Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

Hardheaded Woman of Mine

2011-03-13T01:06:00.007-05:00

Hullo, blog! I've been away for a few months, brewing up some bitching projects that'll be all over this space soon.

Most recently, I'm only now coming off of a 29-hour Play-in-a-Day odyssey, which culminated in my family joining me as the inestimable Adventure Theater team knocked the piece that follows out of the park.

Yes, it's another installment of It Was Awesome and You Missed It.

Hardheaded Woman of Mine

Seamus Sullivan

Pygmalion, facing downstage, kneels in front of an invisible statue, sculpting it with an invisible chisel and mallet. Galatea enters behind him.

GALATEA
Gods, Pyggy, not another one.

PYGMALION
Yes, another one. Almighty Zeus! Pygmalion the sculptor, sculpting. Who ever could have foreseen this.

GALATEA

I hope harpies eat your rotten guts.

PYGMALION
Galatea, my sweet, in my mind you are plummeting into blackest Tartarus, toes wiggling indignantly at the heavens.

GALATEA
You couldn’t chisel her with a shirt on, for once?

PYGMALION
You know that’s not how it works. Now. If I may-?

He raises the chisel with the utmost care. Raises the mallet.

Galatea coughs extremely loudly.

Pygmalion ruins the statue.

PYGMALION
GNAAAAAAAAAAH

GALATEA
Sorry, am I distracting you?

PYGMALION
Woman! I call you toppler of enterprise! Ruiner of things!

GALATEA
Sculpt dogs or gods or dolphins! How hard is it to not carve sexy women!

PYGMALION
Really hard! That’s my whole thing!

GALATEA
Carve all the rock-hard bellies you want, Pyggy. The gods have not seen fit to outfit you with biceps or a strong chin. They have bestowed unto you a paunch.

PYGMALION
Your skin is cool to the touch and your half of the bed sags.

GALATEA
Your pipe cleaner arms end in calloused paws.

PYGMALION
You don’t sweat and I’ve grown to find that creepy.

GALATEA (A concession.)
…I miss feeling your calloused paws.

PYGMALION
…I have to go get more marble because now Daphne here has no toes.

GALATEA
She looks a little derivative.

PYGMALION
YOU LOOK A LITTLE DERIVATIVE!

GALATEA
I mean if you’re trying to copy Antiphones of Argos-

PYGMALION
SHUT UP I HATE YOU FOREVER!

He punches her in the shoulder, injures his hand.

PYGMALION
AAAhahaaaHAGHUH

GALATEA
You make it so easy for me.

PYGMALION
Some Gorgon vomited poison into your quarry when you were still a block of marble. That’s the only explanation for your enduring malevolence.

I think I broke a finger.

GALATEA
Good.

How did we get like this?

EROS
He carved you to be the most beautiful statue in the world, fell in love with you, and then I brought you to life because I do that sort of thing.

Enter Eros, God of Love, stroking a pink pillow which he carries on his arm like a Bond villain’s fluffy cat. He is pansexual, omnipotent, and out of his mind. Might look like David Bowie.

EROS
I’m Eros, God of Love. And this is Matthew. Matthew was a ravishing discus player who spurned my advances, and now he’s my magical flying pillow. Don’t stare.

PYGMALION
Oh, gods.

EROS
Yeeeessssss!

Pygmalion and Galatea fall to their knees.

GALATEA
Please don’t turn us into trees.

EROS
Now that depends on us working through this little speed bump in your marriage.

PYGMALION
I am so sure we can work through it.

GALATEA
Or birds. We’d be terrible birds. He has no sense of direction.

PYGMALION
It’s true.

EROS
Goooooood. The true love thing comes right apart if you hate each other. Can’t have people think I’m losing my touch.

Now come fly with me and Matthew on a magical love journey.

He stands on the pillow. Galatea and Pygmalion eye him nervously.

EROS
I said come FLY!

They jump on the pillow next to him. It’s a tight squeeze, and Galatea lets out a little squeak as Eros pinches her. Then Pygmalion does the same thing. Then they fly through the air on a magical love journey.

EROS
Makes you want to sing a romantic duet, doesn’t it? With the wine-dark waves churning below, and maybe some fireworks going off in the background when we hit the third verse? No?

Matthew agrees with me. Love you to pieces, Matthew.

Here we are!

Galatea and Pygmalion go flying off the pillow as it comes to a sudden stop. Eros steps off briskly.

EROS
The island of Aeaea. Circe leases it for team-building retreats.

PYGMALION

Oh, great and omnipotent Eros, that terrifying flight over the Mediterranean straightened me out completely and opened my eyes to some issues my wife and I have with trust and expectations and I am so ready to go home and work on those-

EROS

Nononononono. You’re two of my headliners! You need drama! Solidarity in the face of adversity! Two against the gods, like Odysseus and Penelope! Theseus and Ariadne! A love to survive cataclysms and endure for centuries!

I’ve devised some labors for you both, and if you complete them before the five minutes it’ll take for me to get bored and turn you into tubs of feta, I think you’ll really grow as a couple.

GALATEA
What if we do what you say and you get bored with us anyway?

EROS
What? Would I do that? (Seeking a character witness.) Matthew? (Remembering he has turned Matthew into a pillow.) Oh! I suppose I would. Muahahahahahahaaaah!

GALATEA
Give us some kind of handicap. Like Odysseus had Athena and Theseus had his ball of twine.

PYGMALION
Look at the current events major!

GALATEA (Pointed)
I’ve had a lot of time to read in bed lately.

EROS
Oh, I like that! Okay! If you can get me to say this sentence, you can banish me from this plane of existence: “Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries.”

PYGMALION
That doesn’t seem like something someone would say.

EROS
Nope! It’s from a movie that hits theaters in five thousand years.

Wipes his eyes with the back of his hand.

EROS
It’s beautiful.

GALATEA
That time just now didn’t count?

EROS
Nope! Ready? How should we start them off, Matthew?

Matthew says build a model acropolis out of office supplies! Aaaaaand go!

He shakes the pillowcase and number of pens, binder clips, Styrofoam cups, and other gewgaws tumble out onto the ground.

PYGMALION
Here, now we want to space the cups evenly to get the weight distribution right-

GALATEA
Gee, Pyggy. If the next challenge is build a sand castle shaped like a pile of girl parts, you’ve got this in the bag.

PYGMALION
I told you, I work within the constraints of my medium!

EROS
Aaaaaaaand you have to speak in limerick!

GALATEA
Now hand me that binder clip, dear

While I shore up this wall over here.

Though the verse makes me dizzy

We’ll keep your paws busy

And not on some tart statue’s rear.

PYGMALION
My treasure, I wish you’d abstain

From this tiresome, nagging refrain.

Your beauty’s quite rare,

Your form sculpted with care,

But your voice is like nails in my brain.

My sculpting is what keeps us fed-

GALATEA
And the reason you pass out in bed

Next to your gorgeous wife

Who’d trade years of her life

If just once you’d try giving her-

EROS
Boooooring! I declare your acropolis wimpy but serviceable. Now you must fall backwards and catch one another! You may continue fighting in sonnet form.

PYGMALION
It snowed the morning that I led a crew

To prise your block of marble from the soil

White muffled footsteps marked our path to you

The ground was hard, and broke with hours of toil.

He catches Galatea.

When dusk came and your body lay enshrined,

Stony bed laid out upon twin racks,

I paused without and spared a glance behind

At the white hills we’d marred with brown sledge tracks.

Galatea catches him.

The blank still grandeur of that snowy morn

We’d smeared and broken with our muddy feet.

Just as the chalk white block of stone we’d borne
I’d now defile to make your shape complete.

He catches Galatea.

I loved you then, but I love even more

Blank stone, beginnings, wond’ring what’s in store.

He falls and smashes into the ground, Galatea having thrown up her hands in disgust.

EROS
Tell your partner two truths and a lie about yourself! Also, you’re a wildebeest!

Pygmalion, who was in the act of dusting himself off, turns into a wildebeest. He seems upset about this.

GALATEA
One. So if I’m hearing this right you find our relationship stifling and fantasize about starting over and doesn’t that make a girl feel wanted. Did I say wanted? I meant want to kick your little wildebeest head off!

Pygmalion makes a wildebeest sound.

GALATEA

Yep. Truth.

Two. When I was in the stone I heard voices in the earth, mountain uncles and tectonic plate grandfathers, and they all said the scruffy little sculptor with the pickaxe and the dreamy look in his eyes was bad news and I’d be sorry I went with him.

Pygmalion makes the same sound.

GALATEA
Truth. Two for two.

Three. I think we should stay together.

Pygmalion makes a long, sad wildebeest sound.

GALATEA
Caught me. You’re good at this game.

EROS

Same deal! YOU can only talk in haiku! YOU’re a meerkat!

Hold me Matthew. This is riveting.

Pygmalion ceases to be a wildebeest, while Galatea transforms into a meerkat.

PYGMALION

Chisel bites the stone

Marble dust unveils women

Each one leaves our house

Galatea makes an angry meerkat gesture.

PYGMALION

Let me rephrase it.

Statues are not dear to me.

I love the making.

Galatea makes a puzzled meerkat gesture.

PYGMALION
I miss making you.
Living with you panics me.

This is why I sculpt.

EROS
Ahem.

PYGMALION
I owe you a lie!

Killed two bears as a baby.

Can we be done now?

EROS
YES!

He applauds. Galatea turns back into a woman.

EROS
ALMOST! FIGHT FOR MY AMUSEMENT!

Pygmalion turns back into a wildebeest and Galatea turns back into a meerkat and they fight. They roll around and nip at each other’s necks. Eros cackles and waves Matthew in rings over his head.

EROS
Behold, Matthew! They’re beautiful! Beautiful! Two against the gods! Muahahahahahaaa!

He stomps his foot and they turn back into people rolling around the stage.

There is a momentary beat where they realize they are people again and stop fighting.

They begin to make out. Maybe they continue to roll around the stage, making out.

GALATEA
That sonnet…gods above! Those haiku! I didn’t know you could do that!

PYGMALION
You were a meerkat!

GALATEA
I was!

PYGMALION
This is what it was like. Taking the marble away to find you.

GALATEA
Hearing your chisel through the rock, getting closer.

PYGMALION

We can do this! It can be like this!

EROS
Make out some more! We’re not even here!

GALATEA
What are the magic words again?

EROS
I’m not going to tell you NOW.

GALATEA

“Your mother was a horsethief?”

PYGMALION
“And your father smoked ligonberries?”

EROS
“Your mother was a HAMSTER and your father smelt of ELDERBERRIES.”

GALATEA
There it is.

EROS
Whoops.

He and Matthew float into the air.

EROS

BeinloveforeverorI’llturnyouintofigtreesokaybyyyyyyyyyyyyyye!

He and Matthew vanish. Husband and wife regard each other.

PYGMALION (fondly)
You’re not how I saw you in my head.

GALATEA

Deal.

The End

No, Batsheba

2010-12-22T19:04:00.005-05:00

Much thanks to Natsu, the cast, Rorschach Theatre, and everyone who made No, Batsheba the feel-good holiday slugfest of 2o10! If you're one of the poor souls who missed the performance, you can read the full text here.

Some context: this was written for Klecksography, a showcase of six short plays based on friends' upsetting, grin-inducing, and/or dramatic stories of being home for the holidays. Mine was based on Grace Overbeke's story about her mother, who told her that Santa was real, but anti-Semitic.

Happy Holidays!

No, Batsheba

A living room. Walter is tied to a chair. Santa Claus stands with an ominous-looking remote in her hand. She wears a familiar red-and-white fur suit, but also has an eye patch and smokes a cigarette in a long holder.

SANTA
The day is mine, circumsized cur!

WALTER
This ain’t over, Santa.

SANTA
On the contrary, Walter O’Malley-Hirschburger.

With a push of this button, my Jingle Bots will storm households nationwide and slay every firstborn child of Abraham. Poetic justice, no?

WALTER
Kringle, if they hurt my daughter there isn’t a chimney on earth that’ll hide you from me.

SANTA
There’s no stopping it now, Walter. You’ve led me a very merry chase over the years. But now, like accursed Moses, your wandering is at an end.

God rest ye, merry gentlemen.

She reaches for the button.

WALTER

Wait!

People have been trying to keep us Jews in bondage since the pharaohs, Kringle. Know how you’re different?

Santa leans in to listen.

The pharaohs tied better knots.

Walter headbutts Santa, who drops the remote. Then Walter shrugs the ropes off and springs out of the chair. He grabs a poker from the fireplace. Santa draws a cutlass.

SANTA
Why, Walter, we haven’t had a good Yuletide swordfight since…

WALTER
Christmas two thousand five.

SANTA
Far too long.

They have a dramatic swordfight.

SANTA
You weren’t even born Jewish, you baffling man!

WALTER
I’ve thrown in my lot with God’s chosen people just as Kal-El of Krypton fights for his adopted world!

Walter disarms Santa, then dives for the remote. He’s about to grab it when Santa recovers and pins the cuff of his pants to the floor with the cutlass.

SANTA
Jingle all the way, Walter. All the way to hell! Ho! Ho! Ho!

She raises her cutlass for the killing blow.

BATSHEBA
Wait!

SANTA and WALTER
What?

Santa disappears. Lights up on Simone and Batsheba, who have been sitting on the couch this whole time, watching.

BATSHEBA
You said your last sword fight with Santa was Christmas two thousand six, when she tried to blow up Jerusalem from her moon rocket!

SIMONE
Her moon rocket?

Walter sits with Simone and Batsheba.

WALTER
You sure you’re not thinking of Christmas oh five, Pumpkin?

BATSHEBA
No! That’s when Santa and her elf ninjas tried to poison the water supply with killer shellfish! And Santa got the drop on you, but she promised to let you live if you could tame Lundgren, the Deadliest Reindeer.

WALTER
Riiiiight! And I not only tamed him- I used his fire breath and blew up Santa’s zeppelin!

BATSHEBA (Overlapping)
You used his fire breath and blew up Santa’s zeppelin!

They laugh. Simone stares. Walter stops laughing.

WALTER
Weeeellll. You’ve heard all these before, Sport. Let’s get you to bed.

BATSHEBA
Noooo!

WALTER

Batsheba.

BATSHEBA
Tell me the one where you teamed up with the Krampus to destroy Santa’s gingerbread cannon!

WALTER
Batsheba. Sweetie. It’s Christmas Eve. Santa will be here soon, and you know what that means.

BATSHEBA (By rote)

I need to be asleep, because she can hypnotize children.

WALTER
That’s right.

BATSHEBA
Want me to help you barricade the fireplace?

WALTER
No, Simone’s helping me this year.

BATSHEBA (Whispering)
You just started dating. Are we sure we can trust her in a fight?

WALTER
Yes! Now, put on your Christmas helmet and say goodnight to Simone.

He and Batsheba put on matching infantry helmets, which are covered with bows and holly.

BATSHEBA
Goodnight, Simone.

SIMONE
Goodnight, Batsheba.

BATSHEBA
Goodnight, Daddy. Watch out for her eyepatch laser.

WALTER
I will, Angel.

BATSHEBA
I’m gonna double check the razor wire on the attic window.

WALTER
Goodnight, Dolphin.

Exit Batsheba.

SIMONE
What the fuck, Walter.

WALTER
We celebrate Christmas a little differently-

SIMONE
This is ritualized child abuse!

WALTER
It’s no weirder than what most families tell their kids.

SIMONE

Most families don’t tell their kid Santa’s a Jew-hating Batman villain who bears a suspicious resemblance to that awful mother-in-law you’re always talking about.

WALTER
Someone’s never coped with the pressures of single parenthood.

SIMONE
I don’t even know where to begin with this one.

Why not Hannukah?

WALTER
Hannukah moves around, and it’s boring! This way she gets to share the joy of Christmas with all the Gentile kids, while honoring her heritage.

SIMONE
How, exactly?

WALTER
Perseverance in the face of persecution is a Jewish tradition from the Maccabees to Siegel and Schuster!

SIMONE
I need to go.

WALTER
Wait! Wait. Simone. I’ve never brought someone home for Christmas before. I thought I could share this with you. You love Santa!

All those great Christmas stories your granddad told you…

SIMONE
Yeah! Where Santa takes kids flying to the North Pole and gives them magic cocoa that makes them better at algebra! They were really nice stories!

And then we’d curl up on the couch and watch claymation Santa singing to Rudolph. And then my granddad would climb up on the roof after I went to bed and stomp around making reindeer noises, except one Christmas he slipped and I thought Santa was up on our roof cursing…

God, I miss him.

WALTER
See?

SIMONE
Know what I loved about those stories?

WALTER
What?

SIMONE

SANTA WASN’T A FUCKING NAZI!

WALTER
Okay, my version of the character’s a little continuity-heavy…

SIMONE
Your version’s evil!

WALTER
They’re just stories!

SIMONE
She is putting up razor wire in the attic right now!

WALTER
It’s fine. She uses special gloves.

SIMONE

She’s ten!

I just don’t…you weren’t even born Jewish.

WALTER
Her mother was.

SIMONE
What’s this really about, Walter?

WALTER

You know what I’m like in real life. I tell mildly funny stories at parties. I fall behind on car payments. I work twelve hour days lettering comic books.

SIMONE
And you’re so good at it! My God, the way you do the letter “R”…

She fans herself.

WALTER

It’s not that impressive. But every Christmas, I defend our house from a jolly maniac who wants to destroy our way of life. I get to fight for her. It’s the only time of year I feel like a Dad.

SIMONE
She wants to electrify the roof gutters. Someone’s going to get hurt. You have to tell her the truth.

WALTER
No way.

SIMONE
Okay. Then I will.

He blocks her way.

SIMONE

Move.

WALTER
Knock it off!

SIMONE
Come on, Walter.

WALTER
It’s not a big deal! Jesus. At least my version of Santa’s original.

SIMONE

Are you calling my Grandad unoriginal?

You gonna take that back?

She pokes him.

WALTER
What are you-

She jabs at him.

SIMONE
Take it back or I’ll go up there and tell her. Walter.

WALTER
I’m not gonna-

She knocks the wind out of him.

WALTER
Ow! What is that?

SIMONE
Tae kwon do. Want to fight for her? Fight for her!

WALTER
You’re crazy!

SIMONE
SAYS THE MAN IN THE CHRISTMAS HELMET!

He swings at her. She twists his arm behind his back. He steps on her foot. They overturn furniture, fling coasters, smash lamps and decorative sprays of pine and Christmas ornaments on each other. Simone knocks Walter down and sits on his chest.

SIMONE

How long have you been warping her mind with these stories?

WALTER
How long do you think?

SIMONE
Oh. Oh, God.

WALTER

I told you how it was that first December. Suddenly I’m in this tomb of a house with a four-year-old I don’t know how to raise, and one night I get very drunk and trash the living room, and she wakes up and comes down and asks what happened, if I’ve been fighting a monster or something, and I realize it’s Christmas morning, and I tell her the story of Santa Claus and the White Christmas of Doom, and she smiles for the first time since the funeral, and we make pancakes.

SIMONE
You never told me.

WALTER
You don’t stop being a kid the first time you get hurt. You stop when you realize the only reason you get hurt is because that’s how the world is and there’s nothing special about you to keep you safe.

Enter Batsheba.

BATSHEBA
Daddy? (She sees the wreckage in the living room.) Was it Santa? Did you get her?

WALTER
Come on over here, kid. I’ve got to tell you something.

He looks at her. He can’t do it.

Santa… had a jetpack. She got away. But next year, we’ll be ready.

BATSHEBA
Whooooaaaa.

WALTER
I’m gonna grab a broom. Sit tight and I’ll tell you all about it.

Walter looks at Simone, who nods slightly, throws up her hands in a gesture of surrender. Walter exits.

BATSHEBA
Do you love my Dad?

SIMONE
…yeah, actually.

BATSHEBA
If he broke his leg and an alligator was coming to eat him and he couldn’t get away and you only had one signal flare to frighten off the alligator, would you stay and help him?

SIMONE
I guess?

BATSHEBA
What about two alligators? How serious are you?

SIMONE
I wouldn’t let him break his leg around alligators.

BATSHEBA
Are you guys fighting?

SIMONE
A little bit.

BATSHEBA
A little bit? You wrecked the living room.

Simone looks at her.

SIMONE

Oooohhhhh.

How long have you known?

BATSHEBA
Please don’t tell him! He gets so excited every year.

Reenter Walter with a broom.

WALTER

Now. Sit back and I’ll tell you all about Santa and the Twelve Deathtraps of Christmas.

Santa bursts in with a bow and arrow. Simone springs up and stands with Walter. Batsheba watches, on the edge of her seat.

SANTA
Merry Christmas, Zionist stooge! I’ve got lords a-leaping in the front yard, pipers piping in the back yard, and the whole house surrounded with five golden rings of fire! Ho! Ho! Ho!

WALTER
Gee, Santa, I feel bad. All that and we didn’t get you anything.

SIMONE
Except…this!

She pulls out a green candy cane.

SANTA

A green candy cane!

WALTER
The one thing that robs you of your powers!

SIMONE
I hope you’re ready for a black and blue Christmas!

SANTA
JEEEEWWWS!

WALTER and SIMONE
SANTAAAAAAAAA!

BATSHEBA
YAAAAAAAAY!

Simone raises the candy cane. Walter raises the broom. Santa raises her bow and arrow. They charge.

The End

WAMU and Klecksography

2010-12-12T08:17:00.004-05:00

One of the half-dozen avatars of familial discord
you'll meet this weekend. Guitar not included.

Thanks to everyone who came out to see Freud Meets Girl! WAMU dropped in on one rehearsal and interviewed Hunter and me about Wayward Theatre, and they did a slick enough editing job that we sound like we actually know what we're talking about. You can hear the archived segment here.

In other news, I'm writing for Rorschach Theatre's Klecksography, which is a lot like Myth-App but less mythical. This round of short plays, inspired by family legends of anti-Semitic Santas and identity-swapping twins, will run the weekend of December 18th. My segment's directed by my relentlessly cool former professor, Natsu, and features yuletide sword fights. I hope to see you there!

Freud Meets Girl

2010-10-29T07:05:00.004-05:00

Another pouty rehearsal.

"So how will they keep that Sullivan kid off the streets now that Horatio's done?" you're asking. Well, they cast me in a play! Specifically, I'm in my friend and fellow Waywardian Hunter Style's FallFringe remount of Freud Meets Girl, a kickass sci-fi play that gave just about every theater reviewer in town an orgasm when it went up as part of the Capital Fringe Festival in July.

I'm playing the eponymous David Freud, Sigmund's great-grandson, a psychology professor bent on perfecting a machine that will tell us the empirical meaning of our dreams and darkest desires.

It's playing for three weekends, starting November 5th. Our venue's the Shop at Fort Fringe, the same matchbook-sized, easily-sold-out theater in which we staged Skywriter last year, so go here and buy your tickets ASAP.

Also check out our Facebook page and this blog entry I wrote!

Horatio Week 50: I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day

2010-09-25T23:10:00.004-05:00

This is it, faithful readers. For following along for nearly a year, and for letting me know when you enjoyed it and even when you didn't, I thank you. I'm not ruling out a Wizard Sticks party at some point.

So thank you, and goodnight.

The New Adventures of Horatio
Week 50: I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day

A bar in Denmark. Horatio and Seamus sit at the bar, empty glasses in front of them. They wear black suits and ties. Horatio wears a kingly sash over his suit. A TV above the bar is playing the evening news- Horatio addressing a state funeral earlier that evening.

HORATIO (on the TV)
Denmark knows about mourning. Nearly four years ago we lost two successive kings, the entire royal family, and numerous friends and advisers to the throne. Ours is a history of long ships and blood feuds; ours is a literature of heroism succumbing to the inevitable. Violent loss has been a part of our national character- maybe the defining part.

We're here today to bury five men who deserved a better reward for their years of service to the Danish crown. Francisco, Bernardo, Cornelius, Voltemond, and Osric. Two of them were guards with decades of service. Two of them were ambassadors. Osric...was a helpful presence around Elsinore. They were young and old, from all walks of life, brought together by their love of Denmark and their desire to serve their country in dark times. They were assassinated by the Fortinbras regime in its final days.

I say to you again: Denmark knows about mourning. We understand murder and the rage and retribution that follow. We know slow-burning revenge plots and alliances of convenience. We grasp that, as Denmark emerges from four years of occupation, we pass through a very combustible moment. We needn't stretch our imagination to see how this final tragedy of the Norse occupation could spark riots or looting, attacks on foreign nationals or neighbors who acted as informers. We know that path too well.

But I believe we can learn something more from the example of these heroes. We can emulate their love of country, their commitment to service and their unity of purpose. We can mourn better, and in our grief turn from looking outward for an enemy to smash, to looking inward at a country that these men died rebuilding. Their work waits unfinished. There are torture cases to try, chemical weapons to destroy, an economy to jumpstart, and veterans to reintegrate into our society. Join me, Denmark, and mourn these men as their sacrifice and our honor demand.

Applause.

My friend Marcellus survived the attack and knew the victims better than I did. He's going to say a few words.

On the TV, Marcellus limps forward. He wears a dress uniform, like a policeman at a funeral.

MARCELLUS
There's a story Bernardo told me my first night on the ramparts with him. It starts with a man walking into a bar where he meets a twelve-inch-tall piano player...

Horatio picks up a remote and hits mute.

SEAMUS
Good speech you gave.

HORATIO
Nn.

SEAMUS
Passive voice in the second paragraph. Should've caught that.

'Nother round?

HORATIO
Yes.

SEAMUS
Two more, please.

Means I still owe you...how many?

HORATIO
Two hundred and six.

SEAMUS
I said I was sorry.

HORATIO
You should probably just leave your credit card.

SEAMUS
Did I not make you king?

HORATIO
Because nothing bad ever happens to kings around here. Go fuck yourself, Sullivan.

Enter Marcellus, still in uniform. He is on an IV drip and carries a full drink.

MARCELLUS
I don't think they got the deeper meaning of the joke.

HORATIO
You made it!

MARCELLUS
I got one good lung still, I'm not gonna miss the guy's wake. But, see the joke-

HORATIO
The genie's hard of hearing. He messes up the wishes. They got it.

MARCELLUS
I'm not saying they didn't get it, just there's a deeper meaning-

HORATIO
Maybe not the best thing to break out at a state funeral.

MARCELLUS
It was funnier the way Bernardo told it.

I maintain that it doesn't make sense to call this a wake.

HORATIO
Should you be drinking?

MARCELLUS
A wake is for someone who recently died. Not someone who died four years ago and then ascended to his reward.

HORATIO
You would think that, as King of Denmark, I could command you not to have a martini while on painkillers.

MARCELLUS
No, man, it's working out great! I am seeing dragons!

SEAMUS
Marcellus. Be good for the hospital folk. Remember that nice physical therapist?

MARCELLUS
The one who looks like Bowie!

SEAMUS
Think how disappointed she'll be if you show up at therapy tomorrow with the dragons in tow. Take it slow tonight.

MARCELLUS
Man makes a point. (Pause.) Lord Sulphurton agrees. Back to the unwake! Goooooes Marcellus.

Marcellus drifts back out.

SEAMUS
He'll be fi- did you drink both our beers?

HORATIO
Two more, please.

SEAMUS
How you holding up over there?

HORATIO
King of fucking Denmark. The man could talk you into anything.

Expected at least a goodbye soliloquy. Death made him succinct somehow.

SEAMUS
That's partially my fault. I was way past deadline last week, so the whole ascending-to-heaven part was kind of rushed.

HORATIO
You were past-!

SEAMUS
I may go back and clean it up.

Horatio's mouth opens and closes.

SEAMUS
Or maybe I'll leave it in there. I've characterized him as a mercurial dick who gets by on charm, so the sudden shift in mood is consistent with that.

HORATIO
What is WRONG with you?

SEAMUS
I spent a year of my life writing fifty unstageable plays about an Elizabethan sidekick, realizing midway through that I was in a doomed industry! That's what's wrong with me!

Two more, please!

Pause.

HORATIO
Grant Morrison did it better.

SEAMUS
I don't see him getting your ass drunk right now.

HORATIO
Point.

Marcellus pokes his head in.

MARCELLUS
Guys, guys. Shakespeare is doing shots out of Kelly Kelly's navel.

SEAMUS
Really?

HORATIO
Give us a minute.

Marcellus withdraws.

HORATIO
What are you going to do now that you're no longer actively fucking with me and mine?

SEAMUS
Researching grad schools. I just got cast in a play. I've been dividing my time between finishing your stuff and starting to write short stories again.

HORATIO
You've been our tyrannical death god who kills us for your sport part-time. That is fantastic.

SEAMUS
Chris Sims, this comics blogger-

HORATIO
I know who he is.

SEAMUS
Of course. He wrote this great essay about Fantastic Four #50, where they fight Galactus and then defeat him halfway through the issue and the rest of the comic is Johnny Storm going to college and this bald guy in prison setting up the next issue.

MARCELLUS (Calling from offstage)
Dudes! Shakespeare has declared himself Marquis of Makeouts and Kent is arm wrestling me and Clay at the same time and totally winning!

SEAMUS
And so Sims writes, "It's a forward momentum that we can all relate to, because time marches on for all of us, and even the big, grand endings for the important chapters in our lives don't last for more than a moment before the next one starts."

HORATIO
You utter D-bag.

SEAMUS
This'll be good for us both. You can do your own thing now, I can do mine.

HORATIO
My thing is being king of a volatile, fictional and wildly inconsistent Denmark! I don't get to leave! This is where you put me! Have you thought about that?

SEAMUS
No, honestly. I don't know, with these things, it's, I guess I think like a shark, I keep moving forward.

HORATIO
A shark. What the hell.

Marcellus reenters.

MARCELLUS
Fellas! Your dad the pirate is chasing Captain Morgan with a crate of PBRs he smuggled in and just challenged everyone to a Wizard Sticks tournament!

HORATIO
Because my father is a junior in college. Excellent. We'll be right in.

Exit Marcellus.

HORATIO
Why me? Why did you even come in and start writing me in particular?

SEAMUS
My sister and I did school plays. The big ensemble ones where they stuck you at the back as English Gentleman Number Four or Guard Number Six and you had to assemble your own costume. She's a few years younger, so when I go home I see her gesticulating at the back in these productions same as I did. Last winter they did Les Miserables, she was Beggar Number Two or something. You're, say, fifteen, so you're not paying attention to the show, you're doing your own thing and inventing this back story for your character, like he's only Guard Number Six because he killed a man back in Kansas City and he has to lay low until his gambling debts are paid off. You construct these sub-plots with the fifty other minor characters while the director's neglecting the lot of you. Did you ask me something?

HORATIO
Don't worry about it.

SEAMUS
Then you go to work for a playhouse and you realize modern theater is a mad old man crooning words of love into his reflective bedpan.

HORATIO
Do you want to take a break?

Marcellus reenters.

MARCELLUS
Compadres! Your mom's making out with Kent and your dad the pirate is trying to banish him with his PBR staff and Shakespeare's making out with EVERYBODY!

HORATIO
Marcellus, of all the people you invited, did anyone else here actually know Hamlet?

MARCELLUS
Mmmmmmmno. Nope. We're all that's left. Huh.

HORATIO
So the wake is in here, really.

MARCELLUS
Unwake. Yes.

And behind me is the room where live, drunken people are having fun. And where Kelly Kelly is wearing a waaaaay low-cut dress.

HORATIO
Okay.

MARCELLUS
Meaning she's either trying to get your attention or needs a place to hide silverware or both.

HORATIO
How nice for her.

MARCELLUS
He had a good run. He was ready. He'd be the first to tell you that. Got me?

HORATIO
Yeah. I'll be right in.

Exit Marcellus.

SEAMUS
You should go in there.

HORATIO
Meh. And we can't have you passing out and then we all disappear or something.

SEAMUS
I should get going anyway. After that it's all you guys.

He wobbles to his feet, puts his coat on.

SEAMUS
Did you have fun? I had fun.

HORATIO
God is a drunk in a lumberjack shirt having a quarter-life crisis.

SEAMUS
Makes you want to keep busy, doesn't it?

He picks up the remote and turns the TV sound back on.

ANNOUNCER (On the TV)
-creatures began bursting from fissures in the earth throughout Denmark only moments ago, ravaging bars, brandishing anti-liquor sandwich boards and calling themselves-

Commotion from offstage. Marcellus bursts in.

MARCELLUS
Man! These Temperance Goblins from the center of the earth just busted in here!

HORATIO
Temperance Goblins?

SEAMUS
You're welcome.

MARCELLUS
They've got signs and pamphlets! They're knocking drinks out of everyone's hands! This will not stand!

HORATIO (Indicating himself.)
Pacifist.

MARCELLUS
So get your ass in here and tell me who to hit.

HORATIO
...all right.

MARCELLUS
Awesome.

He rejoins the fray.

HORATIO
I didn't not have fun.

SEAMUS
Yeah?

HORATIO
Go hate-fuck a word processor.

SEAMUS
Ha! Go have an adventure!

HORATIO
Eat! Shit!

He follows Marcellus.

HORATIO (Off-stage)
Temperance Goblins be DAAAAAAAAMNED!

SEAMUS (To the bartender)
Close it out, please.

The End

Horatio Week 49: CMOA

2010-09-19T23:11:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the late posting, everyone. Letting go is hard.

I'll see you next week for the last installment.

The New Adventures of Horatio
Week 49: CMOA

The throne room at Elsinore. It looks much nicer than when we last saw it. All signs of the carnage that ended Hamlet have been long since cleaned up, and Fortinbras has decorated the place with some plants and tapestries. A crown rests on a cushion on the throne.

Music plays, maybe LCD Soundsystem, maybe Talking Heads, maybe MIA. Enter Horatio and Fortinbras on opposite sides of the room, eyes locked, the throne between them.

Horatio begins to dance. It starts with some simple footwork, then a there's a swaying of the hips, then the arms come into motion, whirling, signaling, seeming to multiply like a Hindu god's.

Fortinbras counters with a twist that becomes a ballet twirl.

Horatio breaks out the bee's knees, then a Russo-Irish jig.

Fortinbras unleashes an intimidating tap solo.

Horatio breakdances.

They come together in a salsa step, then spring into ballroom, throwing, lifting and twirling each other.

Maybe Fortinbras claps to change the music with each new style.

They split again. Fortinbras flashdances and high-kicks.

Horatio escalates to David Byrne performance art moves. He does the worm. He moonwalks. He stands in place and sends his spastic body in spirals like a tin soldier on a countertop during an earthquake. He mimes running, shopping, lawn sprinkling. He falls to his side and runs in circles on the ground.

Fortinbras has stopped dancing and sat down to stare at him in fascination and horror. She claps and the music ends.

FORTINBRAS
Stop. Just... stop.

Horatio sits up.

FORTINBRAS
Why would you even... where did you learn all that?

HORATIO
Study and invention. Years of wingmanning in the Copenhagen clubs. You either talk with Helga about her moth collection, or take her where the bass is thumping too loud to talk and dance until dawn.

FORTINBRAS
I've seen things on the battlefield, but those moves... those will haunt me.

HORATIO
So. Uncle?

FORTINBRAS
Uncle.

HORATIO
War's over, then.

Fortinbras takes out a blackberry, fiddles with it.

FORTINBRAS
Ordering the troop withdrawals now.

HORATIO
And your abdication?

FORTINBRAS
Got my speechwriters working on it when you issued the challenge.

Never expected to go out in a dance-off.

HORATIO
We can tell them we had a sword fight or something.

FORTINBRAS
Sure, that'll sell.

HORATIO
But when you think about it, that's how we got into all this. Hamlet's father killed your father resolving a territorial dispute.

FORTINBRAS
And if they could settle that with single combat-

HORATIO
No reason we can't do the same thing.

FORTINBRAS
Minus the combat.

HORATIO
Yeah. Well, I thought it was a neat idea.

FORTINBRAS
"Seizing the enemy without fighting is the most skillful."

HORATIO
Sun Tzu, I know.

FORTINBRAS
It'll be good to get back to Norway. Try my hand at domestic reform, maybe. Arts subsidies. That web show Shakespeare did about you, that gummed up the works here like you wouldn't believe.

HORATIO
That was the plan.

FORTINBRAS
Sanctions, sit-ins...someone left a box by the palace gates yesterday and when we figured out it wasn't a bomb we looked inside and found these.

She takes out several oversized black shirts on which a stylized portrait of Horatio is laid out in red and white rhinestones.

FORTINBRAS
They sell 'em downtown for twenty bucks. I'm going to keep one.

You're the one guy I could never outstrategize, because I never knew what you were thinking or what you were going to do next.

HORATIO
I didn't know myself, usually.

FORTINBRAS
We'll see if I can't figure you out. For next time.

She starts to leave.

HORATIO
Fortinbras. Who's in charge now.

FORTINBRAS
You are.

HORATIO
What? No. What about the...the advisers, and the, Thing, the Parliament-?

FORTINBRAS
Sent 'em to Greenland. You're King of Denmark by right of conquest.

HORATIO
I wasn't coronated!

FORTINBRAS
Technically you're the provisional authority until special elections can be held. But really. The crown's right there. Put it on. You're who they want.

She waves her T-shirt at him.

HORATIO
No. No, that's not what I had in mind. I was going to see if I could get my old apartment back. Start dating again. Maybe do some writing.

FORTINBRAS
Give yourself something to do, anyway. Don't turn back into that sad bastard who moped around Elsinore for years.

She turns again to go.

HORATIO
I didn't say you could leave.

FORTINBRAS (Without slowing.)
That's true.

HORATIO
Want to walk back to Norway, with no escort, past a population that wants to kill you? I've got a question.

Fortinbras waits.

HORATIO
How many supernatural contracts do you have on me and my friends?

FORTINBRAS
A few. I'll call them off when I'm back in Norway.

HORATIO
Don't bother. Osric- remember Osric? Sure you do, he worked here, always wore this stupid fedora. Before you had Grendel rip his head off, he brought me a ledger with all the faery chieftains you're working with. The ones you've got going after my parents, Shakespeare, Kelly Kelly, all of 'em. I especially liked the plot where you were going to replace Kelly with a changeling. He had the dropoff times and locations for all the bread and cakes you delivered as payment.

FORTINBRAS
Okay. So you can call them off yourself. What do you want from me.

HORATIO
Turns out a lot of the bakers and truck drivers love the Horatio webisodes. I got in touch with them and had them fill the bread with iron nails, the cakes with horseshoes, the cookies with rosary beads. Every one of those winged fanatics is going to bite into a big old fuck you sandwich, and they're going to think it came from Fortinbras. Strange, vengeful people, faeries. Very big on personal relationships, on following certain rules.

You don't have the tiniest conception of the quality of the people you've taken from me. Can you name all the men Grendel killed in that bar? Because they were standing on the ramparts protecting this throne since before either of us could walk. You put my best living friend in the hospital with a pool cue in his lung. You extorted my mother. You had me exiled and hunted across three continents. And one of your men killed a sixteen-year-old girl to intimidate me. She was going to go to film school.

So you're going to go back to your castle in Norway and think about the two dozen magical flying killing machines who are going to be out for your blood. Think about the way they hide in cobwebs and shadows and mirrors. Think about the spells and the tortures they devise in their black halls under the hills. And the girl. Chris. Think about her.

That's what I want from you.

FORTINBRAS
Some pacifist.

HORATIO
I am. They're not.

I believe you know the way out.

Exit Fortinbras.

HAMLET
And you didn't think a dance-off would work.

Enter the ghost of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.

HORATIO
I'm not saying I'm suspicious of your plans as a rule, I'm saying this is the first one in a while that hasn't culminated in a pile of dead royals.

HAMLET
How you holding up there, chief?

Horatio lets out a long breath, sinks to his knees, puts his forehead against the cold marble.

HORATIO
Fuuuuuuuuck. I'm alive. I'm here. I'm alive. Right?

HAMLET
You are. You did it.

HORATIO
And Marcellus, he's going to be okay. We're okay. Shit.

HAMLET
Yeah.

HORATIO
We did it. We lived through that. We're home.

HAMLET
I do kinda like how she feng-shuied the throne room.

At least pick it up, dude. You owe yourself that.

Horatio walks to the throne and picks up the crown.

HAMLET
Eh?

HORATIO
You should be holding this now, not me. I'm sorry.

HAMLET
I'd get crown hair, anyway. Throw off my game.

I think you should go for it.

HORATIO
This again.

HAMLET
This isn't me being vicarious. You'd be legitimately good.

Look, they're out there protesting and sabotaging and calling your name in the streets. They saw the webisodes and the speech you did at Comic-Con and they know you're someone they can trust. Someone who listens and who can tell them what they don't want to hear.

They want you to be their king because they know what I've known for years.

HORATIO
You could advise me. I know it was supposed to be the other way around. But other than that it'd be like we talked about at Wittenberg. You and me, running the country, taking all that philosophy and putting it to work. Improve the schools.

HAMLET
Beef up social services.

HORATIO
Push through that international ear poison ban.

HAMLET
Are we doing this?

HORATIO
I think we're doing this.

Horatio puts on the crown. Hamlet's phone rings.

HORATIO
Who even has your number?

Hamlet takes the call.

HAMLET
Hello? Yes, sir. Yes. As a matter of fact, he did.

...

Just like that? Does that mean-? Yes. Oh my God. Thank you. Thank you so much. I lo- Okay. I'll see you soon.

Hamlet hangs up and puts his phone away.

HAMLET
My father forgives me.

HORATIO
He forgives you.

HAMLET
Now that Norway's out of Denmark, now that a Dane we trust is on the throne again, he forgives me. We're golden.

HORATIO
But you all have to forgive each other right, to, to leave...I mean you're not leaving...

HAMLET
Mom and I had a breakthrough over the summer, so we're good now. And Claudius has been straight-up plastered since April, so now he forgives us all every other day.

HORATIO
Everyone's forgiven everyone?

HAMLET
Everyone's forgiven everyone.

Which means.

A glorious light shines in from offstage, accompanied by an angelic chorus with voices raised in praise of heaven's mysteries.

HORATIO
Wait.

HAMLET
We can leave Purgatory. We can rest or whatever. We can go to the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns. For real, this time.

I think this is it for me.

HORATIO
Wait!

Hamlet begins to walk towards the light.

HAMLET
That whole first year I was dead, I watched you to make sure you wouldn't try to kill yourself again. And look at you now. Look at everything you've done. You're gonna be a great king.

HORATIO
No I'm not! I don't know what I'm doing! Hold up! We were going to pick out a new favorite bar, right? Trivia nights! We were going to go out for trivia nights! Do you have to go right this second?

HAMLET
Make me proud.

He walks into the light and is gone. The angelic chorus fades, to be replaced by a distant chant of "Long live the king!" There is a flourish of trumpets and a spotlight falls on Horatio.

HORATIO
Ummmm. Hi.

Resounding cheers. Ticker tape falls directly onto Horatio like a downpour from a personal raincloud. He looks miserable.

The End

Horatio Week 48: Crasher

2010-09-12T10:20:00.006-05:00

The New Adventures of Horatio
Week 48: Crasher

A bare stage. Horatio sits on a stool. Maybe he's having a pint.

HORATIO
My favorite pub was built in the worst possible place in Denmark to build a pub. It's on a cliff by the sea next to a haunted moor where- how the fuck'd Shakespeare put it? The, uh, "the dreadful summit of the cliff that beetles o'er his base into the sea." That cliff. You know the one I'm talking about. So the pub's by this icy haunted cliff by the North Sea. Not a place you want to wander around drunk. Maybe when they built it they thought it'd be scenic.

You know how it is with pubs. Everything seems like such a good idea right at that moment.

There are two half-extinguished jukeboxes that are just Irish chanteys and Eurovision finalists and one Nick Cave album. Basement's exposed brick with wooden booths that surround you on three sides so you and your mates can just melt into them. A dead man could plunk down in there with you and the rest of the pub wouldn't notice.

This has happened a few times.

First time I came here was with Hamlet. Freshman year, winter break. Me still waiting for him to shout "Surprise!" and put a silly hat on me while a royal photographer got a shot of me looking sad to post on denmark.gov. Because this is the Prince of Denmark. Who fences and gets girls and never shuts up and you still can't manage to hate him. And at this point in my life I'm still wearing sweater vests and getting nosebleeds away from home, so it's strange to me that we're hanging out.

This was before all the stuff with the murders and the play within a play and the ear poison, obviously. By then I knew we were friends for real. And then he went and died. Along with pretty much everyone worth knowing at Elsinore.

For three years there was what you could describe as a lull. Norway invades, the country's under new management, but the middlemen, we stick around. Marcellus- he's a guard, we met back during all the fuss with the murders and the ghost and the poison swordfights- Marcellus and I had a booth and we came and got drunk and very nostalgic for the days when everyone was alive.

I should say how Hamlet and I met Marcellus. The inciting incident. That was near the pub too. Right outside the door, practically. Hamlet's father's ghost was walking around in full body armor, out by the cliffs, where the black waves talk to you. And Hamlet, being Hamlet, runs out after him. And Marcellus and I...honestly, not having much going on ourselves, we follow.

We find him out there by the cliffs, listening to the waves and talking back. No sign of the ghost. He's talking about arrant knaves and St. Patrick. Something is visibly off. He says he's going to put on an antic disposition, whatever that means. And he pulls out his fencing foil, he's brought this with him for some reason, and he makes us swear to secrecy on it. And I'm on one side of him, Marcellus is on the other, and we have our hands on this cold steel in the middle of the night and damned if the wind doesn't sound like the dead king groaning for revenge and Marcellus and I, we lock eyes and we share a single thought, and the thought is: Our buddy is fucked. As in visibly unhinged.

And we swear. We do as he asks, and we go along with it, and we don't say anything while he wanders through Elsinore making his plans and muttering to himself. He was stronger than us, then. It's not just that he's a prince. That's a factor, but mostly he's got this power to make something seem like a good idea when really it isn't. Allay Claudius's suspicions by acting as weird as possible around him? Sure! Convince the court of our returned mental faculties by leaping into our suicidal girlfriend's grave? What could be better? He makes a case for the indefensible and you feel great doing it with him. Man was like a pub on legs. So we swear. We stay quiet. And Elsinore bleeds out.

Three years later. Marcellus and I are in our booth, everyone's dead, we're depressed, bitching about Fortinbras and Norse rule, and in walks Hamlet's ghost. Like nothing's happened. He has a beer with us- which he almost never did when he was alive, he was a scotch and soda man.

Marcellus and I, we say some things. Some angst has built up over the years, some regret, and so the first time in years we see this good friend of ours, we rip into him. Plus, under all that, I think we're scared. It started with a ghost last time too, and we barely survived that. This realization spurs me to action. I need to get the hell out of Denmark, away from this great dead friend of mine who has the Midas touch if you substitute blood for gold.

I travel, and I get my head together and learn some martial arts, some stage magic. A lot of crazy shit happens but it's my crazy shit this time.

After a long and complicated year I come back to the pub. I'm meeting some of the other guys from the court, holdovers from before Fortinbras. Francisco's here, and Bernardo, two of the old guards. Marcellus is sitting next to me. Cornelius and Voltimand even make it out. Fucking Osric is there even. With his goddamned fedora. Hamlet's flickering over by the dartboard. We're mostly cool now.

We're talking about how we're going to bring down Fortinbras.

I'll refer you again to the rule of pubs: it seems like a great idea right at that moment.

Like having the Danish Resistance meet in this semi-haunted pub down the street from the castle. For example.

We're talking in circles and someone keeps putting "Red Right Hand" on the jukebox and I go to the bathroom. When I'm done I splash some water on my face and look in the mirror for a while. Do I really think I can oust the ruler of Denmark? Do I know what I'm doing? I don't look like I know what I'm doing. Hamlet always looked like he knew what he was doing and he never did, so I decide the way I look is a good sign.

The lights flicker and something hits the floor by our table. I think maybe things are getting rowdy with Marcellus leading the discussion. "Red Right Hand" is playing loud enough to hear it in Finland. Then I smell a smell I've grown too familiar with: bile, blood, shit, bodies letting go of everything.

I come out of the bathroom and everything's red and broken.

Our booth is matchwood. The exposed brick is scored with claw marks. Something shines on the bar. It's the end of a broken bottle. It's in somebody's hand. The hand isn't attached to anything. Francisco's masonic ring is on one finger.

Hamlet's shouting something at me.

I find most of Cornelius and Voltemond under the Street Fighter machine in the corner. Can't tell where one ends and the other begins.

Hamlet's telling me about the thing that came in from the cold. I'm mostly watching his lips move and nodding like I know what he's talking about.

I notice only one of the jukeboxes is still playing and that's because Osric's head is embedded in the other one. Still wearing the goddamned fedora.

They fought, for all the good it did them. They broke pool cues on it. They tried to cut it with bottles. It looks like Bernardo was making a Molotov before it took his arms off.

There's a draft from upstairs.

When I get upstairs the front door is hanging on one hinge. Marcellus is up there. He was either dragged or he chased it. It jammed a pool cue between his ribs and broke it off. He's breathing and making a wet paper bag sound.

He whispers a name to me. It's a name I recognize from an old poem, the name of the thing that Fortinbras sent to our pub, to go in and rend and ruin and murder. The name of something that walks outside in the cold, watching the lights.

He says it asked for me. It's waiting out there.

I say "Let's get you to a doctor", and he says "Are you my mother?" and I say "You've got a pool cue in your lung!" and he says "After him!" and pushes me away.

Out through the broken door, I can see the cliffs and some of the stars. Except for one spot, the height of a small tree. I don't see any stars there. Just a black space, like something huge is sitting, listening to the waves, blocking out the sky.

Hamlet's telling me not to go.

I step out of the pub, into the night, into the cold. Where Grendel is waiting.

The first snowfall crunches under my feet and that gap in the stars gets bigger. I'm thinking about three things.

One: Some of the toughest men in Denmark fought with everything they could get their hands on and the fight was still over so fast I didn't hear it from the bathroom.

Two: According to the poem, Grendel's under magical protection. No weapon can pierce his hide.

Three: I don't have a weapon. In fact I took a vow of nonviolence recently.

So one of us is screwed.

I stand by this big breathing shape in the cliff. Smells like an abattoir. One of his arms ends in a stump and I realize he did what he did in the pub one-handed.

He tells me Fortinbras doesn't want any martyrs, and if I'll call off my little attempt at a viral marketing coup, I can have my old internship back, no repercussions. Otherwise... he nods back at the pub. "You have a few friends left, here and there," he says. "I can hear them talking and singing in their holes. I hear everyone."

I tell him that I read the poem in grade school and according to that Grendel died in the 11th century.

He says, "Race of Cain, kiddo. We die slow."

I ask him why he's working for Fortinbras.

"Hrothgar saved my arm and believe it or not they passed it down the royal Danish bloodlines and they keep the damned thing in a vault under Elsinore. She says she's got doctors who can pull some science hoodoo and put it back on.

"But really? She and I see eye to eye.

"There's no one like me. Did you know that? And I'm older than any living thing. I've had a lot of time to think. About everything. The big ones: Who am I? Why am I here? I was into solopsism for a while when I was a kid, and then nihilism, fatalism, deism. Interspersed with screaming at the sky and trees and trying to beat answers out of the mountains with my fists and trying to shake answers out of you men until your heads popped off and all the ideas fell out.

"Then! Bless Hrothgar and his screechy-voiced fucking harpist who I could hear in the middle of the night even though I slept in a palace grotto under a lake of fire lizards. I realized that as much as the nagging question of my own existence tormented me, the thing that really ground my gears was that unholy Christing harpist with his mixed heroic metaphors and that stuck-pig voice that jammed a rusty dirk in your ear with every high note.

"So the answer to 'Who am I?' became, 'I'm the guy who breaks into their mead hall every night and tears them limb from limb.'"

At this point I asked him why he never killed the harpist and he brought his arm down and part of the cliff broke off and fell into the sea and I didn't ask again.

"A guy needs something to do. He becomes that thing. I became the crasher, the enemy in the night, the gobbler of men who fancied themselves heroes. And the songs? I kept listening and they got better. Now that the broken-throated zealot had something nasty clawing at his heels every night as he scrambled into the rafters with his harp around his neck, his songs got a lot more real. The stakes rose. They were still godawful, but if he'd lived as long as me he could've grown into something.

"Forty and I don't shape a world with songs or ideas. We shape it with our hands, split men in two, feed countries to countries. We create the universe and give birth to ourselves."

While he's saying all this, I start to wonder whether this is in fact happening. It's been a weird year, remember, and I'm standing near the exact spot where my best friend in the world started to lose his mind on a night that began a lot calmer than this one. I have a dead friend who speaks to me and multiple people have almost convinced me I'm not real, including the late Roland Barthes and some Irish-American prick who may be creating this entire world on a laptop. I try to work out how Grendel's talking to me and I can't. I couldn't describe his voice to you, whether he growls or hisses or has lips to move. Maybe Fortinbras sent soldiers to wreck the bar and kill everyone and I'm in a black site right now with a bag over my head.

Listening to Grendel I understand what's happening to me, what happened to Hamlet, everything. I understand what madness is.

It's being the only one of your kind. It's screaming at the sky for answers and being surprised when it doesn't talk back. It's being on the outside of everything, forever. It's being alone, invincible and immortal.

Grendel tells me the thing he hates about guys like me, guys like the ones in the harpist's songs, is we don't really ask why. We go from point A to point B heroing because that's what the story requires. We're like the rain, like dumb animals, part of a system that won't explain itself to him. Like the Geat son of a bitch who took his arm. I could be his grandchild.

So here's what I say to him: "I know why our world works the way it does. It's designed so that people like me always beat people like you."

He laughs at that, and turns to me and stands up. I said he was the height of a small tree earlier? That's when he was sitting down. Standing, he's house-sized. I have no idea how he fit into the pub. His eyes shine and never blink. They could be gas giants in a black nebula light-centuries away.

"You wanna go?" he asks. "Make a play for the other arm? I would love that."

I tell him he's not worth it.

"The narrative form has moved on," I say. "Fear, alienation, isolation, predilection for brooding, violence and self-doubt- we internalized everything you represent centuries ago. Compelling conflicts are emotional and psychological now. A friend of mine went through all your issues a few years back and I've been dealing with the same crap recently. We could call it the Grendel special."

For my plan to work we both have to forget that everyone I know is in grave physical danger. In order to keep him from hunting down and killing my parents and friends, I need to make him so sad in the next few minutes that he pulls his own head off.

"We understand you and you'll never understand us," I add. "You're not unique. You're common as clay."

To which he says, "Everyone you care for will die an uncommon death."

Damn. He's not fooled. Did his voice sound tighter, though? Wounded? Am I getting to him?

"I can't stop you," I say. "But I've got to be honest. It would not be a new experience for me. Don't you do any research when you take on jobs like this?"

He doesn't have a response for that.

"You see that castle?" I wave at Elsinore like a madman. "It was a charnel house. They all died in front of me, motherfucker. For a year after that I started every work day with a mass e-mail entitled, 'Everyone Still Alive This Morning?'.

I'm all up in his face now. "It wasn't a boogeyman who did that to us. It was paranoia and lies and lust and grief.

"You have nothing to teach me."

I wait to see what he'll do with that. Tear your own head off, I pray. Tear your own head off.

He roars until I see stars. Then he hits the water without a sound.

I think I won.

Marcellus hobbles out on my shoulder and Hamlet finds a book of matches under the register, which Grendel wadded up like a spitball. We give everyone a viking funeral and the flames reflect on the black water and I think of fire lizards guarding the gates of hell.

Rotten place to build a pub anyway.

The End

Horatio Week 47: Horatio-Con

2010-09-05T22:48:00.006-05:00

Sorry for the late update, everyone! I spent a long and glorious morning hiking and had to work hard to cram the allotted amount of awesome into this week's adventure.

This is the first of the four final installments of The New Adventures of Horatio. I want to thank you all for reading along this far, and hope you'll keep enjoying the series through the end.

If you have any thoughts on a favorite installment from the past year, write me at SeamusSan355@gmail.com and maybe I'll post them.

The New Adventures of Horatio
Week 47: Horatio-Con

A stage in a crowded convention hall. A large screen remains at back throughout. A projection plays a sequence of film clips:

Chip Flint, a handsome actor wearing a tie and spectacles, stands in the midst of a flaming throne room, surrounded by bodies, holding a figure in black.

CHIP
Hamlet! Nooooooo!

Cut to:

Chip Flint and the Green Knight racing motorcycles on a collision course down an icy mountain road, firing pistols at each other.

Cut to:

Chip and an attractive actress standing in an elegant parlor, looking at a dead man in a Frankenstein's monster costume. Chip strokes his chin.

CHIP
Kent switched cups. Frankenstein here wasn't the victim; he was the assassin.

ACTRESS
Then the only mystery left is why you aren't making triumphant Danish love to me right now.

CHIP
Whoa.

Cut to:

Chip walking away from an exploding gas station in slow motion.

Cut to:

Chip and a fat actor standing in a field, opposite a crowd of robed cultists with rocket launchers. Chip points at them and brandishes a pistol.

CHIP
I ain't your messiah! But I'd be happy to introduce you!

FAT ACTOR
Yeah!

Cut to:

A dark alley. Chip and the fat actor standing opposite a creepy red dwarf.

CHIP
Only difference between you and me is-

FAT ACTOR
Three feet?

CHIP
I was going to say, "How dead you're gonna be."

FAT ACTOR
I was gonna say that too.

Cut to:

A city street. Chip runs towards the camera in slow motion, brandishing a sword.

VOICE OVER
There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his philosophy.

Chip leaps for us, in slow motion, raising the sword with both hands.

VOICE OVER
And he's going to kick their asses.

Cut to:

CAPTION
Chip Flint is

The caption explodes to reveal another caption:

CAPTION
The New Adventures of Horatio

Freeze frame. Lights up. Enter William Shakespeare to thunderous applause. The video projector changes to a live shot of Shakespeare. The camera stays on a live feed and focuses on different actors as the play continues.

SHAKESPEARE
I'm William Shakespeare, and this is my greatest creation. You're welcome.

Six weeks, five hundred large, and ten million downloads ago, The New Adventures of Horatio was a loose outline for a series of webisodes based on the controversial career of Denmark's most famous anti-hero since Hamlet. And the phenomenon that it's become is here in front of me.

But, you know, you all deserve the real credit for this. You snuck past Fortinbras's firewalls. There's a war going on and they've talked about martial law, but you traveled and stood in line for Copenhagen Comic-Con in order to be here today. For every person crammed into this convention center in their collectible horn-rims, there are a thousand more joining us as we stream today's creators' panel online. You're here because Horatio speaks to you. And I think if he were here with us today he'd say-

HORATIO
Willy. We need to talk.

Horatio enters from the audience with a microphone of his own. A voice shouts after him from the audience:

VOICE
Your cosplay sucks.

HORATIO
Shut up, Marcellus.

SHAKESPEARE
Holy-! Everybody, we have the real Horatio joining us in the hall today! Get up here, buddy!

Horatio climbs onstage to thunderous applause. Shakespeare gives him a back-patting hug and whispers to him:

SHAKESPEARE
You nuts? You're wanted. This is the excuse they need to shut us down.

HORATIO
If they do your hits will double. Deal with it.

SHAKESPEARE
Let's hear it for Horatio!

HORATIO
I used to love coming to these.

Much applause.

HORATIO
I saw Sullivan again.

SHAKESPEARE
AHAHAHAHAHAHA! What? The acoustics in here are-

HORATIO
He was trying to tell me something. Look, I'm past caring who's pulling the strings, but if I'm fictional or crazy I need you to help me keep it together long enough to take Elsinore.

MARCELLUS
Tell him he's crazy! He doesn't listen to me!

SHAKESPEARE
The series! Everyone's here to hear you talk about the series!

HORATIO
Looks like a travesty.

MARCELLUS
I am neither that fat nor that retarded in real life.

SHAKESPEARE
Questions! Let's throw the floor open for questions!

HORATIO
People are dying, asshole!

SHAKESPEARE
He's dramatic. That's why we love him. Pass those mics out!

HORATIO
This isn't about your little escapist circle-jerk!

An usher hands a microphone to a little girl in the audience.

LITTLE GIRL
This is a question for Horatio.

HORATIO
WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT.

MARCELLUS
Dude. Little girl.

LITTLE GIRL
Horatio, can you say the part that you say at the end of Hamlet?

HORATIO
Yeah, that's not...I mean, that was a play. I hope you know that's not what I actually said.

LITTLE GIRL
It's my favorite part. When we saw the movie it made my Daddy cry and talk about when he was in the war with Norway and he never does that, he's just quiet and he eats too many- He's trying to make me sit down, can you please say it?

Horatio sighs.

HORATIO
I think. It goes a little like this.

But since, so jump upon this bloody question
You from the Polack wars, and you from England
Are here arriv'd, give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
How these things came about. So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts;
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;
Of deaths put on by cunning and forc'd cause;
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on th'inventors' heads. All this can I
Truly deliver.

LITTLE GIRL (Her voice an awed whisper)
Thank you.

HORATIO
Don't mention it. (To himself.) And that's it, isn't it? That's how you win. You become more than a man.

MARCELLUS
H-man! Bernardo says SWAT teams are dispersing the crowds outside.

HORATIO
Okay. Can I have some inspirational music, please?

David Bowie's "Heroes" starts playing.

Thanks. I saw these war protesters outside. Dressed like me. With signs that read "Horatio Lives". Which I appreciate, even though the need to state that implies that my immediate existence is in question, and it's not like I don't worry about that enough already-

MARCELLUS
They're surrounding the building!

HORATIO
Okay. I appreciate the sentiment. You don't want to get killed invading Sweden. You want Norway out of Denmark. I want Norway out of Denmark. Great.

"Horatio Lives." Prove it. Hit the streets. Bring your friends. Let them arrest you. Clog the prisons and the black sites. March on the palace. This man will lead you.

He points to Shakespeare.

SHAKESPEARE
What?

HORATIO
Fortinbras doesn't want the world to see her shooting the voice of a generation on the evening news.

SHAKESPEARE
Dick!

HORATIO
Everybody watching online: you know she's going to tear through Europe like a stoner through pudding cups. She's using chemical weapons and contracting political assassinations. You could be next in line. Demand sanctions. Organize divestment campaigns.

No one riot or hurt anybody or loot anything. They'll try to hurt us, but our way is better. It'll be bad but, God willing, it'll be over soon.

"Horatio Lives". Let's hope.

SHAKESPEARE
They're breaking in!

HORATIO
Boy Wonder, make yourself useful and kill the power.

MARCELLUS
Fuck you!

HORATIO
Fuck you, Marcellus, there are kids present!

All lights but the video projector die. Horatio's silhouette is projected against the far wall. He is gigantic.

HORATIO
I'm coming, Fortinbras. Stay tuned.

Then the projector dies too.

The End

Horatio Week 46: The Man in Room X

2010-08-29T10:43:00.002-05:00

The New Adventures of Horatio
Week 46: The Man in Room X

A padded cell. Horatio sits in a corner, in black slacks and a black straitjacket.

HORATIO
I had the weirdest dream.

Sound of heavy locks unfastening. Enter Marcellus, in a doctor's coat. He wheels in a large dinner cart covered with a porcelain tray.

MARCELLUS
Din-dins, Hamlet.

HORATIO
Hamlet?

MARCELLUS
Or is it Horatio today? I only brought enough for one, so you gotta choose.

HORATIO
Horatio? I'm Horatio.

MARCELLUS
That's a relief. I know we're trying to get you to drop the dual identity, but between friends, I prefer Horatio. You're a lot easier to feed. Hamlet's a spitter. Food interferes with the soliloquies, I guess.

HORATIO
Marcellus...

MARCELLUS
Got a name fixation tonight. Just keep the tics nonviolent, H-man.

HORATIO
Marcellus, what are we doing here?

MARCELLUS
You're crazy, bro.

HORATIO
I'm not crazy.

Marcellus lifts the tray. Le Nain Rouge, a hideous and malevolent dwarf with a twisted red beard, springs out from under the tray. He holds a knife and an apple.

LE NAIN ROUGE
So certain, garcon?

Horatio screams until the dwarf stuffs the apple in his mouth. Le Nain Rouge licks his lips and raises the knife. Lights dim.

When they come up again, Horatio is alone. His bonds have been loosened. A tapping sound. Horatio perks up, puts his ear to the wall.

Projection: Y-O-U-T-H-E-R-E

Horatio taps on the wall. Morse code.

Projection: W-H-O-W-A-N-T-S-T-O-K-N-O-W

Tapping from the other side. Horatio listens.

Projection: N-E-I-G-H-B-O-R-R-O-O-M-X-R-U-C-H-A-I-N-E-D

Horatio taps.

Projection: N-O-O-B-V-I

Horatio listens. More tapping.

Projection: N-E-M-E-T-A-L-I-N-C-E-L-L

Horatio taps.

Projection: N-O

Horatio listens. More tapping.

Projection: W-H-Y-I-S-T-H-A-T

Horatio furrows his brow. Lights dim.

Horatio is gagged and strapped to an ECT table. Marcellus tightens the straps, cleans the contact points on Horatio's temples. Dr. Moonglow, another psychotherapist, consults a medical chart. Le Nain Rouge wanders about the room, poking at instruments, leering at Horatio.

MOONGLOW
Disassociative personality disorder. When the young prince Hamlet awoke in the ruins of his kingdom, the blood of his slaughtered family sticky on his cheek, the bubbling cries of his lover echoing in his memory, what was he to do? This hell was of his own making. How to escape?

She signals Marcellus, who pulls a lever. Horatio convulses.

MOONGLOW
For one so ingenious and broken as Hamlet, the answer was simple. Become another man.

Another signal, another shock.

MOONGLOW
Become the perfect confidant, the trustworthy friend, innocent of wrongdoing. Become Horatio.

LE NAIN ROUGE
You are a delicatessen for tragedy, mon ami. I grow fat on your sorrow. I mean no disrespect.

Another shock.

MOONGLOW
You begin to remember, yes? Whispering to yourself on the moors, muttering into mirrors in corridors, to a caring chum hardly anyone else ever saw or spoke with.

There is no Horatio, sweet prince. There is only the unconquerable sorrow of living. You see this now.

Ungag him.

Marcellus does so.

HORATIO
Marcellus, it's the dwarf! It's the fucking Nain Rouge! Get him!

MARCELLUS
That's just Dr. Moonglow, Hamlet. She's not a dwarf. We're helping you out here. And I'm Doc Marcellus when we're in therapy.

LE NAIN ROUGE
They pretend, monsieur, that you can be made meilleur, better. We know that there is no "better". There are alternative states of gloom and ruin. We explore them together!

HORATIO
Behind her! The evil bad luck dwarf from Detroit! He's in the room!

MARCELLUS
It's okay, Hamlet. No one's going to hurt you.

HORATIO
Stop calling me that. Marcellus, it's me! We're friends! We drove across America together! You taught me how to hold a bottle in a fight! We went to that creepy gas station where you bought the killer doll! You just won a dust-up with a Dano-Norse super-soldier and we're on a secret mission to Elsinore to reclaim the throne!

MOONGLOW
He's remembering the actualizing therapy.

HORATIO
What fucking actualizing therapy?

MARCELLUS
We acted out your delusions, Hamlet. I ran around the grounds with you, called you Horatio- we gave you a toy sword for a while there- and we had all these adventures. Trying to help you work though some shit.

HORATIO
It was real. I'm real.

Marcellus flips through Horatio's medical chart.

MARCELLUS
As real as the monkey you said kept tickling you back in June? As real as the week you thought you were in hell, or the time before that when you talked for an hour with a ficus plant you swore was a prize-winning Japanese author? Last month you told us you were a work of fiction.

HORATIO
I'd just been deconstructed by Roland Barthes! I was in a weird place personally!

MOONGLOW
Move up his surgery.

HORATIO
I'm real!

LE NAIN ROUGE
As real as I am, mon cher!

HORATIO
I'm a real person!

MOONGLOW
And give him another dose.

Horatio convulses and the lights dim.

Horatio sits in his cell. Listens to more tapping.

Projection: Y-O-U-O-K

Horatio taps back.

Projection: E-C-T

Horatio listens.

Projection: W-H-O-W-O-R-K-E-D-M-A-C-H-I-N-E

Horatio taps.

Projection: W-H-A-T

Horatio listens.

Projection: M-O-O-N-G-L-O-W-O-R-M-A-R-C-E-L-L-U-S

Horatio taps.

Projection: M-A-R-C-E-L-L-U-S

Horatio listens.

Projection: Y-I-S-T-H-A-T

Horatio taps.

Projection: W-H-O-R-U

Silence. The lights dim.

Horatio is again strapped to a table. Moonglow watches as Marcellus wheels in a tray of pointy instruments.

MOONGLOW
Last chance, Hamlet. Accept what happened to your family. Admit there's no Horatio.

HORATIO
Marcellus, who the hell is this person?

MARCELLUS
Dr. Moonglow's a respected shrink, Hamlet. She's consulted on all the big psychiatric cases involving royals. Lear, Lady MacBeth, couples counseling for Othello...

HORATIO
All those people died!

MOONGLOW
We're fast and discrete. The public doesn't even know you're here. If you work with us, we'll have you in your right mind and on the throne in no time.

HORATIO
I. Am. Not. Hamlet.

MOONGLOW
Horatio only exists in there. (She taps Horatio's forehead.) And he's going to have to come out. Dr. Marcellus?

Marcellus picks up something that resembles an ice pick and begins restraining Horatio's head.

HORATIO
Um. Hey, Marcellus-

MARCELLUS
Doctor Marcellus.

HORATIO
Silly question. Are you qualified to lobotomize people?

MARCELLUS
Of course. You're in good hands.

HORATIO
Name two parts of the brain.

MARCELLUS
The...lobes? YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!

HORATIO
See, this isn't real! You're not a doctor! Those games, with the red dwarf and the super-soldiers, they're real! That's where we are! You know me, man! You know you can believe me!

MOONGLOW
Fascinating, isn't it? Such a colorful, dangerous world whirling through that troubled head.

HORATIO
IT'S REAL! I AM REAL AND YOU ARE REAL AND SHIT JUST GOT REAL AND NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO STICK AN ICE PICK IN MY EYE!

MARCELLUS
Sorry, Horatio. It's been fun.

HORATIO
Bob Marcellus! You hate your real name but it's Bob Marcellus! You never tell that to anyone!

Marcellus hesitates.

HORATIO
Remember when you told me that? Standing in the street, waiting for the dwarf? Remember?

MARCELLUS
I don't want to. I'm scared.

MOONGLOW
He's very charismatic, Dr. Marcellus. That's why he's so dangerous if we don't fix him.

HORATIO
Scared? You attacked a killer dwarf with broken masonry! What are you doing getting scared now?

Marcellus, why won't the doctor touch anything metal? Huh? None of this is right!

MOONGLOW
Stop humoring him.

HORATIO
Dammit, Marcellus, if you're scared of anything, be scared that the friend I'd trust with my fucking life is gone!

MARCELLUS
Doc. I'm feeling a little fatigued. How about you conduct this surgery?

MOONGLOW
I'm only a consultant. You know that.

MARCELLUS
Indulge me.

He tosses her the ice pick. She catches it instinctively, hisses, grits her teeth. A thin trickle of smoke rises from her fist.

HORATIO
No metal in the cells and she wouldn't get near the ECT machine.

MOONGLOW
It used to be just iron, but it's like an allergy. The more you're exposed, the more sensitive you get. Congratulations, boys, you've given a god a mild skin rash. (Gingerly, she places the ice pick on the tray.) That can be your epitaph.

HORATIO
What are you?

MARCELLUS
Puck. The last beating I gave you wasn't enough?

MOONGLOW
I was in such a forgiving mood. I gave you an important job, respect, some education, a nice break from all that fighting. All you had to do was lobotomize your only living friend and go mad with remorse.

HORATIO
Fairies hate church bells! The platter!

Marcellus grabs the porcelain lunch platter and a medical tool and hits it so that it rings like a bell. Moonglow screams.

MARCELLUS
What's your beef with us?

MOONGLOW
Was going to ruin you anyway. Fortinbras hired me to take care of Horatio too.

HORATIO
How much did she pay you?

Marcellus rings the bell again. Moonglow writhes.

MOONGLOW
Baked goods. Truckloads. Those are the rules.

HORATIO
Tell her we're coming for her.

MOONGLOW
She's expecting you. Heh heh heh. She knows such interesting people in the spirit world. Aheheheheheh. She's got someone special waiting for you at Elsinore. And he doesn't bother to trick people.

MARCELLUS
Get out of here.

MOONGLOW
You both bore me anyway. Your story's coming to an end. Mine goes on until the last stars die, until the universe realizes how silly the whole thing was and spins to a stop. Leaving only the sound of my laughter.

MARCELLUS
Get OUT!

One final ring.

Moonglow vanishes. Marcellus unstraps Horatio.

HORATIO
I had no idea you felt that way.

MARCELLUS
Scared? Oh yeah. Back during all the dwarf stuff, the drive across America stuff, you know what I was like then. "Fuck it! Let's go!" I was unhappy, you know? But then while you were away I kind of just got my shit together. Banged some hot guys, I'm drinking less now...I mean I'm drinking the same amount but there are other people there now. I get out to the clubs twice a week. I'm happy with my life now. I'm less ready for it to end at any moment.

We survived last time because we were on the sidelines at Elsinore. If we make it back there this time...you know how the main characters end up in these things.

HORATIO
It's not going to end like that.

MARCELLUS
You sound so sure, and you are such a guy that people want to believe, but you don't actually have any idea what you're talking about! You're just like he was!

HORATIO
Let's not talk about Hamlet right now.

MARCELLUS
Fine. I'm going to go look for our ride.

HORATIO
Fine. I need to check something.

Exit Marcellus. Lights up on Room X. The door stands open- the cell, like the rest of the asylum, was abandoned long ago.

HORATIO
Hello? Anyone in there?

He peers inside.

Guess not.

I don't know if you were real, or an illusion, or what, but thank you. If you hadn't clued me in about the metal we probably wouldn't have figured it out in time.

For a second there, I really did think I'd gone crazy.

He reads the name on the door.

"Seamus Sullivan."

Ha. Ahahaha. Ahahahahahahehehehehha. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

He sinks to the floor, head in his hands.

HORATIO
Oh my God.

The End

Horatio Week 45: A Case of the Ghandis

2010-08-21T23:21:00.003-05:00

The New Adventures of Horatio
Week 45: A Case of the Ghandis

Horatio stands on some cliffs by the sea, holding Excalibur, talking on a cell.

HORATIO
Clear through the shoulder, yeah.

No, I gave myself six weeks' recovery time in Hawaii. Caught up on Dexter. Time travel, man.

So I'm at the drop point? It's just coastline. Should I just toss it in? How does that work?

Selkie couriers. Why not. Okay, hang on.

He throws Excalibur into the sea.

Told you I'd give it back.

Honestly? It's pretty bad over here. I'll let you know if we need you.

Gotta go, Kent. I'm meeting someone and Fortinbras is probably tracing this. Stay British.

He hangs up, considers the cell, and tosses that into the sea as well. Whistles.

HORATIO
I need to buy a winter hat.

Enter a dripping figure in scuba gear. It removes its mask. It's Marcellus.

MARCELLUS
Look at this motherfucker.

HORATIO
Marcelluuuus! Shit! You're the Resistance contact?

MARCELLUS
Only way I get to see you anymore. E-mail's a wonderful thing, bro.

HORATIO
Dude. Fugitive.

MARCELLUS
I can't deal with how buff and adventurey you are now.

HORATIO
How's Elsinore?

MARCELLUS
Between the war, the Resistance, and you? Elsinore is fucked. Heavily armed Danes at every level of government going on three hours of sleep. It's like the old days.

HORATIO
Don't say that.

MARCELLUS
We've got a truck a few kliks inland. We'll get you to a safehouse and cook up a plan to take out Fortinbras.

HORATIO
About that.

MARCELLUS
We're'a drop her like she's a red dwarf, am I right?

HORATIO
This all ends soon, and it ends one of two ways, and I'm so over the everyone-dies scenario.

MARCELLUS
What are you talking about?

HORATIO
Breaking the cycle, man!

I've taken a vow of nonviolence.

MARCELLUS
I wish you hadn't said that.

HORATIO
Why.

MARCELLUS
'Cause I think they made me when I left Elsinore.

Kaptajn København parachutes in from the fly system.

KOBENHAVN
You think right.

HORATIO
Kaptajn København!

MARCELLUS
The Dano-Norse super-soldier of tomorrow!

KOBENHAVN
Astute terrorists.

HORATIO
I’m not going to fight you.

MARCELLUS
-he’s going to puree you, you take one step closer. Just like before. Right, buddy? Right?

KOVENHAVN
You got lucky, Joe College.

MARCELLUS
He’s got the whoopass skills to take you on your best day. Probably the ONLY GUY IN DENMARK who can do that. Tell him, H-man, about the ass-kicking you are DUTY BOUND to deliver!

HORATIO
Do what you have to, captain.

KOBENHAVN
Prepare to get your tracheae punched out for freedom!

He charges. Horatio does not move.

MARCELLUS
Horatio!

Marcellus pushes Horatio out of the way. Kaptajn København swings at Marcellus, misses, and punches through part of the cliff.

MARCELLUS
He is punching through the cliff! There is cliff punching happening here!

HORATIO
Yes, I saw.

Marcellus jumps on the Kaptajn’s back and puts him in a chokehold, holding on with difficulty.

MARCELLUS
Help!

HORATIO
You got this.

MARCELLUS
I have in no way got this! This is your thing to get!

This is no time to get a case of the Ghandis!

HORATIO
You can let go of him anytime.

MARCELLUS
You know I can’t!

HORATIO
Don’t be a hero!

MARCELLUS
I mean I physically can’t! Guy’ll chuck me over the cliff! Hit him!

KOBENHAVN
I can catch .50 cal rounds in my teeth! I can control my blood temperature to avoid infrared detection! You can’t match my training!

MARCELLUS
HORATIOOOO!

København smashes Marcellus against the cliffside and he slides off, limp and dazed. København kicks him, picks him up by the neck.

KOBENHAVN
A millennium of coastal warfare has culminated in me! The Dano-Norse tanks are in Sweden! Finland’s sweltering in the Indian summer of our napalm! Who are you to stand in our way?

MARCELLUS
Name’s Marcellus. I make minimum wage and ten bad decisions before breakfast, and when my blood alcohol level gets below .005, people get cut. Last chance to save yourself.

KOBENHAVN (To Horatio)
Come fight me or I’ll drop him on those rocks.

HORATIO
The super-soldier serum's got your adrenal glands overclocked.

MARCELLUS
Get out of here, Horatio!

HORATIO
Put him down. I surrender.

MARCELLUS
Bullshit you surrender!

KOBENHAVN
You're off the board, rent-a-cop. I've got more strength in my pinky-

MARCELLUS
Let's test that.

He grabs København's pinky with both hands and twists.

KOBENHAVN
Taah!

He drops Marcellus, who scrambles back onto the cliff and kicks him in the crotch.

KOBENHAVN
This isn't a bar fight.

Marcellus grabs a big rock and smashes it against Kobenhavn's ear.

KOBENHAVN
This is nations grinding nations to powder.

MARCELLUS
FALL. DOWN.

He tries a running tackle on København, then head-butts him, then falls back, clutching his own head. København taps his forehead.

KOBENHAVN
Kevlar.

Horatio leaps down behind København, who whirls and clotheslines him. Marcellus bites the super-soldier on the ankle. Horatio scrambles up and jams a syringe into København's neck.

HORATIO
Not everywhere.

KOBENHAVN
Naaaaa

HORATIO
Hold him!

He and Marcellus each grab an arm. København snarls and flails, nearly tossing them over the cliff, but they hang on as he grows weaker.

HORATIO
Feel that? Muscles shriveling like slugs in the sun. Synapses slowing, the world going from half-speed to regular. No more cliff-punching, Captain.

MARCELLUS
Is there a Danish superweapon your mom didn't engineer?

HORATIO
Watch what you say about my Mom.

They drop København, who falls to earth like a sack of depowered potatoes.

MARCELLUS
You couldn't inject the counterserum before he punched my head off?

HORATIO
Had to get his heart rate up or it wouldn't circulate in time.

MARCELLUS
So nonviolence doesn't mean you're above that dick move thing you do.

What if he'd really been about to kill one of us?

HORATIO
You wouldn't let it get that far.

MARCELLUS
I- yeah?

HORATIO
Yeah. I know you.

MARCELLUS
Next time I get to be the pacifist.

HORATIO
Always room for one more.

MARCELLUS
So, to review.

We're going to halt the entire Dano-Norse military apparatus, defuse a world war, and dethrone a genius-level military strategist, all without firing a shot.

HORATIO
That's the plan.

MARCELLUS
I'm driving.

The End

Horatio Week 44: Four Moments in the Life of the Conqueror

2010-08-15T09:03:00.003-05:00

The New Adventures of Horatio
Week 44: Four Moments in the Life of the Conqueror

Four

The throne room at Elsinore. The bodies of the royal family lie scattered on the floor. Two rapiers, a shattered goblet, and the crown are also strewn about the room. The Gravedigger, wearing rubber gloves and a surgical mask, walks about photographing the dead. Horatio sits on one of the few chairs that hasn't been overturned, wearing a blanket and holding a cup of tea in his lap. He stares straight ahead. Enter Fortinbras. She is slightly younger than Horatio and wears fatigues.

FORTINBRAS
This worked out well.

From a geopolitical standpoint.

No?

Horatio sobs into his hands.

FORTINBRAS
You need something to do.

Horatio continues to sob.

FORTINBRAS

There is no circumstance that can't be overcome by the right tactics. "Indirect tactics, efficiently applied, are inexhaustible as Heaven and Earth, unending as the flow of rivers and streams." Sun Tzu, The Art of War. Great book. I'm going to give you a copy. Even though it's about warfare, you can apply its philosophy to the boardroom, relationships, politics, even warfare!

HORATIO
Who are you?

FORTINBRAS

Fortinbras. Princess of Norway, Queen of Denmark.

HORATIO
I heard you were a delicate and tender prince.

FORTINBRAS
How embarrassing for you.

Here's what we're gonna do. I want you to meet this guy we had embedded with us in Poland. Bill Shakespeare.

HORATIO
Shakespeare?

FORTINBRAS
Tell him what you told me.

HORATIO
Who takes a playwright to an invasion?

FORTINBRAS
Take ownership of your national tragedy. Tell the story. That's your tactic.

HORATIO
You can't be Queen!

FORTINBRAS
I'll take it up with the man in charge. Or his next in line. Or his third in- no, wait. All dead.

She picks up the crown, cleans it off.

HORATIO
You can't just wander in! It doesn't work that way!

FORTINBRAS

"Therefore one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the most skillful. Seizing the enemy without fighting is the most skillful."

Talk to Bill. You'll feel better.

HORATIO
I need to throw up.

FORTINBRAS
Away from the throne, okay? I've wanted to sit there a long time.

Horatio looks at the blood and the bodies.

HORATIO
Why?

Three

The throne room in Norway. The King of Norway, an exasperated old man, sits on the throne, chewing out Fortinbras, who stands at attention.

NORWAY
What's this I hear about you sharking up a list of lawless resolutes?

FORTINBRAS
"Now in order to kill the enemy, our men must be roused to anger; that there may be advantage from defeating the enemy, they must have their rewards."

NORWAY
Don't quote that thing at me. You promised them parcels of land if they helped you take it back from Denmark? That's not the agreement!

FORTINBRAS

"To lift an autumn hair is no sign of great strength; to see the sun and moon is no sign of sharp sight; to hear the noise of thunder is no sign of a quick ear."

NORWAY
Now you're just- RRRRGH! You always do this! Just talk to me!

FORTINBRAS
I was saying, Uncle Sven, you're stating the obvious. I don't like the agreement.

NORWAY
You don't like the- who's king here?

FORTINBRAS
You are, Uncle Sven.

NORWAY
So, then, do YOU decide whether we honor the agreement? Or do I?

FORTINBRAS
You do, Uncle Sven.

NORWAY
I do? Fancy that! Then I suppose we had better DO what our king TELLS US to do, HADN'T WE?

We're not dealing with Poland here. Denmark can hurt us. Understand?

UNDERSTAND?

FORTINBRAS

Yes, Uncle Sven.

NORWAY
I miss him as much as you do. Talk to your uncle, Fortinbras.

FORTINBRAS

"There are not more than five cardinal tastes (sour, acrid, salt, sweet, bitter), yet combinations of them yield more flavors than can ever be tasted."

NORWAY
GOD DAMN! That GOD DAMN ASIATIC- hrrrr. Fine. You won't share a palace with me? You want to march to some blasted plain and carpet it with dead men?

FORTINBRAS
More than you'd understand.

NORWAY

We have a border dispute with Poland. Go resolve it. March at the head of the army if you like.

FORTINBRAS
My leige.

Two

Fortinbras, now a little girl, sits reading. Enter Norway, now middle-aged, but with a newly-acquired oldness in his movements that foreshadows the doddard he'll become. Fortinbras looks up expectantly.

NORWAY
Fortinbras. You should sit down for...oh. You're sitting down. Maybe I should sit down.

FORTINBRAS
Hi, Uncle Sven!

NORWAY
I have some- can you understand those?

He indicates the books.

FORTINBRAS

Daddy says I have to learn about civil society.

NORWAY
You're six. It's unnatural.

I have some news about your father.

FORTINBRAS
Daddy's back!

NORWAY
No. Your Dad, he. Ah. You remember he left a while ago to settle that dispute with Denmark.

FORTINBRAS
Uh-huh! He said if I'm good and do everything you say and eat all my dinner I can impose martial law for a day when he gets back!

NORWAY
Yes. Well. He got together with King Hamlet of Denmark- you remember King Hamlet? And they worked out a truce over the land, so the armies wouldn't have to fight. They settled on single combat and. Hhh. Hamlet cut his head off with an axe.

Fortinbras?

One

Fortinbras is slightly younger, with bruises and scrapes and a big smile. Her father, Fortinbras Sr., glowers down at her, holding a note.

FORTINBRAS
And I hit him in his eye, and he fell on the floor and hit his head, and I sat on him and I took a booger and said "I'll put this in your hair! I'll put this in your hair!" until he said he was sorry.

FATHER
You understand why this is a problem?

FORTINBRAS
He cried and snot came out all over his shirt!

FATHER
I don't want you fighting.

FORTINBRAS
But I'm good! They gave me a corner of the playroom and I have a box fort.

FATHER
It's not all box forts, Fortinbras.

FORTINBRAS
Yes, sir.

FATHER
I don't know if you're old enough to understand this. All the fighting I do, all the beachheads of red snow I've charged, I do that to make Norway stronger. For you. You'll be able to have public works and arts subsidies and local elections because you won't have to worry about your borders. You'll rule Norway better than I ever did.

FORTINBRAS
You're the best king ever, Daddy.

FATHER
I am a hard act to follow. So study. And don't smack around any more kids.

FORTINBRAS
Yes, sir.

FATHER
I'm going to be gone for a while.

FORTINBRAS
Denmark. I remembered! We found it on the map!

FATHER
That's right.

FORTINBRAS
Daddy? Is the land you're fighting for nice?

FATHER
God, yes. It's a chain of beautiful little islands. We'll take a vacation there when this is done.

FORTINBRAS
You say that about all the places you go to fight.

FATHER
We'll see them all, Forty. The Palace at Elsinore. The Meteorite Craters of Poland. The Ice Hotels of Sweden.

We'll see Europe. We'll see the world. You and me.

FORTINBRAS
I'll bet I love it.

FATHER
I'll bet you will.

The End

Horatio Week 43: Kill Everyone

2010-08-08T10:12:00.005-05:00

The New Adventures of Horatio

Week 43: Kill Everyone

A plain in Denmark. Night. Marcellus surveys the terrain with binoculars. He sports a beard and an uncharacteristically dapper uniform. Enter a soldier, also with a beard.

MARCELLUS
Who's there?

SOLDIER
Me, sir. No movement to the south. Woods to the east are clear.

MARCELLUS
Good work, soldier. At this rate we'll make Poland and back in time for dinner. And Raoul's making spaghetti squash.

SOLDIER
Power to the Patriarch, Sir!

MARCELLUS
Power to the Patriarch...what was it?

SOLDIER
Olafson, sir!

MARCELLUS
I don't remember seeing your face.

SOLDIER
People tend not to, sir.

MARCELLUS
Maybe if I peek at the real one.

He yanks off the soldier's fake beard, revealing a young woman.

MARCELLUS
Hullo, bitch. I'm sure there's a riveting story behind this!

Now who are you?

SOLDIER
Oh, come on. You've seen me on wanted posters.

MARCELLUS
I know, I know, I can't quite put a name...

SOLDIER
I'm the top spy for the Resistance!

MARCELLUS
It's on the tip of my tongue.

A hooded figure emerges from the bushes behind Marcellus.

FIGURE
Rosencrantz.

Marcellus whirls and aims his gun at the figure, who whips out a crossbow and fires a bolt down the barrel. Rosencrantz grabs for the gun. The figure somersaults under Marcellus's swinging arms and plunges a crossbow bolt, daggerlike, through his foot, pinning him to the ground.

MARCELLUS
Daaaaagh!

FIGURE
Rosewood tipped with sodium pentathol. You'll live.

MARCELLUS
That voice...

FIGURE
Only the best for an old friend.

The figure pushes back her hood to reveal:

MARCELLUS
Ophelia!

ROSENCRANTZ
Now you recognize people.

OPHELIA
You okay, Rosie?

ROSENCRANTZ
'M fine. Infiltrated the scouts and led 'em through here, like we planned. The army should hit this pass in the next half hour.

OPHELIA
Everything's coming up daisies. (To Marcellus) Now. Where in the armored column is he going to be? Let the truth serum do the talking.

MARCELLUS
Randomized. Even I don't know.

OPHELIA
Plan B it is.

She drags a suitcase out from the bushes.

OPHELIA
Kill everyone.

ROSENCRANTZ
Fuck, lady, are you sure?

OPHELIA
You'd prefer the Nelson Mandela approach? How'd that work out for Horatio?

MARCELLUS
Murdering whores.

OPHELIA

I've been lugging a briefcase nuke around and eating roots all week, Marcellus. Not in the mood.

MARCELLUS
Prove us right! You betray us at the first chance. We have to watch you, herd you, tag you like the cows you are!

Ophelia twirls a crossbow bolt between her fingers. The silver tip shines hypnotically.

OPHELIA
Marcellus, Marcellus, Marcellus. Your wee piggy eyelids are growing heavy, Marcellus. You're going to sleep for ten minutes and when you wake up, you're going to forget all about us and report back to your emperor. Route Bravo is secure.

MARCELLUS

Route Bravo is secure.

OPHELIA
Sleep now.

Marcellus sits down and falls instantly asleep.

OPHELIA (To Rosencrantz.)
Set the bomb for an hour. It'll blow up in their midst.

ROSENCRANTZ
Someone's coming.

Enter Horatio, carrying a gas can.

OPHELIA
Hold it, chest hair. Come out where I can see you.

HORATIO
Ophelia?

OPHELIA
Motherfuck.

ROSENCRANTZ
Horatio!

HORATIO
Heeeyyyy...you!

ROSENCRANTZ
Rosencrantz!

HORATIO (Approaching Ophelia.)

Jesus, it's good to see you.

Ophelia puts her crossbow to his nose.

HORATIO
Nice crossbow.

OPHELIA
The real Horatio let a tank run over him at a Daughters of Denmark protest two years ago. You wanna tell me what this is?

HORATIO
I'm not from around here. I had a breakdown back at Elsinore. Materialized in front of a moving Bradley and they knocked the fuel cells right off my time machine.

OPHELIA
Time travel.

ROSENCRANTZ
Alternate universes.

BOTH
Like the Professor Rittenhouse Adventure.

OPHELIA
Okay.

HORATIO
When I dropped my past self off, his timeline seemed to be going well enough. What happened here?

OPHELIA
The king found out his wife was sleeping with his brother and his brother was trying to poison him. He had Claudius quartered and Gertrude locked up. Then he issued gender specific curfews and registration laws, required women to carry special ID at all times.

HORATIO
Everyone went along with this?

ROSENCRANTZ

There are camps for the ones who didn't.

HORATIO
You're kidding.

ROSENCRANTZ
Gertrude did what legions of screaming Norwegians and Poles never could. She made him feel vulnerable.

OPHELIA
When he found a threat he couldn't decapitate, things got bad. He declared himself Emperor and started registering women in other countries. Norway fell first, then Sweden.

Marcellus starts awake.

ROSENCRANTZ

The army's marching through here to Poland within the hour.

OPHELIA (Indicating the briefcase nuke)
So if they're the rapist, this is the mace.

HORATIO
Oh. Shit. I'm so sorry. This isn't what I wanted to do. I didn't want to see you like this.

OPHELIA
What do you mean.

HORATIO
I-

MARCELLUS
Dirty bitches!

OPHELIA
God dammit. We should've evac'd by now. Tie him up.

Rosencrantz does so.

MARCELLUS

There's a nunnery two kliks from here! You gonna nuke your own?

HORATIO
Marcellus? You're clean!

MARCELLUS
Four years this December, and all one day at a time.

HORATIO
No, I mean you're physically clean. You combed your hair.

MARCELLUS
Life's been good to me, man. What are you doing alive again?

ROSENCRANTZ
Alternate universe.

MARCELLUS
Oh! How'm I doing?

HORATIO
Kind of a mess, bro.

MARCELLUS
Out yet?

HORATIO
'Bout half.

MARCELLUS
Ah.

HORATIO
Listen! There's a way out of this without killing everyone. In my reality, the king was supposed to die. I traveled back and warned him. But I can go back further, intercept myself, and ensure the Patriarchy never happens.

ROSENCRANTZ
What happens to us in your reality?

HORATIO
Um.

OPHELIA
Dead?

HORATIO
Both of you, yeah.

ROSENCRANTZ
Anyone else?

HORATIO
Most of the court.

ROSENCRANTZ
So basically your plan also consists of killing everyone.

HORATIO
Neither of you expects to walk away from a nuclear blast.

ROSENCRANTZ
I was.

OPHELIA (To Horatio.)
Run. Take shelter. Maybe the nuns will let you hide in their basement. This world will need a Horatio.

ROSENCRANTZ
You kept him honest. He went over the edge after you died.

HORATIO
Hamlet? Where is he, anyway?

ROSENCRANTZ
Coming this way. He'll be nowhere at all, once this goes off.

OPHELIA
I'm sorry.

HORATIO
NO. You're not doing this again.

HAMLET
You got that right.

Enter Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. He wears shining military regalia and sports a full beard. He also carries a pistol, with which he covers them all.

HAMLET
(To Ophelia.) Hello, dear.

HORATIO
What is it with the beards?

MARCELLUS
Emblem of manliness.

HAMLET
"If it's without whiskers, better frisk her." (To Horatio.) What's this, some kind of dyke Horatio impersonator to pique my conscience?

MARCELLUS
Alternate universe, Commander.

HAMLET
Prove it.

HORATIO

Naval-gazing ass clown.

HAMLET
Syncophant.

HORATIO
Randian.

HAMLET
Leibniz-lover.

HORATIO
How appropriate, you fight like a cow!

HAMLET
Dude!

HORATIO
Dude!

HAMLET
Good to see you. You're all ripped now!

HORATIO
I know!

MARCELLUS
Make out!

Hearty laughter from the men.

HORATIO
Right? This is good. This is really good. Us, alive. We can keep this going. What if we all just, like, put down our guns and turned off the briefcase nuke and stopped invading Poland for maybe an hour or two and grabbed a drink-

HAMLET
Nope.

OPHELIA
Not gonna happen.

They point their weapons at one another's heads. Rosencrantz prepares to arm the nuke.

MARCELLUS
For the record, I would totally take a break for an iced tea right now.

HAMLET
Responsibilities, H-man. A time comes to move past the whiny teenage phase and marry a nice girl. But then, you know how it is. You have these little snits about who's paying more for gas and groceries, and the next thing you know you're leading your father's conquering army and she's shooting arrows at you from the woods with a bunch of Gertrude Stein anarchists.

Man. I missed sharing.

OPHELIA
You left out the part where you had me committed.

HAMLET
To help with your depression.

OPHELIA
You kept putting our friends in jail! Of course I was depressed!

OPHELIA
Where's your father? I've got a short, sharp present for him.

HAMLET
If he knew you were here, he'd napalm this whole plain.

OPHELIA
You're alone.

HAMLET
Am I? Want to tell them how I knew she'd be here, Agent Rosencrantz?

OPHELIA (To Rosencrantz.)
You utter bitch!

ROSENCRANTZ
They're going to build a statue. With my name in flashing neon! They'll have to remember it then!

She takes the briefcase and stands beside Hamlet.

HAMLET

I still care, Ophelia. You're going to get the best possible care in one of Dr. Petruchio's reeducation camps.

HORATIO
Whoa, whoa. No one's getting reeducated. Come on, Hamlet, this isn't you.

He walks up to Hamlet, his hands out.

HAMLET
Step back, buddy.

HORATIO
Hey. It's me. I know you better than anyone. You'd never shoot me in a million years.

Hamlet shoots him in the shoulder.

HORATIO
MOTHERFUCKER!

HAMLET
Walk it off, H-man.

Dad openly expresses approval of me now! Twice a day sometimes! He almost let an "I-love-you" out the other day.

HORATIO
Good for you.

HAMLET
So for that, I will shoot you in the shoulder.

HORATIO
I gathered.

OPHELIA

Hamlet. I did love you once.

HAMLET
Don't say that, baby.

OPHELIA

I loved something in you that your father has torn and crumpled and stained.

HAMLET

We'll work this out.

OPHELIA
You want to bring me in line?

She throws down her crossbow.

Come on.

Hamlet puts down his gun. They circle each other.

OPHELIA

It wasn't that you were funny, or the smartest guy in the room. It was that when something wasn't right, when some offense to God and country and human decency was being committed, you couldn't keep your mouth shut. You always said something smart alecky. Always.

HAMLET
I could afford to. I was a spoiled college kid.

OPHELIA
Look at what your father has done to this world. Say something.

HAMLET
You're crazy!

She headbutts him.

OPHELIA

Say something!

HAMLET
...

She roundhouse kicks him across the stage. He falls, stunned. Breathing hard, she crosses to Rosencrantz, takes the briefcase nuke without a word. Cuts Marcellus's bonds.

OPHELIA
Get him to the nunnery. They'll patch him up.

MARCELLUS
What about the-

OPHELIA
GO.

Exit Marcellus and Rosencrantz, carrying Hamlet.

OPHELIA
Can you walk?

HORATIO
Don't have to. This gas can is a cleverly disguised homing beacon. When I fill it with fuel, the time machine will zero in to pick me up.

OPHELIA
"Fuel" being-?

HORATIO
The plutonium from that briefcase should do the trick.

OPHELIA
No deal.

She activates the nuke. It makes an ominous countdown sound.

HORATIO
We can bring back the man you remember!

OPHELIA
He dies. We all do.

HORATIO
But he dies a heroic, talkative son of a bitch. Dies in mid-sentence, practically. You'd have loved him then. I sure did.

OPHELIA
Do we have time together, before the end?

HORATIO
Yeah. You do.

OPHELIA
You've gotten better at lying.

HORATIO

You've gotten a lot better at mass murder.

OPHELIA
Aren't we something.

She turns the bomb off, closes the briefcase, and kicks it over to Horatio.

HORATIO

It was good seeing you.

OPHELIA
If any version of me, in any reality, remembers any part of this... Pray.

She walks off. Horatio begins siphoning fuel from the briefcase nuke into the gas can.

HORATIO
Okay, Fortinbras. Okay. We settle this the hard way.

He twists the gas cap and the stage floods with light.

The End

Inferno Will Hook You and Stomp You in the Ground

2010-08-07T14:06:00.009-05:00

I want you to know, Dad, that this isn't your fault. You did everything a father could to impart a love of baseball. You made sure I had all the cheese fries my twelve-year-old stomach could hold at those long-ago Trenton Thunder games. Last week you made me finally check out Nats Stadium, where even without Strasburg pitching we saw the home team trounce the number one Braves and Nyger Morgan steal home.

But my heart belongs to the rodeo now.

Marissa took me to the rodeo Thursday night in Great Falls, Montana. Breast cancer awareness was the cause of the evening, and pink T-shirts, checked shirts and button-downs filled the stands. Many of the riders flung about the dust in the arena appeared as bouncing streaks of pink, and one bull by the name of Flipper wore pink a coat of pink paint as he did his damndest to gore his rider. There may have been a correlation between the pink coat and the attempted goring.

Events began at seven, after the announcer prayed for the armed forces and cancer survivors, and a young alto led us in singing the National Anthem. Between bareback bronco riding, steer roping, barrel racing, and other competitions, cowgirls in red sequined shirts rode through waving literal banner ads.

Watching broncos take cowboys with hyper-American names like Nick Stubblefield and shake them like Polaroid pictures is fun in a spine-clutching masochistic horror movie kind of way. The crowning joy, though, the event that makes rodeo the manliest, fist-pumpingest pastime in these United States, is steer wrestling.

In steer wrestling, a small steer runs into the stadium, followed by a rider. The rider attempts to leap from his horse, catch the steer in a headlock, sweep its legs out from under it, and piledrive it into the dirt, all inside of ten seconds. To recap: one leaps from a galloping horse and brings a steer to earth with a flying tackle. Truly, this is the most badass contest between man and beast until we sanction gorilla boxing or shark judo.

Bull riding is a close second for adrenaline, especially when a positively Satanic long-horned bull named Zombie has its rider on the ground, ripe for goring, and the rodeo clowns, who almost certainly aren't paid enough, distract the bull by running straight at its face. Early in the bull-riding segment a red-shirted scarecrow stood in the middle of the arena, but a few rounds in the bull knocked it across the stadium like a kid kicking a dandelion and it sprawled there for the duration.

Guarding against the possibility of the audience not finding all this near-disfigurement exciting enough without accompaniment, the management pumped music into the arena. The heartland-friendly rock of "Courtesy of the Red White and Blue" and "American Girl" gave way to "Seven Nation Army" and "Enter Sandman" as dusk arrived.

Rodeo rations the bum-puckering excitement of these contests by interspersing them with barrel racing, pageantry, and other light entertainment a la vaudeville. Vince Bruce, introduced as "the Wizard of Whips and Ropes"1, was one such act. The wizard rode in astride two horses, keeping a broad lasso in orbit around himself and his mounts. "As you can tell by the sound of my voice," he told us, "I am from the deep, deep west of London. But I do speak your language. Get. Her. Done!" He hopped a unicycle in and out of a spinning lasso, held playing cards in his mouth and sliced them in two with a whip, rolled lassoes along his back and between his legs, and quipped about riding off into the fog and crashing into buildings.

There was also a rodeo clown, Brian, who wore knee high socks and a pink feather boa and provided color commentary that seemed to genuinely piss off the regular announcer. At one point he did a skit that culminated in a trashcan full of dud fireworks exploding in his hands, which finally startled a laugh out of us.

It's probably easy to read about the evening's proceedings and imagine that we enjoyed the rodeo ironically, the way we fortify ourselves with gin-and-tonics and ironically watch the Twilight movies or Insane Clown Posse's "Miracles" video, the way twentysomethings shout "'Merrica!" at overzealous campaign speeches or Fourth of July displays. At least 90% of the time, this wasn't the case. There's a winning sincerity to the rodeo, from the kinetic butchness of the flying cattle tackles to the gutsiness of the clowns' running interference.

There's no better example of the rodeo's imperviousness to cynicism than the announcer's repeated calls for applause. They were gentlemanly and florid, a relic from a mythic age of frontier chivalry, like a gunslinger doffing his hat to a big-bonneted schoolteacher and apologizing for strong language. No matter how quickly or abjectly he landed in the dust, rare was the rider who climbed to his feet without applause.

"All he will get...is your hands slapping together."

"They are waiting in the wings for a handclap. See to it that they get one!"

"Back to South Dakota he goes, remembering the great round of applause he got in Great Falls on a Thursday night."

Compare this to baseball games in my native Philadelphia, where locals have booed Herbert Hoover, Santa Claus, and, allegedly, the sun.

Such is the power of this tone, that when the announcer calls for a prayer, or delivers some bad news along the lines of "Inferno will hook you and stomp you in the ground!", there is a blunt truth to it.

All this, and three dollar beer.

You and me, rodeo. Yee-haw. Really.

1. That this sobriquet did not sound at all like a raunchy independent film star is a tribute to the raw wholesomeness of the announcer's tone.

Horatio Week 42: Save Everyone

2010-08-01T12:31:00.002-05:00

Writing this week from Great Falls, Montana, where the air over the plains is cool and the State Fair is selling fried everything. May we all find a good place to relax out of the heat.

The New Adventures of Horatio
Week 42: Save Everyone

A churchyard. A Gravedigger plies her trade and sings.

GRAVEDIGGER
If I should fall from grace with God
Where no doctor can relieve me
If I'm buried 'neath the sod
But the angels won't receive me

Let me go, boys
Let me go, boys
Let me go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry

Enter Horatio. A few years younger, with none of the battle scars or adventure gear of the Horatio we've been following. The Gravedigger perks up and sees him.

GRAVEDIGGER
I thought I felt a chill. Must be a fox walking over my grave!

HORATIO
Hiya, Margot.

GRAVEDIGGER
What's your fine little schoolboy behind doing here, other than getting my boneyard all hot?

HORATIO
Things in the castle are a little fucked right now.

GRAVEDIGGER
Mmm-hmm. What's her name? Does she have my golden pipes?

Bury me at sea
Where no murdered ghost can haunt me
If I rock upon the waves
Then no corpse can lie upon me

It's coming up three, boys
Keeps coming up three, boys
Let them run down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry

HORATIO
Thematically appropriate, as always.

GRAVEDIGGER
If she jilts you, there's always your Auntie Margot. I can't talk to you about Kierkegaarde, but I've got a damn nice body. Several, actually.

HORATIO
HA! Oh, you.

I'm just taking a walk.

GRAVEDIGGER
Ah-ah, this is the part of our conversations where you've usually run away. You're waiting for someone.

HORATIO
No one interesting. I don't even know where Prince Hamlet is.

GRAVEDIGGER
Prince Hamlet!

HORATIO
Dammit.

GRAVEDIGGER
He that is mad, and sent into England!

HORATIO
I am not good at this.

GRAVEDIGGER
He's due back already?

HORATIO
Pirates were involved.

GRAVEDIGGER
He killed the king's lord chamberlain, and you're smuggling him back.

HORATIO
He's not well. He needs me.

GRAVEDIGGER
What's your plan when he gets here?

HORATIO
We'll figure it out.

Don't tell anyone, huh?

GRAVEDIGGER
I'll be as silent as Mr. White here. (She holds up a skull.) Say hello, Mr. White. "Hello!"

HORATIO
I knew I could trust you, Margot.

GRAVEDIGGER
Cost you a hug.

HORATIO
....yeeaaahh.

He hugs her awkwardly. It goes on for a while.

HORATIO
Um.

GRAVEDIGGER
Savor the moment, my little one. We are not long for this earth.

HORATIO
Oh look it's Hamlet HEY HAMLET!

Enter the Horatio we know and love, henceforth referred to as Horatio-to-be. He carries a black bag.

HORATIO-TO-BE
Hey yourself.

HORATIO
Great shades of Schwarzenegger.

GRAVEDIGGER
Two Horatios? (Acquires a shifty look.) Boys, we have a rare opportunity here.

HORATIO-TO-BE
Not now, Margot. (To Horatio.) Is he here yet?

HORATIO
Not yet.

HORATIO-TO-BE
Good. Help me set this up.

He takes a sniper rifle from the bag and starts assembling it on the hillside.

HORATIO-TO-BE
I bet you're pretty confused right now.

HORATIO
Who gave me that scar? Where'd the sword come from?

HORATIO-TO-BE
Poker game.

HORATIO
It's the whole Hiro Nakamura thing.

HORATIO-TO-BE
Nice.

The rifle is mostly set up. He looks through the scope.

Funeral procession comes in by the south gate, if memory serves.

HORATIO
Where do I get a time machine?

HORATIO-TO-BE
Scientist friend owed me a favor. She'd been meaning to break the laws of physics for a while anyway.

HORATIO
And we're doing what exactly?

HORATIO-TO-BE
That little voice you've heard for months. "Maybe he should shoot Claudius in the head already and get it over with." Absolutely correct. But you held your tongue.

HORATIO
Not my place. Guy's in a tough spot. What happens here?

HORATIO-TO-BE
What's the worst possible thing you can imagine?

A few years down the road, Scandinavia kicks off a world war because of what happens today. We're fixing that.

HORATIO
By shooting the King of Denmark in the head.

HORATIO-TO-BE

Beats ear poison.

HORATIO
Two people have already died. You can't tell me this is the only way.

HORATIO-TO-BE

I used to be a nice guy. Good listener.

HORATIO
Thanks?

HORATIO-TO-BE

That's not what he needs today. He needs someone he trusts to tell him what you both know deep down. If he doesn't end this right now it'll destroy everyone.

HORATIO
And if he does? What happens to you? Us?

HORATIO-TO-BE
I'm going to tell you what I wish someone had told me. You'll drink with gods and find America. You'll become the otaku messiah. You'll travel to the edge of reality and know the universe for what it is. And you'd trade it all to hear your best friend draw breath again.

I inspired trust when I was your age. Can I still?

HORATIO
I've never killed anyone.

HORATIO-TO-BE

Duh.

HORATIO

Hamlet gets the shot?

HORATIO-TO-BE

Figure it's what he'd want.

HORATIO

You watch for the procession, I'll flag down our guy.

The Gravedigger, who has taken all this in stride, brings her shovel down on the barrel of the rifle, bending it.

HORATIO-TO-BE
Aah! The fuck!

GRAVEDIGGER
I expected better. Growing up to play dice with the cosmos. You don't have the foggiest idea what'll happen when you pull that trigger.

HORATIO-TO-BE
Margot! It could not possibly be worse!

GRAVEDIGGER
It can always get worse.

HORATIO-TO-BE
Everyone dies!

GRAVEDIGGER
I could've told you that. You going to fix that too? Found a cure for death I don't know about?

HORATIO-TO-BE
Watch them die and THEN say that to me.

HORATIO
She's got a point. Doesn't feel right doing it like this.

HORATIO-TO-BE
Make your own decisions, you prick!

HORATIO

Hey. Ah-nold. I'm saying we can do this right. Go back further. Stop this earlier.

We can save Ophelia, Polonius, Hamlet Sr.

HORATIO-TO-BE
Save everyone.

HORATIO
Save everyone.

GRAVEDIGGER
You'll break the universe!

HORATIO-TO-BE

You really want to do this? This isn't some cosmic power trip of mine?

HORATIO
It's the nice thing to do.

HORATIO-TO-BE
I'm parked by the south wall. Come with me if you want everyone to live.

HORATIO
Nice.

HORATIO-TO-BE

Good catching up, Margot.

They run off.

GRAVEDIGGER
Every story ends the same way, boys! You'll see!

God, I could watch those crazy legs pump forever.

To Be Continued

Horatio Week 41: Author! Author!

2010-07-25T11:57:00.003-05:00

The New Adventures of Horatio
Week 41: Author! Author!

A donut shop. Horatio and Shakespeare sit in a booth.

SHAKESPEARE
The advance on the movie version of the zombie thing is eight million, of which I'll cut you an initial check for fifty-five large.

HORATIO
Hundred?

SHAKESPEARE
Thousand. Jesus.

HORATIO
Just say 'thousand' like a normal person.

SHAKESPEARE
Shakespeare doesn't do normal, honey. Normal doesn't go to Broadway where Hollywood options it. Incestuous royals, bear massacres on distant shores, that's what keeps the larder full. Speaking of which, yes, you can have my bearclaw, just stop looking at it like it's taking its first steps.

HORATIO
Thanks. You're still a whore.

SHAKESPEARE
I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over my immense wealth and success.

Now, Mister Principled. Mister Fugitive. Mister Two Pennies To Rub Together. Are you here to deal or did you only come out of hiding for the pastries?

HORATIO
You can have the rights.

SHAKESPEARE
Good. I've already written a draft- the zombies work better in prose than pentameter, I think, but the rest of it really flows-

HORATIO
Not the zombie thing. Every adventure. My drive across America, the civil war in England- I'll tell you everything that's not classified.

SHAKESPEARE
Every-? I could write a series. We could both retire with private harems on merchandising alone.

HORATIO
Keep the money. You're going to do a favor for me.

SHAKESPEARE
Yes?

HORATIO
This last year of my life. This conspicuously eventful year that I'm having.

SHAKESPEARE
Yes...?

HORATIO
It's being written by a man named Sullivan.

SHAKESPEARE
I see.

HORATIO
I doubt that, Willy.

SHAKESPEARE
William.

HORATIO
I highly doubt you marched into hell and cut your way through seven afterlives to pierce the final veil of our universe only to find some prick with a laptop on the other side.

SHAKESPEARE
Oh, Horatio. I've seen this. You get out more than Hamlet did, I think that's why your mind kept longer, but you can hardly fight the entire Danish government for months and not crack up.

HORATIO
...you made how much money off the Hamlet story?

SHAKESPEARE
They ran out of zeroes.

HORATIO
So you'll humor me.

SHAKESPEARE
Oh yes.

HORATIO
Here's what I need. This Sullivan guy is responsible for every screwy, hateful thing that's happened to me since I left Denmark. Maybe going back even further. You can guess where this is going, it's an oldie but a goody.

SHAKESPEARE
Revenge.

HORATIO
Now I don't think he's the type to do the Grant Morrison thing and write himself into his own work. If I want to take him out, I have to do it from in here.

SHAKESPEARE
From inside the story.

HORATIO
Can we do it?

SHAKESPEARE
Characters exert a tug on the writer. When in a fit of inspiration, I write with a sense of channeling a river not of my making.

HORATIO
Tell me how he thinks.

SHAKESPEARE
We can deduce things. He's probably about your age, since he seems to identify enough to use you as a recurring character. Educated. Reads comics, since otherwise he wouldn't have written that Grant Morrison reference just now.

HORATIO
I saw forty play scripts on the other side. He's been writing at a rate of about one a week. The stage direction I saw put us here, which means within the next few minutes-

A Lieutenant in the Danish army bursts in, bleeding from multiple bullet wounds.

LIEUTENANT
Take me to Horatio or Scandinavia will burn!

HORATIO
I need a faster watch.

LIEUTENANT
Fortinbras is massing Norse and Danish troops on the Swedish border! He's going to start a war to end all wars! I heard the resistance hero Horatio was here!

HORATIO
Distraction.

SHAKESPEARE
What?

LIEUTENANT
I stole their battle plans but they're right behind me!

HORATIO
Sullivan. Don't take the bait.

The Lieutenant spots them and hobbles over.

LIEUTENANT
There you are! Your face is on wanted posters all over Denmark, sir. Only you can stop this.

HORATIO
You have me confused with someone else.

LIEUTENANT
He could give the order to attack any second! You have to come with me. We can warn-

HORATIO
You lose your hearing during live fire exercises? I'm not interested.

LIEUTENANT
Huh. Guess I'll just sit here for a little while. Getting pretty drowsy.

He sits in the booth next to them, dripping blood awkwardly.

LIEUTENANT
You're sure you don't want to come have a-

HORATIO
No.

Thunder.

HORATIO
Oh, subtle.

SHAKESPEARE
What are you doing? A war's about to start!

HORATIO
How do you act when you can't get one of your characters to do what you want?

SHAKESPEARE
I used to go Cosmic Golfing with Kit Marlowe, but of course he had to have a bad trip and put a golf tee through his eye.

HORATIO
Before you were obscenely successful. When it seemed like the well might dry up for good.

SHAKESPEARE
Tiptoeing drunkenly around my typewriter when it's midnight and we're the only two in my flat. Muttering bad dialogue at tube stations. Intense self-loathing, tiredness at the workplace, decline in hygiene. Porn. Despair. More porn.

HORATIO
That's what Sullivan's going through as long as we refuse to play his game.

More thunder. The Lieutenant coughs and drips.

SHAKESPEARE
What's to stop him writing "And then a Danish super-soldier kicks in the door and drags Horatio out by his hair"?

The door flies open, kicked in by Kaptajn København. He wears a red and white uniform with a cape, all modeled after the Danish flag.

HORATIO
You're a little too good at this.

KOBENHAVN
Leaping lingonberries! You gave us a scare, there, Lieutenant. Let's get you home.

LIEUTENANT
Kaptajn København. They sent the best.

KOBENHAVN
You stole some pretty important battle plans.

LIEUTENANT
If you want to take me you'll have to go through Horatio himself!

HORATIO
Hold on.

KOBENHAVN
Horatio!

LIEUTENANT
Horatio! Who drove the Chief of Secret Police mad just by looking at him! Who sunk half the Navy on the cliffs of England! The rebel hope of Denmark!

KOBENHAVN
It'll be an honor and a privilege to take you down, son.

HORATIO
Sullivan, you bastard.

Kaptajn København punches Horatio across the room. Horatio spits out a tooth.

HORATIO
Pagh! No need to get up, Willy. I'm fine.

SHAKESPEARE
You said sit this one out.

HORATIO
I'm trying to!

KOBENHAVN
A family tragedy's no excuse for turning your back on your country, chum.

LIEUTENANT
He fights to free Denmark, Norse stooge!

HORATIO
Shut UP!

SHAKESPEARE
Plenty of conflict now.

HORATIO
I know.

SHAKESPEARE
Bet his hygiene's improving.

HORATIO
You shut up too.

Kaptajn København punches him again.

LIEUTENANT
Fight back, sir! Use your flaming fist attack that slayed the Red Giant of Detroit!

KOBENHAVN
You don't have a chance. I've been given the strength and speed of ten Horatios and a chip in my brain is playing the new Dano-Norse national anthem on a continuous loop. Keeps me righteous!

He throws Horatio through a table. Stands above him, his fist raised.

HORATIO
GO AHEAD, SULLIVAN! KILL OFF YOUR MAIN CHARACTER!

København moves towards the Lieutenant, who is wobbling to and fro with blood loss.

KOBENHAVN
One threat to pan-Scandinavianism at a time.

HORATIO
Get out now, LT! He's coming for you!

LIEUTENANT
You'll...save me...

SHAKESPEARE
He won't! He's lost it! Save yourself!

LIEUTENANT
Have to...be here... Something...bigger...than me...

HORATIO
All right. Kaptajn! I surrender to the Dano-Norse superweapon.

KOBENHAVN
Sensible fellow.

HORATIO
But first, I must know where the great fighting hope of pan-Scandinavianism comes from! You're from Copenhagen?

KOBENHAVN
Obviously.

HORATIO
Where in Copenhagen?

KOBENHAVN
The..ah..the corner of Købmagergade and Landemærket.

HORATIO
The heartland! I'll bet a patriotic kid like you grew up eating plenty of the Danish national dish!

KOBENHAVN
You know it!

HORATIO
Which is what again?

KOBENHAVN
F...frikadeller meat balls with cabbage in white sauce.

HORATIO
I'll bet your favorite animal's the Danish national bird! The, ah....

KOBENHAVEN
The, the, the mute swan!

Shakespeare has come up behind Horatio. Whispering:

SHAKESPEARE
What's this doing?

HORATIO
Sullivan's not from Denmark. He has to research all this...

The lights flicker.

HORATIO
...at the cost of maintaining the world.

SHAKESPEARE
Brilliant!

HORATIO
I'll bet your Mom hummed the Danish national anthem to you every night. Sing it with me?

KOBENHAVN
Now?

HORATIO
How does it begin...you must know the words by heart.

KOBENHAVN
Der...der er et yndigt land...

HORATIO
I'll bet you can translate it into Norse extemporaneously!

KOBENHAVN
...et står med brede Beeches
nær salte østlige stranden...

HORATIO
Swedish! Alternating the words!

KOBENHAVN
Den... bugter... själva... i fack, dal,
det... stater... gamle... Danmark...

The lights flicker again. The wind howls.

LIEUTENANT
He's weakening!

HORATIO
Throw in some German!

KOBENHAVN
...og... es... er Freya sa...rüstung...

Thunder.

HORATIO
Favorite anecdote about Hans Christian Anderson! Go!

Kobenhavn collapses.

KOBENHAVN
Don't...have the strength...to stand!

HORATIO
That was the hope.

KOBENHAVN
Lieutenant, carrying you alive back to base doesn't look like an option. Looks like I'll have to sever your windpipe like a kid picking a daisy.

HORATIO
Like hell!

He slams the Kaptajn's head down on a table, knocking him out.

LIEUTENANT
Saved me...

HORATIO
Let's not jump to conclusions.

LIEUTENANT
...knew you'd...save us all...

He pulls a blood-stained military briefing from his jacket.

HORATIO
Hey, don't...I don't want this.

LIEUTENANT
Joined the army over a girl. Tell her...I took ten of them...with me.

The Lieutenant dies.

HORATIO
Not one more, Sullivan. I swear. Did you even give this poor guy a name?

SHAKESPEARE
Despite efforts to the contrary, you've saved the day and advanced the plot. His story's nearly done.

HORATIO
How do we derail it?

SHAKESPEARE
Do something completely out of character.

Horatio grabs Shakespeare and kisses him on the lips. Complete power outage. Lightning. Windows shatter inward and a cold wind blows through the shop.

HORATIO
Sullivan! Get a dog! Volunteer at a soup kitchen! Join a gym! I don't care what you do, just get up from the laptop and back away!

He kisses Shakespeare again.

HORATIO
I WILL RUIN YOU!

SHAKESPEARE
STOP IT!

HORATIO
Not until he's gone!

SHAKESPEARE
How will you know?

Say he quits. What then? You wink out of existence? The universe grinds to a halt?

HORATIO
I go back to being a free agent. Like I was before he butted in.

SHAKESPEARE
Were you?

HORATIO
I remember it. Me and Dad reenacting Viking battles at Bisnap. The chalkboard in geometry class when child services came- there was a trapezoid on it.

SHAKESPEARE
He didn't write all that for you?

HORATIO
No.

SHAKESPEARE
You can ask questions like these forever, if you want to. Do you?

HORATIO
I can't unsee it. Like this donut shop! No one came to refill our coffee, no one's yelled at us about the damage-

SHAKESPEARE
The staff ran out the back!

HORATIO
It's not a real place!

SHAKESPEARE
A super soldier kicked in their door! What would you do?

HORATIO
Were they here when we came in? What did they look like?

Shakespeare slaps him.

SHAKESPEARE
Listen to yourself!

HORATIO
That's. Ha. That's him telling him to listen to himself. Ahaha.

Shakespeare points to the dead Lieutenant.

SHAKESPEARE
You tried to save that man! Why bother if he's not real?

HORATIO (With mounting horror.)
Because that's the Horatio they'd rather read about.

SHAKESPEARE
Never mind what they want. You want free will? Do you?

You can be crazy. Or you can live in this world with the rest of us. Choose.

HORATIO
Okay.

SHAKESPEARE
Okay?

HORATIO
I chose. You can let go.

Horatio walks over the the Lieutenant, puts a hand over his eyes.

HORATIO
I have a war to stop.

SHAKESPEARE
Donuts are on me.

Exit Horatio. Shakespeare calls after him.

SHAKESPEARE
And if you ever tell anyone about that kiss, I will personally ensure that Carrot Top plays you on the TV series.

The End

Horatio Week 40: Omega Point

2010-07-18T12:12:00.001-05:00

The New Adventures of Horatio
Week 40: Omega Point

A white space. Enter Horatio, clothes soaked with sweat, sword at his side.

HORATIO
Oh. My... No, on second thought, pretty anti-climactic.

Enter Roland Barthes. He carries a briefcase and speaks with a French accent.

BARTHES
My poor attempt at a neutral space, unburdened by layers of meaning.

HORATIO
Roland Barthes? They're letting philosophers into heaven? Ayn Rand's gonna cry foul, man.

BARTHES
Barthes the man is not here. You converse with Barthes the myth, Barthes the assemblage of signs. My suit and tie signify academia, my accent Frenchness, my gray hairs authority. These signs, symbols in their own right, the end results of their own strings of narrative associations, are appropriated and synthesized to form a larger picture, as dots of ink constitute a printed cartoon. I represent a particular philosopher, one of many ways to signify absolute truth to an intended audience.

HORATIO
Me?

BARTHES
Ha.

HORATIO
Okay, yeah, society perpetuates its own values through repeated tropes and images in public discourse. Freshman year stuff, RB. I'm here for what's behind all that.

BARTHES
What did you have in mind?

HORATIO
Not that I don't love your work on the subject of French toys and the grooming of the bourgeoisie's children, but I cut my way out of hell to get here and I came for the big questions. Is there a God? Is there free will?

BARTHES
For the answer to that...you must read the signs in front of you.

HORATIO
I don't suppose Rene Descartes is around?

BARTHES
The traveler's dress includes the ravaged button-down and cracked spectacles of the poor academic; a meadskin at his belt engraved with ancient runes, signifying Norse divinity; the sword of an ever-sleeping king, signifying authority; waterproof demonskin breeches, the skin of an enemy, signifying a warrior; and Guarayu facepaint, denoting the seeker, the mystic.

HORATIO
I scavenged this stuff to survive. It doesn't mean anything.

BARTHES
Everything means something. Your very countenance is a road sign for the culturally literate to read.

HORATIO
You stop deconstructing me right now.

BARTHES
The sweaty face, the piercing eyes, the handsome features marred- punctuated, rather, by the dot of a cigarette burn. The companion of gods, the slayer of demons, the seeker of truth, and now the action hero, wedding the Apollonian and Dionysian like Harrison Ford's Professor Jones.

HORATIO
Thanks, I guess.

BARTHES
Multiple signifiers, one signified: Here stands the hero. That is the intended message.

HORATIO
Implying a messenger.

BARTHES
You begin to see. And if we understand you to signify the hero, your very presence here serves a larger mythology. We know the archetype, the warrior-mystic, the professor-adventurer. But there is a greater metalanguage at work here in which you point the way to a deeper meaning.

HORATIO
Roland Barthes, you are freaking me out.

BARTHES
The denizen of Elizabethan drama utters a contemporary colloquialism, at once addressing the reader in his own vernacular and contrasting it with the archaic speech of the original character, underlining the passage of centuries. We are presented with the speaker's direct lineage, from a wooden O in Southwark to our modern conversationalist. The sign is clear: instant relatability, everlasting shelf life, the inevitable triumph of Western art through the entertainment industry.

HORATIO
What are you talking about?

BARTHES
Don't see yet? Return to the question of your dress. The hero is a thing signified whose signifiers are legion. You're one signifier in the borrowed garb of several others. The result is a myth of continuity. It seizes us by the lapels: My character is heir to Thor and Arthur, my narrative heir to Shakespeare and Dante!

HORATIO
WHOSE NARRATIVE?

Barthes opens his suitcase, takes out a printed script, and hands it to Horatio.

HORATIO
"The New Adventures of Horatio. Week 40: Omega Point."

BARTHES
To understand the myth is to destroy it.

HORATIO (Reading)
"A white space. Enter Horatio, clothes soaked with sweat, sword at his side. HORATIO: 'Oh. My... No, on second thought, pretty anti-climactic.' Enter Roland Barthes."

BARTHES
The God question remains up for debate, but I'm afraid this lays the matter of free will to rest.

HORATIO
I have free will.

BARTHES
Ummmm. No.

HORATIO
You lurk at the end of the universe with an omniscient playscript waiting to mess with anyone who makes it this far. You sad bastard.

BARTHES
I didn't write that.

HORATIO (Reading)
"Horatio grabs Barthes's briefcase and holds it upside down." Oh, you're good. I like that, let's do it.

Horatio grabs Barthes's briefcase and holds it upside down. A stack of playscripts falls out and spills all over the floor. He roots through them.

HORATIO (Reading)
"Week 7: Bounded in a Nutshell. Week 25: Kind of a Big Deal." You've been keeping tabs on me for a year? Psychics, maybe? Interdimensional spy technology?

BARTHES
Far-fetched.

HORATIO
I just tangled with a magical talking tickling monkey.

BARTHES
Do those explanations change anything? The scripts are there. They're true. You must know that in your bones. Weave whatever myths you like to safeguard your sanity. There remains a writer.

HORATIO
Meaning everything that's happened in the past year...someone did that to me.

BARTHES
You could put it that way.

HORATIO
Chris dying. The hills of dead in England. Someone's been sitting in a comfy chair plotting out all kinds of shit to spring on my friends.

BARTHES
The world's coming into focus, is it not? You begin to see the fine strings of prose that make the puppets dance.

Horatio looks around in awe.

HORATIO
"Horatio looks around in awe." Stage directions in italics. Jesus.

This won't last when I leave here, right? I'm getting a 3-D IMAX headache.

BARTHES
When you return to earth, the sight will fade. You understand now how to return?

HORATIO
I can see next week's installment from here. "A donut shop." Within walking distance.

BARTHES
Then there's nothing more for us to discuss.

HORATIO
I've thought of a way to test the free will question.

BARTHES
Oh?

HORATIO
I find the puppeteer.

BARTHES
And?

HORATIO
And fucking kill him.

BARTHES
...that's a new one.

Horatio picks up a script, looks at it, puts it in his pocket. Looks out.

HORATIO
Sullivan, is it? See you in a week, pal. Sleep tight.

He smiles. Lights out.

The End

Horatio Week 39: Land of the Grandfather

2010-07-11T09:42:00.002-05:00

The New Adventures of Horatio
Week 39: Land of the Grandfather

Horatio crouches opposite a colorful tropical bird. He wears tribal face paint. They stare at each other.

BIRD
Really sets off your eyes.

HORATIO
Thank you.

BIRD
The orange ochers. Definitely your color.

HORATIO
I've always thought so.

BIRD
And the symmetry's all there. Some holy men, when you die they get all abstract expressionist on your face. Yours had some restraint.

HORATIO
Then I'm in?

BIRD
Did I say that?

What tribe are you?

HORATIO
Muskrat people.

BIRD
Never heard of them.

HORATIO
Life's not a popularity contest, that's our motto.

BIRD
I have to ask. Word's gotten out that the Land of the Grandfather puts all other hereafters to shame. It's like the Disney World of being dead. Next thing you know we've got dead Methodists in brownface jumping the turnstiles.

HORATIO
What happens when you catch them?

BIRD
I whistle a signal for my brothers and we Alfred Hitchcock their pasty bods.

HORATIO
I'm sure I don't know who Alfred Hitchcock is. I am but a simple Bolivian tribesman who wants fervently to enter the Land of the Grandfather.

BIRD
Just a quick medley of Bolivian folk songs and you can go to the next trial.

HORATIO
Folk songs! Yes! Where to start, I wonder. I know so many.

BIRD
Go ahead.

HORATIO
Say, have you flown too close to the sun recently? Your plumage is scorched.

BIRD
What? Is it bad?

HORATIO
Feathers above your left eye are all sooty and mangled. Kind of a goth look.

BIRD
Aaaagh! I'll be laughed out of the magical bird community!

HORATIO
You know, they buried me with some extra ocher just in case my paint needed work. There's some yellow that's about your shade. We could cover that up.

BIRD
Oh, I'd be your best friend forever!

HORATIO
Hrm. Help me get the lid off.

BIRD
No fingers.

HORATIO
Your beak. Puncture the lid and the seal will break.

BIRD
Oh, okay.

He plunges his beak through the lid. It sticks. He struggles with the jar.

HORATIO
Stuck? Can you speak? Whistle? No? Tell you what. You stay here, I'll go for help.

The bird makes muffled noises of protest and tries to block Horatio's path.

HORATIO
No, don't worry, I can find my own way.

Exit Bird.

HORATIO
Just a little further to the...

Enter a sinister Monkey.

HORATIO
...tickling monkey.

MONKEY
You and me, we're gonna have a barrel of laughs.

HORATIO
Not so much as a titter for you.

MONKEY
They all say that. Come meet the itchy finger gang.

HORATIO
Bring it, monkey!

MONKEY
Ah! Ah! OOH! OOH!

He leaps at Horatio and begins tickling him.

HORATIO
That all you got?

MONKEY
I've got you for a whole day, punk. And when you let out the first giggle, you're toast.

HORATIO
Do your worst.

The lights fade out, then back in. Time has passed.

MONKEY
The last guy went mad eleven hours in. Can you take it!

HORATIO
Nngaah. You tickle like a weak monkey granny.

MONKEY
AH! AH! OOH! AH!

The lights fade out, then back in. Horatio's shirt has been torn open and he is sweating profusely.

MONKEY
You're not even Bolivian! Where are you from really?

HORATIO
Rrrgh. Mnph. Denmark.

MONKEY
Hah! You're going to die choking on your own guffaws, punk. I can see the corners of your mouth tugging upwards. You'll never see the Land of the Grandfather!

HORATIO
You've got...ten hours left. Whenever you're ready...to start tickling...let me know.

MONKEY
I WILL TICKLE YOU SO HARD!

The lights fade out, then back in. Horatio is on the floor, weakly crawling away from the monkey, who is weakly crawling after him, tickling him with one hand.

MONKEY
Laugh, you son of a bitch! I've gotten laughs out of palm trees!

HORATIO
Half hour, monkey. Almost there.

MONKEY
What are you doing? How are you keeping it together?

HORATIO
I'm thinking of a poor stray kitten with pneumonia and pinkeye sitting out in the rain looking in at a happy family eating a big roast turkey by firelight and no one sees it and all the kitten can do is scratch slowly at the fogged-up dining room window with her little trembling kitty paws.

MONKEY
Oh. Oh, God...

He stops tickling Horatio and puts his head in his hands.

MONKEY
You monster. That is so. SAD.

HORATIO
We've still got a half hour, chuckles.

MONKEY
Get out of my sight.

There's still the talking tree. If you listen to a single word your blood boils.

Exit monkey.

HORATIO
Too bad I didn't bring earplugs. Oh, wait, I did.

Enter a talking Tree.

TREE
WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW.

Horatio learns what all this sound and fury signify! Marcellus discovers a good fellow can only be pushed so far!

HORATIO
LA LA LA NOT LISTENING.

He hurriedly inserts his ear plugs and grins at the tree.

TREE
Kelly Kelly returns to steal more than hearts! Horatio-that-is tangles with Horatio-that-was! Fortinbras's new superweapon revealed! The Hallstormer, Hell's Party Crasher!

The tree notices that Horatio can't hear her, and begins speaking in sign language.

HORATIO
Aah! Why did I learn ASL?

He covers his eyes and tries to walk blindly past the tree. The tree clotheslines him.

HORATIO
HOOOOOFFF!

He attempts to stand, still covering his eyes. The tree trips him.

HORATIO
OW!

TREE
Uneasy lies the head.

HORATIO
I'll crawl into paradise if I have to!

Exit Tree.

HORATIO
Hear me, you arboreal SOB?

Enter Horatio's Heart's Desire, clad in white robes. His groping hand finds her outstretched one. She helps him stand.

HEART'S DESIRE
You can open your eyes now.

HORATIO
WHAT?

She opens his eyes and takes the earplugs from his ears.

HORATIO
They told me about you. The final test! My heart's desire!

HEART'S DESIRE
Yes.

HORATIO
Don't take this the wrong way but you're sort of blank. My eye gets lost in the negative space. I thought I had more going on than that.

HEART'S DESIRE
I'm the frontier of the universe, Horatio.

HORATIO
Oh. What I want most...

HEART'S DESIRE
Is to cut me open with your sword and step through into the ultimate truth.

HORATIO
I have to turn you down. The Land of the Grandfather's just a little further.

HEART'S DESIRE
Yes, and you can live forever in bliss or go back to the world of men. But you'll go back ignorant.

HORATIO
I have responsibilities. A friend's counting on me and I need to register for the LSATS.

HEART'S DESIRE
You want a master's in philosophy when the end of all philosophy stands before you. Why go to school and ask "What does it all mean?" Come past the final barrier into the vanishing point of all creation. Enter Omega Point. Know everything.

HORATIO
Everything.

HEART'S DESIRE
Everything.

HORATIO
Hamlet, old friend. Don't think I've forgotten. If there's no God you owe me twenty bucks.

HEART'S DESIRE
Now. Do it now.

With a cry, Horatio raises his sword. The lights flicker off and then on, and we see that Horatio and his Heart's Desire have vanished, leaving only the white robes puddled on the floor.

HORATIO (Offstage voice)
Oh. My...

To Be Continued!

Horatio Week 38: Club Katabasis

2010-07-04T10:41:00.002-05:00

Here's wishing everyone a safe and happy Independence Day, with parades, barbecues, and no fingers lost to M-80s.

The New Adventures of Horatio
Week 38: Club Katabasis

A backyard barbecue. Two Mayan hero twins, Xbalanque and Hunahpu, make preparations.

XBALANQUE
See this new kid the Olmecs got?

HUNAHPU
I can't watch the Olmecs play ball anymore. One or two wins per century...it's too painful.

XBALANQUE
No, they traded for this dynamite kicker from the Inca pantheon. Come over some Friday, watch him play.

HUNAHPU
Living in the past, buddy.

XBALANQUE
I can't invite my sister over to watch ball?

HUNAHPU
This is the ballgame the Lords of Death used to trick and dismember our parents.

XBALANQUE
Which is why we schooled those same Lords of Death at that same game and laid their Shadow Kingdom to waste!

HUNAHPU
Doesn't mean I like the game.

XBALANQUE
Who are you?

Enter Gilgamesh, a hulking Sumerian, carrying a large rack of ribs.

GILGAMESH
Hunahpu! Xbalanque! Meat!

XBALANQUE
Gil!

HUNAHPU
Put it over on the grill.

XBALANQUE (Whispering)
How do you not like the game? We killed at that game!

HUNAHPU (Whispering)
That's a terrible choice of words and now is not the time.

GILGAMESH
Good to see you both. Hunahpu. Thought about my offer to sire your many warrior babies?

HUNAHPU
Gilgamesh, I have killed gods with a rubber ball. You don't want to talk to me like that while I have burning coals at my disposal.

XBALANQUE
I... am going to grab the cooler from the garage.

He exits.

GILGAMESH
The ribs. Tore them out of the Everlasting Lion of Shurrupak. Best part is they never run out.

SUN (Offstage)
Is that all?

Enter Sun Wukong, a short Chinese man with a monkey's tail. He carries a large jug of beer.

SUN
I distilled this beer from Lao Tzu's sacred Field of Undefinable Wheat. It's so good that quantifying how good it is is literally impossible. But I'm sure your bottomless supply of dead lion will taste okay.

GILGAMESH
Sun. Want me to bury you under another mountain for five hundred years?

HUNAHPU
Boys. We're going to have a nice barbecue, aren't we?

SUN
Is this everybody?

HUNAHPU
You know how hard it is to get all of us in one place.

SUN
Shall I use the magic word where I turn my hairs into little duplicates? Liven the place up.

Enter Xbalanque, with Horatio, who has a wild look in his eyes and still carries Excalibur. Xbalanque carries a cooler, which he sets down.

XBALANQUE
That won't be necessary. I found this guy cutting a hole in the fence.

HORATIO
Blackbeard was right! The sword pierces reality itself! What smells so good?

HUNAHPU
Is that Excalibur?

HORATIO
I'm going to give it right back. Once I'm back among people with pulses.

Hey, can I have a rib?

GILGAMESH
Don't know. Did you slay the forest giant Humbaba? Did you walk twelve leagues and sail three days through the kingdom of death? DID YOU?

XBALANQUE
Relax, G. I think he's supposed to be here. What's your name, kid?

HORATIO
Horatio.

HUNAHPU
Oh, yay! We didn't expect you for another month.

HORATIO
What's the deal here?

XBALANQUE
You've taken your rightful place at our monthly barbecue for heroes who conquered death.

HORATIO
Like a Club Katabasis?

HUNAHPU
Look out, Sun Wukong, you've got a rival poet!

SUN
Humph.

HORATIO
Jesus.

SUN
That reminds me, when are we going to get Jesus out here?

XBALANQUE
I called him, usual story. He wants to come, but his dad doesn't like him hanging out with other faiths.

HORATIO
Um. I haven't all the way conquered death yet. I've been trying to cut my way out of the afterlife for weeks. Sorry about your fence.

SUN
You'll never get back that way. May I?

He examines Excalibur.

SUN
Ah. The pirate told you this could cut through reality, yes? Nothing could be further from the truth. This blade pierces mythologies.

XBALANQUE
Here we go. Monkey King's on a roll.

HUNAHPU
The Great Sage, Equal of Heaven.

HORATIO
But will it get me home?

SUN
The thing about mythology is that it's made up of processes rather than places. Excalibur here can get you into any version of the afterlife, but each one has its own rules for how to return to the land of the living.

HUNAHPU
There are always rules.

HORATIO
Tell me about it over ribs?

GILGAMESH
Who says we want to feast with you?

XBALANQUE
Gil!

GILGAMESH
We know Horatio. Slayer of the Undead Legion, champion of Britain and Undoer of the Fox in the woods. Trickster across seven states and four afterlives. The man with a hero's arsenal who left a friend in Death's dark arms!

HUNAHPU
You promised no political tirades.

HORATIO
What is he talking about?

XBALANQUE
We're not judging anyone.

HUNAHPU
Everyone here tried to bring someone back. Xbalanque and I killed the devils who murdered our parents.

SUN
I stormed the Bureau of Death and beat the clerk until he wiped the names of all my monkey subjects from his grim ledger.

GILGAMESH
I walked through water and poison and dark to win back my friend Enkidu.

HORATIO
Then where is he?

GILGAMESH
I sought him out! I didn't discard him like a child's toy!

HORATIO
Don't talk about Hamlet.

GILGAMESH
Don't talk about Enkidu.

HUNAHPU
Okay, fellas. We're going to have a drink and relax. Pour everyone a drink, Xbalanque.

He does so, filling everyone's cup with a red liquid. Hunahpu raises her cup in a toast.

HUNAHPU
To life.

ALL
To life!

They drink.

HORATIO
What are these, bloody marys?

XBALANQUE
Ceremonial bloodletting from ten thousand Mayan foreskins.

Horatio does a spit take.

HORATIO
What's the quickest way out of here and back home?

XBALANQUE
The Land of the Grandfather is just up the hill, but-

HORATIO
Great. Enjoy those foreskins.

SUN
A moment. The Land of the Grandfather offers the greatest gifts of any afterlife, but also the greatest trials.

XBALANQUE
You have to wear a precise type and configuration of face paint.

HUNAHPU
You have to endure a monkey's tickling for one entire day without laughing.

GILGAMESH
You must pass a gossiping tree, ignoring every word.

SUN
You must look upon your greatest desire and turn away from it.

HUNAHPU
Only then can you gain passage to the world above.

SUN
It's hardly the kind of place to go off half-cocked.

HUNAHPU
This from the guy who turned into a giant and tried to punch the Jade Emperor out of heaven.

SUN
I was young.

HORATIO
Come on. A tickling monkey?

SUN
Don't joke. He's one of my former subjects. Fiendish piece of work.

HORATIO
Then start talking. How do I get past him?

HUNAHPU
Sit for a while. Eat some ribs. There's so much we could tell you.

HORATIO
I"ll eat ribs when I'm back on earth sorting shit out. That okay with you? Sun?

He motions Sun towards the house and they exit together.

XBALANQUE
Sometimes you're an asshole, Gil.

GILGAMESH
Asshole who's right.

He tends the grill in silence. Hunahpu cracks open a beer.

HUNAHPU
The ball game didn't bring them back. That's all I can think about when I watch a game.

XBALANQUE
I know.

HUNAHPU
Plus the Lords of Death used that spiky ball and knocked my head off that one time and wasn't that a bitch to reattach.

XBALANQUE
I was there.

HUNAHPU
What was the point?

XBALANQUE
Besides burying those demon sons of bitches? We knew Mom and Dad weren't coming back. We honored them by playing. Those you can't save, you honor. You know that.

HUNAHPU
Guess I do.

The End

Horatio Week 37: Summerland

2010-06-27T09:35:00.003-05:00

For those of you who don't follow the blog regularly, earlier this week I announced a crossover with The Vail, probably the only other ongoing serialized adventure play on the internet. Written by my dear friend Joe Pettine, The Vail is the ongoing story of Andy Vail's one man quest to combat supernatural evil, and the toll that quest takes on his personal life. You can (and should) check it out here. Last week's installment, which sets up the adventure you're about to read, is highly recommended, and not just because it has the Bunnyman in it.

All caught up? Now you can enjoy this week's double-sized adventure, penned by Joe and me!

The New Adventures of Horatio
Week 37: Summerland

A run down riverside tavern made of sea rotted dock wood. Seaweed and barnacles hang from the rafters and stick to the floors. In one corner a large anchor sits atop the skeletal remains of some poor chap. Horridly, the skeleton's eyes are still intact within its damnable smiling skull and frequently move from side to side, following the tavern's patrons. The bar itself is made of the fallen mast of some great ship. CHARON, a burly man with a curly red beard, sits at the bar, drinking a boiling red liquid and conversing with an emaciated bartender whose wrists are bound with iron shackles to the tavern's back wall. A number of rotting barrels serve as the tables for the rest of the bar, some of them cracked open, revealing blinking red eyes and slithering things within. ANDY VAIL sits at one of these barrels, drinking a chunky swill which sizzles against his throat and causes him to painfully grimace. Behind him, a lone figure cloaked in the shroud of a demon watches him. Suddenly, a man in modern sailor's clothing, ASAD, rushes in, trying to find a place to hide. Charon and the bartender watch him, Andy ignores him. Then a deep, booming laugh fills the tavern. With heavy footsteps, three damned pirates enter. At the head of the pack is TEACH, a large man with a gorgeous black beard, dressed in the ratty bloodstained garb of a true corsair. On his left is LOW, a pirate whose smile would make the devil himself shudder. At his right is COSSA, a clean shaven pirate whose chest is adorned with an upside down cross. All of them look grimy with ash and brimstone, they spit blood as they speak, their hair singes eternally, and their eyes are filled with the fiery passion of a life of adventure.

TEACH
You call yourself a pirate, Asad. Holding children and bartenders for ransom, firing machine guns over the heads of boy soldiers, that doesn't marry you to the sea. You're a poor Somalian thug with a boat.

LOW
Let me work on him before the feeding, Ed. I'll shave the flesh from his shin and make a peg leg of his own bones.

COSSA
It has been a while since we've had a good show.

TEACH
How's that sound to you, Asad? Ned's real good with his work. Not a drop of the crimson'll go wasted.

Asad moans.

COSSA
Well blow me down. He seems speechless. You must speak up, Asad, if you wish to be heard.

TEACH
What's wrong, boy? Kraken got yer tongue?

LOW
No, but I do!

He holds up a wriggling tongue and the pirates laugh. Asad weeps.

TEACH
C'mon, men! Leviathan's waiting!

Asad tries to run but it does no good as two more pirates, a man in a powdered wig named KIDD and a jovial buccaneer named BART, drop from the ceiling and sieze Asad's arms. The men laugh, tightly binding Asad with sailor's knots and man handling him into a bloody burlap sack. Bart throws the writhing sack over his shoulder and the pirates march out of the bar. Andy shakes his head as they go. Suddenly, Teach, bringing up the rear, pauses before the door, head tilted to listen. He sniffs deep and then slowly turns to Andy, a wide grin forms beneath his remarkably black beard.

TEACH
Fifteen dead men nailed to my mast, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

Teach sniffs again and his smile widens. He pulls a hatchet from his belt and points it at Andy.

TEACH
No heart beats within my chest, boyo. But still I hear the thump thump thump of a mortal organ playing crimson. Someone is alive.

Teach grabs Andy, lifting him from his chair, and presses his head firmly against Andy's chest. His grin turns to an all out smile and with a hearty laugh he tosses Andy over his head and crashes him back onto the floor. The demon figure watches with interest, the bartender keeps his head down, and Charon eyes Andy with pity. The other four pirates hurry back inside, sabers drawn.

BART
Aw, fuck a mermaid, Teach. I thought you was brawling. Got me all excited.

TEACH
I got something better than a fight here, Bart.

KIDD
More sin-bait for Leviathan.

Cossa kneels on Andy's arms, staring down at him in interest. Low is on his knees running his hands over Andy's arms and chest, poking and prodding at him.

COSSA
This one seems different.

LOW
He's alive. Damned Lord, he's fucking alive! Can I kill him?

KIDD
A living soul? Here in Summerland?

TEACH
That's right, men. The greatest of all treasures.

BART
Life itself has washed ashore the beaches of the dead this night. Ours for the taking. Stand him up.

Cossa and Low stand Andy up. Andy's head hangs low, not even interested in these men.

BART
What say you, man? Are you sailor or sinner?

COSSA
What does that matter? Leviathan will still feed upon his soul.

LOW
And we will suckle the teat of Hell once more.

ANDY
You guys talk so fucking much.

TEACH
You best watch your words around us!

ANDY
Why? Are you gonna feed me to Hell's goldfish twice?

KIDD
I would not make jest of the Leviathan.

COSSA
It is said the Styx serpent's bowels are worse than the maw of Lucifer himself. Five moments within the beast make eternal damnation look favorable.

ANDY
So toss me in already. Anything's better than thirty more seconds with you chatty bitches!

Teach backhands Andy, rocking his head backward.

TEACH
No man insults the crew of the Black Freighter.

Teach grabs Andy's ear and cuts it off with the hatchet. Andy screams and Teach laughs.

TEACH
Living chum!

The men give out hearty cheers.

TEACH
Rip him apart, men! But leave enough meat to string him onto a hook!

The men cheer and laugh, closing in on Andy. Low giggles as he pulls out a small knife and licks the blade until his tongue splits. Cossa bends Andy's arms backward and Bart hammers his fists into Andy's gut. Kidd holds Andy's hair while delivering hard right hooks into Andy's face. Teach watches and laughs, twirling the ear between his fingers. The demon rises from his seat and walks over to the men. Its shroud billows as it lets out a demonic roar. Low drops his knife and grabs Cossa. Bart and Kidd turn in fear. Teach seems more upset than frightened. The whole bar watches with baited breath as the demon seems to tower over the men.

LOW
We weren't doing nothing wrong.

The demon takes a step toward the pirates, who turn and flee, some even yelping in fear. Teach stands his ground, grimacing. The demon looks at him and extends an open palm. Teach flips him the middle finger while simultaneously putting the severed ear into his palm.

TEACH
Go to Hell.

He exits. There is a moment of silence as the demon helps Andy to his feet.

DEMON
The crew of the Black Freighter are easily startled, but they'll soon be back. And in greater numbers.

ANDY
Are you quoting Star Wars?

The demon shrugs off his shroud, revealing himself to be none other than Horatio.

HORATIO
I have wanted to say that FOREVER! Man that demon skin was itchy. I got your ear back. Maybe we can reattach it with some earwax.

ANDY
This is truly hell.

HORATIO
No, Hell's nine days' sailing from here. I rode in on a bolt of lightning myself. Overshot back into the underworld. Landed on the demon, which was lucky. Not for the demon. Barkeep! Stygian whiskey.

ANDY
Are you old enough to drink?

HORATIO
Ha. And one of whatever my friend here wants.

ANDY
We're not friends.

HORATIO
You're the only other living soul in Summerland. That makes us friends.

ANDY
Listen, Jar-Jar. All my friends are dead or in another dimension or both.

HORATIO
I knew we'd have stuff in common. Name's Horatio.

ANDY
Fuck off.

HORATIO
What is your problem?

ANDY
Look, don't think I don't know what this is. The sword, the, the whole shit eating grin, the banter? You're a hero, right? This is all some big adventure to you.

HORATIO
Well, yeah.

ANDY
That's how you think the world works when you're young. And then you can't keep your brother from getting the top of his head sawed off and you get your ass kicked by a guy in a bunny suit and you realize it's time to just rest and be done.

HORATIO
I heard that a lot, growing up.

ANDY
I'm serious. I used to go out looking for trouble, doing the man of mystery thing. Called myself the Vail. Battled supernatural ne'erdowells.

HORATIO
What happened?

ANDY
Fighting Aztec gods, time traveling bugs from the future, the fight got nasty. Part of me enjoyed that too much. Part of me didn't just want to shine a light into dark corners- it wanted to trample everything we saw there. I pushed that part of me away. Put it out of my mind.

HORATIO
Like Professor X and Onslaught.

ANDY
Are you speaking English?

HORATIO
That nasty part of you didn't stay put away.

ANDY
It calls itself the Ripper and it's killed I don't know how many people, wearing me like a cheap leisure suit.

HORATIO
And he sent you here.

Andy makes a razor motion across his throat, with accompanying sound.

HORATIO
Barkeep! Two more Stygians.

ANDY
It's better that I'm out of everyone's way. I couldn't save Michael, I couldn't save Nancy, I don't even know what happened to Henry. This is where I belong.

HORATIO
Have you looked outside? We're at the headwaters of the five rivers of the underworld. We’re talking rivers of tears and pain and fire. This is where the motherfuckers hang out who are so mean hell doesn’t want them. This is where a sin-eating sea monster the size of Newfoundland comes when it has the munchies! What's your name, stranger?

ANDY
It was Andy Vail.

HORATIO
Not Hitler McInfanticide?

ANDY
No.

HORATIO
Then you don't fucking belong here! And we have to get going.

ANDY
Why? Why not just let them have us?

HORATIO
Because I'm not dead. And neither are you. We hold the key to the greatest treasure of all, dammit! Life! And we’re not going to let some fish-worshiping Pirates of the Caribbean castoffs walk us off a plank!

ANDY
If I was a member of the Boy Scouts of America I'da been really inspired.

HORATIO
It doesn't seem oddly convenient to you that two heroes who have died but aren't dead just happen to find each other in the most obscure of all underworlds?

ANDY
Oh, my jeez. You're right! Obviously we're supposed to team up, work together, and utilize our individual talents to beat the bad guys and save the day.

HORATIO
While also learning a lesson on how to be better heroes from each other. That's the point of a crossover.

ANDY
This isn’t a heroes journey! This is me getting wrecked in the septic tank of the universe while you talk my remaining ear off. I’m done.

HORATIO
Death is a luxury we don't get to enjoy, Andy. Death is the peaceful summer vacation we only get to watch from the schoolhouse windows of our over adventurous swashbuckling lives. Death is not for heroes.

ANDY
That’s not who I am anymore.

HORATIO
That’s a shame. Because I know a guy who’s got a soft spot for heroes. CHARON!

CHARON
By Cerberus’s sixfold nuts, can an old ferryman enjoy a moment’s peace?

HORATIO
I need a new drinking buddy. This one’s got a case of the sissies.

CHARON
Mine’s an Acheron Ale, shorty.

HORATIO
Two Acheron Ales. I’m buying. This demon was loaded.

CHARON
Pull up a stool.

HORATIO
Acheron, which river is…?

He gulps his ale. His eyes widen. Veins stand out in his neck. He scrabbles at the bar for dear life, clutches his stomach, moans, manages to keep it down.

HORATIO
River of pain, right.

CHARON
HO HO HA HA HAAAH! Cast iron stomach, my little Captain Heartbeat. Comes from an eternity of eating bladefish and sin scallops netted from Pluto’s dark waters.

He slaps Horatio on the back, leaving Horatio visibly dizzy.

HORATIO
Heh. Yeah. So speaking of heartbeats.

CHARON
I’m not ferrying you home.

HORATIO
You don’t even know I was going to ask that.

CHARON
It’s all anyone ever asks for. Keeps me in free drinks, excepting only the price of a lot of disappointed faces.

HORATIO
You used to do it all the time! Hercules, Aeneas, Orpheus, Dante…

CHARON
Hades took it all out of my hide! I don’t do free rides anymore.

HORATIO
I’ve got coin.

CHARON
Demon scrip. Only good for booze, and I’m already blessed with eternal wind in my three sheets, thank you.

HORATIO
Come on, Charon! We both know you can’t say no to a hero.

CHARON
Show me one and I’ll negotiate.

HORATIO
Dude. Magic sword. Demon skin. Quest through the underworld. Is there a hero box left unchecked?

CHARON
Hercules was atoning for the murder of his family. Aeneas sought counsel with his father. Orpheus quested for his lost love. Dante recorded the moral order of the universe.

Charon’s eyes flash. He looks into Horatio’s soul.

CHARON
You entered hell willingly to mock an old enemy and get a letter of recommendation.

HORATIO
Grad school’s competitive.

CHARON
I’ll tell you what I told Hercules. The line between hero and prick is a thin one, but it’s there. Thanks for the drink.

Horatio returns to his seat by Andy, sits in a slump.

ANDY
A letter of recommendation.

HORATIO
Shut up. Barkeep, two Lethe Lagers. Slainte, Vail.

They drink.

ANDY
Pbbbbt! Tastes like…a knife fight in a Jakarta dive. Coppery blood flavor. Aftertaste of stale peanuts. The fuck?

HORATIO
These babies are brewed downstream from the river of forgetfulness. You’re drinking the lost memories of the dead.

ANDY
I need a mint.

HORATIO
This one’s- phew- a housefire in Kyoto. Burning cat smell. Soba boiling in the pantry. Violent last memories bubble to the top.

ANDY
Why are we drinking this shit?

HORATIO
‘Cause a head full of angry, painful borrowed thoughts makes you fight like a motherfucker. Drink up, Andy boy. We’ll be entertaining soon.

ANDY
Go get your kicks somewhere else, hero. I’m outta the biz.

Andy gets up and sits at the bar, two seats down from Charon, to drink in silence and solitude. Charon eyes him again. Andy looks back at him, tired of being bothered.

ANDY
I don’t know why you’re staring at me. I don’t swing that way. I mean I’m not a hero, so don’t try persuading me otherwise.

CHARON
Why would I waste my breath, mate? I’ve peered into your soul. Seen a whiny little boy, a lovelorn loser, and tiny shades of gray you actually think counts as a dark side. But there hasn’t been a hero there since your younger days.

ANDY
Thanks for the insults but what in damnation are you talking about?

CHARON
You don’t remember! HA! 'Twas your last day of the sixth year of grade school. You were gallivanting home with the youthful zeal reserved only for summertime when you came across your brother and his crew.

ANDY
You mean the day Mike kicked my ass and fractured my arm just for irritating him.

CHARON
I’d be irritated as well if you’d fastballed a stone into my face! About as subtle as a bacchanal of Amazons but it did the trick. He had that scar for the rest of his days and the boys forgot all about that puppy. It lived, by the way. A long, full, doggy life that earned it a place beside the hounds of Arawn in the Great Hunt.

ANDY
How do I not remember that?

CHARON
Truly heroic acts are rarely memorable. They are done by men who can see no other course of action and when they are finished the things they have changed seem more like they have always been that way. A true hero moves mountains but leaves no footprints in his wake.

ANDY
Is that some ancient Greek proverb?

CHARON
No, that’s from Kung Fu. The movie with David Carradine. If you can grab the stone from my hand, grasshopper. That one.

Andy goes to drink but finds his mug his empty. Charon slides him a shot.

CHARON
Try a shot of Phlegethon’s, crusader. Puts fire in the blood.

With a loud crash the damned pirates roll a large cannon through the tavern door. Kidd cuts a rope by the door and a net drops on top of Andy.

KIDD
I netted me a big’un, Ed!

Horatio jumps from his seat, drawing Excalibur, and then they fire a cannonball directly into his gut. He is thrown back against the wall, dropping Excalibur. Cossa runs for the blade.

TEACH
Mine!

Teach pulls out his flint and literally shoots Cossa’s brains out. Then he strolls to the great sword and picks it up. Horatio tries to breathe.

TEACH
I knew you weren’t a demon when I’d recognized Excalibur hanging off yer waist! It’s been a while since I’ve held her.

Cossa stands up, a gory hole in his head. The other men wait for their orders.

TEACH
HA! The hole in yer faces matches the empty space in yer skull, unholy man!

The pirates laugh boisterously. They all stop when Teach does.

HORATIO
Did you just shoot me with a cannon?

TEACH
Summerland, matey. What doesn’t kill you-

He kicks Horatio in the jaw.

TEACH
-hurts! As you’re about to learn. Hold him.

All of the men grab Horatio and stand him up.

TEACH
You know, the blade of Excalibur is sharp enough to split reality itself in twain. Once knew a fellow pirate who’d use it to visit a strange land he swore never, never existed. Hid his treasure there. He was done in by a saltwater crocodile and some gay ginger kid.

BART
You’re rambling, Teach!

TEACH
We’re cutting our way outta Davy Jone’s locker, men!

BART
Let’s take back the high seas!

KIDD
Feel the spray of a living ocean!

LOW
Feel the touch of a woman!

COSSA
Feel whatever we’d like!

TEACH
That’s right, you scurvy seadogs! We’re taking our lives back! But first we’re gonna mince up our Danish dandy as a parting gift for the Great Beast that Ever Drinks!

The men cheer once more. Andy looks to Charon.

CHARON
Don’t look at me, son. I don’t give a Finnish fuck.

ANDY
Balls! Can’t a hero just ever die?

Andy reaches through the net and downs the shot of Phlegethon's. His blood seems to boil and he spits out a jet of flame which burns the net to cinders. He quickly hops atop the bar then beans Teach with the empty shot glass. All the men look at him.

KIDD
It’s the unliving!

TEACH
You insult me still, breathing boy! This blade can slice the hairs on your balls in two.

ANDY
You must have used it on yourself, you neutered dogfish. I’ve seen barnacles with more balls than you.

Teach swings at Andy. Andy jumps over the blade, grabs a rope from the ceiling, and swings toward the other pirates. They all let go of Horatio and rush toward Andy which is a big mistake. His heels plant firmly into the chest of one of them which he pushes into the other three. They fall down like a bunch of stooges. Andy helps steady Horatio.

HORATIO
Wondered when you’d join in. They shot with me a cannon.

Teach turns and swings at them. They both duck the blade and roll. Then they rush over to the wall where two rusty swords are nailed. They rip them off and turn to the pirates. Teach leads the way with Excalibur while the other four stand with their own weapons drawn.

HORATIO
I’ll be wanting my sword back.

TEACH
You can unsheathe it from your guts when I’m done!

The two sides rush forward and swashbuckling begins. Horatio simultaneously fends off Bart, Kidd, and Teach. Andy jumps onto one of the tables and kicks Cossa in the mouth. Low sneaks up behind Andy to stab him in the shins. Andy donkey kicks him in the throat then leaps onto Teach’s back. Teach flails around and starts hammering his back against the tavern walls. Charon is laughing heartily now. Horatio does a quick dodge and watches as Kidd and Bart impale each other with their swords. Then he pushes them over. Low sneaks over to the cannon, leering. Cossa regains his feet and launches himself at Horatio, who clotheslines him. Andy looks like he’s gonna barf. Finally, Teach flips Andy over his back and pile drives him into the ground. Andy rolls about on the floor as Teach tries to skewer him. Cossa grabs Horatio by the soft parts, jumps up and gets him in a stranglehold. Low laughs as he lights the cannon for another shot. Horatio gasps, reverse-headbutts Cossa and rolls out of the way. Cossa, Bart, and Kidd have enough time to gawk at the canon before it fires, knocking all of them over into a pile. Charon is almost in tears now. Teach gapes. Andy grabs him by the beard, pulls him down, and clocks him in the mouth with a heavy pewter mug. Horatio takes one aggressive step towards Low, who runs screaming out the door.

HORATIO
That’s what I thought!

Teach has his back to the bar. He brandishes Excalibur, snaps his fingers, and sets his beard afire with the devilish flame that springs from his fingertips.

TEACH
Come on, then! Step forward and live forever as sashimi!

Charon passes him a bottle.

CHARON
Grog for courage, Teach.

TEACH
Aye.

He gulps the drink down. Sniffles. His bottom lip starts to quiver.

TEACH
River of Tears?

CHARON
Aye.

TEACH
Charon, you sea serpent.

He wails openly.

TEACH
Oh, Mrs. Teach, why’d I ever leave you behind to sail the briney?

HORATIO
‘Cause you’re a thieving blaggard-

ANDY
-who sets his own face on fire.

They both punch him at once. He flies over the bar and out of sight. Excalibur flies into the air and falls, handle first. Horatio catches it.

CHARON
Now, hearties, you know something about being a hero.

HORATIO
It’s about being true to yourself.

ANDY
It’s about risking it all for others.

CHARON
Seabiscuits! It’s about entertaining me! There’s room aboard my ferry for the likes of you!

HORATIO
Yes!

ANDY
Fo’ shizzle!

CHARON
What’ve you got?

HORATIO
I thought…because we were heroes…

CHARON
You get the hero discount. If Pluto catches me trafficking again I’ll be sponge-bathing Minos until Hades freezes over. Make it worth my while. Could you part with that handsome blade?

HORATIO
Someone needs this back, like, yesterday. Andy?

ANDY
Hot dog?

CHARON
You break an old oarsman’s heart, boys.

HORATIO
Wait…I don’t suppose you’d be interested in a full skin of mead?

CHARON
Real mead?

HORATIO
From Valhalla.

CHARON
I’ve not tasted mead in twelve centuries. Many a man in my ferry would row himself mad for a sip of the gods’ honey-brew.

HORATIO
That’s a yes, then?

CHARON
I’ve room for one of you.

ANDY
That’s all we have!

CHARON
Room for one is all I have.

HORATIO
Come on, man, we know you bend whatever-

CHARON
Minos. Sponge bath. Eternity. Room for one. If you’ve any baggage, I’m about ready to shove off.

ANDY
Only one of us is getting on that boat.

Horatio turns to Andy, raises his blade.

HORATIO
Andy… May the best man win.

ANDY
He already has. You’ve got more adventures waiting for you up there. Go for it. I’ll be okay.

There is a cacophonous roar from outside. Andy runs to the door and looks then turns back to Horatio.

ANDY
It looks as if the entirety of the literally damned Spanish Armada has a score to settle. Time to set sail, Horatio. I’ll hold them off as long as I can.

HORATIO
Hey, you’re supposed to fight me for the right to live! I have at least three ghostly friends who would've torn me an ethereal asshole by now!

ANDY
If you don’t shake a fucking stick and move it, you’re gonna be dealing with a lot of assholes!

HORATIO
God dammit! Why do you have to be so nice?

Horatio knocks Andy out with the hilt of Excalibur.

HORATIO
Strong wind and fair sailing, Andy Vail. Take good care of him.

CHARON
Hope for you yet, matey. Are you gonna be alright?

HORATIO
Know what? I think I will. You? Leviathan’s gonna be hungry.

CHARON
Are you kidding? My ship could sail the whole of Styx in less than fifteen parsecs.

Charon hauls Andy easily onto his shoulder.

HORATIO
Tell me one thing. I’ve never seen a less summery place in my life. Why’s it called Summerland?

CHARON
Tourism.

Horatio stares at him. Charon laughs long and loud and walks out, towards the sound of the waves. Horatio turns back to the angry sound rushing towards the doorway.

HORATIO
Best crossover ever.

The End

"This Piece Has All the Energy and Creativity of Youth"

2010-06-25T12:30:00.002-05:00

Thanks for the bonanza of praise, DC Theatre Scene!

If you haven't seen Bunny, Bunny yet, you can still check it out tonight at 8 PM and tomorrow at 1 PM before it fades into the mist-shrouded abode of theatre legend. Ticket info here.

There's also a good writeup about Bunny, Bunny in the Northwestern Current. You can raid the online archive here. You want the June 23 edition, page 15.

Crossover's A-Comin'!

2010-06-24T00:28:00.002-05:00

For this week's installment, Horatio will be crossing paths with one Andy Vail, courtesy of my friend Joseph and his own ongoing adventure blog, The Vail. If you haven't tuned in to Andy Vail's adventures, I heartily recommend doing so. Joe's first few stories explored a dark, time-travel-tastic murder mystery and love triangle, and he's been doing great things with the new arc, giving us idyllic zombie towns and rocking international vampires with metal teeth. Andy's a guy you'll want to meet, trust me.

The blowout crossover adventure will appear here and on Joe's blog at the usual time. See you then!

Horatio Week 36: A Wind Age, A Wolf Age

2010-06-20T08:30:00.002-05:00

The New Adventures of Horatio
Week 36: A Wind Age, A Wolf Age

Valhalla. A rugged mountain landscape. The action takes place in front of a vast battle hall with a roof of goat hides and golden shields hung on the walls. A rainbow bridge is visible in the background. Several casks of mead in the foreground. Andrew WK plays. Thor, red-bearded, huge, a heavy stone hammer hitched to his belt, thunders in from offstage. He's followed closely by Heimdall and Baldr, and finally Horatio, who brings up the rear, panting. All of them have flushed faces and carry empty meadskins. Horatio runs into a wall of the battle hall.

THOR
Easy, little bro. First mead race is a motherfucker!

BALDR
Yeah, by the time we take you cross-country you'll be a drinker to shake worlds!

HORATIO
I have never been so drunk.

THOR
This is where all true warriors grow beyond their mortal selves and become the god army of tomorrow! Valhalla!

A mighty cheer from the assembly.

HORATIO
Never thought I'd be so grateful for Apollo's poor grasp of modern Danish theology. You guys rock!

Another cheer from the three gods: "We rock!"

THOR
Another game, Horatio?

HORATIO
Whatcha got, Thor?

THOR
First, we see who can slay his meadskin faster.

They fill their skins and drink. Thor wins by a comfy margin.

THOR
Not bad, not bad. And now: armed combat!

HORATIO
Ha?

Thor swings his hammer. Horatio brings Excalibur up just in time. A resounding clash, sparks. Horatio flies across the stage and slams into the same wall he hit earlier.

HEIMDALL
Damn!

BALDR
Party foul, bro.

Horatio stands.

HORATIO
I'm okay.

Horatio topples.

THOR
Sorry, little bro. You've gotta remember how Valhalla works. We celebrate lives that ended in battle, yeah, but we also fight like crazy so we can go out and slay our share at Ragnarok.

HORATIO
I don't know how you guys keep it up.

BALDR
Heimdall here never sleeps, the lucky stiff.

HEIMDALL
Ever-watching eyes that pierce the nine worlds, and all that.

HORATIO
Well there you go.

BALDR
But you'll grow into one of us in time.

HORATIO
In theory I guess I would. I'll be out of here before Ragnarok, though.

THOR
What?

HEIMDALL
Not cool, man.

HORATIO
I've got business back on earth. Friends in Denmark...I'm going to grad school!

BALDR
Horatio. Buddy. No warrior refuses the honor of a place in Valhalla.

HEIMDALL
We're going to fight a world serpent, man! And a giant wolf that eats the moon! Tell me you don't want in on that!

HORATIO
You all know how Ragnarok ends, right?

Silence.

HORATIO
No wonder you yahoos drink all the time.

BALDR
Hey, how about another contest of strength?

THOR
Says the guy with an enchantment that makes him weapons-proof.

BALDR
Okay, okay. No-holds barred wrestling, smart guy!

THOR
HA!

They wrestle. Enter Loki, gaunt, shifty, in dark colors. He stands behind the others and watches the wrestling match.

LOKI
Ages past the sons of Odin would engage in contests of wit. But I fancy even the mortal can guess who invariably won those.

THOR
NERD!

BALDR
Hiya, Loki!

HEIMDALL
Loki.

LOKI
Thou art fools. The world of men has devised land mines, anthraxes, nuclear weapons, power enough to make our foes vanish on the last day like frost in the morning.

THOR
Loki, Loki, Loki. Ragnarok cleanses the world so life can begin anew. Nukes are a no-no.

LOKI
So you clang stone weapons as thou hast done since Odin Allfather had two eyes! Better to join our enemy than go willingly to our deaths.

BALDR
Easy, fellas.

HEIMDALL
You don't mean that, man.

THOR
We know you miss your kids-

LOKI
Leave them out of this!

HEIMDALL
You fathered a world serpent, a giant wolf and the queen of Hel! It was gonna come up!

LOKI
Perhaps we should discuss thy nine mothers?

HEIMDALL
MY NINE MOTHERS WERE SAINTS!

THOR
You only see them on alternate weekends! That hurts, man! It's allowed! It's okay to hurt!

LOKI
None may touch Loki!

Thor hugs him against his will.

THOR
Hug it out, dude.

LOKI
...all they do is ask me for money anyway.

THOR
C'mon, bro, sit down, have a drink, cause some head injuries. You'll feel better.

LOKI
Loki, scion of frost giants, does not befuddle his wits with drink!

THOR
COMBAT, THEN!

He swings his hammer at Loki, who clumsily counters with a big, curvy sword. Eventually Thor knocks Loki across the stage. Everyone cheers.

BALDR
I haven't had this much fun since that road trip to Midgard.

HEIMDALL
When Thor hitched his magic goats to that Russian tank...

THOR
And whenever we got hungry we'd cook one of the goats...

BALDR, HEIMDALL and THOR
And say a prayer and it'd come back to life!
DUUUDE!

LOKI
I was not invited.

THOR
You were so invited.

LOKI
My princely stomach dislikes riding by enchanted goat.

HEIMDALL
Paging Dr. Buzz Kill.

LOKI
Actually, I have a game we could play.

THOR
Is Finbulvetr upon us? Did Loki suggest a drinking game?

LOKI
First round is thee and me, brother.

He produces two drinking horns, holding one out to Thor.

THOR
Half-brother. This one for me and that one for you, huh?

LOKI
It's like thou hast played before!

THOR
Like the time you tricked me into drinking a fjord? Nice try, sucker!

He grabs Loki's horn.

LOKI
Oh, drat.

THOR
See how you like it! We drink to the last drop, by my hammer!

HORATIO
Thor, wait!

THOR
Let's go!

They drink for a long time. Eventually Loki downs his horn and tosses it to the ground. He cackles. Thor's eyes bulge.

LOKI
Hammer-hurling nimrod! I knew thou'd switch horns on me!

HEIMDALL and BALDR
DUUUUDE!

LOKI
This one's linked by magic to the earth's oceans. Bound by thy oath, thou must drink until they run dry and the world serpent rises from his sea bed to poison the sky!

HEIMDALL
Oh, shit!

LOKI
Ragnarok, meatheads! Ragnarok begins at last, and Loki will stand atop the bodies!

A cold, awful wind blows across the stage. Everyone stands thunderstruck. Thor drinks.

HORATIO
So while we're waiting for that, I have another game we can play.

BALDR
Another game?

HEIMDALL
With Ragnarok happening?

LOKI
Besotted dunce!

HORATIO
It was bound to happen one day. You guys were stoic enough when it was this far-off concept. We have a few minutes. Any objections? Thor?

Thor drinks.

HORATIO
Loki? You're not going to pass up a drink to the world's end?

LOKI
Very well. A drink or two. What shall we play, mortal?

HORATIO
A game revered in earth's houses of learning. (He produces a deck of cards.) Kings.

We grab meadskins and fan the cards out in the center. Then we go around the circle. Now listen carefully. Two is you, so whoever drew the card picks someone to drink. Three is me, person who picked drinks. Four is touch the floor, five is guys, six is...we'll skip that one. Seven is heaven, last one to reach up like so, drinks. Eight, pick a mate, nine bust a rhyme, 10 is categories, Queen is questions, and any other face cards mean you invent a rule. Still with me?

BALDR
Sure.

HEIMDALL
Yeah.

HORATIO
Oh, and aces are waterfalls.

LOKI
What manner of rule is that?

HORATIO
You'll see. Ready?

LOKI
Wait-

HORATIO
I'll draw first. Lookee, a face card. New rule. Now, it's in poor taste to make rules that affect a single person. So no one can say "thou" or "thee".

LOKI
Hold on. Canst thou do that?

HORATIO
Yes I can. And drink.

They play for a bit, with everyone drawing and playing accordingly. Thor draws and Baldr reads his cards. When Loki assigns people to drink, he points.

HORATIO
Hey, another face card. No pointing.

LOKI
Didst thou mark the cards?

HORATIO
I don't know what you're talking about. And drink.

LOKI
Thou art a sneaky- right, right... (He drinks again.) Sneak. I don't like this game.

HORATIO
Try to keep up, Lokster.

They play on. Thor draws an ace.

HORATIO
All right! Waterfall. The person who drew drinks. Then the person to his left, and so on counterclockwise.

BALDR
Okay.

HEIMDALL
When do we stop?

HORATIO
In the same order. Starting with the person who drew.

All look at Thor, and at Loki, who sits to his immediate left.

LOKI
Oh, no.

HORATIO
Bottoms up, chief.

LOKI
You think I'm not up to this? I'm as much of a god as he is.

HORATIO
Pointing.

LOKI
Augh! I can drink as much as him!

HORATIO
He's just drinking water. Can your delicate stomach handle an eternity of mead?

LOKI
I am old as the first snows and cunning as the last wolf and I'm warning you, mortal-

HORATIO
You're a featherweight, Lokster.

HEIMDALL
Diss.

HORATIO
EVERYBODY DRINK!

Everybody drinks for an insanely long time. Faces turn red. Eyes bulge. Horatio and Loki lock eyes. Finally-

LOKI (Gasping)
Brother! I release thee from thine oath!

Thor takes the horn from his lips, spits out seawater, gasps. Smashes the horn over Loki's head. Loki falls back, out cold.

THOR
Thanks. Half-brother.

HORATIO
Why do you keep him around? Isn't he always doing this?

THOR
We always beat him.

HORATIO
Not the last time! When, you know, he actually makes Ragnarok happen!

THOR
Look, bro, our father absorbed all knowledge from the world tree. I've known since I could hold a hammer that I'll slay the world serpent, take nine steps, and die. Imagine living like that? Fucking depressing. I have to act like there's a choice involved or I'll go crazy. Same with Loki. We have to treat him like he can do better. Maybe someday he'll surprise us.

HORATIO
Still.

THOR
Every great hall needs a brooding, scheming figure in the shadows to keep the good times in perspective.

HORATIO
When you put it that way, I guess you do.

HEIMDALL
So what do you say?

BALDR
Life here won't be so bad.

HORATIO
You're right. Who's for sparring? Thor, looking at you!

BALDR and HEIMDALL
Oooohhhhhhh!

HORATIO
Unarmed. Let's see how you do without the magic hammer that shoots lightning.

BALDR and HEIMDALL
OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH!

THOR
Alright, alright.

He tosses his hammer in a corner.

THOR
Sword too. Let's go.

Horatio tosses Excalibur in the same corner. They circle each other.

THOR
Show me what you got.

HORATIO
Or...

He rolls past Thor into the corner with the weapons, stands, brandishing the hammer and the sword.

BALDR
Cheating!

HORATIO
No, no, just a thought. Say I fired a lighting bolt with this baby and rode it back to earth?

THOR
That's insane!

BALDR
You'd be incinerated!

HEIMDALL
You're not strong enough!

HORATIO
I've had a lot to drink.

He swings the hammer. Nearly falls over. Brings it down. KARAKATHOOOM! When the dust clears, he is gone.

THOR, HEIMDALL and BALDR
DUUUUUUUDE!

The End

I Am The Bunnyman!

2010-06-16T09:13:00.003-05:00

Last night I was in Clifton, VA with the sniffles. Lisa, one of my collaborators on the Bunnyman project, was up the street, filming video interviews, and I was in a classy bar called Trummer's, hoping to wrangle a few more interview subjects who'd heard a thing or two about our long-eared quarry. When I came in, the hostess told me that Trummer's used to serve a drink called the Bunnyman, and that a member of the management would be coming in a few minutes and might have a story or two.

The bartender described the Bunnyman drink (it had some kind of strawberry component and sounded delectable) but regretted to say that it was no longer on the menu. I had a gin and tonic instead and settled in next to a dining, middle-aged couple to wait for the management. While a gin and tonic was not thematically linked to our project, it instantly made me happier to be there.

The management had to disappear into a meeting, but as I lingered at the bar the woman in the couple next to me turned and said she'd overheard me talking about the project.

"I am the Bunnyman!" she volunteered.

Really.

"I used to go around with friends and vandalize housing developments."

Why?

"It was the seventies. Why do you think?"

So she was the guy in the suit?

"No! I think if anything he copied us. There were a bunch of kids who'd go out and do that kind of thing because there was nothing to do around here."

There was a more than even chance she was putting me on, but the couple and I talked for a while about Clifton and the possibility of the town shrinking if the elementary school and post office are absorbed into neighboring areas, and about Steve Strasburg and the Nats.

She reflected on the roving career of vandalism and hitchhiking and giving rides to hitchhikers that was now long behind her:

"I gave my last ride ever to a clown. He needed a lift to clown college."

"Don't we all," said her husband.

It was dark by this point, jet black if you happened to drive into the woods of Clifton for a night photograph of the Bunnyman Bridge, which is what Lisa wanted to do. For a time tree trunks and reflective signs rose up out of the darkness, and at last the bridge itself faced us, a squat archway that looked like the entrance to a dungeon keep or some dimension of eternal night. If not for the car's headlights, it would have been like the bottom of a mineshaft. The Bunnyman could have meandered up to the passenger side window and I wouldn't have been able to make him out.

Lisa wisely stayed in the car, opening the driver's side door and leaning out to get the shots, which she then showed to me for my approval.

"Do you think that's good?"

"That's the shot. Composition's perfect."

"You don't think it's out of focus?"

"It's very dark out here."

She took the hint and we drove back to the world of gas stations and electrical lights.

Horatio Week 35: Paradise City

2010-06-12T11:34:00.004-05:00

I've got a dear friend's bachelor party in Atlantic City tonight, and that means you all get an early post in case I have to bail anyone out or rescue them from a rooftop Sunday morning. Have a safe and sane weekend, dear readers.

The New Adventures of Horatio
Week 35: Paradise City

Elysium. Orestes, Elektra, and Pylades, three Greek youths, sit beneath a tree in a pristine field. A picnic lunch is laid out before them. Pylades rests with his head in Elektra's lap. They look fresh and wholesome, like escapees from Archie Comics. Maybe Orestes wears a black varsity jacket.

ORESTES
Could go over to Hercules's place. He and the centaurs are tailgating before the games.

ELEKTRA
That could be really fun.

PYLADES
Continuing to sit here could also be really fun.

ORESTES
Or we could drive out to Achilles and Patroclos's beach house.

ELEKTRA
Those two are adorable.

ORESTES
And Grandpa Atreus called from Hades again. We're all invited to his summer barbeque.

PYLADES
That'll happen.

ORESTES
I should go see him. They don't let him out much. Ever, really.

PYLADES
Think about that conversation.
"Hey, Grandpa Atreus! What's cooking?"
"Oh, you know, the usual."
"It's not the tenderized flesh of a close relative that you're feeding me as part of an elaborate revenge plot, is it?"
Pause.
"Noooo!"
That's why he's down there! Does he think we forget these things?

ELEKTRA
We belong up here, Orestes. Where it's always summer, and there's no cannibalism or incest or self-inflicted blindings or any of that. We've earned this. Try to enjoy it?

ORESTES
No, I am.

ELEKTRA
Good! Know what I like best about this place?

PYLADES
What?

ELEKTRA
EVERYTHING!

She and Pylades make out.

ORESTES
Hey, Pylades, go ahead and molest my sister there, that's cool.

A sword thrusts up through the picnic's checkered cloth. Everybody screams. Horatio claws his way out of the earth, caked in mud and dirt.

ELEKTRA
Great Hera!

ORESTES
Furies!

Pylades holds his friend, who is quivering in mortal terror. Elektra steps in front of Horatio.

ELEKTRA
If you go near my brother-

Horatio ignores her and grabs a pitcher of lemonade, drinks deeply.

HORATIO
Anyone ever opens a lemonade stand in Hell, they'll be able to retire a week in.

ELEKTRA
You're not a fury?

HORATIO
I'm lost. Name's Horatio.

PYLADES
What are you doing in Elysium?

HORATIO
Tell me that's the name of a gated community and not the actual place where dead Greek heroes go.

Pause.

HORATIO
Last time I ask Al Capone for directions.

Sorry about the-

He motions to the skewered picnic basket.

HORATIO
I don't suppose you have a few extra sandwiches-

ELEKTRA
Yes, please, join us.

ORESTES
Whoa, whoa. First, who are you and why are you crawling out of Hades?

ELEKTRA
Look how thin he is. Food first. Remember when no one would give us food?

ORESTES
Hey, I'm only the avenging son of the house of Atreus here. What do I know?

PYLADES
You can't just invoke that every time. Yesterday, when you got to choose the ultimate discus teams? Because you're the avenging son of the house of Atreus? What is that? How does that apply? You're full of shit.

ORESTES
Having the second string title of avenging cousin of the house of Atreus is bitter fruit, Pylades, and I feel for you.

HORATIO
You guys remind me of somebody.

ORESTES
Before you ask: Yes, I'm that Orestes. Commanded by Apollo, I killed my mother in vengeance for her betrayal and murder of my father, King Agamemnon. They wrote some plays about it.

ELEKTRA
Ahem.

ORESTES
These guys helped.

ELEKTRA
Read, "saved his lunatic behind on numerous occasions."

ORESTES
I came unhinged after Mom died.

ELEKTRA
He saw furies chasing him. His brain filled up with snakes. We slept in the streets while neighbors threw garbage at us.

PYLADES
They weren't big on matricide. We were on the run for months. There were narrowly-averted stonings, hostage situations. Gods had to intervene a couple of times.

ORESTES
And here we are!

HORATIO
That sounds a lot like what happened to my friend-

PYLADES
Hey, not to be that guy, but should he even be here? It's kind of exclusive. Like direct-descendant-of-Zeus exclusive.

ELEKTRA
We can say he's part of our Chorus. They never check.

HORATIO
That's cool, but I need to be-

ELEKTRA
Ouzo tailgate tonight.

HORATIO
-need to be practicing my scales if I'm in your Chorus. Are those nymphs?

PYLADES
Yes.

HORATIO
Are they...frolicking?

PYLADES
That is what they are doing.

HORATIO
This works.

He sits down next to them. He and Pylades reach for the picnic basket at the same time.

HORATIO
Oh, sorry-

PYLADES
No, no, go ahead.

HORATIO
I shouldn't-

PYLADES
Please-

HORATIO
After- no?

They both look warily at the basket. Neither of them touches it. Pause. Pylades looks thoughtful.

PYLADES
I was-

HORATIO
Do you- whoop, sorry.

PYLADES
I insist-

HORATIO
You first.

PYLADES
I was going to- I forget.

HORATIO
Hum!

They look glum. Elektra looks uncomfortable. Orestes glares at her.

PYLADES
Oh! I was going to say, you were in the middle of saying something.

HORATIO
Was I? Oh, right. I suppose I was going to say that what you guys went through sounds a lot like what happened to my best friend. Hamlet. He found out that his uncle murdered his father, took his place as King of Denmark, and stole his queen, Hamlet's mother. So he was going to avenge that. But he went crazy, and by the time he did kill his uncle he- and pretty much everyone in the castle who got out of bed that morning- died in an over-the-top poisoning fiasco and now they're all in Purgatory.

On reflection it's not much like what happened to you. You all got a happy ending.

PYLADES
I'm sorry, Horatio.

HORATIO
DON'T TALK LIKE YOU KNOW ME! ON EARTH RIGHT NOW YOUR NAME MEANS AN EXERCISE HOUSEWIVES DO TO KEEP OFF LEG FLAB!

PYLADES
Hey, hey, it's cool.

HORATIO
Think you're better than me?

ELEKTRA
No one thinks he's better than you.

HORATIO
How come your friend made it and mine didn't?

ORESTES
I'll tell you.

Everyone turns towards Orestes.

ORESTES
The gods came down and intervened. It's not anything Pylades did.

PYLADES
Hey!

ORESTES
I mean it's not anything any of us did. Back in Argos? We were holed up in that mansion, the mob was outside ready to tear us apart, and this golden light seemed to burn through everything, I could see it shine through the bones in my hand, I could see every crack in every brick in the house filled with gold, every dust mote a little flaming galaxy, and the voice of Apollo sounded, and the crowd left and we left and that was it.

ELEKTRA
And that other time, in the wilderness.

PYLADES
His mind couldn't take the guilt anymore. He was screaming about women with vipers for hair and scorpion tails.

ORESTES
And I saw Athena. And the Furies- they wanted to drink my blood, I'd killed my mother, right, that doesn't fly- and she talked them down. I think she founded our entire legal system right there! And then I was well again.

HORATIO
We don't get that kind of service where I'm from.

ORESTES
You're not getting it, Horatio. It's creepy. Like having a babysitter who's a thousand feet tall and made of fire. Apollo's the one who told me I had to kill my mother in the first place. He would just do that- tell us what we were going to do. Very little preamble. That's how they got married.

ELEKTRA
Yep.

PYLADES
In Argos. Apollo sort of went, "Angry mob, go home, Orestes, seek help at Athena's shrine, oh, by the way, Elektra, marry Pylades over there." I mean it's nice.

ELEKTRA
It is a nice marriage.

PYLADES
But freaky! Can I say that?

ELEKTRA
You can! It is!

ORESTES
Imagine you had a happy life but it was all plotted out for you.

That's the thing that still bugs me about this place. It's great, but are we enjoying it because we really like it here, or because the gods said this is where we belong and we're supposed to enjoy it?

PYLADES
You'll drive yourself nuts thinking like that. Again.

HORATIO
Ever try not doing what Apollo tells you?

ORESTES
I hardly know how anymore.

HORATIO
I bet you're a quick study.

He pulls his sword out of the picnic table and starts chopping at the tree with it. Blossoms tumble down.

PYLADES
What are you doing?

HORATIO
The gods want you to enjoy all this? Disobey.

He hacks at branches. One or two tumble down off the tree.

HORATIO
Give it a try.

Orestes kicks the picnic basket. Chuckles softly. Stomps the basket to matchwood with a sudden fury.

PYLADES
Orestes!

ELEKTRA
Are you crazy?

ORESTES
Is that a problem?

Pause.

ELEKTRA
Pylades. Our favorite spot by the lake, with the water lilies and the baby swans.

PYLADES
What about it, my love?

ELEKTRA
Let's go pee in it.

She yanks him offstage after her. Horatio continues to savage the tree. Orestes tears up the picnic cloth with his hands and teeth.

ORESTES
I feel wonderful! Absolutely wonder-

A golden light shines over everything. Apollo's voice rings out over the Elysian fields.

APOLLO
This is why mortals can't have nice things.

ORESTES
Glorious Apollo!

APOLLO
Why do you defile the paradise that was given you?

HORATIO
Tell him, dude.

ORESTES
Radiant god, forgive him. He is a Dane and knows not our ways.

HORATIO
You son of a bitch. You were gonna tell him!

ORESTES (Whispering)
Yeah, well, look at him!

APOLLO
He shall be transformed into a mighty fir tree, so that his confusion and suffering may cease!

HORATIO
I would not find that helpful!

ORESTES
Rather speed him safely home, great Apollo!

HORATIO
Hey! Yeah, do that!

APOLLO
Let it be done. I shall send thee to Valhalla, where thy people dine and contend in merry and eternal slaughter!

HORATIO
No, wait, I'm not dea-

The glorious golden light fills the stage, and when it dies down, Orestes stands alone.

ORESTES
Sorry, Horatio.

His phone rings.

ORESTES
Grandpa Atreus! I was just going to come visit. That's right. I need to get out of here for a while.

Pause.

Um. No, I've eaten.

The End

Horatio Week 34: Hell Yeah

2010-06-06T19:57:00.002-05:00

The New Adventures of Horatio
Week 34: Hell Yeah

Hell. A trading post sits atop a rocky crag, next to a glowing waterfall of sulfur. Enter Horatio, bloody, bedraggled, a haunted look in his eyes. Excalibur dangles from his side, dripping black and green ichor. He leans on the sword, out of breath. In the distance, horrible sounds of pursuit. Horatio scrambles to the door of the trading post and thumps on it.

HORATIO
HELP!

The top half of the door opens. A slim woman with a bobbed hair cut looks out. A lit cigarette dangles from her mouth. When she speaks, it is with a faint Russian accent. This is Ayn Rand.

RAND
Interesting proposal.

HORATIO
What?

RAND
You're pursued by demons.

HORATIO
Yes.

RAND
They sound eager to have you.

HORATIO
They are. They are right behind me.

RAND
Then it would hardly be advisable to let you in.

She slams the door. Horatio blinks. He knocks on the door. She opens the top half again.

HORATIO
You're Ayn Rand!

RAND
You know my work!

HORATIO
What are you doing in hell?

RAND
Certain parties took issue with my indictment of the afterlife as a falsity spun by the vampiric religious establishment.

HORATIO
Plus you founded a philosophy that encourages people to be complete dicks.

RAND
I have work to do.

HORATIO
Hey! Look, let me hide in there, huh? I got all the way through The Fountainhead in high school. That's got to count for something.

RAND
Young man-

HORATIO
Horatio.

RAND
You clearly know all about my philosophy. The central tenet of Objectivism is man's pursuit of his own rational self-interest. That's my entire legacy. To let you in with demons in pursuit would not only be irrational, it would be hypocritical. Good day.

She slams the door again. Horatio knocks.

HORATIO
Is there anyone else I could talk to? Is Neitzsche here? I would accept Neitzsche.

The horrible sounds of pursuit draw closer. Three cloaked figures appear at the foot of the crag and begin crawling up the rocks towards Horatio. They move with reptilian deliberation.

HORATIO
AYN RAND LET ME IN PLEASE I'M BEGGING YOU.

They saw what I did. I was in a war. I burned people. I left a man in the woods to die. These were bad things. I did them for the right reasons but I have dirty deeds on my conscience and they want to tear me open and eat my sins so could you OPEN UP!

Rand opens the top half of the door.

RAND
It depends on what you can contribute.

HORATIO
Are you kidding me.

RAND
The only sensible system is a free exchange of goods and services to mutual benefit. I've erected a profitable trading post here and broker the beginnings of a capitalist society among the damned. I have casks of whiskey from drowned rum-runners, kalashnikovs from bullet-riddled Congolese warlords, and some of Caligula's finest robes. I have nautical charts Blackbeard drew as he sailed his obsidian ship on oceans of flame. I have every platinum album Bonn Scott recorded after choking to death.

HORATIO
That's fascinating.

RAND
Thank you.

HORATIO
Demons are about to eat me on your lawn.

The demons pounce on Horatio. He fights them, but is weak from the long chase.

HORATIO
They're sticking knives into my soooooul!

RAND
Evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from us.

HORATIO
Talk sense!

RAND
You're the willing victim of a moral fiction. See the world as it is and walk free.

Horatio keeps a demon from tearing his throat out with an outthrust forearm under the chin, as one would keep a hungry wolf at bay.

HORATIO
You're right. I have a sudden urge to reread Atlas Shrugged. Got a copy handy?

RAND
Now?

HORATIO
Seeing as how the moral fiction is about to plunge its claws through my ribcage.

Horatio struggles under a three-demon pileup. Rand tosses him a thick, hardcover book.

HORATIO
Just what I needed.

He smashes the book into the face of the demon nearest him. It wails.

HORATIO
Feel that, motherfuckers? That's rational egoism knocking your rotten teeth out! You like that? You like that?

He continues to beat the demons into submission until they lie still.

HORATIO
Can't beat the classics.

He tosses the book back to her.

RAND
Magnificent.

HORATIO
Sorry about the stains.

RAND
You've the soul of a philosopher and the steel sinews of a superman.

HORATIO
Thanks?

RAND
And I even see a spark of life in you. You're the first compatible man to come along for decades.

HORATIO
What is happening.

RAND
You could be my fellow champion, Horatio! You've the wisdom and the strength to fan my spark of commerce into a healthy conflagration!

HORATIO
Shack up with you and rule hell?

RAND
Not rule. Not hell. The state is a tool of the looters. Hell is a word. We can breath life into the inferno's proto-capitalism. The damned will trade goods and services for mutual benefit, create art, make love and achieve happiness. The very idea of hell will pass into oblivion.

HORATIO
I just met you. You were a dick to me!

RAND
Yes! Let the wrath harden your wiry muscles to the consistency of tempered bronze! Let your brow furrow and bespeak the mighty lobes within!

HORATIO
This is weird.

RAND
You will not deny we have something. I am older, yes, but for you, I think maybe this isn't such a bad thing?

HORATIO
...accent's cute. You have this Natasha Romanov thing going.

RAND
Yes.

HORATIO
Queen to my Philosopher King.

RAND
No kings! No oppression of the masses, no five-year plans! The rights of the individual are paramount!

HORATIO
What, we open a stock exchange and call it a day? No. We were born to rule, my Russian doll.

RAND
It's everything I hate!

HORATIO
You have the weapons, the technology, the allegiance of rogues and rough men...deep down you want this.

RAND
The ego is real and eternal and mightier than empire!

HORATIO
They laughed at you on earth! They laugh at you here! You know the way the world works and if they won't see it you'll damn well make them! Look into these baby blues and tell me you don't lust to rule this two-bit inferno!

RAND
Curse your silver tongue! You make me want such terrible things!

HORATIO
Wittenberg varsity debate team. Give in!

RAND
The soviets who took my father's pharmacy! The builders of armies and ovens! They're everything I hate! I won't become that!

HORATIO
You know how to fix it all, and I know how to kick ass and weigh the existential implications afterwards. As long as I'm here you'll be tempted.

RAND
I see that.

HORATIO
It's in your rational self-interest to rule.

RAND
Maybe.

HORATIO
But if you're a woman of principle. If you believe that planetoid of pages you churned out about individual freedom. Then you want me out of hell as soon as possible.

What's it going to be?

RAND
There's a tunnel at the top of the waterfall. The damned are forbidden to enter, but a living man might follow it to one of the Gates of Dis.

HORATIO
Okay...

RAND
Figure the rest out, philosopher king.

The demons begin to twitch and growl.

RAND
Go.

Horatio sticks the sword into his belt and clambers, hand over hand, up the waterfall. Rand disappears into her trading post. The demons rise to pursue Horatio. Rand reappears with an AK-47 and an ammo belt.

RAND
Focus your minds to a full, active, purposefully directed awareness of reality. A is A. Your asses are mine.

She sprays the demons with bullets.

RAND
I'm exercising my individual right to shoot you in the face!

She hits the demons with her rifle butt. Horatio has reached the top of the waterfall. Surrounded by unconscious demons, Rand calls up to him.

RAND
Goodbye, beloved! If you make terrible choices in life and then die, I may reconsider!

Horatio turns, surveys the damage.

HORATIO
Damn! Ayn Rand, bitches!

He salutes with the sword and disappears up the tunnel.

The End

Horatio Week 33: Damn Straight

2010-05-30T09:55:00.003-05:00

This week's installment comes to you from Harrisburg, PA. My long weekend benefits from back porches, riverside reading, and plenty of mountain lager, and I hope you're currently enjoying the nearest equivalents.

The New Adventures of Horatio
Week 33: Damn Straight

A room in hell. Johannes Faustus is chained up with his hands and feet in black boxes. Minerva, a bubbly young woman in a 60's flight attendant's uniform, sits in a folding chair reading from a questionnairre.

MINERVA
Seven minus France.

FAUSTUS
HAVE MERCY!

MINERVA
Come on, Mister Faustus, that's an easy one!

FAUSTUS
It's unanswerable, hell-vixen!

MINERVA
You can do it!

FAUSTUS
...three?

MINERVA
Wrong. Darn it! Finger or toe?

FAUSTUS
Don't make me choose.

MINERVA
Have a heart, Mister Faustus. They're hungry!

FAUSTUS
Doctor Faustus, Minerva, please. Leave me that at least.

MINERVA
Doctor Faustus. What do you think.

FAUSTUS
Toe, I guess.

MINERVA
There you go!

A scurrying, crunching sound from one of the boxes.

FAUSTUS
DAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

MINERVA
Aw, chin up, doctor! It'll grow back!

FAUSTUS
I know.

MINERVA
And I bet you get this next one!

FAUSTUS
Minerva, please...

MINERVA
What is the melting point of solitude?

FAUSTUS
Is that supposed to have some deeper philosophical meaning?

MINERVA
I just read the questions, doc.

FAUSTUS
Someone's coming.

MINERVA
No stalling. You know the rules.

FAUSTUS
It couldn't be...? Not him! Oh, to see him here, to have him suffer as I do, I'd endure a thousand hells!

MINERVA
Gee, Mister Faustus, you haven't soliloquized like that since you first got here!

FAUSTUS
Doctor Faustus, damnation wench.

Enter Horatio.

FAUSTUS
Hello, Horatio. You'll excuse me for not shaking hands.

HORATIO
Johannes.

FAUSTUS
You're here to stay? Are the fates so kind?

HORATIO
Just dropping by.

MINERVA
No one drops by here.

HORATIO
There's a maintenance hatch in Purgatory where if you jiggle the handle you can get in.

FAUSTUS
Come to gloat over the rival whose damnation you sealed?

HORATIO
I'd like you to write me a letter of recommendation.

FAUSTUS
You what.

HORATIO
Got a second? Not needed anywhere?

FAUSTUS
SPEAK.

HORATIO
I'm reapplying to Wittenberg for my doctorate. You were the most gifted professor there before the whole dragged-howling-into-the-

inferno thing. A recommendation from you should get me in.

FAUSTUS
I thought Hamlet was the one who went off the deep end.

HORATIO
Just something quick about how yeah, you revolutionized philosophy during your short tenure; you've fathomed wonders earthly and interstellar with the Enemy of Mankind at your side; but back when you were a grad student I schooled you regularly.

FAUSTUS
Get. Out.

HORATIO
I wrote it all out, so you just have to sign at the bottom.

MINERVA
Mister Horatio, we're going to have to ask you to leave.

HORATIO
You're kind of incongruous for a torturer.

MINERVA (Beaming)
It makes it worse!

FAUSTUS
It does, somehow.

HORATIO
Come on, Johannes. You're down here because you had to be the smartest guy in the room. Just admit my brain bitch-slapped your brain. You'll feel better.

FAUSTUS
UPSTART! I've met Gods in the earth who would shrivel you with a glance! I've held discourse with the spirits and got to second base with Helen of Troy! What you don't know could fill a vast and whirling galaxy of knowledge!

HORATIO
How's that working out for you?

FAUSTUS
RrrrrrrrRRRRRRGH!

HORATIO
Is there anything in the entire universe you hate more than seeing me here alive and well and hitting the books?

FAUSTUS
Nothing!

HORATIO
Not even the torture!

FAUSTUS
I welcome the- oh, I see what you did there.

HORATIO
All a matter of perspective. Tell me that's not worth a signature.

He holds out a typewritten letter.

FAUSTUS
You'll never ask me for anything again?

HORATIO
You'll never see this grinning, intellectually superior face after today.

FAUSTUS
Minerva, could you...?

Minerva crosses and releases his right hand from one of the black boxes.

FAUSTUS (Referring to the black box)
Curiosity got the best of me and I looked inside once. Locusts with human faces.

HORATIO
TMI, Johannes.

With the bloody stump of a finger, Faustus signs the letter.

HORATIO
Thanks, doc. You're all right.

FAUSTUS
Opinions vary. Minerva?

Minerva pulls a lever. A rumble and a cloud of smoke come from the entrance Horatio used. Alarms blare.

HORATIO
I kind of needed that passageway.

FAUSTUS
All you asked for was the signature. You never said anything about leaving with it.

MINERVA
Ah, doc, you're a natural at this!

FAUSTUS
I can see into your soul, Horatio. You've killed men since last we crossed paths. You've nursed hatred in your heart and left a man gibbering and wailing in the woods. You've learned cruelty.

HORATIO
I don't answer to you.

FAUSTUS
They're coming, Horatio. Things with twelve limbs and bladed fingers. And every one of them smells your guilt.

MINERVA
It smells yummy!

She closes on Horatio. He draws a gleaming sword. She hisses and draws back.

MINERVA
Excalibur! The Kingmaker! The Worldweaver!

FAUSTUS
Thievery, too!

HORATIO
I'm just borrowing it!

FAUSTUS
It doesn't matter what weapons you have, Horatio. It doesn't matter how far you run. You've grown into quite the bastard, and you'll never escape this place.

Holding his sword out to keep Minerva at bay, Horatio backs deeper into Hell, then turns and runs. Faustus laughs maniacally.

FAUSTUS
This was a good day.

MINERVA
Shall we?

FAUSTUS
Sure, sure.

MINERVA
What's the capital of Priscilla?

FAUSTUS
Hmmmm.

Horatio calls out:

HORATIO
New Jennifer.

MINERVA
Hey! That's right!

FAUSTUS
WHAT?

MINERVA
He got it right!

FAUSTUS
YOU SON OF A BITCH! HOW'D YOU GUESS? HOW'D YOU EVEN KNOW THAT? IT'S IMPOSSIBLE! HORATIOOOOOOOO!

To Be Continued

Horatio Week 32: Farewell, My Lovecraft

2010-05-23T08:42:00.004-05:00

The New Adventures of Horatio
Week 32: Farewell, My Lovecraft

An alcove in the Long Room of the Old Library at Trinity College, Dublin. Horatio sits reading an old volume of Spinoza. A dour librarian stocks the shelves.

HORATIO
Spinoza. It's been too long.

LIBRARIAN
Hush up out of that.

HORATIO
Sorry.

LIBRARIAN
The college runs a clean library, young mister. If you're going to go all breathy with the philosophy tomes like they're French first editions, there's an ill-smelling newsstand on Poolbeg Street where you can take your business.

HORATIO
No, sorry, it's just I haven't held a book in months, so-

LIBRARIAN
Out!

HORATIO
Not like that!

LIBRARIAN
We take care of our rare books, young man. I have a taser.

HORATIO
Don't misunderstand. I grew up in libraries. This Spinoza is like a brother to me.

LIBRARIAN
No more disturbances.

HORATIO
Not a one.

Enter Kelly Kelly behind Horatio. She looks him up and down. Crosses to him and puts her hands over his eyes.

KELLY
Guess who, my little-

Horatio instinctively flips her over him, slamming her on her back on the desk.

KELLY
-WANKER!

HORATIO
Kelly?

KELLY
Hyperventilating poxy cocksucker!

HORATIO
Kelly Kelly?

LIBRARIAN
Out!

HORATIO
It's okay, we're friends.

LIBRARIAN
You threw her down like a sack of barley.

HORATIO
It's a special handshake we have.

KELLY
Fecking scanger!

HORATIO
Yes.

KELLY
Went and gave yourself a kung-fu grip there, Horatio.

HORATIO
I exist in a state of perpetual learning, Kelly. For example, I learned that when a foxy young Dubliner with a cesspool vocabulary and a history of aggravated assault cozies up to me, it's with the express purpose of her fencing my passport for beer money.

KELLY
You never did call after that.

HORATIO
You robbed me!

KELLY
You liked it.

HORATIO
I...have to study.

KELLY
Weaving a cocoon in hopes of emerging a warrior monk?

HORATIO
Grad school. Responsibilities. Not your bag.

KELLY
You just happened to come to the library that's down the street from me.

HORATIO
Trinity's got one of the finest research libraries in the world, and I happen to like their Spinoza collection.

KELLY
You know what they say about great minds, boyo. I'm here for a rare book too.

HORATIO
They make you give them back here.

KELLY
Want to know what book it is?

HORATIO
Not in the least.

He raises Spinoza to his face.

KELLY (To the Librarian)
I'd like to see your Necronomicon, please.

LIBRARIAN
I'll have to get the Key of Cosmic Despair. Won't be a moment.

She shuffles off. Horatio puts his book down. Picks it up again. Puts it down.

HORATIO
Did you say Necronomicon?

KELLY
Read your book.

HORATIO
The arcane and blasphemous book of forbidden knowledge penned in a lost era by the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred?

KELLY
Could be.

HORATIO
Don't tell me that's real.

KELLY
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio-

HORATIO
Oh no you did not quote that shit at me.

KELLY
Fancy Mr. Sensitive! You're the girl in this relationship.

HORATIO
We're not in a- The Necronomicon! It's an invention! The dream of a xenophobic pulp writer.

KELLY
Suppose Mr. Howard Philips Lovecraft incorporated a real book into those skawly yarns of his. You've seen odder stuff.

HORATIO
Kelly, all of H.P. Lovecraft's stories were about the cosmic insignificance of humanity in a on an earth waiting to be crushed by the sleeping bulk of mad, tentacle-studded gods. They were about the futility and emptiness of our infinitesimal civilization. If half of the stuff he wrote about was real, then all this (He thumps the Spinoza.) is a big fat waste of time.

Plus he was racist as a barrel of klansmen.

The Librarian reenters with a horrible-looking key.

LIBRARIAN
Here we are. On loan from the British Museum.

She opens a glass case that has been sitting, unnoticed, upstage. It contains a squat, black, evil-looking book, which she takes out and sets on the table.

LIBRARIAN
Let me know when you're finished. And if the words start swimming about just give it a smart rap on the binding.

She returns to stocking the shelves.

HORATIO
What do you even want with this?

KELLY
Thought you weren't interested.

HORATIO
You're going to steal it!

KELLY
Want to shout that a mite louder?

HORATIO
Someone hired you to steal an ancient book of evil because you're the only hooligan in Dublin thick enough to do it!

KELLY
Flatterer. They only hired me to read a passage aloud.

HORATIO
Have you not seen Evil Dead? Put it down.

KELLY
Do you still have that ticklish spot behind your left ear?

HORATIO
That's hardly relev hoo hoo hoo ha ha stop it hee hee ah ah ah!

Kelly has, in quick succession, tickled Horatio behind his left ear, then twisted his arm painfully behind his back. She opens the book.

KELLY
Here we are. "That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Lovecraft wgah'nagl fhtagn." Easiest hundred quid I ever made. Fancy a pint on me?

The lights flicker.

HORATIO
Kelly?

KELLY
Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fthagn!

She collapses.

HORATIO
"Hey Hamlet, don't have a poison sword fight." "Hey Kelly, don't read from the ancient book of evil." Story of my life.

LIBRARIAN
No sleeping!

HORATIO
No, the, ah. Glue fumes in the binding were a little much for her. She's coming back around.

LIBRARIAN
A likely story. Back in the case for you, Mr. Book of Evil.

She replaces the book in the case, locks it, hangs the key on a ring on her belt, and resumes stocking the shelves.

HORATIO
C'mon, Kelly, show me some higher brain activity and there's Jameson in it for you.

KELLY
Muuuuhhh.

HORATIO
There we go. Can you hear me, Kelly?

KELLY
I dreamed such howling, shadow-haunted gulfs amidst the coldly burning stars. Do I wake?

HORATIO
Yes?

KELLY
These are not the gambrel rooftops and gold-flecked evening skies of my native Providence! After many storm-tossed leagues on a churning sea of cosmic blasphemies, the dreamer comes ashore!

HORATIO
Kelly?

KELLY
Employing incantations for the conveyance of the soul across cyclopean chasms of space and time, copied from the Necronomicon and plundered from tablets in the decaying cities of the Great Race of Yith, I have propelled my dream self from an infirm body and a cramped and sooty era into an unfathomable age to be!

HORATIO
So not Kelly.

KELLY
Howard Philips Lovecraft.

HORATIO
Un Fucking Believable.

Wanna clear out of my lady friend?

KELLY
I've supplanted her for purposes of study, as the conical people of Yith sent forth migratory souls to plumb the silted and obscure waters of history-to-be. I recited the Necronomicon's spell in 1936; my meager estate and extensive network of correspondents arranged to hire a vessel in the present day to read from the Necronomicon and provide a tether to undreamt decades.

HORATIO
They're gonna have to stay undreamt, HP. Scoot.

KELLY
Not until I've gazed beyond the fraying edges of man's time on this misbegotten sphere. Guide me, leprous youth, through the starlit streets beneath the gibbous moon of tomorrow!

HORATIO
No.

KELLY
Have tremors erupted from the fetid ocean floor, heralding the knocking of the Great Old Ones on the horror-gilded doors of their non-Euclidean tombs beneath the waves? Does the far side of Pluto contain the flapping fungoid civilization thought to abduct men from the terror-blighted woods of New England? Have they found a use for the degenerate races?

HORATIO
I know a Moor of Venice who will slap the shit out of you.

KELLY
A creeping foreboding arrests my senses. My soul drifted too long in the cold reaches beyond human thought. To linger here means madness and death.

HORATIO
Whoa, whoa. Why?

KELLY
The grasping claws of that which guards the ether! The ever-open compound eye of He Who Watches! The crawlers through the cosmos!

HORATIO
ENOUGH WITH THE SENTENCE FRAGMENTS!

KELLY
I WAS FOLLOWED!

HORATIO
Shhh!

Horatio motions to the librarian, who is still stocking a shelf, her back to them.

HORATIO
She should've shushed us by now.

He approaches her, reaches out a trembling hand.

HORATIO
Surly lady? You okay?

The librarian jerks around, her features contorted, her eyes rolling and empty of humanity. Perhaps she has some terrifying makeup.

LIBRARIAN
hai c'ftaghu lw'nafh

KELLY
The shambling servants of the outer gods, who watch in jealous hunger for egress into the waking world!

LIBRARIAN
h'geb lloig hlirgh grah'n

KELLY
They wear the weathered book crone as a beekeeper dons a padded glove to grasp his quarry!

HORATIO
WOULD YOU SHUT UP!

The librarian takes out a taser and jabs it at Horatio.

LIBRARIAN
l'hee n'gha

HORATIO
It is tasing us! What do you recommend!

KELLY
The only way to dispel a man of Yith against his will is the dread incantation of Nameless l'Hurg.

HORATIO
If he's nameless why is he called-

KELLY
There's no time! The spell's in the Necronomicon, but-

HORATIO
Great! It's right over there!

He motions to the case.

HORATIO
The key's...on her belt. Whoopie.

LIBRARIAN
STELL'BSNA THROD

The librarian hurls Horatio into Kelly and they both fly across the room and into the opposite bookshelf. Books fall on them.

HORATIO
Grab the key! We have to send it back!

KELLY
Therein lies the problem. The dread incantation would send me back as well.

HORATIO
I am completely okay with that. EAT CLANCY, HAG!

He throws a giant novel at the librarian, who continues to stalk them with the taser. Through all the following speech, she stalks and they keep her at bay with books.

HORATIO
You're going to be unhappy wherever you go. The entire universe and everyone in it fills you with loathing. Your prose drips with it.

KELLY
A dear friend of mine, another writer, Robert, shot himself recently. His prose was muscular, merry, and now the sight of a blank page puts me in convulsions as I think of what he might have written, had he lived. Then, like a hackneyed twist inserted by an editor to speed the plot along: I am diagnosed with cancer of the bowels. Even the flabby leering insanity of creation is preferable to the silence of the tomb. I will travel where I must to live. I gorge on life as a starving man gobbles tainted meat.

HORATIO
Geez. Guess I can't blame you there.

KELLY
Also, some colored folk moved in next to me.

HORATIO
Man, that is it! It is 2010! The president of the United States is a black man!

KELLY
WHAT.

HORATIO
And furthermore, your stories are nihilistic bullshit! There's no lurking interdimensional menace coming to snuff us out!

The librarian grabs Horatio by the throat and attempts to shove the taser in his face. He grips it by the wrist, stopping the sparking contact prods inches from his face.

LIBRARIAN
mnahn' hai-nyth

KELLY
You were saying.

HORATIO
Well anyway. Human civilization isn't doomed. Life means something! I can say that and most of my friends died in a quadruple poisoning!

KELLY
And mine is the unrealistic worldview?

HORATIO
The world isn't ending anytime soon, HP! You just prefer that scenario to learning to live with everyone!

He continues to struggle with the librarian. Kelly ponders.

KELLY
...this black president. You expect me to believe he can be trusted?

HORATIO
I trust a man who publicly cops to reading Savage Sword of Conan.

KELLY
Conan...Robert's barbarian character?

HORATIO
After he died, Robert Howard's pulp fiction was adapted into a comic book and the leader of the free world has read every issue. Tell me that doesn't make even you the slightest bit hopeful. Tell me that doesn't give you courage to face the end.

Kelly yanks the ring of keys from the librarian's belt and runs for the Necronomicon's case. The librarian starts to lurch after her.

LIBRARIAN
naf'l n'ghft

HORATIO
Go! Go! Go!

KELLY
Keep it away from me!

HORATIO
Lady! I bet there's enough librarian left in you to really hate it when I do this:

He grabs the volume of Spinoza and tears a page from it. The librarian roars at Horatio and forgets Kelly.

HORATIO
Take your time over there.

KELLY
There are too many keys here!

HORATIO
It's the Key of Cosmic Despair! It's gonna stick out!

KELLY
Got it!

She unlocks the case, takes out the Necronomicon, and recites:

KELLY
Ya vulgtlagln tharanak uln...

The lights flicker. The librarian snarls, turns back to Kelly, charges at her. Horatio hops on her back and puts her in a chokehold, but it barely slows her down.

KELLY
...vulgtm nafl-lloig shuggor uaaaah!

Lightbulbs burst. The librarian and Horatio hit Kelly and they all collapse in a heap. They lie there a moment. Horatio is the first to sit up.

HORATIO
Kelly? Is he gone?

KELLY
Is who gone? What's this old skinful of shite doing on me?

HORATIO
Thank God.

He pulls Kelly up and kisses her dramatically.

KELLY
Thought you weren't interested anymore.

HORATIO
That was before I saw how much I'd miss your personality if you were ever possessed by a paranoid bigot from the 30's. Hypothetically.

KELLY
You're such a sweetheart. There's something I've been meaning to tell you.

HORATIO
What's that?

She leans in close.

KELLY
The Lovecraft fanclub that hired me to read the incantation? They did want me to steal the book afterwards.

She takes the taser, which she has lifted surreptitiously from the unconscious librarian, and jams it into Horatio's side.

HORATIO
Urk!

He falls face first into one of the books on the floor.

HORATIO
Kelly? Can't...move.

Kelly flees the library with the Necronomicon under her arm.

HORATIO
Hrm.

He reads from the book.

HORATIO
"At the Mountains of Madness". H.P. Lovecraft. Good Christ.

"Poor devils! After all, they were not evil things of their kind. They were the men of another age and another order of being. They had not been savages- for what indeed had they done? Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star spawn- whatever they had been, they were men!"

Published 1936. Huh. Maybe he wasn't such a bad guy after all.

The librarian sits up. Gapes at the destruction. Looks at Horatio.

LIBRARIAN
YOU!

HORATIO
May he burn in hell.

The End

Wanted: The Bunnyman

2010-05-18T22:59:00.007-05:00

As followers of this blog already know, I'm exploring the origins of this long-eared n'eredowell who's haunted DC's backyard for four decades. And my collaborators and I want YOU to be in the project! If you have ever heard a version of the Bunny Man story reported as fact, no matter how outlandish the tale or dubious the source, we'd like to interview you for possible incorporation into our show. Shoot me an e-mail at SeamusSan355@gmail.com and we'll get in touch with you. Please pass this call for stories out to any DC-area contacts you have.

And we've named our piece! "Bunny, Bunny" will go up as part of the Source Festival's Artistic Blind Dates segment during the week of June 21-28. We'll perform on the following dates:

Wednesday, June 23, 8 pm
Friday, June 25, 8 pm
Saturday, June 26, 1 pm

Horatio Week 31: Check This Shit Out

2010-05-16T09:37:00.005-05:00

The New Adventures of Horatio

Week 31: Check This Shit Out

A supermarket checkout counter. Margot, the cashier, drafts a letter while speaking into the PA system..

MARGOT
Attention, Valuemart shoppers. We will be closing shortly. Please gather your purchases and check out at register 11. Can't miss it, I'm the last lit register.

She puts down the PA mic.

...for the fifth time this week. Thanks for scheduling that, Mr. Mendoza.

She tucks the letter into her apron pocket.

Enter Horatio. His clothes are torn, his eyes wild, numerous small bandages cover his face and hands, and he has Excalibur strapped to his back. He places a 24-pack of beer, several bags of pretzels, an assortment of pain killers, and some melons on the conveyor belt.

MARGOT
...sir?

HORATIO

Hm?

MARGOT
Did you find everything you were looking for?

HORATIO
Almost. You might want to stock up on Guaranteed Personality.

MARGOT
I'm sorry?

HORATIO
Clash humor. Skip it, it's late. Yes, I found everything.

MARGOT

Great. I'll just need to see some ID.

HORATIO
Why.

MARGOT
For the alcohol.

HORATIO
Sure. The alcohol. Okay.

He fishes a bedraggled and bloody passport from a coat pocket, hands it to her.

MARGOT
Says here your name is Alfred Pennyworth.

HORATIO
That's me.

MARGOT
You're a fifty-year-old English valet?

HORATIO
Is that a problem?

MARGOT

...no, you know what, it's late, it's not worth the aggravation... I'll have you checked right out, Mr. Pennyworth. $39.95 is your total.

Horatio drops some coins on the counter. They land with a heavy clank.

MARGOT
Sir, these appear to be pirate doubloons.

HORATIO
Don't worry about making change.

MARGOT
I'm going to have to clear this with someone.

HORATIO
You don't have to do anything, Margot. They're good honest doubloons. My word of honor.

MARGOT
Ooookay. Will there be anything else?

HORATIO
As a matter of fact-

He takes out a beer and draws Excalibur.

MARGOT
Jesus, is that a real sword?!

He opens the beer with Excalibur.

HORATIO
If you could taste this for me.

MARGOT

I'm working.

HORATIO
It's late. In your mind you've already driven home and kicked back with a frosty one.

MARGOT
Why do you want me to taste it?

HORATIO
No reason. Poison.

MARGOT
Why would a successful supermarket chain randomly poison crates of their own beer?

HORATIO
I've seen people get pretty impractical with their use of poison, lady!

MARGOT
Fine!

She shotguns the beer. Horatio looks at her intently. She does not drop dead.

HORATIO
Hm. Good.

MARGOT
You're the neediest underage drinker I've ever seen.

HORATIO
I'm 27, thank you.

MARGOT

You're a twitchy mess with a fake ID.

HORATIO
I'm a fugitive from the Danish government! Have you not seen the wanted posters outside?

MARGOT
When I come in to work the register I'm sort of in the zone. Outside world's a blur, y'know?

HORATIO

This is the first time I've bought groceries in months. I always hated grocery shopping.

MARGOT
Well, I hope we made your experience at Valuemart a good one.

HORATIO
Just, lately? I can't do something banal if I try. Every week, almost, something crazy-

A clatter of rolling cans offstage.

HORATIO
See what I mean?

MARGOT
What is that?

HORATIO
Snow demon living in your meat locker. I was hoping he wouldn't wake up. Gimme a sec.

He walks offstage. Sounds of fighting. Margot watches and shotguns another beer.

Horatio reenters, covered in melting snow.

HORATIO
What was I saying?

MARGOT
Every week, almost-

HORATIO
Yeah, every week something crazy happens! I don't even want to think about what it'll be like trying to get my library card renewed. There's this vocabulary of normalcy I've all but forgotten.

MARGOT

Do you want your life to be normal?

HORATIO
I don't know. For a while there I wanted bloody revenge but I crossed that off. Hence the wanted posters.

MARGOT
So now?

HORATIO
I'd like to get my master's.

MARGOT
Go get it, then. All the other stuff, the- ?

HORATIO
Snow demons.

MARGOT
They're distractions. Don't mind the screaming babies in the checkout line, just scan the items. Y'know?

HORATIO
Huh. Thank you, Margot. How about you? Going to turn in that letter anytime soon?

MARGOT
What do you mean.

HORATIO
The letter of resignation you've got in your apron pocket. I had something like that back when I was an intern. Going to give it to your boss?

MARGOT
That I wrote a letter of resignation for a supermarket job kind of indicates I need the job pretty badly, don't you think? It's a form of therapy, that's all.

HORATIO
Is it a money thing?

MARGOT
No, I love what the apron does for my figure. Yeah it's a money thing.

HORATIO
Hm. Guess I'll just leave this wanted poster here and be on my way. Did you know there's a reward for information on my whereabouts?

MARGOT
No, like I said, I'm, the zone, what do you mean whereabouts?

HORATIO
Thanks again for the advice. Think I'll start hitting the books again. If, say, the Danish authorities were to descend on this area seeking my capture, that'd just be another distraction. Nothing I couldn't handle.

MARGOT
If you say so.

HORATIO
Take it easy, Margot.

Exit Horatio, with his groceries. Margot looks at the wanted poster. She takes out the letter, scribbles on it.

MARGOT
Mr. Mendoza. Another uneventful closing. There's a puddle of ice water by the meat locker. I have a feeling it'll still be cold to the touch tomorrow morning, and I can hear whispering voices coming from it even out here by the front register. I'll bet if you looked in it you'd see people reflected, but they'd shake their fists and mouth threats and not behave the way reflections should.

Anyway. This puddle. You can mop it up yourself.

She tapes the note to the register and leaves.

The End