Finding Hamlet

For the past week, Zac has been searching around the house, the car, the rock gym, downtown G-boro, the Enmity Shopping Center, the grocery store, several restaurants, the high school, his friends’ houses, his enemies’ houses, some houses he’d never been to but was always curious about, looking for Hamlet. He opened drawers, unfolded laundry, unmade beds, sucked the marrow from the bones of this old house. He scoured parking lots, dusted railroad tracks, scrubbed courtyards with a toothbrush.

We said, “What’s with all the cleaning?”

He said, “I guess I’ve overwrought the metaphor.”

He had. And still, the Dane was nowhere to be found. “Have you seen Hamlet?” he would say. “I’m looking for Hamlet.” “I should never have left Hamlet alone.” Don’t we know this by now, one should never leave Hamlet alone. We were, of course, distraught. They say if we had twelve monkeys with twelve flashlights, we might have been able to find Hamlet. But that was little consolation and very confusing.

For all of you who have been concerned, I found Hamlet and all of his words words words underneath the blue chair in the family room. We should have known.