By Allison Whittenberg

Carla led the life of an actress, which mostly meant waiting tables and auditioning for roles that never came. The rejections piled up like takeout containers in her cramped studio apartment. Such was the quiet tragedy she’d become.

She often thought about giving up—leaving L.A., getting a real job, buying a house, and living a life that didn’t feel like a holding pattern. But two years passed, and she hadn’t done any of those things.

One afternoon, while scrolling through emails, a subject line caught her eye:

Immediate Casting Opportunity — Confidential

She almost deleted it, thinking it was a scam. But then she saw the same message again, farther down her inbox. Her curiosity piqued. Still, she resisted, kept browsing through social media.

Then she saw it a third time.

This time, she clicked.

The email was from a director named Stan Staged?—someone she’d never heard 

of—requesting her immediate presence for “a private audition. No résumé needed.”

This sounds sketchy, she thought, but she kept reading.

You’ve already been chosen. Just show up.

“This has to be a ruse,” she muttered in her low, smoky voice.

Her curiosity—or maybe desperation—won out. She took the subway to the edge of the city, to an abandoned soundstage beneath a flickering fluorescent light.

A woman in a green A-line dress greeted her. She was holding a clipboard and wearing a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“The actress who cried,” the woman said. “Cry on cue. Cry on demand. You’re perfect. Welcome to Cry-Sys.”

“Cry, Sis?”

“It’s short for Crisis Systems. We manufacture perception.”

“Perception of what?”

The woman didn’t answer. “Do you want the job or not?”

“Well…I’d like a job.”

“Right this way.”

A curtain slid open, revealing what looked like a war zone—only it wasn’t a set. It was real, or at least it looked real. Debris littered the ground. Dust filled the air. People screamed. 

Extras ran around in chaos.

Someone handed Carla a tattered coat and smeared soot across her cheeks.

“You’re Grieving Civilian Number 5,” the woman said flatly.

“I’m what?”

But there was no time to protest. The director shouted for quiet. Drones hovered overhead. Cameras moved in. A man whispered into a headset.

Then someone handed her a child—more prop than person. A toddler, limp in her arms, disturbingly lifelike.

“Listen, sweetheart,” a production assistant whispered. “Cry when the smoke hits.”

The smoke hit.

Carla cried.

It came out raw, from somewhere real. “That’s real,” she gasped, coughing through the smoke.

Later that night, she watched the footage on the news. Civilian caught in a blast, the anchor reported, gravely. Among them—her.

Carla tried to quit.

But every time she made the decision, another “assignment” appeared—always with her already in it.

A flood took out a backroad in some unnamed town. She stood chest-deep in water, holding a different child—also not real—crying tears that weren’t hers.

Then a courthouse shooting. Then riots in a foreign land.

Each time, she awoke in the middle of it, dazed, in a new costume, cameras already rolling.

Another call. Another crisis.

She couldn’t remember getting there, but she was always there.

Finally, she tried to reach her agent. Four times, before her agent actually picked up.

“Carla, you’re not seeing the big picture,” the woman sighed. “You’ve been in a rut. What’s it been—two years? All your roles dried up. You’re not getting any younger. You needed something new.”

“But this isn’t film. This is… something else.”

“It’s work.”

“I don’t want to be in one crisis after another. This is… wrong.”

“Carla,” her agent said gently, “beggars can’t be choosers. Listen—this is a Netflix world now.”

“This is on Netflix?”

“I’m telling you: whatever they’re filming, people are seeing it. The thing you shot yesterday—it’s in the paper today. Looks like real news. Just you and a bunch of ‘grieving civilians’ standing in smoke. It looks good.”

Carla’s voice cracked. “I don’t think this is legal. I thought the news was supposed to be true.”

“Don’t be naïve. Look, everyone compromises. Some people take off their clothes and don’t want to, but they do it for the role.”

“I have a no-nudity clause.”

“Exactly. And this is your niche. Crying, chaos, realism—this is what you do. You’re finally getting seen.”

She went quiet.

Her agent continued, “It’s on TV. It’s in the papers. Isn’t that where you wanted to be? 

You’re just… cutting out the middleman.”

“I don’t know,” Carla whispered. “I don’t know. I need to stop. These roles are taking over my life.”

“Too late. You signed the contract.”

That woman in the green A-line dress. Those men in gray pantsuits. The clipboard. The fake smile. The endless flickering lights.

“You signed,” her agent repeated. “Didn’t you?”

Carla said nothing.

She woke up again—this time in a marketplace. Smoke drifted. Sirens wailed. 

Something had exploded. She was already mid-scream.

She blinked, confused, tears already streaming.

Reality had slipped.

She wasn’t acting anymore. She was living these scripts.

Later, in her coat pocket, she found a note:

Congratulations. You’ve become indispensable to our production.

There was no escape.

She memorized her crisis lines.

And she just kept crying.

                                                                      *   *   *

Allison Whittenberg is an award winning novelist and playwright. Her poetry has appeared in Columbia Review, Obisidian, Feminist Studies,J Journal, and NewOrleans Review. Whittenberg is a ten-time Pushcart Prize nominee. They Were Horrible Cooks is her collection of poetry. Killing the Father of Our Country is her latest novel.