To Be or Not To Be

by Ryan North

  * * *

  * * *

  I need to learn to stop giving you gag options, because you keep taking them. Joke’s on me, I guess?

  Anyway, you throw “being nice to the woman who gave birth to you” out the window, and you give the curtain the ol’ stabby-me-do and kill whoever’s behind it. “Lo, I am slain,” he says, though it kinda sounds like “Lol, I am slain,” which you think would’ve been funnier. But wait a second! The voice sounds like...Polonius?

  “What have you done?” screams your mother. Thinking quickly, you say, “Nothing as bad as killing a king and marrying his wife!”

  “What?! I didn’t murder anyone!” she says.

  “Okay, NO, obviously,” you say. “But Claudius did and then you married him! Besides, maybe I thought the guy behind the curtain was Claudius and therefore I was...doing a good deed?”

  “How is it a good deed to kill my husband?” asks your mom. “And besides, didn’t you see him praying on your way here? We both know he’s in the church. He can’t be in two places at once.”

  “Um,” you say. Turning away from the body, you start yelling at your mom, saying how great Dad was, how awful Claudius is, and how she traded the best dude ever for the worst dude ever in time, and finally how she’s pretty dumb and awful and too old for love anyway. You say all these things to your own mother. You reduce her to tears.

  “You’ve made me feel horrible about my marriage,” she says, pitifully.

  “When you have sex, it’s awful and it makes the bed all greasy,” you reply.

  Wow.

  Suddenly, a ghost appears! TWIST!!

  ☠ Talk to ghost ☠

  * * *

  * * *

  It’s the ghost of your dad, like from before!

  “Didn’t I ask you to kill Claudius?” the ghost says. “So far all you’ve done is watch someone else read a book and then kill your girlfriend’s dad.”

  “It’s — complicated?” you say.

  “Who are you talking to?” asks Gertrude.

  “MOM, I’M TALKING TO THE GHOST OF MY DEAD DAD,” you yell. “I TALKED TO HIM BEFORE AND EVERYONE SAW HIM THEN; I DUNNO WHY YOU CAN’T SEE HIM NOW; I DUNNO WHAT HIS DEAL IS.”

  “Aw geez, you’re crazy. My son is bonkers,” your mom says to herself, drying her tears.

  To be fair, you do look a little crazy. Ghost Dad reminds you that you’re supposed to be murdering Claudius, not Polonius, and he doesn’t really see how cussing out his widow is helping anything. Be nice to her, he says. “Also,” he says, “I’m pretty sure she’s conflicted about this whole, um, marriage to my brother thing that I guess is going on, so maybe you could talk to her about that?”

  “But DAD,” you say.

  “Hamlet,” he says, frowning as he disappears.

  “FINE,” you say. “Hey Mom, um, how’s it going? Listen, stop having sex with Claudius, okay?”

  She slaps you across the face. Maybe that’s why people don’t usually discuss sex lives with their moms? Who knows??

  “Look Mom, I’m not really crazy, but don’t tell anyone, okay?” you say, gingerly touching your face where she hit you. “What is crazy is what you’ve been doing. This marriage to your husband’s brother: it’s gross; we all think it’s gross. I know you’re not happy about it. I know that, Mom.”

  “Hamlet —” she begins, but you cut her off.

  “It’s not too late, Mom. If you can’t be good, maybe tonight you can just — pretend to be good? And then keep pretending to be good night after night, and it’ll get easier. And by ‘pretend to be good,’ I mean ‘make yourself unavailable to Claudius sexually and emotionally.’”

  Your mom’s crying again, but quietly. She looks up at you. “Alright,” she says. “Alright.”

  “I’m proud of you, Mom,” you say. “Listen, I’ve got to go. I kinda killed Polonius by accident, and I’m gonna go lay low for a while.”

  “Okay,” she says. “Toodles.”

  ☠ Tell her that it would be very unfortunate if she told Claudius you’re just faking crazy, and as a consequence of that had an...“accident” that “broke her neck” ☠

  » On second thought, leave without saying that «

  * * *

  * * *

  You finish up this tender moment by threatening the woman who gave birth to you, and leave.

  Oh, Hamlet. What are we going to do with you, Hamlet?

  On your way out the door, you bump into your bros Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. “You wanna get out of here?” you say, and they concede that they would like to party on a boat. You know what? That sounds nice. Sort of give everyone space, you know, while also standing around on a positively buoyant vessel? It sounds real nice.

  “There’s a boat headed for England in just a few hours!” you say. You know this because boats to England are kind of a big deal.

  You send some servants to clean up crazy ol’ dead Polonius and another to be there for your mother, and you pack your bags. A few hours later, you and your bros are partying on a boat!

  ☠ Party boat!! ☠

  * * *

  * * *

  You clear your throat and hold out a hand in front of you.

  Here’s what you say!

  Witness this army of such mass and charge

  Led by a delicate and tender prince,

  Whose spirit with divine ambition puff’d

  Makes mouths at the invisible event,

  Exposing what is mortal and unsure

  To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,

  Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great

  Is not to stir without great argument,

  But greatly to find quarrel in a straw

  When honour’s at the stake. How stand I then,

  That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d,

  Excitements of my reason and my blood,

  And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see

  The imminent death of twenty thousand men,

  That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,

  Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot

  Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,

  Which is not tomb enough and continent

  To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,

  My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

  Not bad, not bad! Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are polite enough to pretend not to hear. They’re so great.

  ☠ Continue partying on a boat ☠

  * * *

  * * *

  Partying on a boat is great, but it doesn’t last forever! After several hours, the party winds down and everyone starts going to bed. You and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern stumble off to your quarters, three awesome dudes in one awesome room. One awesome...PARTY ROOM??

  The next day, you wake up, still feeling the effects of the previous night’s partying. You put on your shirt but it feels different — turns out it’s Rosencrantz’s shirt! Wow. As you pull it off, a letter falls out of the pocket. Rosencrantz wakes up, teases you for wearing his clothes, and then notices the letter.

  “Hey Hamlet, you dropped something,” he says.

  “No man,” you say, “it’s your letter. This is your shirt.” You pass him the garment. He has the shirt.

  “It’s not my letter, bro,” he says, pulling it over his head. “Someone must’ve slipped it to me sometime yesterday. What’s it say?”

  Flipping it over, you notice it’s got a royal seal on the back.

  “It’s from King Claudius!” you say.

  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern say the following:

  “Whaaaaaaaaaat??”

  ☠ Open the letter ☠

  » Don’t open it: it’s got an OFFICIAL SEAL «

  * * *

  * * *

  “I’m gonna open it,” you say. This is what you read:

  Dear King of England,

  It’s me, Claudius, the King of Denmark! Listen, we get along pretty well, right? And both our countries ar
e in pretty good shape. Anyway, it’d be really convenient for me (and it would help both our countries STAY in good shape) if you could kill Hamlet for me real quick. It’s not that big a deal, just kill him okay? Cool? Cool. P.S. I’m 100% serious please kill him right now.

  You and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern stare at each other for a long moment. Looks like this whole time while you were planning to kill Claudius, he was also planning to kill you!

  “Dude, are you scoping this letter’s CHOICE ASSASSINATION ORDERS?” asks Rosencrantz.

  “I told you, man! I TOLD YOU ABOUT CLAUDIUS,” Guildenstern yells.

  “Maybe he heard my free verse from last night?” you say. “It was extremely tight.”

  ☠ Figure out a plan with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern ☠

  * * *

  * * *

  You and your bros come up with a plan. It goes as follows:

  - You replace the letter with a forgery you wrote together that reads, “Hey King, can you make it so that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are given fancy houses and made princes and given all the cool things it is possible to have, as they are extremely awesome, but please do not mention this letter or its contents ever again to me, Claudius, the man who is writing this letter right now. If you do see me and this letter comes up and then I claim I did not ask for these things, then I’m lying. I like to pretend sometimes that I didn’t write letters, but it’s just pretend, hah hah. I can never take this back. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are awesome. Hamlet’s rad too. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are way awesome though.”

  - You replace the official seal with a forgery. Since you’re wearing a ring and it bears the royal seal, this is surprisingly easy!

  - You decide that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern will deliver the letter while you catch the next boat back to Denmark to kill Claudius!

  - You’re at this stage in fulfilling the plan when pirates attack!

  ☠ Pirates?! Nobody said there were pirates! HOLY COW, THIS BOOK JUST GOT AWESOME. ☠

  * * *

  * * *

  Thank you, thank you, you’re too kind.

  Let me set the scene: you, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern rush above-decks at the sound of the lookout yelling, “Pirates ho!” Following his arm pointing to the horizon, you see a ship sailing directly towards you with alarming speed, her disguise of a Danish flag being lowered as a black flag with a grinning skull and crossbones unfurls in its place. It’s pretty badass! Behind her a huge storm has gathered, lightning striking into the water. Both are headed straight for you.

  She’s a magnificent ship, a three-masted beauty running 50 metres long from bow to stern. She slices cleanly through the sea with the wind filling her sails: 1,400 tons of boat, a symphony of wood, cloth, brass, and iron. She’s as tall as she is long, with each of her masts proudly carrying four gargantuan rectangular sails. Rigging of baffling complexity stretches between each mast, its crossbars, and the side of her hull.

  She carries 26 cannons on her port side and 26 on her starboard, each loaded and at the ready, and she’s running with her gunports open. She also sails with two forward-facing cannons mounted on her bow, beneath which protrudes the beautifully carved figure of a mermaid. Over 150 strong and able men — all pirates — call her home. The painted and polished red wooden letters affixed to her hull betray her name: Calypso’s Gale.

  You, on the other hand, are on a party boat, the HDMS Vesselmania IV. Your boat is a mere 100 tons, her armaments a slight six cannons per side. Vesselmania’s two smaller masts bear a single triangular sail each. Her crew of 20 is inexperienced and young. Her captain, with whom you’ve had only a passing acquaintance, seems fresh out of captain school, if that is even a thing.

  He’s there at your side now, barking orders left and right. Men haul up the sails and run below-decks to prepare the cannons. It is a scene of barely controlled chaos, and that’s when you hear the first report of cannonfire.

  Both shots hit their target. The pirates are firing chain shot: two cannonballs tied together with a length of heavy chain, stuffed into a single cannon, designed to tear apart sails and rigging as they blast through it. The first shot tears apart some of the rigging on your forward sail, but luckily, nothing critical is damaged.

  The second shot hits low, and instead of tearing into the sails, it decapitates the captain in an instant. His headless, bloody body drops at your feet.

  ☠ Pirates! This is so awesome!! ☠

  * * *

  * * *

  Yes, well, the bad news is they’re not messing around!

  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern take one look at the bloody corpse of the captain lying at your feet and rush below-decks, tripping over each other on their way down the ladder.

  The first mate is staring at the captain’s body in shock. A huge burst of lightning flashes across the darkening sky, and rain begins to fall on Vesselmania’s deck. Calypso’s Gale is gaining on you, and her forward cannons are being reloaded. The distance between the two ships is decreasing by the second.

  What do you do?

  ☠ Take command of this vessel ☠

  » Follow your friends below-decks, hang tight until this blows over «

  * * *

  * * *

  “I’m assuming command of this vessel!” you say, taking the hat off the captain’s head and putting it on your own. The crew acquiesces easily: you’re the oldest person on board, and you are also royalty. Lucky for you!

  “Report!” you order.

  “Mainsail is undamaged; adjunct rigging of the secondary sail has been destroyed by cannonshot but repair crews have been dispatched,” replies your first mate. “Hull integrity at 92%. We’re sailing in a broad reach.”

  You recall enough sailor talk to know that means the wind is at your back, but you’re sailing at a slight angle to it. It’s the safest way to travel, as travelling with the wind exactly at your back makes for a faster but less stable boat. You normally want to minimize your chances of losing control.

  On the other hand, with pirates on your tail, maybe now isn’t the time to worry about safety.

  “What are your orders?” shouts the first mate over the roar of wind and sea.

  ☠ “We need all the speed we can get. Change course so the wind is directly at our back.” ☠

  » “Continue at the controllable speed we’re at now.” «

  » “Turn around and face the pirates head-on.” «

  * * *

  * * *

  “Put the wind at our back!” you order. Your first mate says, “Aye sir,” and begins barking commands to the crew. “Set sails leeward! We’ll be running before the wind, boys!”

  The crew adjusts the sails quickly, and you can feel it as the boat gains speed. You look behind you, expecting to see Calypso’s Gale fade from view, but even with the wind fully at your back, the pirate ship is still gaining.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Calypso’s Gale fires again, and chain shot tears through Vesselmania’s stern and exits through the port side of the hull, thankfully above the water line.

  “Orders, Captain?”

  You stare at Calypso’s Gale through a spyglass. The square shape of her rigging reminds you of something...

  » “Continue with the wind at our back.” «

  » “Turn around and face the pirates head-on.” «

  ☠ Try to remember everything you know about sailing before you answer ☠

  * * *

  * * *

  Those sails she’s carrying — three masts, each with four rectangular sails on them...

  “Of course!” you say.

  The pirate captain did what you would have done in his position: he’s chosen the most favourable angle of attack! He’s coming in with the wind fully at his back, because that’s when his boat is fastest. Those square-rigged sails are terrific at catching the wind, and he’s got lots of them, but their disadvantage is that they can’t be adjusted quickly. Every change requires the crew to climb up and c
hange the rigging on each sail individually.

  You, on the other hand, can adjust your two triangular sails quickly, and it can be done at deck level! If you come about into the storm while maintaining a slight angle away from it, you should be able to turn around, maintain speed, slip past Calypso’s Gale, and be long gone before she can even begin to turn!

  It’s your only hope.

  You lower the spyglass, lock eyes with your first mate, and shout your orders over the roar of the storm.

  ☠ “Come about into the storm! Set sails windward! Keep a close-hauled tack!” ☠

  » “Come about into the storm! Set sails windward! Keep a close-hauled tack...me hearties? Yo ho ho!” «

  * * *

  * * *