A Real Prince

Hello everybody, this is Horatio.

As you've probably heard on the evening news, my best friend Hamlet was involved in the carnage in Elsinore Street. The media are taking this whole thing out of context, calling it "the Danish Columbine High" and all that kind of shit. You may have seen the psychiatric "experts" on CNN claiming that he was a serial killer, or that he was suffering from some kind of "Oedipus complex". Well, I managed to guess Hamlet's password for this LiveJournal (it was "2bORNOT2b", but I've changed it) and I'm adding this entry to let you know what really went down in that house. I should know, I was there.

If you haven't read this LiveJournal so far, I suggest you start at the beginning to find out what was going on in the Hamlet household before all this happened. You probably heard of the duel that was about to go down between Hamlet and his girlfriend's brother, Laertes.

So anyway, I was in the mall with Hamlet and he was talking to me about all the stuff that had gone on in his life recently. I tell you, this guy has seen some shit. He seemed determined to end the whole thing one way or another. And then this guy came up to us, name of Osric. He's a friend of Hamlet's stepdad and he would be the arbiter in this duel thing. He told us that Hamlet's stepdad Claudius (who Hamlet hated) was betting an Xbox and a DVD player on Hamlet to win the duel.

So we went down to Hamlet's house and into the backyard, where the duel would be held. Everyone's there: Claudius, Hamlet's mom, and a lot of friends. They've got snacks and drinks and everything. Hamlet tells Laertes he's sorry for what he did at his sister's funeral. Laertes goes, "That's OK.. CHICKEN." So they both pick a sword and this Osric guy explains that the first one to get three hits wins the duel.

Now Hamlet told me that he'd been practicing fencing at uni, and it showed. He was really good and hit Laertes two times in a row. Then and there, it looked like it was all over. But then Laertes goes all medieval on Hamlet's ass and gets a hit. Hamlet gets even more angry, there's a scuffle and they drop the swords. They must have taken each other's swords at that point. So then they fight some more and sure enough, Hamlet gets the third hit in there.

So Hamlet's doing this little victory dance and we're high-fiving an' shit, when suddenly Hamlet's mom starts making these choking noises. It's just a few seconds before she keels over and dies, and Claudius, her second husband, is looking like he did it.

So then Laertes tells everybody what's going on. Claudius put poison on Laertes' fencing sword, and in the drink. He figured that if Laertes wouldn't be able to hit Hamlet even once, he could still offer his stepson a "victory drink". So now Hamlet's mom is dead (she drank the drink by accident), with Hamlet and Laertes (who was hit with his own sword) soon to follow. I can tell that Hamlet's figuring this out, too, because he goes, "Dude, WTF?!?!", jumps aside and hits his stepdad. So now HE's gonna die, too.

I go to Hamlet and he's like gasping and choking and stuff.. it's not pretty.
"I'm dying, Horatio," he says.
"Yeah, I know," I say, and, well, I may have cried a bit at that point.

Anyway, I've been grilled by the police for the whole day and I've pointed them to this weblog. Based on that, the DA is gonna ask the city coroner to dig up Hamlet's dad's body so they can confirm that he was killed, probably with the same poison that was used here. The guys from CSI have cordoned off half the street and they're reconstructing the whole story based on what I've told them. I've no doubt that they will be able to confirm what I've told them.

I'd just like to say here that Hamlet was a great guy, best friend I ever had, and that he didn't deserve to die. Sure, the whole Polonius thing was unfortunate, but him sharing the house with a killer didn't help much either. I'm leaving this LiveJournal as it is so that everybody can read the story in his own words.

In conclusion, I do wanna say that the rumors that I've been talking with some Hollywood people are true. I want to be sure that Hamlet's story is told with dignity and respect, and there's this director I've been talking to who seems committed to keepin' it real. He'll also be writing the screenplay, and based on what he's done so far, I'm confident that he will make a movie that will be remembered for decades to come. I can't mention any names, obviously, all I can say is kudos to Will and here's hoping it all works out. Hamlet would have wanted it that way.

Horatio was good enough to pick me up from the airport. I tell ya, sometimes it seems like this guy is the only friend I have left in the world. We took the shuttle and it dropped us off in one of the suburbs. We had to walk from there to my home. As usual when we get back from the airport, we took a shortcut through the Golden Oaks cemetery home. We used to have these excellent goth parties there at night.

Anyway, as we were walking among the headstones, we hear some singing in the distance. I can tell that Horatio's freaking out, what with the ghosts and all, but I can see this spade appearing and disappearing ahead of us. It's some worker digging a grave, and he's singing a tune.
'I respect a guy who enjoys his work', I say to Horatio.
Then the guy stops singing, goes 'whoops' as he hits something hard with his shovel, and throws out a skull. I pick it up.
'Dude, ew!' Horatio goes.
'Oh, grow up. "Help me, Mr Willis! I see dead people!" It's just a guy's skull. Can you imagine that this guy was once some big shot? He probably bossed all kinds of people around, beat up his old lady, stuff like that. And now he's just like the rest of them, Today's Special at McWorm's.'
'You said it', Horatio says.
The guy keeps singing and throws out another skull.
'And take this guy, what do you think he was?'
'Beats me.'
'I'm thinking… some sleazy lawyer, you know, the kind that hangs around hospitals to find victims of car accidents, so he can sue the poor shmucks who hit them. And look at him now, he gets bumped upside the head by this guy's spade, and he can’t even press charges for himself. Say', I go to the gravedigger.
'How can I help you, son?'
'Whose grave are you digging?'
'Mine, obviously.'
Aha. A smartass.
'Sure it is, seeing as you're lying in it.'
'I'm standing upright.'
'Standing upright, but still lying. What man are you digging it for is what I'm asking.'
'Not for a man.'
'Woman then.'
'Not for a woman either.'
'Who.. are.. you.. digging.. this.. grave.. for?' I say.
'For something that used to be a woman.'
'Glad we got that cleared up. How long have you had this job?'
'Since, oh, I don't know, since the Hamlets moved down here. You know the Hamlets, right? With the kid who got sent to England?'
'Why did he get sent to England?' I asked.
'Because he was crazy, that's why. They sent him there to get well. Or not; no one would notice there anyway.'
'Why not?'
'Because those guys are all crazy.'
I didn't want to pursue this line of conversation, so I ask: 'How long does a body stay in the ground before it starts rotting?'
'I don't know, it depends. Some people are rotten long before they die. But I guess five or six years. And here's another one.' He shows me a skull.
'Do you know whose grave you're digging up? Say, whose skull is that?'
'Probably Mr Yorick's, that bozo from Elm Street. He once poured a bottle of beer over me, the moron.'
'This is Yorick?'
'Was.'
'I knew this guy, Horatio', I say, as I look the skull in the eye sockets. 'He was the local clown in our neighborhood. Every kid on the block had him over for their birthday party. Also did weddings and bar mitswas. Yorro the Clown, that was his stage name. Most kids were scared shitless, you know how it is with clowns. But I liked the guy. Look at him, he's still grinning.'
'Have a nice day, fellas', says the gravedigger, and leaves.
'You know, it's funny when you think about it. Everyone who ever lived looks like this now. Even someone like, say, JFK. Smells like this, too.'
'Dude, look who's coming.' Horatio says.

We duck behind a tombstone and what do we see but a whole procession. First it's six pallbearers carrying a coffin. And then it's just about everyone I know. In front are a priest and Laertes, Ophelia's brother, who I guess is back from living it up in Paris. There's my mom, sniffing; and my stepdad, supporting her like the caring, loving rat bastard that he is. And then there's all kinds of people from the neighborhood.
There's only one person missing. I think who it might be and then suddenly I get this really empty feeling in my stomach.
The pallbearers lower the coffin into the grave and the priest starts giving his speech. When he gets to Ophelia's name, I almost go into a fit. Laertes is flipping, too, and there, right in the middle of the speech, he jumps into the grave! 'Just bury me with her!' he shouts.
I can't suppress a shout and before I know it, I'm approaching the grave myself and see him lying on top of the coffin. 'And me too!' I say and jump on top him. We get into a fight right there and then. 'You sick fuck!' he shouts. 'First you kill my dad, and now you made my sister kill herself, too! You wanna piece of me, huh? You wanna piece of ME?!' and he starts choking me.
Then there's a whole lotta commotion, and we're both pulled out.
'You oughta be ashamed of yourselves!' my mom shouts.
'This ends right here, right now!' Laertes yells at me.
'Oh yeah? Bring it on, motherfucker!'
'Now now,' says my stepdad. 'I'm sure we can do this the proper way. Weren't you guys on the fencing team at university?'
We both nod.
'Then let's have a little contest tomorrow, shall we? Nothing serious, all you need to do is hit the other guy, and then it's over. OK?'
We both nod again.

So now I'm meeting Laertes for a duel tomorrow. I've been checking out the old rapier (I dropped out of fencing class in my sophomore year); I hope I'm not too out of practice.

Well, I didn't stick around in merry old England for long. Turns out my uncle has plans to do me in. I should have known.

When Rosencrantz & Guildenstern went to the toilet on the plane (I swear, these guys do everything together, it's like they're Siamese twins), I flipped open Guildenstern's laptop. He'd been looking at it all during the flight, turning the screen away from me. He'd locked it but I knew his password.

Turned out that he has a Word document on there for Claudius' best friend, a guy called Luigi that we were supposed to meet on arrival. Luigi has this big scar across his face and everybody knows he's trouble. The document spoke volumes. It just told Luigi to arrange to have me sleep with the fishes, for what I must admit was a decent compensation. I didn't particularly feel like taking a long swim with cement shoes on, so I just did a Find/Replace, substituting "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern" for "Hamlet" throughout. The document was saved before my two "pals" got back from the crapper.

We landed at Heathrow and sure enough, there was Luigi waiting for us wearing this big, creepy grin. We went for a coffee in the lounge and there was a lot of small talk going on. "I'm taking a leak", I said, and walked away. What I really did was peep around the corner to see Rosencrantz opening the laptop and turning it toward Luigi, without even looking! Luigi reads what it says and gives the two guys this evil, toothy smile, real creepy.

That looked like my cue to get the hell out of here. No way was Luigi letting these guys out of his sight now. I ran off to an information desk and booked the first flight home, which is in a couple of hours. I'm blogging this from the airport cybercafé. I'm gonna have to watch my back from now on. Wish me luck.

Our flight got delayed and I didn't want to be around Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, so I started wondering around the airport a bit. I got in one of those crappy chairs they have in the Economy Class lounge when I suddenly heard something like a roar coming from the Arrivals.
I walked over, just because I was bored, and found a whole gang of Norwegians in soccer outfits making a helluva noise.
Now I'm Danish, and it's fairly similar to Norwegian, so I asked one of them in my best Norse:
"Hey dude, what's going on?"
"We're on our way to the match, man!"
"Who are you playing?"
"Poland, man! We're gonna kick their ass! WOOO!"
"But it's not even championship season yet."
"Nah, it's just a friendly warmup game, you know."
"You mean you're gonna kick their ass."
"What do you think!? NORWAAAAYYY!! ALL THE WAY!!!"
Then they started pouring beer over each other and singing something I didn't understand.
Horatio once told me that I'm too self-centered, that whatever happens to me I connect to me somehow. Well, I guess this was one of those times. If these guys, I thought, shelled out what must be a fortune and went to some stupid game just for the honor of their country, what was I doing pissing my pants while the guy who offed my dad was in my house doing my mom!? Sometimes I feel like such a fucking wimp. Like the man says, 'Just do it.' I decided then and there that I was going to get rid of my two chaperonnes one way or the other.

Jesus Christ, so much has happened since my last entry that I don't know where to begin. OK, let's see.

First off, I was on my way up to my mom in the bedroom when I walked past the kitchen and saw my stepdad, the murderer, sitting at the dinner table. He had his eyes shut and his hands folded. I watched him and he didn't notice me. Just then it hit me: I could go in, grab one of the steak knives, and off him right there and then. I could kick some chairs over and force the door to the garden to make it look like a burglary. And I actually stepped into the kitchen to do just that.

But then I looked at him and I saw his lips moving, and I realized that he was praying. That got me thinking again (Horatio says I think too much) about what they taught me in Sunday school. The nuns said that if you die while you're praying, you automatically go to heaven. So if I would kill him right now, my dad wouldn't be too happy to have to spend all eternity with his killer brother. So I thought, Fuck it, I'll do it later, and went upstairs.

My mom has a big bedroom with a boudoir type corner on one end of the room, and this screen that she stands behind when she changes. She was sitting at this boudoir brushing her hair and looking a bit nervous.

'Hey Mom, what's up?' I said.
'Hamlet,' she said, 'You've been rude to your dad.'
'I think you mean you've been rude to my dad.'
'Why do you answer me back?' she said.
'Why do you question me?' I said.
'Hamlet', she said, in this soothing voice, 'it's me, remember!'
'Yeah, I remember. You're the one who married her dead husband's brother. And you're my mom, too.'
'Why are you acting like this?'
'You know what, let me put you in front of the mirror so you can take a good look at yourself, all right?'
I grabbed her at this point and she started hollering, 'What're you gonna do, kill me?'
And then suddenly, from behind the screen at the other end of the room comes this squeaky voice, 'Help, help, murderer!'
I totally flipped at that moment, I just didn't know what I was doing. I instinctively grabbed a pair of scissors from my mom's boudoir, threw the screen aside and stuck the blade of the scissors all the way into the guy's chest, without even seeing who it was.

Turns out it was Polonius. I could have sworn it was my stepdad, but no, I go and kill the father of my girlfriend. Yay.

'Bummer', I said.
'BUMMER?!' my mom shouted. 'YOU FUCKING KILLED HIM!'
'Yeah', I said. 'It's almost as bad as killing someone and then marrying their brother.'
'KILLING?' she bellowed.
I said nothing but looked at Polonius.
'You silly prick', I said to him.
'HAMLET, YOU KILLED THE GUY!'
'Oh, SHUT UP!' I shouted back.
'WHY?'
'Because you married fucking Claudius!' I shouted. 'I mean, look at this!' I took the picture of Claudius and my dad that we took last year in Disneyland. 'Look at my dad. Doesn't he look like a nice guy? WASN'T he a nice guy? And now look at Claudius! He's a bozo! The guy is an asshole!'
'STOP IT!'
'I'll stop it when you stop banging your brother-in-law! The guy is a murderer, a creep!'

And then, all of a sudden, in walks the ghost of my dad. Just like that, straight through the wall. It was like something out of the Twilight Zone.
'What do you want?' I said.
'Who are you TALKING to?' my mom said.
'Tell her it's nothing,' the ghost said.
'It's nothing, mom.'
'NOTHING? First you KILL a guy and then you just talk to your INVISIBLE FRIEND?! You're on DRUGS, I KNEW IT!'
'Don't you see him?' I said.
'Oh God, it's acid. You DROPPED ACID!'
'Look, it's my dad!' he said, but just then, the ghost walked out of the room again. 'He's gone now,' I said.
'Thanks for telling me!'
'Listen, I'm not crazy! You gotta believe me. Just divorce that maniac, it's not too late.'
'You're breaking my heart!' she said.
'Good, then get rid of the bad pieces! Just promise you won't sleep with that... that rat. Sorry about Polonius.'
'Hamlet, I'm your mother, I won't tell anyone what happened. But you've got to skip town!'
'That's OK', I said. 'I agreed to go with those two creeps, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to New England for spring break.' Which was true, I'd just booked the flight the night before. 'Don't worry, mom, I'll stay there until this whole thing blows over.'

I'm blogging this from a public computer at the airport. I told R and G that I'm in the bathroom. More later.

We arrived early at the cinema, so we went to the lobby and stood in line for some popcorn and a soda.
'Who's in this movie, anyway?' Horatio asked.
'Anthony Hopkins. He's pretty good. Not like all those Hollywood worship-the-ground-I-walk-on celebs. I mean, it's not like they're all that great.'
'Who do you mean?'
'Al Pacino, say. He's always shouting. I've not seen one movie in which that guy isn't shouting at some point. Or Jim Carrey. I really fucking hate Jim Carrey, he's so all over the place, with his arms flapping about and the silly voice. I mean, seriously, take a chill pill, dude. It's just not believable, all this overacting.'
Polonius and my mom and stepdad came in separate cars, along with my 'pals' Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Horatio and me were already halfway into the commercials when they showed up.
As they were walking in, finding their way to their seats, I said to Horatio, 'Listen, do me a favor.'
'What.'
'I know that in this movie, this guy Gonzago gets killed. When that happens, I want you to really look hard to see how my stepdad reacts.'
'What am I looking for?'
'Check to see if he looks guilty.'
'What do you mean, guilty? And why can't you do that?'
'I don't trust my own judgment. But you're like, the king of cool. I'll leave it up to you to decide.'
'OK, I'll do my best.'
'Thanks, man. Now pipe down, they're coming.'
The others sat down behind us.
'How are you, Hamlet?' said my stepdad.
'Oh, you know, same old same old. I like the actors in this movie. Polonius, didn't you use to act?'
'Indeed I did', he said, the pompous bastard. 'At university, I played Caesar. Brutus killed me.'
'What a shame.' I said.
Then my mom said, 'Come sit next to me, Hamlet.'
As it happened, I was sitting just in front of Ophelia, so I said, 'No thanks, mom, I'm cool.'
'Can I sit in your lap?' I asked Ophelia.
'No', she said.
'Well can I then just rest my head against your legs?'
'Sure', she said. 'You're in a good mood.'
'Well, what else is there to do? Look at my mom, she's happy, even though my dad died like yesterday.'
'It's been two months, Hamlet', Ophelia said.
'Well, you're right. We should forget about him. I mean, two months, that's more than enough.'
Just then, the lights dimmed and the movie started. It was all about this king and queen who are in some major marriage crisis. They talk about whether she would ever remarry if he died, and she says of course not.
'How do you like it, mom?' I asked.
'This queen is a bit of whiner,' she said.
'I think it's disgusting', said my stepdad.
'C'mon,' I said, 'it's just a movie. Let's see what happens next.'
What happened next is that some guy arrives and kills the king. And whaddaya know, suddenly my stepdad jumps out of his chair, says, 'I can't watch this crap' and walks out of the theater!
'Did you see that?' I asked Horatio.
'He is so busted. And on cue', he answered.
Everybody left but Horatio and me. We sat through the rest of the movie, which was pretty okay, by the way.

When we came home, these sneaks Rosencrantz and Guildenstern came up to me.
'Your dad is going nuts.'
'Well, he shouldn't drink so much.'
'He didn't, he's just fucking furious!'
'Well maybe he should calm down. Why are you telling me? I'm not gonna see him. That would probably make him even angrier.'
'No, you don't understand, it's your mom who wants to see you.'
'OK, I will.'
'You don't have to if you don't want to, I can just tell her.'
'No, that's fine, but what's wrong?'
'She just wants you to go up to her room to talk. Listen', said Rosencrantz –or Guildenstern, I can never tell them apart. 'Why are you being such a dick, anyway? I thought we were friends.'
'Moi? A dick? Don't be silly. Of course you're my friend. Here, I'll even let you play on my guitar.'
'You know I don't know how to play the guitar!'
'Yeah,' I go, looking him straight in the eye, 'And you can't play me, either.'
They both shut up then.
Then Polonius comes down, all I'm-just-dropping-by and shit. I'm sure Polonius thinks I'm off my rocker, so I play with him.
'See that stain on the ceiling?' I say.
'I do', he says.
'Doesn't it looks like a camel?'
'Yes, now that you mention it, it does.'
'I don't think so, I think it looks like a weasel.'
'It's true, a weasel.'
'Or a whale.'
'Yes, it could also be a whale.' What a dickhead.

Anyway, then he left the room and so did my two 'friends'. I'm now going up to my mom's room, I'll let you know what happened later.

While I was waiting to go to the movies, I thought long and hard about all the stuff that's happened to me. Life sucks so bad sometimes that I started wondering why people don't just go ahead and kill themselves. Lady Fortune can be pretty outrageous sometimes, and when you're swimming in a sea of troubles, why shouldn't you drown yourself? You get some peace of mind and nothing hurts anymore.
But then I thought on, and I figured that we're just too chicken to try. Who knows what comes next? Nothing? Something bad, like they told me in Sunday school? No one ever comes back to tell us about it and it's just too scary to think about, so we all live on like the cowards that we are, no matter how shitty life gets. After all, the afterlife might be shittier still.

As you may expect, I felt pretty lousy just then and didn't wanna see anybody, and who shows up but Ophelia. She was just about the last person I wanted to see. You see, I'd been also thinking about my mom and how she was living with my dad's killer, so I wasn't exactly in a Women's Lib kinda mood. Also, I wasn't sure if her dad Polonius didn't send Ophelia over to check up on me.
I just said, "Sup?"
She gave me a look and said, "Hey! Be nice! It's me!"
"Yeah, so?"
"Come on, Hamlet, I know you have the hots for me."
I sort of laughed and said, "You better stay away from me, I'm bad news."
"Right", she said, but looking kinda nervous.
"And I don't like you anyway."
"My mistake."
"Look, just get lost, ok? I'm not a good boyfriend to have. Where's your dad?"
"At home", she said, now looking really miserable.
"Well, then you better go lock the doors so nobody sees him acting like an idiot."
"What the fuck is up with you?" she shouted.
"You women!" I shouted back. "I hope you marry some bozo and never have kids. You're such a phoney!"
Then I stormed out of the house. I couldn't believe I said that to her. I just walked around, trying to calm down.

I'll let you know how the movie night went later.

Sometimes it seems that everyone around me is a big phoney. Take Polonius (that's my girl's dad). Today he came round to our house to kiss my stepdad's ass and stuff. I was in my room reading this book, but I could hear him talking to my mom and my stepdad. They were having some other people over as well.

Then he suddenly came into my room, without even knocking.
"Hey there", he said. "Remember me?"
What a question! I decided to mess with him.
"Yeah, you're the Jehovah's Witness, right? I gave at the office."
"I'm not a Jehovah's Witness!" he said.
"No? You should try it sometimes."
"Yeah, maybe I should.." he said, looking around for a phone to call the funny farm.
"You have a daughter?" I said, still acting like I didn't know him.
"I do", he said, looking like the school counselor looks when I start talking about how much I love my mom (just to piss him off, obviously).
"Well, lock up your daughter!" I said with this mad grin.
He sort of stared at me, then he changed the subject: "Whatcha readin' there?" he asked, looking oh so interested.. NOT!
"Oh, just, you know, words."
That left him a bit speechless, so he left the room.

Then these two so-called friends of mine, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, came in. My stepdad had asked them over.
"Hey guys, welcome to prison."
"Prison?" they say at the same time.
"Well, it feels like it anyway. My stepdad asked you to come here, right? Come on, you can tell me, I know already."
"Well, yeah", says Guildenstern.
"I can tell you why, too. Because my uncle thinks I'm soooo depressing. Stapdaddy wants a happy little stepson. Well, he can forget it. Life sucks. People suck. The only way I can have fun is by acting crazy, so that's what I do."
They didn't know what to say to that, so they left too.

So anyway, I'm still milling things over in my mind about killing my stepdad. He so fucking deserves it, but I'm just too much of a pussy to go through with it. Sometimes I really make myself sick being such a wimp. So just as I was about to go to bed early 'cos I'm so depressed, I check the newspaper. Turns out there's this new movie out called "Gonzago". It's about this guy who kills his brother by poisoning him. Sound familiar? That's what I thought. So I went downstairs and told my mom and her new hubby that maybe a movie would cheer me up. They were very happy about that and they said, "sure, you pick the movie." So now we're all going to the movies tomorrow. My stepdad has no clue what it's about, so I guess he's gonna be a bit surprised.

So anyway, I was still in a state of shock from meeting my dad the ghost. I was up in my room writing all this poetry to myself. (I write sonnets just to vent, but who knows? Maybe I'll put them on here one day.) Normally this calms me down, but now I just kept going over stuff in my head, about how my rat bastard uncle killed my dad and would that mean that I now had to kill my uncle???

I was sitting there for hours just worrying about this stuff until I just couldn't take it anymore. I had to see Ophelia, that's the girl I'm in love with. I just needed to see her, to sort of calm me down. So I went down to her place and she let me in, but she was looking at me all "Ew" and stuff. She was fixing a shirt or something, I didn't notice really I was so desperate. I couldn't even say how I felt about her.

To be honest, the whole thing with the ghost had freaked me out and I was kinda like trembling a bit, sort of. I'd also torn my shirt agonizing over this, so I musta looked pretty ragged. I guess she must have felt that it was because of her. I suddenly realized that she was the only girl I'll ever love, but I couldn't tell her. I just grabbed her wrist and sort of nodded, staring at her for what felt like forever. She's so beautiful, see, I just didn't want her to get involved in all this bad shit about me and my uncle. She looked at me as if I was gonna rape her or something, so I just let go and walked out the door backward, without turning my back. I wanted to see her for as long as possible.

Thing is, Ophelia's dad, who's called Polonius, is all chummy with my uncle. The guy is just this amazing brown-nose. First he kissed my dad's ass, and now he's kissing my uncle's ass, who couldn't be more of a different person. So it's gonna be pretty much impossible to leave Ophelia out of all this. Also, Polonius keeps giving everybody all kinds of stupid wise-ass advice, whether you wanna hear it or not.

If I look like I've just seen a ghost, it's because I fucking did!!!!

The most amazing thing happened! I still have a hard time believing it..

So, Horatio and I went the garden. My uncle --oh, sorry my "New Daddy" *puke*-- could be heard singing in a slurred voice.
"Man, your uncle is a boozehound," Horatio said.
"Him and the whole fucking country," I said. "I don't know, it's just a Danish thing, I guess. It's really disgusting."
I wanted to go on my usual rant about rampant alcoholism, when suddenly, my dad appeared.
That's my real dad, the one who's dead and buried.
I sort of squeaked in a high voice and said, "Wha.. what?"
Then he started winking at me.
Horatio said, "Look, it wants you to come with it!"
I found my cool and said, "I'm going to talk to it."
"No way dude!"
"What's it gonna do, punch me? It's a ghost!"
"You're not going!"
But I did. It was like the weirdest dream I'd ever had, and then some.
We came to someplace quiet and the ghost started talking.
"Hey Hamlet," he said, "it's me, your dad. Listen up, you have to avenge my death. I was killed."
"Holy crap!"
"They said I was bitten by a snake. They were right, your uncle is a fucking snake."
"I KNEW it!" I said. "I fucking KNEW it!!"
"He had the hots for your mom for a long time and so, when I was dozing off here in the garden, he poured some poison in my ear and killed me. So please, kill the fucking bastard for me?"
And then he disappeared, just like that. I was dumbstruck.
"Fucking motherfucker!" I said, and then realized how true that was and got even angrier. "I'm gonna get medieval on his ass!"
Then Horatio came up to me.
"Dude, what'd he say?"
"I can't tell you."
"No offense dude, but what the fuck?! I'm supposed to be your friend!"
"Yes offense," I replied. "The ghost told the truth, I know it."
"Huh?"
"Never mind. Listen, you gotta promise me something."
"What?"
"Don't tell anyone about this, ok."
"I won't."
"Swear."
And then suddenly, we heard my dad's voice also saying "Swear."
We were both freaked out again, and Horatio said in this wimpy voice: "I swear."
"Thanks, dude," I said. "Now let's go catch some Zs. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty freaked out by the whole thing."

So that's where we stand now. A ghost (not the most reliable source you can imagine, but still) told me that my uncle and new stepdad KILLED my dad. I have to think hard about what I'm gonna do next.