#shooketh?

   GRIEF HAD LEFT A SORT OF    dull,  void place  in the pit of his chest where his heart had been.    the death of  horwendil --   of warrior father,  called hamlet sr.,  straightforward and solemn in all the pictures --   had been the  uprooting of the normalcy of amleth’s  life.  every time his brain touched at the thought ( that his father was dead, dead, dead,  that he would never see him again, the confirmed truth he kept locked up deep inside that he was always a disappointment to him, that his father would never  breathe or speak or move again,   and that someday,  amleth would be in the same state ),   every part of his mind recoiled  as if  a hand had been laid on a  hot stove  and just as  hot tears would spring in his eyes,  breaths moving  QUICKLY  as anxiety consumed him.  

 his friends,  no doubt,  were aware;   he knew this because they were hovering, hovering in the way that friends did when they were unsure of how to comfort him.  out of the corner of his eye he could see   rosencrantz and guildenstern exchanging concerned glances  from the  slit in the doorway;  when he passed the entrance to the hall,  it seemed as though there was a new letter from ophelia each day,  none of which he felt he had the strength to read, much less respond to;   and there was horatio, steady,  strong  horatio,   who seemed to wordlessly  tend to the  prince in his  tempest-esque grief,  allowing him his  unexplained  tears  and  mania  and  terror.     to rosencrantz and guildestern,  those who amleth claimed to adhere, he insisted with his  words  that he was just grieving,  that this is just something he had to  work through     --    yet horatio was the one who received all of his genuine behavior and,  in turn,  all of  amleth’s  love.   horatio was the one whose torso he clung to like a child   /   whose shoulder had, over the days,  become stained with royal tears /  whose lips he kissed as a reminder that he was still real,  that there was still life in the world.        without even knowing it,    amleth had let horatio, somewhere along the way,  into his nutshell of a universe;                  from this point on  / till the end of amleth’s life,   it was closed off to everyone but the two of them. 

 it was days after the announcement of his death  that amleth received the letter from his mother detailing the plans for the funeral, pleading him come from the safe haven that was wittenberg  back home  --   home,  which amleth could only perceive to be a  colossal grave,  now.    amleth could feel horatio’s eyes on him as a fresh wave of tears overtook him,  silently,  now,    and as amleth  crumpled up the letter and tossed it  ungracefully  across the  room.    he leaned against the counter of the kitchen as if he might collapse,   face  buried  in   his hands  and  head  canted  downward,  chest sharply  retracting as a  sob  constricted his  throat.   he’s dead,  he’s dead,  he’s  dead!     when horatio came up beside him,   arm curling  around his shoulders to offer some support,   amleth found  turning toward  horatio  and  embracing him  as easy  as breathing was on a normal  basis.    the prince  wept,  saying softly,  shakily  /   lacking all the  COMPOSURE  he’d already forgotten that he was supposed to have:  “i have  --  to g - go back  --   home.”    amleth  cried,   shoulders shaking.   he felt  horatio’s arms tightening around him. 

“shh,  shh.   it’s okay,  amleth.  it’s okay.”       he heard horatio’s  steady voice  console him.     “there is no where you would go where i won’t be with you.”