Yawn! It had been four hundred and fifty years or was it more? Shakespeare had forgotten. He had grown used to the constant buzz in the church; it was all he had heard all these centuries. Every year some people came and laid a wreath on his birthday and on his day of death. Every year, he would hear some people remark, “Well! We must raise more funds next year for this occasion”. More funds? What were they talking about?
“I think I could take a peek at what they are up to. After all I have been granted one chance to re-visit the world by the witches and also a chance by the angels. My bones are also intact and so am I because of the epitaph I composed for my tombstone.”
“GOOD FRIEND FOR JESUS SAKE FORBEARE,
TO DIGG THE DUST ENCLOASED HEARE,
BLESTE BE THE MAN THAT SPARES THES STONES,
AND CURST BE HE THAT MOVES MY BONES.”
“Ha! That was a brilliant idea!” he thought with glee.
He didn’t have to struggle much as he rose. He looked up. People were busy praying. May be he could quietly slip out of one of the side doors. Wait, but where should he go first? Yes! His very own Globe Theatre! He could wear some of the costumes he had used and travel. After all he needed to meet people and be recognised.
He left the church and entered the street. What he saw first shocked him. “Why doth a person talk to himself? Are they memorizing lines for a play? What is that they behold to their ear?” he wondered. More surprise awaited him. “Whence did this bridge across the Thames, become of metal? And who were the good people who dared live in such tall houses?”
He reached a rehearsal room. “Sir, are you lost?” a man dressed as Hamlet asked.
“No, but I want to know which plays are being staged today.” He asked, quite puzzled at this humiliation of not being recognized.
“Just go to the man who stands there. You know …can always get you in.” replied the man with a wink and left.
Shakespeare decided to follow him and see where he went. He entered back stage and saw actors from his play ‘Hamlet’, a work so dear to him. He decided to watch.
ACT I SCENE I: Elsinore. A platform before the castle.
[Enter Ghost (a pair of ear-phones plugged into his ears)]
Marcellus: Peace! Break thee off! Look where it comes again! Move Mr Ghost!
Bernardo: He looks just like the King that’s dead.
Marcellus: Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.
Bernardo: Doesn’t he look like the King? Mark it, Horatio.
Horatio to Bernardo and Marcellus: Look! he has his ear-phones plugged in again. How do you think he can hear me?
Bernardo: Horatio you go on….
Marcellus. Question it, Horatio.
Horatio:
What are you doing hanging around at this time of the night,
Spying in that warlike form
In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march?
By heaven I charge thee speak!
“Where did thou get those lines?! They were never written by me. And what is it that the ghost wears in his ears? That is not his costume!!!” Shakespeare sounded like a thunderbolt from the Tempest.
“Who in the name of God are you? This is written by some guy called Shakespeare. He wrote some stuff which is just beyond our understanding. So we had to re-write it to suit us. And what do you mean by YOU never wrote them. Off course YOU never wrote them ‘coz I wrote them. By the way, why do you have that Shakespeare costume on? There is no play about him tonight.” replied Horatio.
“I, in the name of God, am Shakespeare and swear that I wrote Hamlet! And l shalt prove this. Follow me!”
“Something was strange about this man, spooky actually,” Marcellus thought. His eyes had an unearthly glitter which he had never before seen.
They followed him down the corridors of the theatre. Horatio could feel sweat running down his temples. And then…. the man walked right through the wall to the archives library.
“Run!” The only word they could think of. “We have rehearsed so hard that we have begun to hallucinate!”
Shakespeare returned with volumes of his play, but found no one to see it. All labour Lost!
Maybe it was time to see a new country, which now, as a ghost, he could do. He had heard visitors talking about his plays being staged across the world. He closed his eyes and…
Lo! He landed in India.
(Image credit: Author Cody from Flickr used under a CC BY 2.0 license)
