cameras clicking. Guards surrounded us and brought us to the car and then escorted us into the cathedral.
Walking toward the coffins at the end of the long cathedral aisle—the aisle I had begrudgingly hobbled down a few months earlier at Gertrude and Claudius’s wedding—my body grew weak. Horatio was holding on to my arm, to steady himself or me I couldn’t tell. I was relieved when the minister gestured for everyone to sit. The lacquered boxes seemed to mock us with their shining perfection. Such beauty was about to be put underground; their only purpose was turning to dust. The beauty of those I had loved would be forever locked inside, and all would be left to rot.
My brother, tall and wise, scornful and witty. Hitting me with a pillow if my head was blocking the television. Reading thick tomes that he insisted were interesting. His deep voice calling across the hallway telling me to turn down my music or asking how my day was. Smirking at my father’s instructions on how to be a better man. We laughed, yet those lessons made Laertes a wonderful man. A young man. So young he never had the chance to be his own man.
My father was not young. His pace was slowing. His hair was graying. His skin was wrinkling. His face was gentle and loving, despite the concern that often hung across it like a veil. Like a shroud. My father had had an opinion on everything, yet his opinions didn’t matter anymore. His advice would be dispensed to no one, and I alone held the memory of his private words. I had ignored too much of his advice, sure he would be around when I needed it, when I wanted it… which I had assumed would be never. “We never know the worth of water till the well goes dry,” he liked to say. Prophetic.
Looking at Gertrude’s silver casket, my father’s favorite curse sprang to mind: “May the curse of Mary Malone and her nine blind illegitimate children chase you so far over the hills of Damnation that the Lord himself can’t find you with a telescope.” Inside I smiled a little. See, Dad? I thought. You did teach me something useful.
My amusement faded as my gaze drifted to Hamlet’s casket, the most elaborate, the one most bedecked with flowers. Hamlet tucked a buttercup behind my ear. Hamlet shoved his sunglasses on top of his head. Hamlet strummed his guitar. Hamlet whispered words of love. Hamlet held me down. Hamlet called me a whore. Hamlet killed my father. Hamlet stabbed my brother. Hamlet. Hamlet. Hamlet. Damn him. Damn his name. Damn his memory. Damn the sweet pain I couldn’t shake. I closed my eyes, willing the thoughts away. “Good-bye, sweet prince,” I whispered to myself. No. No more of his name. No more of his memory.
“Sweet is the wine, but sour is the payment,” my father told me each time I chose pleasure over reason. Too bad my choice cost him so dearly. My lip began to quiver, but I forced my face to remain stony lest some cameraman catch my grief and broadcast it to the world. I wouldn’t give them what they wanted. I could hear every sound too loudly and yet understood none of it. Horatio whispered something, but I didn’t hear his words. I was sweating and cold, detached and overwrought. I wanted to go, but I couldn’t stand.
Horatio’s sudden absence left a cavern of cool air around me as he moved to the podium. I tried to focus my thoughts on him and his words about Hamlet, the Hamlet we once knew. Hamlet. Hamlet. My old self heard Horatio’s words and agreed: Hamlet had once been wonderful. My new self wanted to reach into the air and tear the kind words apart. Hamlet would be remembered as a charming prince who lost his way under the pressures of grief and conspiracy. I would remember him as the murderer of my very soul. Hamlet. Hamlet. The sharp end of his name curled my lips.
I became aware of silence. I looked up. Horatio was standing at the podium so stricken that he could not continue to speak. He laid his head on his arms, and the wrinkled papers shook in his hands. His father rushed forward and covered the microphone, whispering private comforts to his bereaved son. Taking the papers out of Horatio’s hands, his father completed the eulogy. The final story drifted around me while I