Shadows Out of Time

It had been a short call. But right in the middle of rehearsals? Right in the thick of trying to recreate the ghosts that haunt us all? Most of Hamlet’s father’s speeches are short too…at least in the beginning. Revenge. Remember. Swear. Everything that makes us human. Some scholars believe Shakespeare invented the human. Maybe. But maybe he just had a dad. And his dad got old. And his dad got sick. And fate demanded action.

My situation right now demanded action. It demanded I do fucking something or freeze to death in the middle of downtown. Still woozy, entering a kind of extremis fugue, I imagined myself being found years from now by anthropologists. He must have been a slave of some sort. Look how he’s branded with letters. Not wealthy…or smart. The sediment between the macadam and the new graphene city substructure suggests there was snow, and all he’s wearing is flimsy polyurethane. Tattoo of tragedy and comedy on his left shoulder. Small notebook in left pocket. Scribbled notes regarding Shakes — Ah, theater guy. Actor or director. So, yes, slave.

I tried, I really tried to keep my mind on the danger at hand. I swiveled my head side to side, looking for someplace, anyplace that might show signs of life, but it was the weekend, in the middle of a town with no nightlife, precious little foot traffic on a busy day. They used to have a world class theater down here. Also shut down in the Eighties. I kept walking, barely able to see the street, let alone the looming cave walls…buildings. I feared I might be losing it. I’d heard about frostbite victims. I’d read that terrible little story by Hans Christian Anderson, another by Jack London. I didn’t have any matches to warm me. I didn’t have a dog to disdain me.

Finally, up ahead, I saw a faint light that seemed to come from between two of the larger office buildings. The warm glow lit the mirror cladding like fire plumes leading me to a box canyon cave, like offstage torches guiding me to the castle perilous. I thought of Bernardo and Marcellus and Horatio following the ghost light toward Elsinore’s horrible secret, the dead father that could kill them all. My mind was everywhere and nowhere. I didn’t know how long I’d walked or how much longer I could hold out. I wished I had some matches, or a dog, or a dead father to guide me.

I turned the corner into an alley labeled Angell, and there it was.

Some sort of shop lit up like Candlemas.

Stepping into the deep corridor between the two monoliths on either side, I noticed both the snow and sleet had stopped. Or perhaps it just didn’t fall here. The store had no name, no specific sign, but I could just make out comics gleaming their three-color glory from the plate glass storefront. Also, intricately blown-glass vials with long tubes flickering like jewels in the night, like genie bottles of every color. As I got closer, I saw that the storefront, the brick façade itself might not sport a name, but it showcased two large murals. On one side of the windows, airbrushed onto the brick, loomed an image of Force Commander from the Micronauts. He stood just behind his much cooler, more clearly rendered horse, Oberon. The halfbiological, half-mechanical steed reared up on its hind legs, its geometric curves and white eyes making it look like an art nouveau sculpture drawn by Michael Golden.

On the other side of the windows, facing the horse rampant like a lover, was an image I knew almost as well as the comic book characters. Oberon, I knew from all those days collecting comics beside my father. This image, I knew from all those days collecting unemployment after I left his house. Here, a perfect recreation of the woman from JOB rolling papers stared across both window and entryway, head tilted back, hair wild as a stallion’s mane, eyes half-closed, hand half-raised to lips awaiting either her equine lover or the approaching, smoldering joint. She reminded me of a noble nymph captured in tapestry, a fairy queen. This design was even more nouveau than the other.

Shivering and footsore, shaken and lost, all I could think of as I approached the door was: I am passing now between two gods, between two forces, Titania and Oberon. I am stepping into the conflux of their power. I fished one of the mini-bar tequila bottles from my pocket and hammered it whole.