Bernado and Marcellus are upon the battlements of Elsinore Castle.
‘Something has gone missing in the state of Denmark!’ Exclaimed Marcellus.
‘That’s rotten luck!’ said Bernardo. ‘What might this some thing be?’
‘Well, not actually a thing, more a being. The Lord Hamlet has disappeared!’
Bernado drew a breath of shock. ‘The Lord Hamlet? How can this be? I saw him but yesterday and he seemed in a rude health.’
‘Rude health, maybe, dear cuz, and his rudeness extended to his sometime father and his longtime mother, too. Not ignoring the fact that he called Ophelia a flower-fairy of few faculties’
Bernado took on board the seriousness of Hamlet’s manner. ‘But, the Lord Hamlet had seemed to be all set for a return to Wittenberg, his schooling to continue, his education to increase, his mathematics to improve.’
‘He has absconded taking no more than the barest clothing, a satchel of food, and a flagon of cheap wine. He may be heading for the hills of Elsinore.’ Marcellus glanced towards those hills.
‘Have any set out to seek him? asked Bernado.
‘The King, Claudius, has sent forth the fool, two gravediggers, and the players. He will jot send forth of his guard for fear of being left at risk from attack by any of the other Scandinavian states. I fear that he does little more than lip service to a search.’
‘The king does not much like Lord Hamlet, and sits upon the throne that shouldest rightly belong to the young lord.’ stated Bernado, with much looking about and over his shoulder.
‘It is true, as many have said (but not openly) that Lord Hamlet shouldest have been king when his father was untimely ripped from his life, seemingly without preamble or due cause. It was if perhaps he had met his end at the hands of a murderer.’ Marcellus started at the sound that then arose from the battlements.
‘Murder!’ came a well known voice, that was tinged with an edge of anger. ‘Murder, most foul!’
‘’Tis the old king, unable to sleep, walking the battlements, lamenting his untimely ending.’ muttered Marcellus. ‘He lost his kingship, his wife, and his successor, in what seemed like the blink of an eye, and that has caused his internment in the state of limbo from where he can not proceed to the heaven above…’
‘… or the place below.’ finished Bernado. ‘Such a loss* has been the Lord Hamlet’s undoing, too – and he hath lost his mind.’
‘Undoubtedly.’ finished Marcellus.
*was when my twenty minutes ran out.
Graeme Sandford 