(no subject)
Title: Landscape Portraiture
Fandom: Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Verse: none
Characters: Guildenstern, Rosencrantz
Summary: The only ones who can see the whole picture are those who step out of the frame.
Word Count: 372
“We have been spinning coins together since, I don’t know when, and in all that time (if it is all that time),” Guil muses as he flips another coin, “the only faces we’ve seen have belonged to each other and the-”
“Heads.”
“-of long-dead emperors and slightly less ancient kings. Now this road seems to be well-traveled, and this seems to be the time of day for traveling, so don’t you think it’s odd?”
Ros jumps a little. “Odd?” he demands.
“To have seen no one!”
“Lonely perhaps, but not odd. Besides, I’ve seen you all this time, so it’s hardly even lonely either.”
“Have you no sense for the bigger picture?”
Ros makes the coin dance. “When it lands tails I’ll consider that picture, but even then it won’t show an image much grander than a building of state. An aqueduct if you’re lucky. Besides, coins only get so big.”
Guil shakes his head with a pursed lip. “You don’t catch my meaning.” Gently, he turns Ros by the shoulders to survey the path they’ve already taken, the steep cliffs, the trees blurring to vistas. “I’m talking about the world of ideas, see? Wheels within wheels, great men who need little men like us, rationalism and abstractions, and chiefly the fact that we should have encountered people at some point in our journey!”
“Oh, that kind of bigger picture.” He tilts his head and says, “If it helps, I think I hear a band.”
***
But it occurs to him that since the actors’ backdrop fell on them and they fought free of the draperies of opulence, there have been no more landscapes. The ubiquitous features of Elsinore are walls, and those can be found equally in architecture and communication. The closest they come to the outdoors is still a courtyard which bricks them in and echoes eerily. And even the mournful wind that blew through the night has given way to a weeping woman and the occasional draught. Their situation can’t be summed up in portrait orientations either, as neither the outward nor inward prince resembles what he was. What they get are snapshots, just enough information to change what they thought they knew and then leave them hanging. This was originally posted at https://ernest.dreamwidth.org/9808.html. There are
comments there.
Fandom: Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Verse: none
Characters: Guildenstern, Rosencrantz
Summary: The only ones who can see the whole picture are those who step out of the frame.
Word Count: 372
“We have been spinning coins together since, I don’t know when, and in all that time (if it is all that time),” Guil muses as he flips another coin, “the only faces we’ve seen have belonged to each other and the-”
“Heads.”
“-of long-dead emperors and slightly less ancient kings. Now this road seems to be well-traveled, and this seems to be the time of day for traveling, so don’t you think it’s odd?”
Ros jumps a little. “Odd?” he demands.
“To have seen no one!”
“Lonely perhaps, but not odd. Besides, I’ve seen you all this time, so it’s hardly even lonely either.”
“Have you no sense for the bigger picture?”
Ros makes the coin dance. “When it lands tails I’ll consider that picture, but even then it won’t show an image much grander than a building of state. An aqueduct if you’re lucky. Besides, coins only get so big.”
Guil shakes his head with a pursed lip. “You don’t catch my meaning.” Gently, he turns Ros by the shoulders to survey the path they’ve already taken, the steep cliffs, the trees blurring to vistas. “I’m talking about the world of ideas, see? Wheels within wheels, great men who need little men like us, rationalism and abstractions, and chiefly the fact that we should have encountered people at some point in our journey!”
“Oh, that kind of bigger picture.” He tilts his head and says, “If it helps, I think I hear a band.”
***
But it occurs to him that since the actors’ backdrop fell on them and they fought free of the draperies of opulence, there have been no more landscapes. The ubiquitous features of Elsinore are walls, and those can be found equally in architecture and communication. The closest they come to the outdoors is still a courtyard which bricks them in and echoes eerily. And even the mournful wind that blew through the night has given way to a weeping woman and the occasional draught. Their situation can’t be summed up in portrait orientations either, as neither the outward nor inward prince resembles what he was. What they get are snapshots, just enough information to change what they thought they knew and then leave them hanging. This was originally posted at https://ernest.dreamwidth.org/9808.html. There are
comments there.