Too, Too Solid Flesh

by Nick O'Donohoe

  Claudius said, “I’d ask forgiveness, but you’d laugh.”

  Hamlet shook his head. “You can’t help yourself, Uncle. This is the part you play in Hamlet—and it’s all you are.”

  Claudius fled.

  Horatio watched. Finally Hamlet said, “Thank you for several things: for not killing Claudius just now—”

  “And?”

  “For wanting to put an arm around me—”

  “And?”

  “For not putting an arm around me.”

  Hamlet walked away. Horatio said, “Two questions.”

  “Meaning three. By now, that’s comforting. Ask.”

  “One: you warned me against Claudius. Didn’t you ever suspect that he might work against you as well?”

  In an unsteady voice Hamlet answered, “Only if you had betrayed me would I be more surprised, more heartbroken.”

  Horatio nodded. “All right. Two: do you understand why you didn’t suspect him?”

  Hamlet smiled humorlessly. “I know I’ve been a fool.”

  Horatio said, troubled, “That knowledge is the acid of existence, which engraves the Curse of Consciousness. One question more.”

  Hamlet said, “Watch your own speech, Horatio. I’m a bad influence. Ask your third question. My heart is broken, but there’s a fragment left for friends to shatter.”

  “I suspect that you are ready to confront Goode.”

  “To accuse him, yes.” Hamlet was pacing, measuring his words in stage distances. “We can’t do an entire production in lab dress yet, but we can do the ‘Mousetrap.’”

  “I thought so.” Night after night Horatio had watched the play-within-a-play which unmasks Claudius, wondering when Hamlet would turn it against Goode. “If we do—”

  “Your ‘we’ cheers me. It is our trap, then—”

  “My lord,” Horatio said sharply, and Hamlet stopped.

  “Yes,” he said, suddenly tired. “Ask. I’ll listen.”

  “Claudius was one of the greatest men I’ve known, but he couldn’t overcome his thinkware. Why do you think you can?”

  Hamlet smiled, but the smile was framed with tears. “And what makes you, my best and truest friend, think that I ever believed I would escape myself and my fate?”

  He walked off. Horatio followed, leaving the lights on. That afternoon no one came to turn them off. In the evening, the lights were still at half-strength, feebly lighting a hall that was filling with a simulated audience.

  30

  The wind was audible even backstage. The livethatch on the roof would be stripped by the storm.

  The audience was thinned as well; perhaps the thinkware kept the crowd spare on stormy nights. The people who had come had plenty of room for their coats, which had shaken off water like spaniels to rid themselves of the rainwater.

  It was Act Three. Claudius and Gertrude were on their thrones, toying with each other’s fingers. Hamlet managed a few scowls in their direction, but Horatio noticed his quick sidelong glance at Goode, in the audience.

  Hamlet lay his head in Ophelia’s lap. She broke character and smiled; he tickled her nose. She said, “Belike, this show imports the argument of the play.”

  But the audience gasped, and the line was lost.

  The players were doing the dumb show which, in the play, summarizes the murder of Old Hamlet and seduction of Gertrude by Claudius. The players wore ill-made lab coats.

  Gertrude sat straighter at the gasps. She had sewn the lab coats at Hamlet’s request, so that, as he said, “The entire audience might be surprised.” It had worked.

  A gray-haired player hunched over, miming a ChemTek. A younger player, a metal band on his head, stalked deathlike toward the old man. The others pretended not to see him.

  He emptied a small vial into the old player’s ear. The old player sank from confusion into blankness, unconsciousness, and death. The young player stalked off through the unseeing company.

  Horatio risked a peek at the audience. Goode was gone.

  The stage lights went out. An auxiliary generator went on, but it, too, failed.

  Polonius called automatically, “Lights, lights, lights!” Someone, perhaps Osric, snorted. Thunder rumbled outside.

  Hamlet called, “Everyone please stay still.” The rustle of human motion stopped. “Globe lights on.”

  Nothing happened. Someone in the audience giggled.

  Horatio felt a touch at his arm. “Draw your sword,” Hamlet said quietly.

  Horatio did. In the dark he ran his fingers up to the point and snatched his hand away. His sword was unbated.

  “Of course,” Hamlet said as though he saw Horatio. “A bated sword would be pointless. Make for the exit.”

  They froze as Goode said from center stage, “Ladies and gentlemen, As you can see—or rather, tell—we have lost power to the theater. The lobby glowworms will light your exit.”

  He added glibly, “We apologize for the inconvenience and will credit your plaz tomorrow. Thank you for coming.”

  There was a small muttering and a motion up the aisles. The outer doors opened and closed. There was silence.

  The lights came on. Goode, Claudius, Gertrude, and Polonius were gone.

  The rest of the cast milled about, disoriented. Hamlet drew Horatio to the wings. “‘O good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand pound. Did’st perceive?”

  “I didn’t even see him.”

  “‘Upon the talk of the pois’ning?’”

  “I saw his empty seat,” Horatio said desperately. “Are you rehearsing the play, or saying that Goode’s a murderer?”

  Hamlet said happily, “‘Come, some music! Come, the recorders! For if the king like not the comedy—’”

  “Stop quoting the play.” Horatio was frightened by Hamlet. “There was a power failure. Goode calmed the audience.”

  Hamlet raised an eyebrow. “A convenient failure. It proves nothing.”

  Hamlet pointed his sword at Horatio, who for a moment was not sure that Hamlet was merely gesturing with it. Hamlet said bluntly, “What does your heart think?”

  Horatio turned away. “All right; I’m pretty sure he did it. But nothing tonight would convince the police.”

  “Police?” Hamlet looked far too alert to be so lost at the word. “Why would I think of them?”

  Horatio pointed his own sword at Hamlet. “You should.”

  Hamlet parried Horatio’s sword, disengaged, and stepped back. “I think too much, and our king is a killer. I am off to catch him praying, then to my mother, the strumpet who shares his sheets.”

  Hamlet leaped off the stage and was gone.

  Horatio stared after him. The simplest interpretation of Hamlet’s actions had never occurred to Horatio before: that given the right circumstances, Hamlet really was mad.

  31

  Lights flashed on in the hall as Horatio chased after Hamlet. Blinded for a moment, Horatio headed for the lobby. He caught himself when the lobby door said reprovingly, “A storm warning is in effect. Hurricane Medea is making landfall. Winds in excess of ninety miles an hour—”

  Horatio swore and turned around. The hall seemed longer than it ever had, particularly since he could only knock at the lab doors, sword drawn, and wait. All the autodoors were on autoclose for the night, though Goode had access to all of them.

  Probably Hamlet did as well. And Hamlet, too, had a sword—

  Goode leaped out of a lab and said, “What are you doing here?” He seemed distraught. “Have you seen Freddy?” He shouted down the hall, “Freddy! Wait!” and ran past Horatio without another word. A band of bright metal flashed from under Goode’s coat.

  Horatio ran the other way, hoping to find Hamlet before Goode did. Where would Hamlet go, disturbed as he was?

  The answer was as obvious as it was frightening. Horatio took off on the run.

  * * * * *

  Hamlet burst into Gertrude’s room. She stared uncertainly, and said the thing most fixed in her mind. �
��Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.”

  Hamlet was filled with a wild, mad joy. “Mother, you have my father much offended.”

  The unscuffable plastic walls echoed the Elizabethan lines. Gertrude sat on a simple square of extruded plastic, looking shocked, as perhaps she was. “Why, how now, Hamlet?” She looked at the wallscreen. Like the scrollscreen on her table, it could be used to summon help.

  He stepped in front of it. “What’s the matter now?” He shook with rage, ready to accuse her both of being Goode’s and Claudius’s lover, the play carrying him through reality.

  Polonius suddenly cried, “What ho, help!” from the autodoor of Gertrude’s room.

  Hamlet shouted the inevitable, “How now? A rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!” and lunged. The autodoor, cued to open from the inside even when locked, barely opened in time.

  Polonius, crouched outside it, stared as the sword entered him well outside the target area built into him for his death scene. Hamlet withdrew the sword, stepping back.

  Polonius fell forward. He dropped to his knees, holding his side and trying to get up. He mouthed his final line, falling backward beside the door. He stared up and muttered obscurely, “Win some, lose some.” His eyes glazed.

  Hamlet put his hand against the corpse’s wound, staring at his own bloody palm.

  Gertrude almost wailed, “O me, what hast thou done?”

  Hamlet looked at her. Her eyes had an odd pleasure in them, from the death or from the play lines. He said carefully, “Nay, I know not, is it the king?”

  Gertrude said her next line from the play. He said his. They walked through the lines of Act Three, scene four.

  Horatio pounded on the door before they had finished. Hamlet gestured, the door opened, and Horatio fell in.

  He quickly told the autodoor, “Lock yourself.” To Hamlet he said, “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  Gertrude said icily, “You aren’t in this scene.”

  Hamlet said, “She’s right.” His eyes were strangely blank. “You don’t return until Ophelia’s mad scene.”

  “I’m here.” He grabbed Hamlet’s arm, ignoring the sword. “And you’re leaving with me.”

  Hamlet jerked his arm free. “I leave in twenty lines.”

  “Like hell.”

  Hamlet evaded Horatio’s grab, and half-raised the sword. He was trembling. “The scene isn’t done yet.”

  “I don’t care.” Horatio stared, horrified, at the bloody sword, which made the murder seem more real than did Polonius’s awkwardly fallen body. “You’ve got to leave. You killed Polonius. Goode’s acting crazy, too.”

  “Goode?” Hamlet tried to place the name. “He’s here?”

  “He ran off on an errand. I think you’re the errand.”

  Hamlet stared around the room: at Horatio’s urgent face, at his mother’s confused and frightened one, at Polonius’s empty one. “Claudius,” he said confusedly.

  Horatio sounded shaken and disgusted. “He’s in his room, praying his head off. Of course you didn’t kill him. You stood behind him, ranted to the walls, and came here.”

  Gertrude said suddenly, “Something’s not right.” She stared down at Polonius. “Something’s very wrong.” She glared across at Horatio. “It’s your fault, isn’t it?”

  Hamlet flinched at her tone. “Horatio,” he said more calmly, “if you love and trust me, let me finish.”

  Horatio closed his eyes. “Hurry.”

  Gertrude began as though never interrupted, “Be thou assur’d, if words be made of breath—” She spoke sedately.

  Hamlet quoted more rapidly, but with feeling, “‘I must to England, you know that?’” He looked at her intently.

  All she said was, “Alack, I had forgot.”

  Hamlet kissed her and exited dragging Polonius. Horatio noted with relief that the lights had come on in the corridor when he entered it; that meant no other humans were there.

  In the corridor, Hamlet dropped Polonius’s head, ignoring Horatio’s wince at the thud, and said, “Which way?”

  “Lobby.” Horatio added, “Why did you finish the scene?”

  “Eric is dead. The security force must be a lunatic squadron, half-buried by their workload, dependent upon witnesses more than on scanning. If they ask my mother where I’ve gone, she’ll only say ‘England,’ and she may not mention you at all. You’re not in that scene.”

  Horatio opened the door to enter the lobby. “Is that the only reason?”

  Hamlet looked ashamed and guilty. “I needed the words.” They crossed the lobby. “I couldn’t act without them.”

  Horatio nodded, “You were stuck in the play.”

  Opening the outside door took both of them; the wind pushed it shut. The rain pelted sideways, lightning flashed, and Hamlet shouted, “I’m stuck in the play till I die. Where will we go?”

  Lightning struck the Globe. The generator went out.

  The next flash lit the front of the building. The Tudor plaster and beams were gone. It was a metal and concrete fortress, broken only by scanners and screenjets.

  Only the thatch, perched foolishly on the fort like a party hat on a general, remained of the theater.

  Hamlet shouted, “Take me to Paulette’s.”

  “What?” But Horatio had clearly heard him. “We can’t.”

  “Billy’s place is empty, too, but we must go where anyone who traces me would be crazy to follow.” He looked at his sword, which was washed clean by the rain. “You’ve spoken so of the Greenhouse Pools.”

  Horatio ducked at another flash. The streets rumbled with the thunder. “The Pools, tonight? That’s crazy.”

  “Then no sane man would follow us.” Hamlet strode into the empty, rain-lashed street. “Which way?”

  Horatio wrapped his cloak tightly and followed.

  32

  Earlier in the evening, people Accessing storm projections had elected that it be named Medea. The storm that killed a borough of New York should be named after a murderer.

  Queens was buffeted and empty, neither human nor animal life apparent. Hamlet and Horatio had gone underground immediately, the only people on the train for Queens. For once the underground part of the journey, instead of seeming like a premature burial, had been a welcome relief from the storm.

  Horatio jerked alert when the train came above ground; moaning wind and shaking metal were louder than any underground. They ducked from the trains to the comparative shelter of a decayed station. The roof leaked and the walls were cracked. For some tonight, it would be the safest place in Manhattan.

  They stumbled down the street, huddling against each other. Within a few feet they were drenched, constantly aware of the battle to breathe without choking on rain. Ten minutes later they were on the square near Ocean Boulevard.

  Horatio had remembered it as the quickest way to Paulette’s. He looked at it now in awe. Water surged and roiled in the square, and whitecaps crashed against the buildings. Each wave swept in like a new tidal bore, spreading in the square and breaking into sub-patterns caused by the side buildings. One moment a storefront would be visible to the bare paving; the next moment only the tops of the shattered windows would be visible above the spray.

  Hamlet stared straight into the oncoming waves. He had never seen the sea. The wind whipped his cape like a great black flag.

  Horatio pointed. Hamlet looked at a piece of liveplank from the walkways, sticking like a diving board from a cypress storefront. “We can’t stay here,” Horatio shouted.

  “We must.” Hamlet’s stage voice cut through the noise without his shouting. Horatio let go of Hamlet’s arm, grabbing it again as a wave slammed into them.

  They worked their way around the side of the square, avoiding the full force of the surf. They clung to pillars, broken branches, whatever handhold the pitted and cracked building fronts offered.

  Medea pounded and smashed angrily about them. A wave shattered a miraculously intact pawnshop window and swept through wit
h tons of water. Horatio and Hamlet clung to the window’s wood frame, ignoring splinters and trying to avoid being sucked in.

  The backwash nearly dragged them off the building, bumping them with pawnshop refuse: livewood instruments, broken chairs, ancient terminal monitors, and now-useless music stands. Something bumped across Hamlet’s half-submerged chest and he stared down blankly as a child’s doll, caught in a momentary eddy, spun in front of him.

  He called to Horatio, “Where are all the people?”

  Horatio grabbed at the corner of the building. “Maybe they went to high ground. We’re at the corner, my lord.”

  They rounded the corner. The streets were full of bodies, arms, and legs.

  When the tide surged forward, the arms and legs barely seemed tied to the bodies. As the backwash rolled away, they drew together until they seemed one tightknit mass: children clinging to parents who were in turn clinging to buildings.

  The very old and the very young picked themselves up after each backwash. One large wave would change that.

  They wore tattered deadcloth fabrics wrapped tightly with deadcloth strips and patches. The deadclothing seemed to have spawned: women’s and short men’s clothes from the rags of larger clothes, children’s clothes from theirs, men’s clothes from whole colonies of children’s rags.

  A girl in her early teens slipped on the concrete, grabbing a man for support. In the moment before he shrugged her off, her legs kicked up behind her, blood draining from one of the soles of her bare feet.

  Hamlet looked to the left and right, blinking in the rain. “How many streets are jammed with the dying tonight?” Horatio watched as people clung to the walls, to each other, to floating trash. “Hundreds. Probably thousands.”

  Hamlet pointed the way they had come. The waves were visibly higher. “They won’t survive here.”

  Horatjio staggered as the backwash sucked at his legs. “We won’t, either.” Just now that seemed unimportant. “They surely know where high ground is.”

  Hamlet looked around him. “You’ve been here recently. Where is it?” The water funneled down the streets levelly; it would be easy to stumble into a deep street and drown.