by Ryan North
Horatio looks at you both, and then clears his throat. “Next question: how long is the coastline of Denmark?”
Again you slap in first.
» “8735 kilometres!” «
» “7314 kilometres!” «
» “Trick question! No coastline has a precisely defined length, as the length will depend on the method used to measure it. If I use a metre stick, variations in the coast smaller than one metre will be ignored. But if I use a centimetre stick, then I’ll include those measurements, but ignore those less than one centimetre! Since coastlines behave like fractals in this regard, there is no single length measurement I can point to without making simplifying assumptions first.” «
* * *
* * *
“Ooh, I’m sorry, Ophelia. That’s not the correct answer,” says Horatio. “Fortinbras, if you can answer correctly, all of Denmark is yours.”
Fortinbras looks at you. “Ophelia,” he says, “I’m sorry, but you were off in your calculations. The accepted measurement is 1421 kilometres less than the number you supplied.”
Horatio does some quick mental arithmetic, then bows before Fortinbras.
“My king,” he says.
» Gracefully accept your loss at Denmark trivia «
» Challenge Fortinbras to a race around the world instead «
* * *
* * *
You retreat your king.
“Checkmate in six,” Gertrude announces.
You think she’s bluffing. She advances her pawn (g6-g5). At this point, you can either move your pawn forward or retreat your king.
Unbeknownst to you, at this exact point in time, the timeline splits!
In Timeline Zeta, you retreat your king (Kh3-h2). Gertrude moves her king over (Kf4-g4), and you move your pawn forward (g2-g3). Gertrude brings up her other pawn to threaten yours, and if you use your pawn to take hers, you’ll lose it the next turn and be left with nothing. But there’s nowhere you can move your king to prevent Gertrude from taking your pawn the next turn, and that’s what she does (h4xg3). You lost.
But wait, because in an alternate timeline, Timeline Zeta Prime, you advance your pawn instead (g2-g3)! Gertrude moves her king forward (Kf4-f3), and since moving your pawn forward would sacrifice it, instead you move your king backwards (Kh3-h2). Gertrude immediately moves her pawn forward (g5-g4), leaving you with only two moves for your king, both of which are retreats, and both of which result in your last pawn being taken. Aw man, you lost in this timeline too!
Geez, timelines, what the heck!
» Checkmate «
* * *
* * *
Wait a second, you guys didn’t figure out what would happen in the event of a tie!
You slice off one of her arms. “You said you wouldn’t kill me!” Gertrude exclaims.
“You’ll live,” you say.
And while it’s super awkward to be the only two people in town, especially when that town is full of dead bodies but ESPECIALLY when the only other person alive is the newly one-armed mother of your old boyfriend, you manage.
Fortinbras, the Norwegian crown prince, shows up a while later. He finds all the decaying bodies and pronounces it “super gross,” so you cut off his arm too. “Not so strong in the arm now, are you?” you say, but nobody laughs because multilingual puns are like that. People usually don’t get them. I don’t know what to tell you. This is the world we live in.
Oh, crap! I almost forgot!
Later on, you die of old age!!
THE END
* * *
» Restart? «
* * *
“PROBABLY,” you say out loud to nobody in particular, “PROBABLY I just died of a heart attack. Yes, there’s definitely no foul play to investigate here!”
You’re not that curious about the circumstances of your own death, but there’s certainly room for incurious people in the afterlife. You, for example, spend the rest of your afterlife (which is forever) training little ghost puppies how to be better dogs, and they’re so cute and they stay puppies forever and never grow up but just get better and better and cuter and cuter and oh my gosh it’s ADORABLE.
THE END
* * *
» Restart? «
* * *
You bang some pots and pans together until she wakes up.
“Hey, I’m a ghost, but not of anyone you know. Listen, tell me more about that garden murder you saw!” you say.
In response, the woman looks at you terrified. She says something in Norwegian and you suddenly feel dumb. You’re already a spooky ghost, but now you’re a spooky ghost talking to her in a language she doesn’t even know!
Anyway, by the time you find a piece of paper and write down “HEY I DON’T WANT TO KILL YOU,” it’s too late: the woman has run out of the room. And every time she sees you, she gets mad and throws something at you and leaves.
You kinda blew it here, King Hamlet!
You keep reading her diary every night for a few months, hoping that she’ll mention more about the thing she saw, but it’s mostly filled with some really personal stuff about her feelings and you kinda feel honestly creepy about this whole situation. The stuff that isn’t personal is about how she wonders if ghosts read diaries, and if they do, if they know what TOTALLY AWFUL people they’re being.
Long story short: eventually you leave her alone, never find out who murdered you, and settle down to a nice pleasant afterlife with the other ghosts in Ghost Norway. You guys do charades with each other and everything! It’s pretty fun.
THE END
* * *
» Restart? «
* * *
You go down to the docks and start poking your head into the bridge of every boat you can find, flipping through the captain’s logs and itineraries until you find one that’s headed for Denmark. And it leaves in just a few minutes! NICE! This is really convenient!
During the voyage, you poke around the boat looking for things to amuse yourself with. You experiment with doing some ghost things like putting your head inside a barrel of wine and then making your head corporeal, but that just causes the barrel to explode with the sudden pressure inside and makes you get wine in your eyes, so you don’t do that more than a few times.
It only takes awhile before your boat arrives in Denmark!
» Arrive in Denmark «
* * *
* * *
“Hey Gertrude,” says Claudius. “I sure am happy that WE MARRIED EACH OTHER, even if it was so soon after your first husband died under mysterious circumstances.”
Whoah! That certainly was, in terms of exposition, a very efficient sentence!
You decide instantly that your initial revenge plan (haunt a mirror so that instead of Claudius’s reflection he sees you, and then you mirror his movements so he’s not really sure what’s going on, tee hee) is needlessly complex and stupid. Dude killed you AND married your widow! Since you are from olden times, you have an extremely old-fashioned sense of ownership over female sexuality, so this really gets stuck in your craw.
Instead of spooking Claudius, you decide to...
» Kill Claudius! COMPLETE THE QUEST! «
» Get your son to kill Claudius instead «
* * *
* * *
Okay. Um, why?
» Because then he’ll have sullied his hands with murder, and better for someone new to be forced to commit the murder act than for me to do it myself for some reason? «
» Oh yeah, wait, this is dumb, I’m already dead and invisible and I can fly; I guess I’ll just do it myself «
* * *
* * *
Tricked into deciding that maybe revenge isn’t the best thing to obsess about once you’re already dead and have fun ghost powers anyway, you instead do that job you just picked, and it’s amazing. It’s more than amazing: you turn what could’ve been a simple thing to do in the afterlife into an actual social movement that accomplishes tons of good. Everyone rad in the afterl
ife sees your work and thinks you’re great, and man, this place is CHOCK FULL of awesome people, so that’s really something. Your work has inspired an entire world.
Thank you.
And good work, King Hamlet! You managed to overcome your stupid thirst for revenge AND made the afterlife awesome AND didn’t mess up your only son’s life either! This is really awesome! You did a great job! I’m gonna give you like 50 billion decapoints!!
THE END
* * *
» Restart? «
* * *
Listen, King Hamlet, you already had your chance to be a ghost and you pretty much wasted it. And now you don’t want to do the dirty work of revenge?
FINE. You know what? FINE. Go off and have your own adventure; see if I care. Here we go, just fill in the blanks, WHEEEEE WHAT FUN:
You are the ghost of a dead king! You discover a _____ kind of ______ that can be used by ______ to _______ a giant _______. Things are really ______ for a while, but then they _____ into ______.
A side effect of your ______ is that you come back to life again! With a brand-new _____ and everything! But then you die again super quickly. It’s very ______.
After you die again, your body is ______ into a ______ and then _______ into a terrible _____ so that everyone can ______ until they ______.
THE END
P.S. For that last paragraph, may I suggest you fill it in with “installed,” “steel colossus,” “magnified,” “city-sized monstrosity,” “toil at its feet,” and “realize they shouldn’t have honoured your last wishes”?
* * *
» Restart? «
* * *
You rush back into Gertrude’s room.
“Hey guys, me again!” you say. “Crazy ol’ Ophelia!”
“I was just thinking, wouldn’t it be nice if heat dried up my brains?” says Laertes.
“Because you’re so crazy,” he clarifies, addressing himself to you. “And that makes me feel bad, so: heat, brains, solution.”
“Ah,” you say. Ophelia, Laertes is acting crazier than you! You gotta step up your game!
Deciding to do just that, you start handing out some plants we both forgot were in your pocket to everyone in the room. You pass out some rosemary (use the leaves to season a pork chop!), fennel (eat the roasted seeds after a meal to freshen your breath!), rue (feed it to a horse to...induce an abortion? I dunno, that’s what it says here, “induces abortion in horses”), columbine (the roots AND seeds are highly poisonous so I dunno how delicious they are; Ophelia, where are you finding these plants), and...a daisy (commonly considered to be a flower representing innocence, nicely done there I guess).
Everyone DEFINITELY thinks you’re crazy now, Ophelia. Mission accomplished!
» Go home «
* * *
* * *
You’re the boss!
A few days later, you meet up with Gertrude for lunch. “Let’s have a picnic down by the river,” you say.
“Sure,” she says.
Knowing that you’ll soon be “dead” has made your madness act a little less intense. You actually feel like you can be yourself, at least for a little while.
At least for lunch.
You and Gertrude talk about many things (your shared interests, your hopes for the future, funny stories from your past) and it’s really pleasant. Hamlet and Claudius don’t even come up once. It’s actually a very meaningful conversation to you both, and you’re glad you and Gertrude were able to have it. Later, Gertrude picks some pretty flowers and puts them in your hair, and you do the same for her. Isn’t that nice? It’s nice. But after that, you both notice that all the little sandwiches are gone and lunch is over. You’ve got to do it now, Ophelia.
“Hey, I’m crazy!” you say suddenly, standing up and slapping your knees. “You know what crazy people do? Climb dangerous trees!”
“Um,” Gertrude says, “maybe — maybe let’s not be crazy?”
“Too late!!” you say, climbing up the tree hanging out all aslant over the brook below. You climb out further and further, ignoring Gertrude’s protests, until finally the branch you’re on breaks and you fall into the river.
“Oh nooooo! I don’t know how to swim!” you shout.
“I’ll save you!” Gertrude yells, stripping out of the outermost layer of her many-layered fancy royal clothes.
“There’s no time, and you might drown too! No, Gertrude, this is how my story ends,” you shout.
“Ophelia!” shouts Gertrude.
“Gertrude, tell them what happened to me! Tell them...tell them that I acted crazy and drowned, okay? Maybe work our pretty flowers into it?”
“What?” shouts Gertrude, as you discreetly tread water.
“No, wait, it can be done better,” you say. “Here, tell them...tell them...”
You raise up one dripping hand out of the water.
“Tell them there is a willow here that grows aslant from a brook, that shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream. There with fantastic garlands did I come of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples that liberal shepherds give a grosser name, but our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them. There, on the pendent boughs I coronet weeds clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke; when down my weedy trophies and myself fell in the weeping brook. My clothes spread wide; and, mermaid-like, awhile they bore me up: which time I chanted snatches of old tunes; as one incapable of my own distress, or like a creature native and indued unto that element. But long it could not be till that my garments, heavy with their drink, pull’d my poor wretched self from my melodious lay to muddy death.”
“Got it,” Gertrude says. “Goodbye, Ophelia! I’m sorry I can’t rescue you!”
“It’s okay! I’m drowning now! Glub glub glub!” you shout.
You take a big breath of air and swim down until you can touch bottom, count to 10, and then swim up to the top. When you surface, Gertrude is gone.
You have successfully faked your own death!! You suddenly feel like you’ve received 100 experience points and levelled up your Mad Nutty Rhetoric skill.
» Go home again, making sure not to be seen «
* * *
* * *
You go home to hide out until Hamlet tells you that his part of this plan is done! You worry that now that you’re missing and presumed drowned your room might attract visitors, but you figure you’ll be able to see anyone coming and hide.
Days go by. NOBODY COMES. A little concerned that your death didn’t take, you put on a disguise and wander around the castle, but yep, everyone thinks you’re dead! They’re even having a MEMORIAL SERVICE for you. I guess they’ll come to clean out your place after that?
You go home to wait.
Days go by.
NOBODY COMES AGAIN. Eventually you get tired of waiting though and wander down to the royal court. As you enter, you’re greeted by a gruesome scene so unexpected and bloody that it takes a few seconds to fully comprehend. Gertrude is clearly dead. Claudius is also just as clearly dead. Hamlet’s dead too. Aaaaand so’s your brother, Laertes. Horatio’s alive, but he seems pretty shell-shocked.
“What the hell happened here?” you demand.
Horatio looks at you and opens his mouth to explain. “Um...Hamlet did?” he says, weakly.
“Aw man, aw geez,” you say, and then Fortinbras (he’s the crown prince of Norway) walks in with some ambassadors! He says Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead too, and that he’s king now. He settles himself on the throne and looks around his new kingdom.
He seems pretty satisfied at all this, I gotta say!
» THE END «
» Screw this!! «
* * *
* * *
“Screw this!!” you shout, “What gives you the right to be king? You don’t even know anything about Denmark!”
“Do so!” says Fortinbras.
“Nuh uh!” you shout in reply.
Horatio holds up his hands. “Gentlemen, lady, please! I’m sure we can
settle this reasonably,” he says. He smiles widely.
A few minutes later, you and Fortinbras are sitting side by side at a table. Sitting at the other end of the table is Horatio. This is how you will settle your dispute: Horatio will ask you trivia questions about Denmark, and the first person to slap the table and give the correct answer will get a point. It’s best two out of three. The winner gets to be ruler of Denmark.
It is all quite reasonable.
“Alright!” says Horatio, brushing off his hands. “First question: when...was Denmark first inhabited?!”