DREAM NINETEEN!!

          In Senior Year of High School Doctor Englund cast me to read (all of) Hamlet’s lines in class as we read the play. Kyle, seated next to me at the front of the class, at my left hand, was cast to play Horatio. I still remember him patting me on the left shoulder in a brotherly way when she ended class right before my “to Be or Not to Be” monologue, so that I knew what I had to look forward to for the next class.

Act One:

Anthony and I found a number that was 216 digits long. We had to rush it to print, because a group of Hasidic Jews were pressuring us to return it to them. So we arranged to meet with them in Jerusalem. Upon arrival we were led into an ancient tomb by Mike Johnston, wearing a turban like the sort that André 3000 would have worn when he first came into touch with the Divine. Deep within it we discovered that the Jews had secretly been working in concert with the Egyptians; all of the hieroglyphs had Hebrew inscriptions engraved into them. Mike told me that their war was only in itself one front for a much Greater War.

I remember now how Anthony found the number. It had been delivered to him by an Austrian official who was interested in supplanting the Fuhrer. Anthony had to swallow it during a routine inspection. He later pulled it again out of his ass.

Act Two:

Deep into the caverns we plunged. We were just about to reach the Center when a statue of Athena (inexplicably, but I guess that Deep Down all archetypes are the same) came alive and blocked our path. Curious about the sudden appearance of a Greek Goddess in a tomb built by Egyptian Semites, I looked more closely at her. One of her eyes was missing. Then I noticed that there were microscopic chains trailing up from her shoulders and joints. I climbed them. As I rose further and farther into the abyss I began to see, with increasing clarity, two crosses (elongated, not Greek) that were being used to manipulate the statue via the marionette strings.

I found my footing on a sort of wooden beam the likes of which old British (and, at the time, Irish) sea vessels used, many of which had historically been turned into the roofs of chapels and the like. Across from me sat the puppeteer, a small and hooded figure. I demanded his identity. He told me that he did not owe it to me. I told him that we were God’s Chosen People. He replied that Athena had chosen him instead. I replied that Athena only chose him because she was being manipulated. He replied that I had no grasp on the situation. I made a pun on the word “grasp”: something to the effect that at least I am not grasping at straws trying to handle it. He said that I was. Below me Anthony asked what was taking so long. But I told him to be patient. He replied that Ares was coming and that we had to hurry. I told him to open Pandora’s Box using the Blades of Chaos. I returned to face my hooded interlocutor. He had begun to retreat from me. I approached. I told him that if no man were entitled to Herusalem then she would die alone. He asked me who “she” was. I said: we are within a sea vessel. A ship is called “she”. He replied that “she” was but an object for utility. I called him a parasite and a termite in the wood. I continued to tell him that the Kingdom fell, dying alone without its proper King, just as he had planned for it to. He asked me how a Kingdom could be called “she”. Then he told me that he knew how the King fell. As I lunged at him in a fury, the beams ignited beneath me, and I fell as well, to my Death.

Act Three:

The tomb transformed into an Irish Catholic vessel that bore me across the River Styx. I was assigned a new body. I found myself dressed in black garments, as was Prince Hamlet. Beholding myself in a mirror, I could not doubt that I was him.

I was led by Chiron into a room not unlike the room with the Potions from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. At a Go table sat Jim Halpert, with a set of scales in one hand and a sword in the other. I sat down to play against him. He asked me why I wanted to return to flesh. I told him that I had to kill Claudius in order to avenge the Death of the Rightful King. He asked me if I did not mean the Rightful Queen. After a point, I had no choice but to confess. He told me that the Chess Game was all most over. I could relax and play Go for the time being.

Jim told me that in order to Love Fully one had to surrender the intellect. I asked him if that made him an emotivist. He replied by telling me that when he bested Roy he did it because he knew in his Heart that he must. I said: so Jim knew that he was Roy’s superior. And in that sense Jim was no different from me in my predicament. I would defeat the usurper Claudius not with my Reason but with my Intuition. Jim told me that I could use all I had within my inventory. He just advised that I not clog the desk, lest it jam. Besides: evil has a way of defeating itself.

Act Four:

I awoke in the Taj Mahal. My wife was swimming in the pool outside. The weather was still cold. It was as bad as though we were still in Denmark. I yelled down to her from a window, asking if she would not freeze. She simply replied: what does not kill me makes me stronger. She told me that if I wanted to beat Claudius I would have to learn to swim in cold water. I asked her if she meant that literally I had to race him in this weather. And then I remembered the Oceanside Pier. I had wanted so desperately to take on the elements then. To the victor would go the spoils. If action was the test of passion, as Jim had led me to conclude, then the spoils would not go to waste; only True Love COULD win in such a race. And hitherto it had not been a true competition. The war had been a front for the Greater War.

Act Five:

Word reached me and Mahal that Claudius King of Denmark died. He was cornered by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who had returned from North Korea to avenge themselves. Frantic, he threw himself off of the top of his Palace.

The New King of Denmark marched through the streets. Men bowed and women threw themselves at his feet. I enjoyed the attention. But it was nothing next to the Love of my Mahal. As we found a quiet corner of Denmark and I bent in to kiss her, she offered me a white rose. She told me that it was red when she died but now it was purified. I asked her what lifetime she’d died in. She replied that she was only a ghost, sent to haunt me up until her own death was avenged. She told me that she had been the one to lead Claudius up to the top of the Palace. Thrice she tempted him, and all three times he accepted. Once, he performed a miracle for her, manifesting bread out of his thoughts alone. This performance of the sacrament had proven to her that it was possible to assume a fleshy form even after death, that I might enjoy her. The second time, she offered him the Kingdom of Denmark. So he killed King Hamlet, my namesake, in order to claim it. She drowned herself out of sorrow and regret then. But she returned to tempt him once more. When the two rooks returned from North Korea, she persuaded Claudius to throw himself off of the top of the Palace. So he did so, proving himself thrice to be Christ’s inferior. And hence she avenged me for my suffering.

Dm.A.A.