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There seemed, all of a sudden, yet merely for a brief and fleeting moment, to be a pause, neither an end nor a beginning, or maybe it was, though if it were it was indiscernible. Perhaps it was a gap in the script, a period of backstage fumbling, a prop not co-operating, or an actor stumbling, yet that was irrelevant and besides the point. The point here was, and is, that there was a pause.
Guildenstern saw this pause as opportune, and in the spirit of carpe diem, he began to pace - as he so often did - and with that pacing came words (words, words).
“We’ll know better next time,” He murmured aloud, perhaps to his counterpart though most certainly himself, “We ought to know better next time, at least; it is human nature to learn from one’s errors, to prosper in the face of failure. Surely we’ll know better next time.”
“Next time?” Rosencrantz echoed, a little lost but not so as to be concerned by it -- let this be his character note.
“Next time,” Guildenstern affirmed. “Assuming there is a next time. And yet-”
“Yet?”
“And yet I feel so certain that there will be a next time, though there should be no way for me to know, and no reason nor logic behind my certainty.”
“Perhaps,” Rosencrantz began, pausing to mull over his next choice of words, “perhaps we’ve been here before. Done it all before, that is.”
“Couldn’t be.”
“Why not?”
“It just…” - Guildenstern hesitated, a pause - “couldn’t be.”
“And yet you feel so certain. Does that not suggest we’ve done it all before?” Rosencrantz suggested in nothing but goodwill. “Unless..”
“Unless?”
“A premonition, perhaps? A sense of what’s to come?”
“Couldn’t be!” Guildenstern said once more, with far more certainty and gusto than before.
“Why not?”
“Well, why would it be?”
“Do you have any particular adversity to premonitions?”
“No. It just - well, it couldn’t be.”
“Statement,” Rosencrantz said quickly. “And repetition, now that I stop to think about it.”
“Enough,” Guildenstern said. “It couldn’t be a premonition. It’s different. Somehow, anyhow.”
“Then we’ve done it all before. That’s all it’s got to be.” Guildenstern, who had, for a moment, stopped his pacing, began to pace anew, though this time he shook his head with periodic little intervals, “Would we not remember? Would one not remember having done something before?”
Rosencrantz hummed, perhaps considering this, though maybe he was just humming and that’s all there was to it. Guildenstern whipped around to look at him, striding forward once and thrusting out his hand.
Ah, Rosencrantz thought. Touch.
Their hands met, palm to palm, and though Guildenstern would likely never admit it aloud, it grounded him.
“Would one,” Guildenstern uttered again, softer this time, the undertones of slight distress beginning to ebb, “not remember having experienced something before? Would they not at least sense a familiarity to the action?”
“Deja vu, you mean?” Rosencrantz suggested, before his eyes flashed with the spark of ingenuity. “Maybe that’s all this is, this certainty. Deja vu.”
“Not a bit of it. I feel certain.”
“Certain that it isn’t deja vu?’
“No. Well, yes. Yes, certain that it isn’t deja vu, but also certain. I feel certain that there’ll be a next time, and that when this next time comes - which I feel certain it shall - we will know better.”
Rosencrantz sat down and, with his palm still grazing Guildenstern’s, his companion sat too. “Say then,” He mused, the purpose of the conversation escaping him somewhat, “that we will know better. Let us postulate it-- what would you do differently from… before? Whatever is before.”
Guildenstern went a little quiet, and Rosencrantz counted this a victory -- not out of contempt, but, once more, out of goodwill. Sometimes Guildenstern thought too much. The period of quiet was brief (fleeting, a pause), and soon he spoke.
“I couldn’t say,” he said, and though he was underwhelmed, the irony was not lost on Rosencrantz. “What would you do? Differently, that is.”
Rosencrantz thought, for a moment, and blushed for another moment after, “You’ll think it’s silly.”
“I won’t,” Guildenstern protested. “I wouldn’t.”
“But you could. And you will.”
“I shan’t.”
“Well-”
“Well?”
“If you insist-”
“I do.”
“Well, if you insist, and if you must know, I would love more.”
“Love more? Love what more?”
“Love,” Rosencrantz gestured wildly, to the general area, “more.”
“Love the world more? Would that be better...?”
“Not at all. But to love someone more-- that could be better.”
“How so?” Guildenstern asked aloud. And, to himself, he wondered who , though he dared not say it.
“I’m not certain,” Rosencrantz replied, and he thought that the topic of certainty was becoming something of an ongoing theme. “Though I do feel it could help. I feel it could be better. A premonition, perhaps. A sense of what’s to come.”
“But who?” Guildenstern asked finally, with what seemed like a sudden gust of courage. “Lord Hamlet?”
“No,” Rosencrantz said quickly. “Well, maybe, but it doesn’t seem right somehow.”
“Right?”
“Right. The sense of what to come -- I do think I love the Lord Hamlet, though not quite like that.”
“I don’t think I quite get your meaning.” Guildenstern uttered, ever flustered in the face of romance.
“I love him, but I don’t love him. Not as I love…” Rosencrantz faltered, cutting himself off.
“As you love?” Guildenstern asked, expectant yet completely unexpectant, and though unexpectant, his heart hammered away at his chest.
“You,” Rosencrantz replied, as though the answer had caught even himself off guard. “I suppose.”
Guildenstern’s mouth went dry and his heart did not cease in its hammering.
“How was that?” He questioned faintly.
“Right.”
“Natural?”
“Instinctive.”
It was but a pause, and there was no more time for anything further to be said; but, perhaps, it was for the best. There was nothing else to be said and, so, all things being proper, nothing else would be said. This is no travesty, however, for there was no need for anything further to be said.
They would, after all, know better next time.