. A growing, gnawing desire to wear the coat again. It started as a fleeting thought – it felt good, wearing that – but soon morphed into a persistent urge. He’d find himself standing before it, hand outstretched, wanting to feel that weight on his shoulders, that surge of cold confidence. He started wearing it around the apartment when he was alone, pacing the small rooms, feeling the transformation take hold. The limp became more pronounced, the sneer more natural. He felt sharper, more alive, less like Leo the quiet enthusiast and more like… the Player King. The feeling of rightness when wearing it was addictive, a stark contrast to the muddled confusion he felt as just himself. He knew it was strange, unhealthy, but the compulsion was overwhelming. The coat wasn’t just hanging there anymore; it was calling to him, demanding its actor.
This realization – the compulsion – finally scared him enough to connect the changes to the coat. He decided to research it, not just the play, but the Playhouse production, the actor Alistair Finch. Online archives and old newspaper reviews painted a picture of Finch’s legendary performance. Critics called it “terrifyingly real,” “a possession, not a portrayal.” Finch had apparently thrown himself into the role with obsessive dedication. But the research also uncovered darker whispers. Finch’s career had faltered after Richard III. He became difficult to work with, prone to fits of rage and paranoia. There were rumors of breakdowns, stays in institutions. He’d died relatively young, obscurely, the cause of death often listed vaguely as “complications from pneumonia,” though some theater gossip hinted at suicide or alcohol-related causes. Had Finch poured so much of himself, his intensity, his darkness, into the role that it somehow imprinted onto the very fabric of the costume? Or had the role itself, the archetype of the charismatic villain, consumed him and now lingered in the velvet, waiting for a new host?
Leo stared at the coat, horrified. Was he being influenced by the fictional Richard, or by the ghost of Alistair Finch, the actor who couldn’t let the role go? Or worse, had the coat itself, through decades of embodying this powerful, dark character on stage under intense lights and audience focus, somehow absorbed the persona, becoming a vessel for the Player King’s ambition and malice? He considered theories: a psychic imprint left by Finch’s intense method acting; the collective energy of audiences focusing on the character; perhaps even Finch’s troubled spirit somehow attached to his most famous costume. Whatever the mechanism, the coat wasn’t just cloth and thread. It was a conduit. It remembered the performance, and it wanted an encore.
The erosion of his own personality accelerated. He started having gaps in his memory – hours where he couldn’t recall what he’d done, only vague impressions of feeling powerful and purposeful. Friends stopped calling, alienated by his increasingly erratic and cold behavior. He lost interest in his job, his hobbies, everything that defined ‘Leo’. His reflection looked subtly different, his face sharper, his eyes holding a permanent glint of calculation. He felt trapped, watching his own life as if from a distance, while the Richard persona steered his actions. He felt torn between his own innate kindness and the cruel, ambitious impulses welling up from the coat’s influence. He was losing himself, thread by thread.
He realized the influence wasn’t directionless. The Richard persona seemed to have goals. Leo found himself drawn to places associated with power or conflict – city council meetings he’d never attended before, the sites of old labor disputes he’d only read about. He felt urges to manipulate people, to sow discord, to climb some imaginary ladder. Was it trying to re-enact Richard’s rise to power in the mundane context of modern Youngstown? Or was it pursuing some unfinished business of Alistair Finch? The thought was terrifying. He was becoming a puppet, dancing to the tune of a dead king or a dead actor, the play continuing long after the curtain fell.
He had to fight back. He had to break character. The first step was the coat. He tore it from the door, the velvet feeling almost alive, resisting him. He stuffed it into a trash bag, intending to throw it out, but a wave of debilitating anxiety washed over him. He couldn’t do it. The thought of being separated from it, from that power, was physically painful. He tried locking it in a closet, but he could almost feel its presence radiating through the wood, calling to him. Finally, summoning all his willpower, he took it down to the banks of the Mahoning River late one night, intending to weigh it down with rocks and sink it. As he prepared to heave it into the dark, sluggish water, he heard a voice, his own voice yet not his own, rasping in his ear, “Fool! You cast away greatness?” He recoiled, dropping the coat on the muddy bank. He ran, leaving it there, a dark shape against the industrial wasteland.
Getting rid of the coat wasn’t enough. The influence lingered. He forced himself to reconnect with his old self, calling estranged friends, apologizing, trying to explain the inexplicable. He revisited his favorite spots, reread his favorite plays (avoiding Shakespeare), consciously trying to perform acts of kindness to counteract the lingering cynicism. He saw a therapist, speaking vaguely of intrusive thoughts and personality shifts, afraid to mention the haunted coat. It was an internal battle, a constant effort to suppress the echoes of Richard, the whispers of Finch.
Months passed. The intensity faded, but it never vanished completely. Sometimes, under stress, he’d feel the old coldness creep back, the urge to manipulate, the sneer threatening to surface. He developed a phobia of theaters, of costumes, even of looking too long in the mirror. He quit his volunteer work at the Playhouse. The experience had irrevocably altered him, leaving cracks in his sense of self.
One rainy afternoon, seeking shelter, he ducked into the Butler Institute of American Art. Wandering the galleries, he turned a corner and froze. There, in a display case dedicated to local theater history, was the coat. Rescued from the riverbank, apparently, cleaned and preserved. The dark green velvet, the tarnished gold brocade. It looked inert, just an artifact. But as Leo stared, he felt it – a faint, cold pulse, a flicker of that sharp, ambitious intelligence reaching out from behind the glass. He felt the ghost of the Player King stir within him, a phantom limb aching for its lost power. He turned and fled the museum, back into the Youngstown rain, forever looking over his shoulder, wondering if the curtain had truly fallen, or if the role was just waiting for its next cue.