Excerpt: The Conspiracy of the Quill

NaNoWriMo 2009: The Conspiracy of the Quill.

Prologue:

The underground hiding place, used for the last time by a mother and her three children during the First World War, was the best thing that the instigator could have found in the four days he had been authorized. He had presently been gone for at least twenty hours, and in the stinging underground heat, his runaway friend was getting delirious with suffering. He was starving and he was thirsty like hell. His last meal had been the day before, breakfast to be more exact. He had gotten a draught of pure alcohol before agreeing to the ‘mission’, which had affected him much more than he would like to admit.

However, food, drink, and heat were the last thing on his mind.

The darkness was gradually driving him crazy. Slowly, ever so slowly, he was feeling along the lines of the cave, his mind screaming to find a window, a hole; anything to get him air. Anything to let him see in the darkness would also have been welcome. He knew he had a lone match in his pocket, but that wouldn’t last very long in his condition.

Vaguely, he wondered if it would even light itself if he tried. It had been in his pocket for hours, and he had sweated more in these last hours than he ever had in his life.

Suddenly, he couldn’t hold it in anymore; he yelled. His fists pounded uselessly on the cement wall, and he yelled until his voice was hoarse. Yet no one came. He had somehow hoped someone from the outside world would hear him and would deliver him from this purgatory.

Hauling himself towards the door, he tried to rip it open, but it had been locked from the outside. Weakly, he shouted, “You can’t do this to me! You can’t! I trusted you!”

But he remembered his promise. He remembered the agreement he had signed, against his better judgement.

‘Damn letter,’ he thought to himself. ‘Damn letter, damn religion, damn the intelligence network. Damn them all.’

But the loss of his freedom was nothing compared to the loss of his life. Because life, existence, was exactly what he was losing. Physically, he may still be alive, but aside from that, the man was no more.
Ideas began to form in his mind... He considered running up to the dirty door and kicking it down with whatever strength he had left in him. He plotted, even though he knew it was impossible. Then, he would rush out and exclaim to the world that he wasn’t dead. They’d be amazed; they’d fear him...

No... They’d capture him, torture him, and then physically kill him. Hadn’t his close acquaintances made sure that it didn’t happen? Hadn’t they threatened their own safety to save his sorry hide?

He sunk to his knees beside the door, and continued to crawl along the room, hoping to find something that could be of use to him.

It was maybe an hour later that a miniature item struck his hand. After groping at it for a few seconds, he realized that it was a small piece of candle. With a leaping heart, he managed to strike his match and light the candle, placing it in a small holder he was able to find once he had light.

Through the small sliver of light, he distinguished his dirty fingers, his blood-caked nails. He barely remembered his friend pushing him down a hole, and he had tried to stop his descent by scratching at the rocks. It hadn’t worked well.

Reaching in his cloak, he slowly pulled out his writing craft. Picking up his favourite quill, he dipped it in the small pot of ink and stared blankly at the paper in his hand.

“Could a character be as crazy, and yet deadly intelligent, as this poor man here?” the writer chuckled darkly. “Could he really exist? Could he be driven mad by the unfairness of his own life while his enemy roams free?”

Glancing around the room, he knew that this was his fate from now on. Hiding away from prying eyes would become his priority. Once again letting go of a draft of chuckle, he mumbled, “To be or not to be... That is the question. That, my friend, is the bloody question.”

Placing his quill on the paper, he began to draft a plot in blotched, hurried writing. After carefully reflecting, he chose the name of his protagonist, Hamlet, and began to draft the revised story of a tale his father had told him a long time ago.

Once his plan was done, with Horatio, Ophelia, Laertes and Hamlet well-made in his imagination, Christopher Marlowe began to write his first play as a murdered man.