You're Not A Soda, Miranda (Act III will take some time)

MIRANDA
"I admired you. You were all to me. Then I found out you named me after a soda."

PROSPERO
"Mirinda is a soft drink from Spain, Miranda. Don't worry--you're something more special than that. Riverfr0zen, my magic robes, please."

RIVERFR0ZEN
Here, art your Ariels.

PROSPERO
I don't want shruggery. No cynicism. My magic is too powerful.

RIVERFR0ZEN
I shall begin to sing a song, then fall asleep, then wake up and continue whereupon I had previously stopped.

PROSPERO
Yes. You do that, and I will be very charming to usurpers. Show them my sleepy spirit.

RIVERFR0ZEN
Show me wherever. On whatever device

PROSPERO
And Why have we stopped speaking within speech quotes?

RIVERFR0ZEN
Ah. The Tempest. Are you going to make a very long speech that I will be expected to hark?
 
PROSPERO
I am preparing my long speech now. You will read and understand everything.

RIVERFR0ZEN
(At the audience)
This is meant for you, not for cold hearted and dispassionate sleeping spirits.

Act II (Two) Two Of The Tempest

UNKNOWN
(Seated)
"Juventus! Score! See me run to dance upon such cans of beer this very replay. Re-play! I fist my screen in euphoria."


PROSPERO
"Hooligan. Uncouth son of swaggered sow. This is how you see the sport? Remaining so Unknown?"

UNKNOWN
"Gentle, sir, don't expect me a Ferdinand for your fodder. Witness: Goals met!"

PROSPERO
"You don't know how to write your best feelings. All you know is traipsing."

UNKNOWN
"Juventus just blew Milan away. Tell me about your best feelings."

PROSPERO
"Your blood is drain'd to my cell. You do not know how to prosper."
"Be less unknown, you river of merely words. Know thyself!"

Riverfr0zen
Looks like you've coldly dealt me here. Can't I freeze entire oceans toward entrenched vessels?"

PROSPERO
"I, Milan, have been malfunctioned, dear flow of freeze! Your encounter is a pathway which I art! My Ariel, please."

Riverfr0zen@Ariel
"Release me."

PROSPERO
"Entirely. Soon. But I have some small ways I'd communicate."

MIRANDA Enters:
"Father, why am I a soda?"

Start Of The Tempest

Preramble

I typically do not impose these types of explanatory passages directly into my pieces, but since this piece works very closely with my actual reading of Shakespeare's "The Tempest", and, I personally feel more sensitive (as a human) than past occasion right now, I pray you spend minutes to understand what this act of writing actually is.

Last weekend, I was reading something--don't remember what, could have been the back of a cereal box--and simply got bored of the way contemporary prose in English is written. Having no desire to stop reading, my mind drew me to The Tempest, a play by William Shakespeare which I had read when I was figuratively three, possibly up to the End of the initial ship. I have a distinct memory of, having reached that sinking, throwing my hands up in the air and cursing the winds for modernity to pirate me away. And it actually did. Other interests, works, and jobs arrived.

So having that recollection, at that moment of shrug, I dived into technologies that would re-present The Tempest to me. And I've started reading it again. So far, it has been only during commutes between Manhattan and Brooklyn, so I'm still (at time of writing) only in Act 1. Note: Not that I encourage speed-reading, but I'm only in Act 1 because I have to get into a mode where I can understand what is being said, so I re-read a lot of the words. I think the English in the reader I have is fairly accurate (possibly somehow simplified) but it is still something that comes with a training of the mind. The last time I seriously read Shakespeare was in Grammar school, so it will probably take some time to re-adjust.

Another Note: I'm not making any statement about contemporary English prose here. It was purely a subjective boredom, probably stemming from many other acres of my life. There are amazing writers out there these days.

And Another Note: The structure below will not (at least initially) likely follow the actual structure of a play (and yes, yes, I know it is a play, so I am also watching as many video versions of the play I can get my hands on, but only as far as I've read in the, erm, book). Especially because I am more of a short-novel writer, and really live more happily in prose. And of course, the story, while influenced by The Tempest, is not a claim to a sequel or anything. If anything, to be honest, it's just me having fun with characters, modalities, and fashions of expression I'm enjoying as I read through the *actual* play.

Start of The Tempest

Act 1-1

UNKNOWN
"This is going to take you, almost 90 years to write, is it not, Caliban?"

PROSPERO
"Caliban, you call me, sir? As a Caliban yourself, I bet. A rapist?"

UNKNOWN
"Dodderer. I am still reading your startings, Milan, but they are differently aged. This now is a time for quick munches and talks; a zero or, or and, one, fashion of direction. I am yet engulfed by mere first act."

PROSPERO
"It is very easy that the cock sure mimic a dead rooster. How do you find that I cared more about books than the taste of Milan?"

UNKNOWN
"Cock-a-doodle-dow."

PROSPERO
"You brute. You've stolen my spirit! You shall be pulled into my island, pint, then wasted over miles like a sliver of burning rums! Thieves of the sea!"

UNKNOWN
"This is longer term than your small dukedom, sir. I plan to exist in study of the future acts for some time, and then mutate them to my appreciation. This is my way, as has always been."

PROSPERO
"Bastard."

UNKNOWN
"Hopefully not bastardizations, no."

Act 1-2

UNKNOWN
(Seated)
"Juventus! Score! See me run to dance upon such cans of beer this very replay. Re-play! I fist my screen in euphoria."

PROSPERO
"Hooligan. Uncouth son of swaggered sow. This is how you see the sport?"

[tbc]