HORATIO

The loss of Ophelia had felt like a heavy blow to everyone.  She was so young, so innocent.  My thoughts went back to the various occasions when I had seen her.  I remembered her plea for help when she first spoke to me.  She felt abandoned by Hamlet and hoped I could somehow restore him to his senses and ensure the love she sought from him.  I remembered her rambling talk after the death of her father--and within that talk the curious comment concerning the soul after death:  "They say the owl was a baker's daughter.  Lord, we know what we are but know not what we may be."

Just then I thought I heard her voice once more, wafting past my ears on the cold breeze, saying, "Oh sir, I do not see the flowers.  Where are the flowers?"  Could that have been a real voice?  It sounded more vibrant than anything my fancy could conjure up.  I turned to peer into the shadows, as she said, "Horatio, please tell me if you know.  Will I be a sparrow?"

A sparrow in life, a fallen sparrow in death.  Yes, perhaps she would stretch out her wings again and fly to realms that would treat such a delicate creature with a bit more grace.

That night when I finally retired to bed, my head was filled with thoughts of death, and I knew that sleep would not come easily.  Over and over my mind returned to the image of the fair maiden whose life was snuffed out before she had fully blossomed, the lady she had been and the lady she might have become if she had lived to assume her rightful place in the world.  When I finally slipped away from the waking realm, it was not Ophelia who haunted my dreams.  I saw once more the skull of Yorick resting on the ground, with its cranial roof dented by a blow that fell many years ago.

Now the skull began to rise, to gently float up into the air as it acquired folds of flesh.  And I could see the jowls, the twinkling eyes, and the wide grin.  Atop the head was a cap with tassels that jiggled and bounced.  Surely the jester had come to life.  He hopped and cavorted about in such a way that I could not help laughing.  Was I laughing?  Everybody was laughing, for we were in the court amidst a merry crowd of people, all enjoying the antics of this imp, a man who seemed at once part goat, part rooster, part jack-in-the-box.  Then suddenly he was a beast of burden with a child riding on his back, and this child was surely a young Hamlet, Hamlet at five or six, Hamlet having the time of his life.  And then I was Hamlet, riding the back of the jester, or was I five-year-old Horatio?  We were one, Hamlet-Horatio, all eyes turned to watch me/us as I/we galloped about the court.

I was breathless, and the figures in the court began to fade.  It grew darker as the jester loped off to seek some needed rest.  I saw him walk beside a great wall and seat himself on the ground to rest against its base.  A stone was falling.  I tried to cry out, to warn him, but no sound came from my mouth.  I looked up and thought I saw a figure up there.  Whose face was there?  A face somehow familiar and yet unknown.  Alas, Yorick was dead.  His mirth had been slain, and his eyes no longer twinkled.  Yet I saw him float before me, his face robbed of all merriment and now cast in sorrow.  He floated away but returned with sorrow transformed to terror, as he spoke to me:  "Horatio, beware!  He comes again.  Beware of the man who brings the sword and cup."