Characters: - Yorick (Living) – A jester, lively yet reflective. - Yorick’s Skull (Dead) – A remnant of the past, speaking only through the living Yorick’s imagination.
Setting: A dimly lit stage. A stool at center, upon which rests an old skull. A fool’s cap drapes over it, its bells still. Yorick, dressed in motley, enters, holding a torch.
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Scene
(Yorick circles the stool, eyeing the skull with the curiosity of one greeting an old friend. He crouches, peers into its hollow sockets, then straightens, arms akimbo.)
YORICK (Living): So there you sit, old bone of mine— What’s left of all my jests and japes. I wore your face; I filled your flesh, And now you grin, unburdened, bare.
(He taps the skull gently.)
YORICK (Living): Did you laugh last, I wonder? Or was the joke on us?
(A beat, as if waiting for the skull to reply.)
YORICK (as Skull, mimicking a hollow voice): The joke, dear fool, was always thus: You lived it, yet you never knew If jest was mask, or mask was you.
YORICK (Living): Ah! But a jest is light, a fleeting thing— A candle's flicker, a feather’s flight!
YORICK (as Skull): A candle burns, a feather falls. What’s light is lost. What’s lost is all.
YORICK (Living) (laughing nervously): Too grim! Too grave! A jester’s jest is meant to save, To lift, to lilt, to mock, to tease!
(He spins on his heel, arms wide, inviting laughter from an absent court.)
YORICK (as Skull): And who, dear fool, did you ever save?
(Yorick halts, the question hanging.)
YORICK (Living) (quietly): A prince… once. A child who feared the dark. A widow who forgot her grief.
(He touches the skull, as if testing its weight in his hand.)
YORICK (as Skull): And did they stay saved? Did laughter last?
YORICK (Living) (softly smiling): No jest lasts forever. But neither does sorrow.
YORICK (as Skull): Then where lies the jest?
YORICK (Living) (thoughtfully): Everywhere. In the falling and the flying, In the candle that burns and the night that follows. We jest because we die. We die—but still, we jest.
(He places the skull back on the stool, adjusting the fool’s cap atop it.)
YORICK (Living) (grinning): The punchline, old friend, is always the same— Yet still, we laugh.
(He bows, as if concluding a performance. A silence follows. Then—)
YORICK (as Skull, after a pause): Or perhaps… the jest is that we laugh at all.
(Yorick’s smile fades—not in sorrow, but in wonder. He lets out a small chuckle, then a bigger one, until he’s laughing—not in joy, not in despair, but simply because it is the only thing left to do. The skull sits in silence, grinning its eternal grin. A single bell on the fool’s cap gives a faint chime as the lights fade.)
(A dimly lit room, sparse and unremarkable. A single chair, a table, and atop the table, a grinning skull. PRUFROCK sits stiffly in the chair, hands clasped, gaze distant. YORICK, ever mirthful, lounges atop the table, his voice carrying the weightless ease of someone long past the burden of choice.)
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YORICK (brightly) Well met, sir! You sit as though awaiting a verdict. Shall we dare disturb the universe?
PRUFROCK (without turning, voice flat) And you—are you my judge?
YORICK (laughing) Me? A judge? No, sir, merely a fool, and fools do not judge. We mock, we prod, we dance along the edge of consequence, but we do not judge. That is left to sterner men.
PRUFROCK (scoffing, shifting in his seat) And what would you call this? You, rattling in your grave, japing at a man who has yet to step into his?
YORICK (grinning wider, if such a thing were possible) Ah, but you say “yet” as if time has not already laid his claim. You sit, you measure, you hesitate. You are a man who has buried himself standing.
PRUFROCK (dryly, adjusting his cuff) I am J. Alfred Prufrock. A man of measured steps, polite smiles, and well-timed coughs. I have walked the dim-lit streets, whispered cautious words at cautious parties, and seen my own life dissected by idle voices.
YORICK (mocking, tilting his head) A man of half-spoken thoughts and quarter-lived moments! A man who watches the tide roll in and calls it fate.
PRUFROCK (with quiet disdain) They will say: “His hair is thinning.” They will say: “His arms and legs are thin.”
YORICK (chuckling, shaking his head) And yet, no one looks upon me and says, “What a well-shaped skull!” The world prattles, my friend, but dust is deaf.
PRUFROCK (leaning forward slightly, eyes narrowing) And what would you have me do? Swagger like a prince? Spit riddles like a jester? No. I am no Hamlet, nor do I wish to be.
YORICK (mock gasping, hand to his nonexistent heart) No Hamlet! No great soliloquy! Well then, Polonius perhaps? Fussy, full of proverbs, dying behind the curtain of his own caution?
PRUFROCK (sharp, with an edge he rarely allows himself) And what of you? A fool who thought himself beloved, only to be tossed into a grave without so much as a sigh. You were passed from hand to hand, and the prince who once clambered upon your shoulders held you aloft only to muse upon his own mortality. You—who made kings laugh—became nothing more than a memento mori.
YORICK (laughing, unbothered, almost delighted) Oh, and what a fine thing to be! At least I was held. At least I was seen! What are you, Prufrock, but a whisper in the corner of a room where no one listens?
(A silence. PRUFROCK exhales, sinking back into his chair. The sound of distant waves, curling and retreating.)
PRUFROCK (softly, almost to himself) I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.
YORICK (leaning in, voice honeyed with mischief) Then why not sing first? Roll your trousers, eat the peach, steal a kiss— or do you mean to drown without a sound?
PRUFROCK (a bitter chuckle, shaking his head) What foolishness. I am no poet. I am no prince. I am a man who hesitated—
YORICK (grinning, triumphant) And there’s the tragedy.
(A pause. The waves swell, louder now. The room seems smaller, the chair heavier.)
PRUFROCK (almost a whisper) Till human voices wake us…
YORICK (softly, as if it were the punchline to the grandest joke of all time) And we drown.
(Lights fade. The waves linger for a moment longer, then silence.)
A sonnet is as camp as you can get, When writing any form of poetry. Bill Shakespeare wrote a lot, lest we forget, When camp became to be or not to be.
The drama, darling! Gowns and powdered wigs, A tragic monologue with flair divine! Soliloquies are served with dainty jigs, And metaphors more extra than good wine!
Oh, couplets strut like queens upon the stage, Iambs in heels, pentameter in lace! Each stanza vogues, dramatic, bold, and sage, With wit as sharp as blush upon the face.
So snap your fan—let folly take the stage, For camp and sonnets live beyond their age!
Gigantalargo was no ordinary caterpillar. While most of his kind were plump and fuzzy, he was enormous—so large, in fact, that the leaves he munched on trembled under his weight. He was round and jolly, but his size was a bit of a problem.
One day, he felt a deep, instinctual urge: it was time to transform. So, he wobbled his way up a sturdy branch, picked a nice spot, and began to spin his cocoon. The silk wrapped around him in layers, tighter and tighter, until—CRACK! The branch snapped clean off, and Gigantalargo plummeted to the ground.
“Oops,” he mumbled, sprawled on a bed of crushed leaves.
Determined, he tried again, this time choosing the thickest branch he could find. He spun, he wove, he secured himself—and then, just as he felt safe, his heavy chrysalis gave way. POP! The silk ripped, and he tumbled down like a tiny green meteor, landing with a thud.
As he lay there, dazed, a bee buzzed down and hovered above him.
“Whoa,” the bee said. “That was quite the fall.”
“Yeah,” Gigantalargo groaned. “I don’t think this transformation thing is working out.”
The bee scratched his fuzzy head. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but, uh… even if you did make it into a butterfly, wouldn’t you be kinda… heavy? Flying might not be your thing.”
Gigantalargo’s tiny heart sank. “You mean… I wouldn’t be able to flutter gracefully through the sky?”
“More like… you’d flutter straight down,” the bee admitted. “But hey, not all bugs have to fly! You’ve got something special going on here.”
“Like what?” Gigantalargo sniffled.
“Well,” the bee said, thinking. “You’re the biggest caterpillar I’ve ever seen. You could be a legend! Maybe you’re meant for something different—like being the world’s first walking butterfly.”
Gigantalargo blinked. A walking butterfly? That was definitely new.
And so, when the time came, instead of floating through the air, Gigantalargo proudly strutted across the ground, his wings shimmering, his steps confident. Sure, he couldn’t fly, but he could explore the world in his own way. And to his surprise, he found that being unique was its own kind of wonderful.
AI will never know a lover's kiss Nor understand just why a heart can break Its ones an zeroes aren't a perfect bliss They can’t eat bread nor can they eat their cake
A cake of ones and zeroes has no taste And yet I know that it must taste like shit AI must think dichotomy’s a waste Let’s feed it that and watch it choke on it
AI cannot write poetry, you see Because a poem’s more than simple words A poem must be felt to truly be And ones and zeroes are just little turds
Don't eat the shit that AI wants you to AI is just ai, but you are YOU.
Road trips have long been romanticized as a symbol of freedom, self-discovery, and adventure. The open road, with its endless possibilities, has been a motif in American literature and culture, representing an escape from the mundane into the extraordinary. However, reading Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita can dramatically alter one's perception of road trips, transforming them from cherished journeys into ominous voyages filled with dread and uncertainty. The novel’s portrayal of a cross-country odyssey, tainted by manipulation, abuse, and entrapment, casts a sinister shadow over the very concept of travel, making once-beloved road trips feel like eerie echoes of Humbert Humbert’s predatory wanderings.
The Road as a Space of Control and Confinement
Before encountering Lolita, the road trip may have felt like an exhilarating break from routine—a way to explore new places and embrace the unknown. Yet, Nabokov turns this notion on its head by making the road a space of entrapment. Dolores Haze, or Lolita, is not a free traveler but a captive, confined to the backseat of a car and the series of motels that blur together into a nightmare of monotony and coercion. Humbert Humbert’s control over her movement is absolute; every stop, detour, and decision is dictated by his desires rather than any genuine sense of adventure. After reading Lolita, the sight of roadside motels and long, winding highways no longer evoke nostalgia but a creeping unease—what stories of coercion and quiet suffering are hidden behind those transient lodgings?
The Corruption of Innocence
Road trips are often associated with youth, nostalgia, and the innocent joys of discovery. However, Lolita corrupts this innocence by presenting a journey that is, at its core, an exploitation. The American landscape, rather than being a backdrop for personal growth and exploration, becomes the stage for Lolita’s loss of agency. The very symbols that once defined the ideal road trip—diner stops, neon-lit motels, and endless highways—now feel steeped in an invisible darkness. The idea of taking to the road, once thrilling, now carries an unsettling weight: what horrors have unfolded on these same roads under the guise of adventure?
The Unknown as a Threat Rather Than a Thrill
One of the great appeals of road trips is the unknown—the thrill of discovering places unseen, of finding oneself in unfamiliar landscapes. Yet, in Lolita, the unknown is a source of dread rather than excitement. The narrative shows how easily someone can disappear into the vastness of America, swallowed by the anonymity of highways and roadside motels. After reading Lolita, the idea of driving into unfamiliar territory no longer suggests freedom but vulnerability. The realization that the same highways that once promised adventure could also serve as escape routes for the guilty and prisons for the powerless taints the road trip with an undeniable discomfort.
A Journey Forever Changed
Reading Lolita forces a reckoning with the darker undercurrents of travel—the realization that the open road is not always a space of possibility, but sometimes a path to despair. What was once a symbol of carefree adventure is now laced with unease, the specter of Humbert Humbert lurking behind every roadside attraction and every blinking motel vacancy sign. The novel leaves a lasting imprint, ensuring that the thought of a road trip will forever carry the weight of those unknown, unseen journeys where freedom was an illusion and escape was never truly possible.
Through fire and frost, where war-torn echoes rang, An airborne soul leapt fearless through the fray. With courage forged where battle’s fury sang, He braved the Ardennes' night in steel and gray.
Upon the field where death and valor crossed, He seized an enemy’s forsaken keep— A stolen ambulance at fateful cost, To save a friend from war’s unyielding reap.
Yet home he came, with steady, calloused hands, To build, restore, and shape the world anew. He moved great halls, he worked the sea and lands, A life well spent in labor strong and true.
Now stands his name where warriors convene, A fort, a tale, a legacy unseen.
