Act Three
Interlude
The
madness gets around
"By the mass, the little beggar takes to one's
quarters and usurps one's bed with as natural and easy a grace as if he owned
them..." Ch. 12: 'The Prince and his deliverer.' (The Prince and Pauper).
The main player has collected the revised script
delivered by the servant when he saw his troupe members prancing from the
chambers, interchanging their choices, or partners in bed. It was a rare
occasion to be feted and housed with such comforts, that they want to make use
of it to the fullest. He held no judgment for a good outing like this was like
several encores of a performance. He had experienced it only once and it rested
in him since then.
The main player perused the revised script.
“It does not differ from the original. It’s still
murder in the plot but by whom was the trapping of it.” The main player was
amused. “A good plot added with the different ending.”
“Eek…: A female troupe member ran out of the
chamber assigned to her or whom she was to share with modest coverings. “There
is a mouse here.”
The other troupe members appeared from their
chambers; in all forms displaying none of the modesty required by norms.
“Alice, why the shriek? We have loitered with the
mice before. They are blind in sight, but their scent may be attracted to your
navel.” One lady member quipped out. “It may suggest that the food best be
gobbled by the mouth and not laid there like a fresh oyster.”
“Don’t you compare mine to yours? James never
complained of the taste there.” Alice rebuked. “I had blind mice up my navel
before but to feel it here, was not what I had expected of in a castle. I would
have expected they will be royally served in the kitchen and not scruffling in
the walls where amorous events should be held.”
“Alas, my troupe. Adjourn your matings and convene
here to read the new lines we are to recite.” The Main Player drew the
attention of his members. “We are here to perform tonight for an audience.”
“Coitus interruptus indeed. I fared there will be a
delay, June my love. I am to be engaged in other acts.” One member kissed his
lover on the cheek.
“It won’t be a delay for you have kept me delayed
far too long with your tenacious desire to outperform most times.” The lady
named June went back to her chamber to dress up.
“Frigid was she or you tried too hard?” Alice
snapped at the male who was singled out. “I am fine for any workout.”
“Only in June, I could tell from the perspiration
from the gland's secretion. Unlike you, I fear what I was made to taste…perhaps
a dried oyster inserted in salted water.” The other lover said before a pillow
was thrown in his direction.
“Troupe, please focus. We need to discuss here.”
The Main Player called the forum to be established.
Unknown to the troupe members or most of the
servants included, the walls of the castle held not only the ears but the gaps
for the sight to view. It may be concealed like mouse holes but it beholds
great views.
“I am ever disgusted by these young people. They
know no decency in them.” Polonius was in between the walls that were built
into the castle design, for the King was not only paranoid but also a voyeur of
sorts. The King does peek into the audience and players or guests. A vice that
only the Great Chamberlain was to hold a secret.
The hidden walls had their uses. It was how
Polonius still could walk those corridors even as the Great Chamberlain although
the throne had changed its King, or rather an Emperor sits there.
“I will see how much an actor can do the script.”
Polonius took his leave. His passage was watched by another who took on a
different route. The other took to the other part of the castle. Mouse holes
bored into the walls are strategic. The sight that greeted the voyeur was a
performance to be held with vapors that soon created a mist around the wall
over the hole.
“If only I can tell you my needs, Ophelia. I am
ever wanting but not to you I have not anymore.” The figure stared at the lady
who was undressing for her bath. “I know your timing and from a distance, I
could only vouch. It not your fault but you reminded me of my …. Sister …or
perhaps the mother.”
“Treachery in love unforgiven by me, yet desired by
me.” It was Hamlet who continued the voyeur. He has been reading Freud to
unravel his needs.
“Mother, I hate you. You took him for yourself when
you have me.” Hamlet said. “Yet he still lives with us.”
“I am to love you but your betrayal makes me resent
you, as I do now when back in this home, I find my love for anyone on the wane,
though I once confessed to having love.” Hamlet felt the urges inside but he
cannot fathom how to handle the feeling.
“I could not do it for I see her here like
yourself; how true will the love be faithful or treads treacherously on the
turning of my sight.” “Hamlet closed his eyes. “I can’t do it with her as I would
with you.”
“Harlots are all you represent.”
If only, Hamlet was listening to the mind of
Ophelia, perhaps he will read more to understand her.
“I am so lost.” Ophelia lowered her body into the
bath prepared for her. “I am in my prime, and still I await what is to be
released. He was the only one I was to offer but he left me feeling so …sinful.
I have trailed him, waited for him, and when he was near to me now, he desist
on me. Did I do wrong to offer myself when it was his to take? Or he was not ready,
or when will he ever be?”
“Now when I am unready, with my family to resist,
he intrudes on me with the letters of loving, and yet when I see him, he
feigned not to know of it. I am so confused. Did I repel him in some ways
physically? I hold all the needs of any Man, yet he shuns me on the appearance.
Please tell me.”
“I have shared my confusion with my father and yet
he tells me I am to cease my feelings.”
“How do you desist what you have craved years ago?
It’s like the foundation of the faith, one does not let go of the whims as
easily as passing on the corridors. Father, I did love him but I am unsure now.
He is not the boy I knew, or does man outgrow into madness at times?”
“I have been spiritual to my soul, but the devil
tempts me wild at times, and yet I am sane to hold onto my soul…but who
shall…or can I ever love? Or shall I remain as sane?” Ophelia sighed. “A castle
I lived in and yet it feels like imprisonment here.”
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