Dearest, darling, older brother,
Silly little me has quite forgotten to send you these again, haven't it? Shall they live beneath my bedroom table forever, now? They are quite fond of their home now, and I would so hate to send all these rotting pages and flowers away to France. Away with you-
When shall you ever, ever return, Laertes? It's very lonely here without you, all away overseas and over hills...
Father's away now too, you know? Buried in a shallow grave.
Young Hamlet will away soon too, no doubt to an early grave where the king will bury him as well.
They think me deaf and dumb. They think I think nothing. They think me as rotten as the flowers and pages and Father with his worms.
You don't think that of me, Laertes. I don't see myself that way either... Poor Father. Still, this is surly a blessing we wanted. I was shackled by the presence of Father and of Hamlet, and am so freed. Persephone in spring- or perhaps as in the Underworld. Queen of death and darkness.
I am to be Elsinore's dark queen then, keeper of flowers and gloom. Chaste virgin and whore of Hades. A nothing. An everything. A spot on the thoughtful minds of powerful men who will rot at my feet. They will think nothing of me, and so have no reason to fear me. Pity.
Come home, Laertes. You must see the flowers of spring. You must see the brook by which we used to play, its waters pregnant with petals and willow fluff. Shall we play there again? Shall we frolic as gods of freedom, unchained and unbothered by love, and hate, and death? Shall we float along the brook and send our troubles to the depths? That would so please me.
Come home, Laertes. Come to Elsinore, and bear witness to the rotting, beautiful things we have wrought.
YOU ARE READING
Letters to Laertes
Romance"Yet I am his fool: I think for nothing, do I not? Is that not what he assumes? Or what Father assumes? Or what everyone assumes?"
