And here begins Act II. Horatio's hatred for Fortinbras boiled whilst masqueraded under a friendly and courteous smile in the present; and in the past, Ophelia's past actions allowed me to gain a psychological advantage in a scheme full of blackmail and control. King Hamlet–whose fate after he survived King Claudius' poisoning attempt was not yet revealed–went into the shadows to work on a secret project that involved smuggled materials he grabbed just before he escaped the palace. Meanwhile, Horatio works under a new boss to try and dismantle Fortinbras' empire from the inside.
And returning to the engaging blackmail subplot–which demands more attention as it fills the pages of my book with engaging thrill, like a work of dramatic fiction that screams (nay, beckons and begs) to be told–Ophelia walked away with a look of disgust on her face, a frown that spoke of disillusionment against my cause and a resentment to my mere presence. She scoffed at my existence before she left–what foulness–and stomped off to her own room somewhere in the hallways lined with marble statues and Greek pillars and white walls that were secretly disgraced with foul secrets and dirty crimes, the hallways marked with invisible sins and terrible wrongdoings. Despite this, I was inspired to believe that there was more good than bad, and that the sins–despite many–could not overwhelm the forces of good within the castle, such as the common guards (Horatio, Marcellius, Francisco, Kingbaldier, and the others) and the higher order guards (Captain Kesver and the others) and the servants Tilda and Beau, and the others who work tirelessly to keep the castle in order.
Ophelia turned to me one last time, contemplating forgiving me for the traumatic events she had suffered under my watch, the degrading remarks I made whilst caring for her, the effeminizing comments I made about the way she looked and dressed, the control I held over her just because I wanted to protect her from the other men; she contemplated forgiving me for abusing her, for verbally lashing at her until she fit the image of her that I saw; she contemplated forgiving me for being me; and she considered forgiving me for being the person who I was, for being a person birthed by their environment, for being a person who was not defined as this at birth, but slowly being built up by my surroundings, whipped and scorned into the hideous man I was at the time; she wanted to forgive me for things I deserved no forgiveness for, and give me another chance. She almost considered walking back into the bedroom and accepting an apology I refused to give at the time, walking back into my clutches and giving me a hug she knew I could not reciprocate with a single penny of genuine intention, giving me a hug even though she knew I would squeeze her dry. She wanted to be mine, and she desperately wanted to run back into my arms despite me being an intolerant, messy and a downright manipulative, abusive human being. She wanted nothing more than to be mine again and leave the past behind–the troubles and toil of the past, the sins Ophelia caused–and hurry back into my loving and tender embrace, because she knew deep down that I was the perfect partner for her.
But she looked me in the eyes, developed not one discernable emotion except for a weary teardrop, turned around and left without saying a single word. She left my abusive little fingers, my prickly grasp which let go of her not, my squirming, controlling, snaking and confiscating hands that snaked around her shoulders and held on as I pushed and pulled and tugged our relationship through a medley of good and bad times.
But it was only the bad times, wasn't it? We only experienced the bad times together, and I masqueraded it as me being more joyous than she, me being happy and her generally feeling indifferent–if not miserable–towards life's random, circumstantial and sometimes intentful happenings. Perhaps I was being abusive, and I was justifying actions for which there were no justifications.
And Ophelia walked down the hallway and into Polonius' bedroom, that damp and tiled pitch-black room wherein her father slept, wherein water dripped down the walls and occasionally there were clattering noises that could be heard by the butler Beau doing dishes from the adjacent laundry room or doing dishes downstairs in the basement kitchen, or trying to catch one of mine father's many pet cats as he chased after them and they dashed past his room, or by Tilda as she carried documents around the palace and to one of her four office spaces in the building, as she was ready to be promoted to a district manager and leave her job as a royal servant behind. She opened the door–which creaked as she pushed it aside–and walked into her father's room, wherein the blinds were shuttered and her father sat on his gray bed sheets in a pose that bore a vague resemblance to and later inspired The Thinker, and contemplated on his life for a moment. And for a short, sweet moment, Ophelia thought of her life with him, sitting under his arm and leaning against her father as they just pondered without talking to each other for a moment quickly elapsed, disturbed by my rage as I threw a fit and ranted towards Tilda, screaming at her about in a fit of untempered rage while Polonius had a look of disgust and discomfort plastered across that smug face of his as I told Tilda some rather nice things, some unkind things, and some terrible things that I later had to apologize to her for.
Polonius leaned into Ophelia's ear and whispered, "I presume Hamlet broke up with you, and now he wants you back again?" Ophelia nodded, and Polonius continued, "I'm only the advisor to the king. I don't have the authoritative power to act here or issue a restraining order against Hamlet without getting his consent as well. If you wanna do a confidential restraining order that doesn't require his approval, contact our Claims Manager Barnardo; he can do the paperwork and you can bypass our nonsensical regular laws."
"Thank you father," muttered Ophelia, wiping the tears from her face. "I will see if I can have a restraining order filed by dinnertime." Ophelia rose and departed from her father's somewhat shadowy presence, her hands softly placed at her sides and tears beginning to flow more continually down her cheeks, like a river streaming off the edge of a creek and plummeting against the side of a dirt cliff (not a rocky one, for her face was smoother than rocks) and into the river of tiles, the maze of indented flooring. She knew the layout of this place well enough that she stumbled into the office of the Claims Manager's office, the office of a man titled Officer, and his whole name was Barnardo Rodriguez.
Officer Barnardo–recognizing Ophelia–stood up, walked towards her, shook her hand and invited her to sit down. "Welcome, Ophelia!" he cried with great joy. "What brings you here today?"
"You see, officer–" Ophelia began, before she was quickly interrupted as I entered the office.
Officer Barnado's office wasn't too bad; he had a swiveling chair clothed in maroon leather and situated behind an adjustable desk, and he had a computer seated on his table with papers and folders organized neatly about the table, and he had pictures of his family nicely framed within the photos–which were themselves neatly framed, and he had the outgoing documents in one box under his desk and the incoming documents and lawsuits and other things he needed to get signed off that were strewn about, papers that had incoherent signatures and documents labeled in clear, big serif-tacked letters, and smaller letters in the same font that were more or less not my problem, as I could discern what the papers were for based off the title.
Ophelia noticed me before the claims manager Barnardo did, as the charming officer shuffled through the papers in a drawer under his desk until he found the necessary legal documents, presenting them to Ophelia–like how one would present a golden crown of diamonds or a basket of chocolates and fruits, or a bouquet of roses, or a bucket of ice cream or a bowl of jelly beans, like the colorful bowl of bendy and succulent orbs that sat below his necktie and behind his computer screen, waiting for him to pick one out and pop it into his mouth, chew on it with his disgustingly perfect and silky white maws of salivation behind which a salivating pink worm waited to snag the food and push it down the officer's perfect esophagus where it would be broken down by his perfect acids and generally be perfect–before he looked up at me, gulped nervously and sputtered, "H–hello, Hamlet sir. Welcome to my office." Officer Barnardo rose from his seat and offered me a handshake, swiftly smiling with a courtesy that mocked any challenges to its legitimacy, whereas his former smile was forced, unauthentic.
I accepted the handshake; but instead of sitting down, I shuffled over to the darkest corner of the room and sulked, watching from a distant corner as Ophelia conversed with Officer Barnardo in mere whispers, utterances so quiet and secretive I could almost label them as illusions–the sight of indiscernible words almost convincing me that this conversation was a falsehood, an incoherent motion of lips intended to trick my senses into believing something audible was being spat out–but I knew that Ophelia and this charming officer were discussing something, and I was just out of the know. I was not meant to listen to this conversation, but whoopsie, poor old Hamlet barges in and now you aren't allowed to gossip about him behind his back anymore! I mean, explain this: from the outside of the hallway–I tailed Ophelia to this office, where the electric fan spun loudly and the temperature burned more than my attempt at cooking a fancy steak for her: my formerly beloved, soon-to-be bride–and I overheard her talking to herself, mentioning that she'd had enough of me and wanted nothing more than to slap me in the face and storm off in a huff, muttering to herself about her emotional struggle and how she was burdened with taking care of me and other untrue things that portrayed me to be a spoiled, rotten, spilled over yolk that whose egg shell was shattered into crusty, flaky pieces and dampened the carton it was in.
It was utterly clear to me at the time that Ophelia was making no efforts to defend me, and that any attempts to persuade her to stay with me were foolish, and any attempts to secretly pressure her into running back towards me would have no effect on her; she had moved on from my beautiful presence; and unless I was willing to make massive changes about my personality, Ophelia would not be swept back into my arms again, bedazzled by my face, bathing in my amazing presence as she once did on the night of our first date, walking down the plaza in Elsinore with our hands intertwined and our eyes staring at nobody else's but each other's, our gazes prolonging their meeting even as a waiter sauntered over to our table and took our orders, my infinite rizz breaking into her heart like a thief into a bank, settling itself within the cold, dark and desolate regions of her left atrium and sitting there; and indeed, the only thing filling that damp and sweaty place was the bright beacon of light that was my love for her.
She was everything to me! But at this moment, what was I to her? Why, she might as well walk up to my face, stab me in the stomach and drop me to the floor if I mean so little; here she is, blabbering her silent mouth to the claims manager about me without even giving me a look for consideration. She doesn't have the gall to give me the credit I deserve for shaping her into who she is!
Why, if she were more understanding of my plight, perhaps she would want to be me! Perhaps we could swap roles–she could be the supposed abuser and I the supposed abused–and maybe, just maybe she would understand that I have justifications, reasons! She should take my place, and maybe then she'll see what it's like! She hasn't seen how my soul is being dragged back to the inferno–it is slow, painful, heart-wrenchingly terrifying, and a gutting sight for all to see!
It is a terrible sight, indeed it is! Ophelia has lost her mind thinking that she's the one who (in her short-as-a-burnt-wick lifetime) witnessed terrible things! Why, if this is traumatizing to her, then I can't imagine how she'd react to me stabbing her father believing it to be my uncle Claudius! Oh right, she joins a forest pixie cult, is baptized in a brook filled with flowers and comes back out of the forest pixie cult as a pixie goddess, ravaging through Elsinore and seeking out those who've wronged her… including me, of all people, even though I was the one who introduced her to the brook where she later on met the pixie cult (I knew where that brook was because it was the same river where my father was attacked by crocodiles, and it was the same river where Ophelia and myself spent the rest of our first date, canoeing down the river and watching the stars as they flashed across a violet-blue night sky.
So my beloved Ophelia walks into this claims manager's office, sits down with him and basically gossips with him about me! She basically makes a foolery about me and crafts a sob story to which the gentleman Officer Barnardo believes! What stupidness is this, that Ophelia can get away with such things only to slander me to such a swooning rizzler and get away with it, but when I lambast Ophelia and slap her until her cheek turns a rosy red, she has the right to report me to the authorities, for I have wronged her?!
And fie, the eternal flames oncemore attempt to consume me, but I won't let them, for although "Hamlet is abusive!" whispers Ophelia and "He was never kind to me!" claims she, I did her no wrong! Nay, I will not be swallowed for telling the truth!
Barnardo rose from his desk, carrying a folder in his arms and marching it over to me–as if it was a crown on a presentable, plush and periwinkle pillow… pfft!
I ripped the folder from his arms and flipped through the papers–a divorce document, a restraining order, other miscellaneous paperwork all filled with useless legal jargon that even a conman lawyer would not need in order to swipe cash from a cash register, some other bits of paperwork that had photocopies of written allegations and whatnot, and even some things signed by attorneys who knew too little about our relationship to have a say in this matter! They were trying to separate me from my beloved Ophelia (and I could not just stand by and let this happen, for it would be treacherous to allow mine Ophelia to wander off into the arms of another much more caring, kinder and sweeter man who won't use tough love to beat her and mold her and carve her into my desired form), so I ran up to the royal-looking officer that wore a tank top and short-shorts and a faux-crocodile belt, unsheathed a foil from my pocket and cried, "Charge at me, you stupid governing nitwit!"
Barnardo, twisted by some unnecessary rage, unsheathed a foil and replied, swiping his sword at me, "No you, sus man!" Barnardo cut at me, but I was too swift for him, and I chopped a paper sheet's worth of denim from his shorts, impaling it on my sword like it was a barbeque and mine sword a BBQ stick!
Consumed by a visceral, inexplicable anger, I ran at Barnardo as quickly as I could; our foils met, but my sword slid down his horizontally-angled foil and slipped down, denting one of the marble tiles in the ornately-decorated marble room (wherein the only non-marble thing you could probably point out easily was the glass window, as even the retractable pens were carved out of some sort of marble, or were at least marble-based… anyway, the hellscapes are consuming me once more, so I should probably expedite my storytelling process. "You are trying to steal my Ophelia, aren't you?" I cried, charging at him with my foil and swiping at his knees. My foil cut against my slippers (of course I wear slippers) trimming them like a man would trim a bush if it overgrew and swiping back up, twirling and revisiting its starting grip in my hands. I charged at Barnardo again, and again, and again, each attempt becoming more futile; and each time he got better at parrying me. Finally, I had reached my breaking point; I cut down Barnardo's chest, ripping open his suit to reveal a Target logo, as he was formerly a Target employee after all (and he clearly still worked there for some inexplicable reason.)
"Foiled again by Hamlet's epic sigma rizz!" he cried! Flourishing his foil and sheathing it into his belt, he hunkered back into his desk, slumping into his swirly-twirly chair and lambasting himself for being so stupid under his own breath. He was indeed defeated, broken by my fencing skills to such a degree that he had given up on even trying, and he oncemore resorted to self-degradation and self-deprecation to feel even an inch of emotion, just like how I am attempting everything in my power right now to not get sucked into the depths and annals of Hell just because I am defending my actions towards Ophelia, arguing that what I did was rough but necessary, a needed hatred and scorn to teach my bride a lesson! "How I am defeated this terrible afternoon gives me great anger!"
Drawing upon the last terminals of patience I had, I resorted to a fine discussion with both Ophelia and the pleasant looking officer, attempting as best as I could to resolve this situation quickly so that I wouldn't miss my appointment with the queen and king and the senators, and so that I may receive more praise for my missionary works in Elsinore instead of facing Ophelia's nauseating, non-stop complaints and lambasts (I use that word a lot, don't I?) I just wanted to get out of there so that the people of Elsinore could enjoy my presence again, bathe in my glory and see me for the wonderful man that I am!
And Ophelia, riddled with the confidence that she has, had the gall to say, "Hamlet is an abusive spouse. He blames me for things, gaslights me and bosses me around. He never tells me that he loves me anymore, and I don't feel good around him." She murdered someone… good Lord, she pushed her car into someone! "Sometimes I want to just slap him in that arrogant face of his and leave him."
My Ophelia wants to leave me?! How dare she even conceive that thought, especially after the lengths I've gone to love and cherish her, the amount of beautification I've done to myself to look even merely presentable towards her!? The amount of sculpting and revisioning I've done to my own body, the horrendous and nasty-smelling essential oils I've applied to my skin and my chin and my scalp just so that she wouldn't complain about how I look is appalling, and the amount of shaving and trimming I've done to my beard just so she won't gossip noisily to her girlfriends about how ungroomed I look (thinking that I can't hear them whilst I'm in the kitchen making dinner, even though I can) is absolutely horrible! I've worked day and night to keep my complexity as white as her hairs, and now what?! She's now a literal goddess of the water pixies, and I'm slowly being doomed again to the eternal flames because I am somehow the worst thing to ever grace the face of the Earth!
And now I must apologize for my bitter lambasting against Ophelia for her bawdy gloating towards Officer Barnardo, and present you with something actually relevant to the story, a scene from the original play Hamlet which should frame the fates of some of the characters you'll find here a bit more clearly: we find Barnardo (who–by a favor from newly-crowned Claudius, sworn into his role as king mere months after the death of King Hamlet–was granted permission to step down from his role as Claim Manager and enlist in guard training instead), Horatio (who you should know from the context I wrote pertaining to the end of the play) and Marcellus (an oil-black haired character with chainmail armor and the sensitive ego of a con artist, for that was indeed his past life.)
The three men stumbled upon the ghost of my father–dry, pale and wearing a Gray Allegiance tee shirt that was lathered about his skimpy body rather than fitting it tightly, his hairs gray and his face muddy, and his eyes trapping the sneers and glares and pleads of the tortured souls rather than the kind gazes of angels. He looked parched–quenched, and not in the sense that he was dehydrated, but that he was tossed back into this mortal coil instead of flailing his arms in a boiling lake, purging away his sins until Heaven saw it fit to take him in. His eyes were removed of any pain–now cold and empty, as this apparition which bore vague resemblance to my father (yet not so much as to strike me too much) adapted and suited itself to the torture–a soullessness I deemed not permanent upon reviewing the dreadful scene from the hellish beyond, as King Hamlet was not foreign from the lakes of the rash, screaming Hell, but the puddles of the groaning, impatient Purgatory.
Marcellus (the youngest of the group) drew his lance on the spirit, attempting to strike it with Barnardo's and Horatio's encouragement. "Unfold yourself, spirit!" he cried, stepping so close as to get a clearer look at the spirit's muddy appearance and draw the foul and suspicious thing back, but not too close as to encourage the spirit to strike back at him. "Tell me who you are!"
"Strike at it!" Barnardo urged Marcellus, Barnardo himself swiping at the ghost with his lance. The ghost dodged his attack and assumed a fighting position, putting up his arms and taking a step back. When Barnardo tried to disarm the ghost, the ghost wrapped its left leg around the retired claims manager's body, jumped into the air and did a flip, sending Barnardo flying into one of the stone bricks, and indeed sending the man into a state of fading consciousness.
The ghost landed on its two feet, huffed and assumed the same stance, waggling its pointer finger with such a daring face that it could tempt a pacifist into war. Its eyes were no longer soulless, but filled with red anger and wrath; its hostile nature had become swiftly apparent, and the weary gray of its flesh glowed red with evil rage. Its veins bulged from its thin skin despite the man having no muscles, and its lips–once crusty and flaking–were now obsidian flats upon which one could construct great cities and breathtaking monuments.
Horatio stepped forward and held Barnardo (who–in a short period of time–regained his consciousness and oncemore tried to attack the spirit) and Marcellus back. "Beware of this apparition," cried Horatio, disallowing any sleep-deprived death-charges against the malevolent malefactor but his own. "For it tries to tempt us, but do not be tempted, my fellow soldiers!" Horatio suddenly felt pain–unbearable twists in his stomach that caused him to drop to his feet, and a burning in his legs that caused him to collapse to the floor like a falling structure–and he suddenly just froze, and the hellfires (as I write this) begin to consume me oncemore, but I must fight back.
My father was a legendary kickboxer, proven when Marcellus swiped with his lance and the ghost of my murdered father dodged the attack and slammed his fist into Marcellus' right side, waves of pain running up Marcellus' spine and rattling his brain like it was a coagulation of pink, plucked, prickly pickles in a peculiar pickle jar. Marcellus was frozen–stunned for a minute, perchance two–at my father's reprise.
Though deceased he may appear, 'twas as if he was still living and material, a fleshy kind.
My father picked up his skills from Grandpa Astris, who trained him every day until he could punch through a block of concrete without a flinch. He was driven through relentless hours of one-two punches, uppercuts and crosses, driven to the edge of madness, broken down so he could be rebuilt as a stronger man. My father complained to me about how his father always pushed him to be better; but if I'm being honest, I kind of appreciated what Grandpa Astris did to my father. It made him a tougher man, and I wish my father did the same for me.
Marcellus lunged at the ghost, and the ghost–barely flinching–stepped back, allowing Marcellus to plunge his lance into a bale of hay.
Horatio surprised the ghost from behind, but the apparition of mine father simply dodged every attack (the ghost refused to consume its energy to parry such weak murder attempts) and grabbed the lance (the blade slicing across its hand) and snapped the blade in two, only kicking Horatio away after the murder weapon was in twain.
The eldest Barnardo–finally, with the look of a fair and courteous fencer in his eyes, as if he were merely sparring against an opponent with dull foils and this was merely a match for spectators to hail and enjoy–approached the ghost, plunging forward with his lance. The ghost moved his hip out of the lance's impaling motion, put his left hand up and threw a right cross, moving his right leg back and swinging it forward parallel to his strong punch and knocking Barnardo down with a kick and cross, and departing as the three men returned to a clear and mindful state.
"It's not any normal spirit that appears before us tonight," Marcellus screamed with terror. "It's something else. It's something with skin, and spirits do not have skin, Barnardo… Horatio! What are you doing?"
Horatio was on his knees feeling the soil, as if whatever was in the ground beneath them had an indication of this purported spirit's nature. He ran his fingers through a field of weeds, the crease between his roughly trimmed nails catching pebbles, mud and fertilizer, his skin turning an inflamed red and his fingers mostly remaining level with the ground until his middle and index fingers got caught in a ditch. After tracing his fingers around the ditch, he yanked a few weeds out and revealed footprints, showing to the others a trail of steps going in the same direction the ghost had, much to the others' surprise. "Indeed," he muttered, "it is flesh, what we have here."
"If it is flesh," decreed Marcellus, impatiently pointing his lance at the footsteps left by the supposed ghost of my father, "then let us follow it and learn its allegiance!" Marcellus charged through the weeds, slashing apart the parched foliage with his lance and making haste through his newly-created path through the garden of dead, overgrown invasive plant specimens and following the footsteps (deep, heavy steps that left more of a mark in the soil than a boulder tumbling down a hill after a landslide) towards a bright red barn, dampened maroon from the rain with painted white stripes running across the cracked–open gate, the rainfall slamming against the roof like steel droplets as Marcellus entered the dark, gloomy interior and beheld the shadowy ghost.
The ghost of my father was in an entranced state, hovering midair and speaking in a tongue Marcellus could not recognize. The chickens were in their coops, the horses in their stables, all animals within this droopy, glib environment quivering in fear as my father's eyes glowed with agitated hatred; and to Marcellus, it was becoming increasingly clear that the ghost he witnessed that night was not my father's, but something much more frightful. Its neck twisted–a gut-twisting snap echoing through the clouds that sicklied over the night sky–and it spoke to Marcellus in an English tongue. "How dare you interrupt my meditative sleep!" it cried.
That's when Barnardo and Horatio burst in, immediately met by the same sight as Marcellus, their ears frightened at the terrifying screeches, bone-snapping and jaw-mangling that enveloped their gazes as flames would stock wood, the crackling red eyes of a man's spirit that was bound to do earthly wandering by its unfinished business, an evil resilience so powerful that it ripped holes into the framework of the barn's walls, splinters bearing the weight of dictionaries piercing inwards and turning the interior into a room of wooden needles and things that scared the Moon away from its post, and the floorboards (one by one) flew upwards and protruded the ceiling and turning it into a shell befitting of a porcupine.
The three men dropped their chainmail armor and revealed black leather trench coats (beneath which were spider black denim jeans and sleeveless shirts of the same hue) and removed their helmets, revealing spiky metal-black mohawks with streaks of a fluorescing purple. They unsheathed bass guitars from their scabbards and aimed them at the luminescent apparition, playing a screechy tune as neon-orange laser streams snaked out from their red-black rock 'n roll devices and shot into my father's ghost at such high speeds, filling his body with blazing light and seemingly dissipating his form, evaporating what was once left of my father's spirit from the Earth and leaving just a pile of soot beneath Horatio's feet!
And as the men leave the barn–planning to report these findings back to me–we return to Officer Barnardo, Ophelia and I, discussing our divorce!
Officer Barnardo and I argued back and forth on the specifics of what the divorce would entail for each of us: we would both still get marriage benefits like reduced healthcare costs, insurance coverages and reduced loan interests, but I was not allowed to visit my beloved Ophelia or be in the same conference as her, and she could not visit me or attend conferences that I attended (which drove me furious!) I pleaded with Officer Barnardo to retract those last two terms–as this meant that if Ophelia made it to today's senate meeting before I did, I would not be permitted to enter–but he did not budge to my begging; rather, he carried a pleasant smile on his face that was barely holding back a temper tantrum (and I admired his calmness throughout this entire thing, because I myself am prone to temper tantrums, yet I never hold back when I get angry.)
Officer Barnardo pulled me close and muttered into my ear, "I have a meeting to attend to, and if you don't speed things up and accept the terms and conditions of our agreement, I'm afraid I'll be late to said meeting." He shoved me back into my seat (also swirly-whirly) and spoke with further calmness, "So I suggest we get going and sign the darned thing, eh?"
Ophelia spun around in her chair and faced me, pressuring me into signing the contract that would seal our relationship shut permanently, shoving our years of endlessly love and our beckonings for that dreamed-of wedding day into the file cabinets of some then-random claims manager permanently, sealing our fates behind a tin storage locker, never to be discovered for eons! It was as if our entire affair was fictional, and we were characters trapped in a play, our love doomed to never work out! What, did she want to work on her play more–The Murder Of Gonzago, that is–than she wanted to spend time with me?! What was this mockery? She had love for me, but her ability to express it was that of a pigeon's ability to express it's love, and at that moment I was so determined to cleanse Ophelia of her impurities that I wanted to get her to a nunnery at once, especially when she urged me further, "Sign the papers, Hamlet."
I–once with my back towards her–whipped around and slapped her in the face, my flat palm almost phasing through her cheek like it was an airy substance, gas particles manifesting as a pretty gal that my hand cut through with a subtle wind current following it. She held her rosy and fair face (as if 'twas a pearl) and a tear slipped down her cheek, running down her face and onto her Supreme shirt. "You can't tell me to sign those papers after everything we've been through!" I cried, stomping against the floor, my left foot squishing her shoes. "We've been through too much to stop our relationship now!"
Ophelia continued to weep as she stormed out of the office, rubbing her fists against her blubbering eyes and rocking her feet off the floor, kicking them out to her sides, ducking her head away from a sea of curious eyes and charging down a room full of cubicles wherein the eyes were smeared across an ocean of bobbling faces, words and stifled sobs staggering out from her lips like she did from the office. Her eyes flooding with a cacophony of melodramatic tears, I surmised that she would never understand how much I sacrificed to get her to where she was in the play, and that she was not thankful for my role in her life as someone who pushed her to do better, a person who ravenously carved out her personality through my vigor and wrath. Indeed, I was a necessary evil in a world full of unnecessary evils.
Yet here she was, bawling and running away from the office, unappreciative of the work I put into shaping her character, molding her behaviors, unthankful for my attempts at breaking down her psyche so that I could build her back up. She was the framework, but I was the foundation on which the steel pillars were constructed. Whilst tears trickled down her face and splattered down onto the office tiles beneath her, I reassured myself that what I had done was the right thing, and that I (appropriately, as always) made the correct decisions on her behalf, justly scorning her for her betterment and improving my status in God's eyes.
But alas, even the noblest of actions receive retribution when tough love is a sin.
Upon my death, I found myself standing in front of the pearly gates, my soul shackled by invisible cuffs, my new spiritual form being escorted by a horde of angel-winged lions whose clawed paws left footprints across a sea of cloudy pastures, wildstock stepping out of the way and observed my slow, tense crawl towards a swift judgment; I was being paraded down the golden paths of Heaven like a despised king to a guillotine by his mutinying servants, bulls with eagle wings (that had a pair of bulky and sinewy wings fluttering out from each bull's spine, feathers swarming the the shadows and consuming everything beneath it in light) sounding off golden instruments that were too glimmery for me to initially make out. I tried to move and block out the light, but the binds attached to my figure were too powerful to break free of. There were winged sheep too, mumbling quietly amongst themselves, darting me dirty looks as I–strapped to a radiant, gloss-white platform with a parade of livestock taking me to my own reckoning–wriggled and squirmed within the confines of my Heavenly stretcher-like contraption. This apparatus was a divinely-radiating hand truck, with a golden control panel on the side, the radiating image of Jesus pounded into a crucifix attached to the top of this prism I was strapped to–as if the other things once bound to this stretcher were so powerful that only the power of God could stop them from escaping–and there were several latches and levers that did different things, released different incapacitating gasses and (I surmised, from the brief stretches of conversation I heard whilst my consciousness fading in and out like a pulsing ceiling lamp) there was a button on the side that could send spikes poisons right into my veins, venomous fluids designed to kill even immortal spirits by a fallen angel and scientist that resided within these cloudy scapes at one point in time.
According to the rumors that I heard–whispers between spirits in this realm, sin-free apparitions that took the shape of glowy yellow orb clusters that vaguely resemble humans if I squint hard enough–the mechanism was invented by a spirit who wandered the stressless plains whilst prototyping locomotive models in his shop (for in Heaven, the only obligation was to enjoy the land of the pure at your own leisure and to gather on Sundays to worship the Lord.) He was trying to invent a propeller mechanism that could shuttle his model locomotives off into the distance, and in messing around with spikes in place of the model trains, he invented something macabre out of the divine. One of the spirits–speaking in a low whisper, careful to not have this important discussion disturbed by pokey souls with their noses in other people's business–proposed that whatever monstrous thing created this mechanism of the contraption used it to murder his fellow angels and was cast down to Hades. A revolution happened in Hades (the prisoners were set free to roam the Underworld and wreak havoc on the afterlife of the damned, ripping apart the crisply-burnt support pillars, ripping up the worn crimson coal that made up the Mephistophelian beams that kept the place standing) and the leading mutineer was dubbed the new ruler of Hell: a vicious, bloodthirsty and ravenous man that threatened punishment over the smallest of transgressions against his regime and a man that quenched rebellion like 'twas thirst, akin to a ruthless drug-peddler on Earth. And while the angels didn't enjoy the idea of killing, they understood that it was an important safety feature, and (after burning any replicas and instructions on creating the device) the eldest angels (jolly seraphim, much like the others I previously described) to use the mechanism solely for this hand truck.
And then I was brought before God. He was tall. Comforting presence and a guarding eye, and a soft but firm voice. Just how I imagined He'd be.
I argued my case before God, of course. I told Him how Ophelia was a beggar and an adulterer that used every situation for her own benefit. I told Him how my "abuses" against Ophelia were necessary to keep her in line. I told Him that Ophelia plunged her car into a homeless man after wanting to pull a racist joke.
Ophelia had gotten away with far too much, but so had I. I used Ophelia as an outlet for my anger and the price paid was her sanity (but luckily, she was transformed in that brook when it was enchanted by water pixies, and I'll explain all of this later.) I lashed out at my family and friends despite their best efforts at helping me, and I shut them out at the most crucial point in my emotional development. I almost killed my beloved Ophelia's father Polonius (he was only saved by a last minute heart transplant that occurred off-stage, a medical procedure too gory to describe in graphic detail that happened at the rear-end of the play. As the events flickered into my eyes through the visage of a security camera recording–the timestamps barely legible in the bottom right hand corner, the footage black and white–I came to the conclusion that indeed, I was (for the most part) responsible for the rancid events that happened throughout Ophelia's wanderings on the mortal plane, and I was responsible for the near-death of Polonius, and I was responsible (in part) for the near-death of King Garfield Hamlet–my father and King of Denmark and the epic kickboxing sensei; for on the night my uncle snuck up to the former patriarch, creeping across a field of sunflowers and up to my fast-asleep father and tipping over a teapot, siphoning poison into the ear of the man I looked up to as if this were a mere stranger, slowly pouring the poisonous, slippery liquid as if it were tea and my father's carved-up, undefined faculties a teacup for my uncle to store his bittersweet refreshments in (why, he might as well store boiling acid in that siphon, for my father bursting to his senses and screaming in agony caused as much of a scandal as all of Elsinore deeming my father dead and my uncle usurping his throne) I knew that Uncle Claudius intended to kill my father that night, and I did nothing to prevent what I saw as an inevitability.
As I explained to God, my uncle was sauntering down the hallways of Elsinore on a suspiciously clear night–strolling down a chamber filled with dramatically posed statues and marble walls, gold-lined window sills with beams of pearl moonlight glimmering through the foggy glass window, permanently burning my uncle's reflection into the side of the wall–escorted by the butler Beau and the maid Tilda. He walked past half-open doors that looked into private quarters, dormitories filled with servants mopping and vacuuming every inch of floor, young children running around with dusters, dressed in dirty blue overalls and dusting off maroon vases and pots carefully as they had been instructed; he walked past an outstretched dining room filled with ornate decor–cabinets filled with relics from dominions past, notebooks and portraits and framed photos of the royals before them, a TV mounted to the back wall that showed the history of Elsinore as it suffered through the World Wars and became the monumental, spanning castle that it was today.
My uncle and the royal servants ducked around a corner and strolled past the swimming pool–a glossy marble arena of foamy waters whose chlorine fragrance struck even the farthest ends of the castle with a pungent aroma. He paused and observed as a couple played with a volleyball–a woman with long brown hair and freckled skin pitching the mummified sports ball over a net and towards a man with an oil black beard and long, scruffy black hair; they exchanged the ball back and forth before turning to Claudius with curiosity-struck expressions across their moist faces. King Claudius returned their peculiar stare until they returned to their nightly activity, and thereafter continued down the chambers (which, as the night went on, were slowly filled with the soft glow of the Moon and its surrounding stars) and turned about a pillar, creeping his way like a centipede into the garden and obscured by the shroud of flowers, plants and general brush. There my father laid–arms stretched out over the lawn chair, his storm gray pearls masked from the world in his soon-eternal sleep, his crusty toes curled and growing aberrations on the edges, discolored protrusions growing like barnacles on a pirate ship; his face had freckles splattered randomly across it, and his sweet, delicate smile was now plagued by wrinkles; there was a bump growing from out from his golden beard like a stone protruding from a field of golden corals, and there were little smaller bumps slipping out from under his chin and sticking out from his neck; he had little twitches in the flaps on his skin while he slept, little tics on his forehead that flapped his brow up and down and almost brought him to life as my uncle removed the siphon from the satchel, and we arrive at the very moment I described earlier, and I reveal the detail in this attempted murder case that will plague me forever: I overheard Claudius as he planned this all out in his quarters, and I witnessed him pour the poison into my father's ear, peeking from around a corner as my uncle (without a remorseful bat of his brow) attempted to poison my father.
It was a scene so foul and wretched that I almost vomited and exposed myself, and my uncle (his scraggly, long gray beard and gray ruffs billowing as he walked away from my father's writhing body) adjusted himself without a care in the world! He–wearing a white trench coat, white tee and white denim jeans that were tainted by my father's blood–had the nerve to run his fingers through a field of thorned roses, as if he hadn't just tried to snuff out my father's beating heart and extinguish his bleating breath! It was a horrid sight that nearly urged me to attack, but knowing from a clairvoyant that this series of events would avoid catastrophe, I elected to stand back and let things play out!
Around two hours before my uncle attempted to cut down an innocent life in cold blood, I entered the office of a clairvoyant by the name of Barrett Sinistruf, a supposed fortune teller and a practitioner of his magical talents for years. His office was quaint and gloomy, and at the back wall there were many posters that summarized his entire life's story: oval shaped family portraits; mediocre photos of him sitting in a classroom desk and hunching over a textbook, photos of him performing dramatic magical acts at his middle school play and obsessing over witchcraft in high school. There were also posters of his various performances at rented out garage lots, peddling his brand of magic in front of the Elsinore State Building and traveling around the world to sell his props for money. He was poor (he explained to me) and he needed the money to fund his mother's recovery and get his family back on its feet. His mother was in a hospital not too far from here, and above Denmark's red and white striped flag with the silky white stars strikingly blazing across a blue corner was a framed picture of his mother.
His mother had short black hair that curled up as it reached her neck, she wore a sleeveless gown and composed herself with the utmost professionalism, always walking or standing in these photos with her fingers interlaced at her hips and her arms propper up, her shoes bearing no less sheen than the least shiniest bar of gold. She had eyes that shone orange even in the black and white shades that filled the monotone world around her, and a sly, warm, maternal smile that masqueraded itself behind a bland expression. There was something that pulled at my heartstrings about the image despite not knowing much about Barrett's mother; perhaps it was what he did tell me–combined with the images framed on the walls of this fortune teller's hideout–that was telling enough to make me feel the emotions I currently felt, but minimal enough to not say everything. Perhaps it was some spark of empathy that I had in me that crawled out and reached for Barrett's hand.
Perhaps it was actual love I felt, but I ignored my own emotions for now and sat down on a silky carpet embroidered with wonderful stripes and strikes of color, the fortune teller Barrett sitting across from me. I told him the purpose of my meeting–that I (arrogant as ever) was curious about my fate and the fate of those around me, and that I sought to prolong my lifespan by dodging all possibilities of death, or permanent death at least. He turned his body around and pulled a magical crystal orb from a drawer, one that radiated with glorious light and was grafted to a much less presentable stone. He placed it between us and offered me his hands–which I took, and then he placed our hands on the stone–and he smiled. In his smile and in his hands, I could feel warmth; but, it wasn't a physical warmth–no, it was a warmth much more deep and meaningful than the Sun's heat or the manifestation of energy. He emanated the warmth of a real and true human being.
But then flashes filled my eyes; and from the way his hands trembled and his shut eyes twitched and burst open in momentary intervals, I could tell he was seeing the same things I was: a father, nearly poisoned; a romance, divided; a dozen or so resurrections; death fighting life; two mechazoids charging at each other, filling the entirety of the surrounding area with awe and light; an empire rising to fill the shoes of a cast out leader, and two men joining forces to combat the tyranny and put an end to the horrors of war. Then I saw nothing, and I woke up to the fortune teller's quaky voice as he stumbled around, his hands no longer holding mine, his mind and body wandering with aimless direction and random bursts of speed, his tangerine beard twisted and raggy like the fur on an orange blanket, his eyes darting around the room before landing on me. At that moment, it was very clear that he had seen more than I had–or at least he had seen clearer visions of the ones I saw, despite our hands being linked–and he was obviously trying to wrangle together every single inkling of thought he had to steer me away from an unavoidable fate.
He was clearly worried about something so devastating yet so unavoidable, but I was too arrogant to accept the terrible maws of fate, so I asked, "Is my future terrible?"
"Indeed it is," he stammered, stuffing the orb back into the dusty gray drawer from which he found it. He drew a stack of cards which randomly either read "YES" or "NO" out of thin air and pondered a series of questions in his mind. Then he slammed the cards out onto the rug like a venus flytrap swooping down to catch an insect, sweat pouring down his face like the tears that sometimes ran down mine, his eyes trembling as the cards read "NO" "NO" "NO" "NO" and "NO".
"What does that mean?" I asked him. "What questions did you ask?" I didn't know much about the fortune telling business, but I knew that getting five nos in a row was probably a bad sign for me; although, the arrogant half of me wanted to be hopeful that these five same answers meant something good.
"The first no was to me asking if you'd be successful in your romantic endeavors with Ophelia," cried Barrett. "The second no was to me asking if you'd succeed him as the ruler of Elsinore. When I consulted the orb, it said that King Claudius trying to murder your father and failing would mean you too would fail, so I asked if there's any way he'd succeed, and the orb on a thrice occasion said no. The fourth no was to if Fortinbras–who as you know, is trying to invade Elsinore–fails in his conquest. The fifth no was to if you'd overthrow him."
"So I fail at everything," I realized, rising from the carpet. "I don't romance Ophelia, I don't rule Elsinore and Fortinbras wins." I shook his hands and walked out of his dainty hideout, turning back around to look at him one last time, my eyes pleading with him to bestow some hint of positive news upon me; but his reciprocated glance only sung the notes of tragedy, a composition of musical notes wherein all of my accomplishments would falter like a terrible ending tacked onto an amazing song. He could barely stand to acknowledge me–to look me right in the face with honest eyes and tell me the truth, despite his downward facing eyes telling me everything I needed to know about my own fate, the outcome which no actions drastic or small could avoid, the faltering of musical notes that devolved further into the spit of death mingling with the wind of greatness in my life (the flute in this metaphor) and eventually the halting of this terrible instrumental orchestra that was my life.
It was something I contemplated when I dismissed the Players to go rehearse their play further, when I (alone) screamed my thoughts as if I couldn't be intruded upon. Dressed in a thick purple fur coat, screaming my intentions into the ghosts of my past (including what appeared to be my father, an apparition I had seen multiple times and accepted knowing full well it wasn't his ghost) and declaring my anger towards my inaction. "O, what a coward am I," I muttered, drawing a skull from my pocket and beholding it. "O what a poor man am I, that a false actor has more intent than me; what a coward am I that I can't avenge those who seek vengeance yet can't avenge themselves; what a terrible tragedy that this play unfolds out to be that those who can fight back choose not to, and that those whose voices have been silenced are still unable to! Someone mocks me, berates me; an internal voice slashes at me and dares me!
"Who goes there?!" I shouted, drawing my foil–prepared to fight whoever dares to intrude upon my monologue and derail my self-deprecating train of thought, although there was no face to greet me. Not even Ophelia–whose eyes were so comforting that you could host a nest of ravens in them and they would feel too cozy to crow–stood by the doorstep, awaiting my response. I sheathed my foil and continued, "How I have made a mess of things, it terrifies me so. But I fear myself not, and I promise myself this: although I am not sure that the ghost I saw is my father, I will find a reason to do this."
My heart pounced forward at that moment, beating along to the rhythm of my quick, air-battering words as I circled the bust of my crowned uncle. I faced the bust and drew my foil, slashing crosswise across the marble statue of Claudius' arrogantly beaming face. There were two gashes–slicing down across Claudius' left and right cheek and intersecting at the sharply built chin, his marked eyes looking smugly into mine. "Perhaps I am being tempted into my own damnation, but I'll have more justifications for my actions soon enough; for to catch his conscience quickly 'gainst the racing hours of day, tent him to the quick I must." My heart jumped again, and my mind raced with thoughts: how would I draw the king's conscience with just a play; what spectacle would be daring enough to draw the sins from his past and get his attention; what would be strong enough to lure his emotions into the light?
Thereafter, within my own words, I found the answer to my question. "The play!" I exclaimed, jumping up and down with glee as a plan formulated in my mind. "Perchance hear me out: I'll stage a play similar to the events that occurred that one fateful night, but not too similar that Claudius shall order my execution!
"I'll startle the king if he's guilty; and if he's innocent, it shalln't phase him!" I stormed out of the obscureness and flickering lighting within that room–the ornate pillars that glimmered with faint illumination from the mounted torches, swiveling chairs sitting by control panels that all faced one giant monitor. I stomped down the hallway with great haste and allowed the wind to shoot through the glass windows and hit my purple coat, ruffle my oil black hair and brew a torrent within my sleeves as I continued my monologue, once again drawing that crudely built skull from my pocket and beholding it, this time before a grand audience. "How sad is the skull of the fallen Yorick–struck down by the king, I shall avenge thee!"
Then Ophelia walked in on my monologue, her hands placed behind her back as she played with her short, curled brown hair and extended out her arm. She extended her arm with a melodramatic flavor in her voice, her vocal cords sputtering out a series of panicked words, "Hamlet, I have gifts of yours that I want to show you!" She walked towards me and I pranced–moreso stumbled–towards her with a sudden look of utter rage on my face. Something about the way Ophelia entered the room just frustrated me. "Accept it if you wish, for I offer your gifts–your letters, your wrapped gifts, e'rything, really–back to you right now!"
"I shall not take it, for I never truly imparted these gifts upon you with sincere appreciation, only a facade of nostalgia towards our memories!" I cried, turning away from her as if faced by Medusa's deathly grimace. "Why, why would I accept my own gifts, especially from someone whose disgrace necessitates that they find God and repent to Him directly for their transgressions instead of resorting to a figurehead priest?" I held an arm in front of my face, bracing myself against her as if she were the Sun and I were a fragile vampire, swiftly staggering backwards and coughing up a wad of spit too.
"But Hamlet, you once loved me," Ophelia claimed, fingering her curls and reaching out to snag me. "We were once a beautiful couple, do you remember not?"
"I remember nothing!" I cried, whipping around and slapping her across the face as she approached me. She staggered backwards and I struck her again, bringing my palm back to its resting position at my side.
Ophelia wheezed momentarily, halted her panicked breaths suddenly and entered a boxing position swiftly, daring me to a fight, muttering confidently, "You want to slap me like that again? C'mon young man, let's go!"
I charged at her, flailing my closed hands wildly through the air whilst with precision, she dodged every blow! I wrapped my arms around her stomach and lifted her into the air, she kicked me in the face and freed herself, she punched me in the stomach, I stumbled around a bit before aimlessly punching back, she skidded and cut me in the leg with her black sneakers and knocked me to the ground, I got to my knees as she did and tried to land a punch to her neck that she dodged, she grabbed me and threw me over her shoulders and I fell like a twig! I got to my knees and raised my fists–yikes, my back ached so much, and I felt like my spine was on the verge of collapsing in on itself as my bones jingled around in there, but anyway–she charged forward and struck me in the leg with an open palm and entered a karate pose, I imitated her and we jumped about each other, anticipating each others' moves and tempting each other into miscalculated action!
She taunted, "Why don't you strike first, pal? Too much of a coward to do so?"
Her arrogance in this comment irked me so much, she succeeded in luring me into combat; I suffered greatly for my impatience, and she karate chopped me in the chest! I staggered backwards, she prowled forwards like a cougar, I got back up and she whipped her left arm back! I foresaw an incoming punch, so I threw up my guards and blocked it; her punch flailed, I punched and missed, and we exchanged erratic, missing karate chops; I drew my fist back like a slingshot compounding with energy and resisting the urge to shoot forward, then I slingshotted my fist forward into her stomach! She dodged and we continued to linger around each other, she aimed at my left cheek with her knuckles and I dodged, I did the same and she dodged, and on, and on, and on until she finally landed a hit, and I dropped to the floor for the last time, finally putting me at her mercy, the fate of my life at that very moment to be decided by how compassionate she was feeling for me at the time.
But our sparring was quickly interrupted by the fanfare of the trumpets and the tubas, and an infantry of men wearing white makeup and dressed up in jingle-bell jester costumes paraded around the corridor, and Ophelia stopped pinning me against the floor. The jesters played pipes and stirred up almost a mocking musical medley, while the brass players wore short light blue hair that covered their left eyes and stored their brass instruments and other things in holsters when not using them. There were the purple-black guards with the black-red rock guitars slung on holsters as well, parading the king and queen on rugs supported by bamboo sticks from the Philippines. The guards passed us by, and King Claudius and Queen Gertrude insultingly only gave me a passing glance, only for the king to lift a new staff I hadn't seen before and order his parade to march forth. Ophelia could tell I was insulted, and she tried to comfort me, but nothing could comfort me when the king made such a mockery out of my father's legacy; for the man who I once considered a loving uncle (and a father figure when my father was absent) was now usurping my father's title and changing the meaning of a ruler.
"You see," Ophelia began to explain, "Your uncle ordered for the creation of a new staff, and–"
"No!" I interrupted, slapping her with the back of my palm and muttering to myself about how miserable my life was: woe is me, how tragic is this, my father's work is now in shambles, his grave has been defiled by the survivors and whatnot. I rushed after my uncle–who sat atop a throne that itself was atop a tightly-knit carpet, being paraded around the castle by those he saw as lesser than him and calling all of the guests' attention to himself–Ophelia tried to stop me and I swatted her arm away! She reached out again; but, I wouldn't entertain her attempts at slowing me down, and I marched into Horatio's room, speaking some words to him and leaving as promptly as I entered, hustling back towards Ophelia and yelling at her, "I will not have my father's legacy tainted by the likes of cheaters, malefactors, oppressors, and other evil men who seek to damage what my dad left behind!"
Ophelia noted, her eyes watering with tears, "That's the first time you ever called him dad." I reached into the upper right pocket of my four-pocketed purple trench coat and handed her a handkerchief, which she politely accepted and used to dab away the tears from her eyes; when she tried to hand it back, I initially declined, but she ended up stuffing it into my coat anyway and muttering, "You have never called him dad before that–not to me at least, and not to his face when he was still around." Ophelia gave me a warm smile and offered her hand–which I accepted–and she led me down the hallways, admiring the different chisels of rulers past and paintings of bygone eras; we dallied past different glass displays containing novellas and novels and prose and poems that were scanned and laminated, written art pieces with all sorts of different dates engraved on plaques in front of the displays, the musings of different artists (and even sometimes their inspirations) located on the same plaques beneath the dates, until finally we came across one from Ophelia: The Murder Of Gonzago.
Immediately, my attention was drawn to this rendition of her play's script, especially some of the spicy plotlines contained within its pages. 'Twas the story of a king who was murdered by his malicious nephew whilst he slept, and his nephew usurped the love of the queen from under his nose, and within the pages upon pages of eroded print and the fading numbers in the bottom right corner, there were different annotations regarding stage direction, modified lines and general summaries of what happened at the end of each page. The nephew then indirectly causes the queen's death and is killed, brought back and killed, and somewhere in between he stages Hamlet Ex Machina, a play that–wait, what?! Anyway, it was an impressive play, and everything I just said is everything you need to know about it, and we had it performed in front of my uncle and his wife (formerly dad's wife) and it went uninterrupted, and it went as such:
We see KING GONZAGO enter the theater. Cue music.
KING GONZAGO: Oh, how today is a day worthy of celebration, for me and my wife Baptista are now happily wedded!
Enter QUEEN BAPTISTA. She is clearly distressed for some reason, but she tries to hide it when KING GONZAGO turns to look at her.
QUEEN BAPTISTA: KING GONZAGO, holla! I have been so excited to see you ever since we said our wedding vows. How goes things?
KING GONZAGO wooes her over silently and takes her by her hands.
KING GONZAGO: How wonderful is ev'rying, my love! The citizens of Florence are happy and thriving, our economy is rich and wealthy, and here we stand in the hall of our own beautiful castle, the product of our hard work! Things couldn't be better, especially now that I have you by my side!
QUEEN BAPTISTA and KING GONZAGO dance for a bit through the halls of their own castle. Enter the dames and the butlers, dancing along with them in pairs. Change the scene to a ballroom, and everyone exits but the royals, who kiss by the window.
KING GONZAGO: Isn't the night just beautiful? What a wonderful day it has been, and how inseparable we are!
QUEEN BAPTISTA looks out the window, and then looks to KING GONZAGO. Her tears are more clearly showing now.
QUEEN BAPTISTA: How inseparable are we, my love?
KING GONZAGO returns her soft gaze.
KING GONZAGO: As inseparable as the stars are from the sky, as inseparable as the Earth is from the Sun, and as inseparable as my love for you is from my spirit. And I know that one day, my love, we shall also be inseparable in death, for that is how affectionate we are towards each other. For there is nobody I'd rather have by my side my whole life but you, my fair and beautiful maiden, mon cheri; you are the apple of my eye and the center of my world, and you swept me off my feet from the moment we locked eyes.
QUEEN BAPTISTA raises her arm and places it above her forehead, crying out in happiness.
QUEEN BAPTISTA: O how fair and generous are you! My wonderful king, I now know how inseparable you perceive us to be, and I am so grateful! Your face is sculpted like fine pottery, and waking up to your smile is something I shall never take for granted!
The king sweeps Queen Baptista into his arms, and she nearly faints. A figure–the shadow of LUCIANUS, the king's nephew–stalks around in the background a while, piquing the audience's interest. The king holds Queen Baptista by the waist, Queen Baptista holds him by the shoulders and they dance calmly throughout the night. Fade to black, intermission, and the Sun rises upon them again.
KING GONZAGO: Say, all of this dancing tires me. Let us get some breakfast, and then let me rest.
They leave the stage and LUCIANUS (opposite) enters. He is visibly frustrated, but he won't say why. He will acknowledge some audience members, huff and sit down on the edge of the stage.
LUCIANUS: How I am defeated! Woe is me! The king has a title he doesn't have any claim to, and I–the rightful owner to his title as the king–am merely an afterthought, cast aside and abandoned, not given any second thought whilst the king is sworn in! I must go and take my throne back, and I will be right back!
LUCIANUS leaves, and the king and queen reenter. They now have food stains on their robes, and they seem very happy. They are escorted by some dames and butlers, and they exchange inaudible words before sitting down on the steps where Lucianius once sat. KING GONZAGO kisses QUEEN BAPTISTA on the forehead four times, KING GONZAGO departs and leaves QUEEN BAPTISTA alone with her own thoughts.
QUEEN BAPTISTA: What a beautiful man is the king, for he will never leave me despite all of my sins! Despite my previous relationship with Lucianus and despite my obvious flirtations with him, the king is none the wiser! Why, pulling off a stint with Lucianus was so easy that I could probably make out with him in front of my beloved Gonzago and he wouldn't even bat an eye! What a beautiful man is a fool, and what a beautiful fool is a man! Fool, he is!
Enter LUCIANUS. LUCIANUS and QUEEN BAPTISTA kiss, before LUCIANUS sits down with her and looks out to the crowd.
LUCIANUS: O my sweet queen, how you have blessed and graced mine own eyes and the eyes of those observing our tragic play with your beautiful presence! You are quite a beaut, and a quiet beaut indeed! How I wish to kiss you 'till the Moon shines upon us, never let go of you and make our romancing last forever!
QUEEN BAPTISTA: You are so kind, and it's flattering! I too wish we had the time and the place to wrap ourselves within each others' arms, to feel each others' embrace permanently while time so slowly drifts by us! How I wish I could toss away this ring on my finger and announce you as my new husband, and how I wish I could forever be engulfed within you forever and ever!
LUCIANUS: O how I shall do everything in my power so that we may be together forever!
LUCIANIUS SNEAKS AWAY JUST BEFORE KING GONZAGO ENTERS. QUEEN BAPTISTA KISSES HER HUSBAND AND WATCHES AS HE LAYS ON THE GROUND AND SLEEPS ON THE CASTLE FLOOR. QUEEN BAPTISTA LEAVES, LUCIANIUS ENTERS AND POISONS KING GONZAGO. QUEEN BAPTISTA RE-ENTERS WITH LUCIANUS, FINDS THE KING DEAD AND MARRIES LUCIANUS. END OF PLAY.
King Claudius rose from his seat, pure shock pouring out of his pupils and filling his eyes. I could tell that wretched old man was regretting attending this play. The ghost of my father may not have been as I perceived it to be, but it mattered not; I surmised that any entity that takes the appearance of my father must have something important to say, a bashful drive that must be utilized to strike at the heart of the society of evil with the dagger of vengeance. I accusatively waggled my finger at him, and his purplish-blackish haired guards charged at me with red-black guitars, the base of each guitar collapsing inwards to become the hilt, and the neck of each guitar retracting inwards to become a nimble obsidian rapier that was patterned with red and had string wrapping around the blade like a snake around its prey, stomping at me with elfish boots whose mouths curled upwards and inwards!
I drew my rapier and embarked into a sea of men, my sword slashing open steel plating, the tip of my rapier impaling one poor man and causing a fountain of crimson to ripple out shortly before he collapsed! The king stumbled away amidst the chaos, and I kicked away another man! Two more men charged at me and guess what? I kicked them away too, slashed across their hips and downed them in one fell swoop!
The king rushed at me with a dagger, probably intending to slice my throat for defeating his men in an easy show of strength! Thunder cracked the skies in twain as his blade landed against my sword, and we parted from each other within the same moment our swords landed!
I then saw the bright, beaming light of the chandelier above as the king pounced into the air and drove his sword into my heart, the Players watching frightfully and Polonius darting to my aid as the king rammed his rapier deep into my rib cage and pressed it into my muscular bosoms. Before the Players or my Ophelia's father could reach me and remove the sword, I felt the blade yanked from my chest by none other by the Queen herself. I staggered to my own two feet and jumped after Polonius, cleaving off his arm before my memories became a faint blur, and I ended up holding Ophelia in my arms, standing in the rain and sobbing!
My eyes were filled with tears, and my eyes still water rewatching these events from my current hideout in the castle of Rasmustier Castle, despite knowing that some hours later that same night, a tribe of water pixies would stumble upon her body and revive her, turning her into their goddess and begging her to lead them and overtake Elsinore. Indeed, she was prophesied to be something greater than merely a bride to the great Saxo Hamlet!
King Claudius rushed at me again–this time with greater momentum and a prance in his movement–and slashed across my chest, exposing my bleeding torso and whipping his dagger back and near his face! I wiped off a tear of blood and ripped forward with my rapier, striking him in the belly and ripping off the front of his blue and yellow high school vest and the oily black tee shirt he wore underneath that carried the repugnant scent of durian fruits and exposing his bosoms for the world to see! King Claudius and I circled, our swords hitting momentarily, exchanging blows in the center; and as by now, the entire throne room had emptied, and in a matter of weeks it would be crowded as a youthful Fortinbras would have himself crowned before his audience, and he would march down the hallways, into the training room and watch Polonius and Horatio fight with their fists!
Horatio and Polonius promised false allegiances towards King Fortinbras, and now they plotted in the shadows, secretly using their "training sessions" to plan their ousting!
Polonius withdrew his fist and kicked back forward with a strong uppercut, disheveling a tooth from its place–squished in between two other molars–and sending Horatio backwards. If Horatio and he were to overthrow the newly dubbed King Fortinbras, Polonius thought, they would both need to undergo the toils of combat. He crept in on Horatio, prowling forth like a cougar creeping in on its prey and got the jump on the young guard! Horatio swiped wildly (despite Polonius being right there) and Polonius knocked the youthful guard to the ground, all whilst Fortinbras slowly clapped… and he walked away… and Horatio looked to Polonius… and Polonius nodded to Horatio…
Polonius suddenly hurtled through the air with a wild punch, a wave of pain blasting through Horatio's cheek and rattling his brain in its skull. Horatio spat out the tooth that he had been cradling in his tongue and swaddling with saliva, spitting it into Polonius' face (he barely flinched) and bracing his face with his elbows. Horatio threw a left hook and Polonius blocked, and Polonius retorted with a right jab, then returning to a fighting stance.
Polonius and Horatio boxed their way to the fencing blades and drew them, crossing their swords back and forth as sparks of light appeared and dissipated in midair!
Horatio bowed to Polonius… and Polonius bowed to Horatio… and they drew their swords back and flicked them across their own chests… and they resumed their training session swiftly!
Horatio sparred Polonius into a corner, drawing his fencing sword into the sky and leaving a devastating gash in Polonius' mouth, and he bled, but it turns out that the blood trickling from the old man's lip was the same prop blood he used to convince me I murdered him whilst in my mentally troubled state!
Horatio attempted another fatal strike, but Polonius leapt out of the way. Polonius was so skilled in the eyes of his younger counterpart that to Horatio, it was as if Polonius was barely out of range of every attack, as if the old man teleported away just before he could sustain damage. Polonius blocked Horatio's upward strike and slashed across Horatio's stomach, lifting his sword (with such complex and inexplicable poise that it could please even those not interested nor invested in the fencing hobby) and prepared to deliver a normally killing strike… if this were not a mere game. But Horatio blocked the deadly blow and replied with a series of brutal counterattacks, accepting Polonius' challenge to amp up the battle and delivering upon his promises to match the old man's strength with a brutal series of strikes! Polonius staggered backwards, sheathed his fencing sword and tempted Horatio into returning to mano a mano combat.
But Horatio didn't agree to Polonius' request–he charged forward with his saber and fiercely struck, missing Polonius by a scratch of an inch. His sword fell and Polonius jumped at the opportunity, jabbing at Horatio's spine and continually bludgeoning in his back until his pointer finger barely managed to grapple the sword and ward Polonius off. Polonius–with a look of indestructible determination in his face, meaning not a flinch in his squinted eyes nor a shiver in his brow–charged at Horatio and dodged every blow, sometimes tilting his head right and sometimes moving his entire body to the left, nimbly maneuvering Horatio's bulky body and keeping his arms up at the same time, scuttling around him almost like a spider scuttling around a hound, mocking him with his agile movements! Horatio flailed his left arm through the air, but it wriggled like a string! Polonius threw a left fist, right fist and left fist again, forcing Horatio against the training room's back concrete wall.
Horatio curled up like the pattern on a snail shell and blocked Polonius' trained punches, cuddling himself like a child as Polonius jumped around him!
Polonius threw a left hook and returned to a fighting position, keeping his toes pointed forward and his body jumping back and forth like a rabbit on steroids. He kept his fists closed and close to him, and he braced his balding and wrinkly head and masked his scrunchy snow gray beard behind his elbows, pumping his fists up and down as Horatio got to his knees, wiggling a finger and drawing Horatio closer to him like a moth to a lamp.
Horatio lunged forth at Polonius and tackled him to the floor, but Polonius wriggled back to form like a snake! His palms flat and his body spinning, he delivered a karate kick so strong that Horatio wailed in pain! Horatio cried for Polonius to stop, but Polonius only ramped up the intensity of his attack, delivering precise blows that kept Horatio on his toes, swarming him like a pack of bees and moving like a flurry of moonlight shooting through a midnight window.
King Fortinbras rapped on the door and tried to get their attention, but the old man and his new young friend were too busy training to notice him. He signaled for his maid, the maid approached, and he whispered in the maid's ear and ordered her to get the captain of their army; he directed his attention to the fight as the maid shuffled away.
Polonius harassed Horatio with a series of calculated punches, prancing around the scarred man, the older gangster's fists jumping forward like flies with skin pruned. He punched Horatio in the eye… Horatio braced for the punch… Polonius kept hitting him and eventually the fight devolved into a schoolground wrestling match, wherein two inexperienced toddlers angrily threw tired closed, tired hands at each other whilst having no experience at the wrestling sport, one occasionally having the upper hand and overtaking the other, but then the other gaining a small sliver of an advantage, and the cycle repeating; Horatio punched at Polonius; and, seemingly seeing the light of victory at the end of a defeatist corridor, he crawled towards a slow victory.
But Polonius was too fast for Horatio, too spry. He skipped away from Horatio and returned as quickly, suddenly finding himself pinned against the floor while Horatio's cold right fist flew into his face! Polonius could barely see while Horatio's clammy hands rammed into him (his hand and the old man's face like two trucks meeting in a head on collision in a highway, as other things were bound to pile up.)
Polonius saw an advantage there, but he couldn't sense the right moment to take advantage of Horatio's terribly bashing state, a moment of weakness in his position that would allow Polonius to jump back up and declare himself the winner. Right now–as in, when Horatio was punching him into his funeral and burying him into the ground, his throws interrupting the wrinkly man's train of thought like a brick wall splitting a Wifi signal into small, scattered intervals–Polonius was just waiting patiently, biding his time as he tried to sniff out that clear moment wherein he'd turn the tides. He allowed Horatio to punch him in the face as much as that young, immature man with the undeveloped mind of a child wished, doing nothing more than bracing his coarse, parched and unshaven face as Horatio's fists drilled into his wrinkly elbows. He squirmed with every hit on the inside–wincing as if every soft blow Horatio delivered arrived with the power of a wrecking ball–for he was old; but, he had to pretend that each devastating, bone-shattering blow meant nothing for him if he were to train Horatio to become a strong man, and one braver than he.
King Fortinbras rapped on the door again, this time finally getting their attention as he walked down a series of steps forged with Durbar plate–his chainmail boots clanking against the patterned steel as he approached them, his voice a quiet melody but with subtle and controlling notes dispersed throughout his song. He held out both hands and shook the hands of the men, then placed his hands behind his back and rattled off in a suddenly loud voice, "Are you men aware of a certain deserter crew stealing our coinage in banks down in the south?" The two men shook their heads, but the king dismissed their denials with the wave of his chain-gloved left hand, his other hand slowly worming for the rapier sheathed at his opposite and left hip. He kept the two men enveloped in his owl-eyed watch, barely letting them blink if he could control it. He practically repeated himself, walking closer towards Horatio and Polonius and whispering, "Are you aware of a deserter crew that is robbing our banks and stealing legal tender?"
"We know nothing, my lord," Polonius claimed with fraudulent confidence, stowing away his fencing blade. "We are simply here at your service." Horatio agitatedly tapped on Polonius' shoulder, silently urging the wise sage of dastardly confidence to drop the act and tell the truth; but, Polonius merely shrugged off Horatio's pesky touch, and he resumed, "I assure you, we know nothing of the deserters. But if there are any, we will gladly take a unit and track down these terrorists for you."
"No," denied the king once more, his hand inching closer to his rapier with every ticking second, his fingers wiggling at the speed of a snail's saliva-splattering crawl. King Fortinbras' eyes remained especially sternly on the pearls of the young Horatio's, and his words only grew more frustrated as neither man told the truth. Fortinbras made aggressive approaches on Horatio–like a weird teenager making approaches on someone he wants to go out with–and he placed one hand on Horatio's shoulder and used the rest of his body to back the quirky youth up against a wall. Polonius waved him away, and he shouted at Polonius, "No!"
The old man produced his fencing blade and held it to King Fortinbas' neck, daring the scruffy king to injure the young child under his care. King Fortinbras stepped away, and Polonius helped Horatio–who was on the floor and crumpled–to his feet, just as the captain of the king's army entered the room, followed by his executive assistants Voltemand and Cornelius. He had short, blond hair and he was a man with a triangularly-chiseled chin, and he carried himself with almost as much pride as the king himself. His name was Arthis Desanger, and he almost drifted down the metal stairs despite the ringing clangs that echoed making it apparent otherwise. He saluted King Fortinbras and cried with a militaristic holler, "What appears to be the problem here?"
"Nothing," muttered King Fortinbras, hastily staggering away from the old man and the baby-faced guard. He mumbled something into Captain Desanger's ear, and then he stated more audibly, "Indeed, that is what I'm asking of you."
Captain Desanger turned to Polonius and Horatio, producing a pair of handcuffs and a lance from thin air. Despite earlier moving with the confidence of a peacock dancing its feathers about its possible mates, he now stumbled and reluctantly tripped over his own feet, more-so like a rooster hobbling around without a clue in the world. Captain Desanger first approached Polonius–but all it took was for the wrinkle-heavy master of deception to take one step backwards for the captain to pivot to Horatio…
And Horatio drew his fencing blade and challenged the captain to a duel!
The captain struck first, his rapier flicking through the air and barely whipping past Horatio's ear as he ducked out of the way!
Horatio jumped forth with his sword and traded sparks and embers with the captain!
Captain Desanger slowly withdrew, then bucketed towards Horatio with the momentum of a speeding race car!
Horatio's and the captain's swords met in a whirlwind of light and screechy, steely sounds, and the two flew away from each other as light filled the room!
Captain Desanger shook his head of blond hair like a man on the cover of a salacious magazine, then stumbled towards Horatio with the tip of his sword angled forward!
Horatio kicked Captain Desanger in the stomach and hammered at his face with the edge of his steel saber, throwing his sword down like a dirtied, corroded pickaxe! The swords released a nauseating smoke that reeked of copper as they contacted and briskly separated! Tears rain down the captain's face as Horatio's blade inched closer!
Polonius tried to rip Horatio away from the captain, but it only triggered Horatio into attacking him instead!
Polonius and Horatio fought with their swords back and forth, and Horatio returned to his bullying slashes against the captain! Their sabers met a few more times, but the captain was too slow, and Horatio dealt a devastating hit… but the captain shot back with a well-timed swipe of the blade!
Horatio staggered off and the king joined the mess! Polonius exchanged with the king once, retreats to breath and rejoins the fray!
Horatio and Polonius charge at the captain and the king, entering a fierce 2 v.s. 2 as the Sun sets on Elsinore! Polonius' sword hied back to him and he strikes at the king, and Horatio fights the captain with rapid movement and an unpredictable spirit! The two scraggly non-royals–cornered to the back-left corner and faced with the coming exile from their deserters' group for exposing their rebellion, push through the king and the captain and make a run for the exit, darting past general clusters of confused men in jangly, janky uniforms and their feet–now barefoot, as their black Air Jordans were removed in battle–and as they burst into the sunlight they were faced by the chatter of the populace wandering outside of the castle, the people standing by the Greek-inspired pillars and chattering about… well, things!
Polonius and Horatio pushed and shoved through the crowd, bursting out the open gates and darting off into the same brook where Ophelia supposedly died… except here she was, talking to her water pixie worshippers!
"Ophelia!" cried the old Polonius, happily drawing towards her with an outstretched arm. "Come here, daughter!" Ophelia–glowing with a reborn effervescence–ignored her father. "Ophelia, please return to your father!"
But no matter how hard Polonius tried, Ophelia paid no attention to her father, instead chortling and sharing stories with the pixie fairies, taking in their choral worship and listening to their prayers, demands and requests. It had become gravely clear to her father that Ophelia found her new life, and that she was no longer interested in returning home to the people she once leaned on for support. These were her new folks now, and she was perfectly happy with them. She was not only their goddess, but she was also perceived as one of them.
And then Polonius walked with Horatio and sat down by a brush, both men contemplating the decisions that led them to this moment and observing the night sky hail the precious, sparkling stars that filled its canvas, and the clouds that coagulated to brew a whirring, turbulent storm just ahead.
Polonius–his mind wrangled by the events seemingly breezing past him, allowed his thoughts to wander awhile aloud, Horatio just sitting there and listening. "So I brought my daughter to Denmark and met the king Claudius. Some years later, he is accused of murder," he whispered in a shaky voice, "and Hamlet killed me in a fit of rage, only hours after I posited my accusations against him. Then I found myself awake again, and apparently I didn't die. I just entered a comatose state, and there's doctors standing around me," Polonius whimpered, softly pounding his bosoms, the sound of eerie, scratchy metal ringing through the woods surrounding the silently washing river, "and now I have this thing in my chest."
"Well," Horatio muttered, drawing a cigarette from his black vest (to Polonius' astonishment) and smoking it. "You can't have everything, am I right?"
"And the worst part is," Polonius mutters, ripe with a strict sense of accusation against himself, "I brought my daughter here for my own selfish reasons."
Horatio shook his head; and puffing out a ring of smoke, he muttered, "You're not selfish, methinks. Ophelia doth protest too much, methinks." He rose from the grassy weeds upon which the two ruminating men dressed in black laid and spoke, a straightforwardness in his verbiage and intent in his inflection, "I believe you want the best for Ophelia, and it just so happens that the best for Ophelia is the best for you. LIke father, like daughter, after all."