Shakespeare and THE BLOGFEST OF DEATH!

"Alas! poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning?"

In Act V of Shakespeare's Hamlet, the titled character finds the unearthed skull of a old friend and wistfully reminiscences about the lighter, happier times spent with his dead but not forgotten friend. I personally took from the scene, that Hamlet once found good lessons to be learned from this old friend--the jest and light heartedness he attempts throughout the story. Knowing this person had a positive impact on him. And now, holding his friends skull in his hand, even good memories have a haunting effect on him.

I feel that my MC Wyatt (Ghost Mountain) is going through a similar painful remembrance of his not long dead Uncle. In his case he misses him and hasn't dealt with the loss, so much so even good memories--and the positive life lessons this kind and funny man gave him--now hurt Wyatt to even think on. Before the story begins, he has already chosen to block out the things that hurt and that means the good stuff too.

"There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will."

What tragedies (death) does is change us--alters relationships and life paths. I hope to have my hero believe more in personal choice than in divinity or fate. Unlike our poor Hamlett.

Below is my entry for The Blogfest of Death at Tessa's Blurb. It's a flashback to the night Wyatt's Uncle was killed. This flashback occurs when Wyatt visits the property for the first time in over a year since that night. He stops by the property after leaving a domestic dispute call that's left him shaken and confused. This way too real remembrance of that night will not help my MC's mental state, but I hope it will illustrate how memories are becoming too real to those having them in Mercy Corners.

So read up and please stop by Tessa's Blurb linked above and read all the rest of the wonderful entries being born into the blogisphere this weekend!

Wyatt stepped further into the overgrown clearing on autopilot, wide eyed but seeing nothing but the past.

The sunny fall afternoon faded quickly to night, the grass under his feet sunk away to charcoaled wood and rubble. The heat of flames joined the slick of sweat on his skin. And the buzz and chatter from his portable, along with the building breeze, grew into the paralyzing scream of a man.

“Willis…?”
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“WILLIS!”

The newly appointed Sheriff of Mercy Corners dodged the town’s two fire trucks and jumped over hose, slamming into the shoulders of Volunteer Fireman and neighbors alike to get to his Uncle Will.

“Damn it…WILLIS!” Wyatt jumped to the first fiery step of the salt box house he and his Uncle shared and was caught in a flying tackle that pulled him backwards and to the ground before he could reach the second. “No…!”

“Wyatt we tried. We tried…” Tim Clark, friend and Fire Chief, still held onto Wyatt’s middle, while two other sets of broad hand came down on his arms and shoulders to pull him further away from the flames. “It’s too late, Wyatt.”

Wyatt slowed his struggle long enough to look into the smudged and desperate face of his childhood friend. He’d never seen a lie in his friend’s eyes. He saw none now.

“AAAAAAAAAHHHHG AAAAAAA!”

His Uncle’s dying shrieks set off another fight to hold Wyatt to the ground and away from a heroic but certain death. Mere moments after, the second floor of the old farm house fell into the first, sending out a spray of sparks and flame.

Wyatt sank slowly from his friends grip to the ground. No more sounds but the pop and crack of fire could be heard from Willis Paxton’s childhood home.

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He had stayed on his knees that night and his friends let him, with no attempt at comfort. There was none to be had and even if they had tried, he wouldn’t have felt it or anything else for that matter.

The young Sheriff was on his knees now, the wisps of stray weeds and wildflowers bent and danced on a sunny fall afternoon breeze around him. The only burn Wyatt felt now was in his eyes and throat and the sun beating down his back while he slumped beside the year old rubble of his family’s life.