To Be Known

Throughout all the confusion, the questions, the madness, he hadn't truly worried. Nor had he truly been afraid, unlike his companion whose sanity had sometimes seemed to wobble dangerously (rather like Hamlet drunk and dancing on a table top, if that oddly retained scrap of memory was at all correct). Rosencrantz, or, in case the lingering consciousness doing the remembering had been called Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, had not at all enjoyed having his long-fortified sense of the logical trampled upon.

The consciousness, on the other hand, had a freer view of things. Having snuffed it, why should you really need a name, for example? Nobody was calling one to dinner, or anywhere else, for that matter. Besides, he and his good friend had been so long a balanced pair, that to address one individually was hardly necessary. Weren't all the great teams of classical literature so? In those last, crucial, sadly unalterable days, it had been Rosencrantz and Guildenstern against Fate. He thought perhaps that was one of the messages conveyed through their unenlightening reenactment of said last days (aside from the facts that a.) everybody winds up toes up, and b.) people enjoy watching).

There was that comfort, though; he hadn't gone alone. The one he had gone with had known him better than anyone, even if he had, by this point, forgotten most of it. Had the other, taking his leave, found the same comforting thought? Had he quit for a moment trying to reason out why, and simply accepted- -accepted that he had finished, but not alone? The consciousness knew very little, knew even less now that the old rules no longer applied, but he decided he would much rather face the great mysteries with his brighter half than be stranded alone in unfriendly England. Maybe if he just waited a bit, the other would catch up. There was a cheerful thought- -much better than imagining being stuck in a box, certainly.

Guil eventually did catch up to Ros, who managed to effortlessly annoy him at least into their next incarnations.

Fin