The Rubble and the Shakespeare

By Ty Unglebower

The tyrannical Regime may be gone at last, but it's easy to remain cynical about fanciful notions such as the arts when half your city still lies in rubble from the recent revolution.

 

That's where Dimitri finds himself: middle-aged, living in government refugee housing in the outskirts of his own city on a small pension, and with a disabled knee. His life is a peaceful but not adventurous one.

 

That is until his dearest friend, Otto, barges in with a box of rare and previously outlawed books by one William Shakespeare. Otto wants to stage something called The Tempest, and he just needs Dimitri's help for a day, to get started.

 

Anything for Otto. But as obstacles of all kinds pile up against the production, and an initial day of help turns into weeks, how much will the down-to-earth Dimitri do for a silly play? For a friend? For himself?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hot Broth Publishing
• Release date: Nov 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223127925

Ty Unglebower

Ty is a freelance writer, actor, and occasional poet who, according to his official tagline, generally seeks to "shift the everyday a few inches."

Book preview

Chapter One

Adamn spoon.

Not a valuable one I could have sold. A common stainless-steel utensil that I didn’t even need, sticking out the top of a mound of rubble.

For this, I nearly fell headlong into the street.

All that saved me once the debris slipped under my feet was planting my left leg hard against the shift. I twisted my already game knee in the process, so I sat down on the top of the pile to wait out the burning pain.

The reason I even made such a foolish climb?

Habit.

Like thousands of other refugees in the outer city, my impulse to scavenge hadn’t yet faded.

For a year after the fall of the Regime, the Elected Government struggled to meet more than the most crucial needs of those displaced by the bombs and shelling. Shelter, water, meager food rations, things like those.

We survived the bombings and shelling of our true homes to be evacuated into hotels and other modest accommodations commandeered by the rebels that formed the eventual Elected Government. A few weeks after the hellish final push of the fallen Regime, additional important supplies trickled in to those of us on the outskirts.

Comfort items, the simple things you don’t miss until you can’t find them had to be pulled from what remained of the city blocks and streets during those initial days of freedom. What one found but didn’t need went to neighborhood Scavenge Exchanges, where others in need could obtain their own requirements.

Three years on, social services found their footing, in both official and unofficial circles. The Elected Government established pensions for the worst of the Regime’s victims, guaranteed medical care and basic public education, (with an emphasis on literacy and correcting the lies of the fallen tyranny.)

Yet the ruins and the rubble remained everywhere in the outer neighborhoods of our city, even now. The governments had funneled international aid money and volunteer work into downtown, to work its way outward. Downtown, where international visitors felt protected and called themselves heroes for touring a free nation recovering from the shackles of oppression. Where the fledgling tourism industry centered.

Where the world’s attention remained.

For the rest of us, jagged cement blocks the size of cars, twisted metal supports long ago blown streets away from their original homes, piles of debris of all shapes and sizes: these were the coworkers, the friends, the neighbors to those of us not wealthy enough to move downtown, or leave the city altogether.

And the dust. The recurring, constant layers of it had thinned since the first months after The Fall. But it endured, especially outside. Not even Downtown could fully escape it, and buckets for dumping dust that accumulated in one’s shoes during the day were a common sight just inside many entrances.

The Regime government drafted me into the building inspection service at 18, after basic school. I checked structures for safety, such as it was, though my observations were of course ignored or covered up as often as not. Free of that burden since The Fall, I nevertheless would walk through the streets some days, and inspect the slumping remains of city blocks around my refugee quarters.

Most damaged buildings had long since lost their true geometry. No longer even broken cubes, more like rounded, soggy, discolored bran clusters. I would calculate how long before any given wall would fully collapse. This was all that remained of my compulsory engineering studies.

Papa said it was a coping mechanism. I feel this too was habit; I’d been ordered to make such calculations for my entire adult life. At 42 in those days, I couldn’t just release an entire way of thinking about my surroundings.

That’s what made my tumble from the pile of mortar for the sake of a spoon all the more embarrassing; I could tell it wasn’t stable by the shape, the size, and other factors.

Up I went anyway. I wanted the spoon.

Once the pain in my knee softened to bearable, I pocketed the cursed, useless spoon and slid off the heap. I dusted myself and with an even more pronounced limp than my normal one, made my way back to my room in what had once been the Regime Economy Suites.

I lived on the second floor. The elevators hadn’t worked in years, so I would have preferred a ground floor room because of my knee. But it was a street-side suite, meaning the window just above my kitchen table overlooked the street.

As often as not, with nothing else to do in those days, I looked down into the neighborhood while listening to the radio station out of Capitol District up north. Many of us did so; it was our main source for live news and other entertainment.

Yet that day my mind was not on radio but on television. A specific television set, in fact.

Televisions in those days were not universal like radio, but they were not rare in their own right. Merely uncommon in the outer neighborhoods.

Except the component pieces strewn all over my kitchen table were not from just any television; they came from a color television, and those were indeed scarce. Until The Fall they had been reserved for the ultra-wealthy, or high-ranking Regime officials. Only a handful had ever been recovered in in the entire city after fighting stopped.

When the repairs were complete, I’d take the component back to Mrs. Zlotsky, an elderly woman in a tiny apartment complex several blocks away. She rarely left her home over the last several years. The television, when uncovered in the rubble, was gifted to her by those that found it, in honor of her fortitude.

I helped her with errands on occasion, as nobody else lived in the building with her any longer. Though my engineering skills were not usually of the electronic kind, I remained confident I could fix her television.

It must work again by the time they broadcast the national ballet live, the elderly lady would remind me every time I visited her.

That shouldn’t be a problem, I often told her. I just need a few days.

Now, I sat with my leg propped on my other kitchen chair, bag of ice on my knee, repairing the very component that would allow her to watch television again.

The spoon I’d retrieved lay forgotten alongside it.

Thump.

The sound didn’t register fully in my brain. The building often sang with bangs, bumps, and noises of people making the most of their living conditions by way of unauthorized renovations. A mere thump wouldn’t warrant a glance in those circumstances.

Thump.

The second was closer to my door. I turned my head slightly, but continued to twist the tiny screw that occupied my attentions.

Thump.

At this point I did turn around. A few bumps up against my door followed. I kept it unlocked, as residents of that building tended to do. Still, I had no fear. We kept an eye out for one another when we could.

The door flew open. In staggered my friend, the stout Otto, heaving a stained cardboard box. The weight of it dragged him over to my kitchen table. I moved my work out of the way just as he planted the box on top of my meagre tools.

Good morning then, Otto.

He leaned on my table, out of breath. Do you have any coffee brewing?

I shook my head. I was going to the café’ today. But I’ll brew some now if you like.

Otto shook his head and gestured at my second kitchen chair. I withdrew my leg. Otto dropped into the seat. He loosened his long black overcoat and panted for a minute. He smoothed his moustache, despite it not being disheveled. It was never disheveled, but this was a longstanding habit of his.

He kept the moustache clean, well-trimmed. It always reminded me a bit of the American hero Theodore Roosevelt’s moustache. 

What’s in the box?

Ah, Otto said. He patted the top of the box. Culture.

In my youth Otto had been a street clown and performer. Juggling, playing a horn, chasing children about. Once the Regime clamped down more on decadent distractions, he’d worked in a warehouse records office until The Fall. Today, like so many refugees in our own city, he no longer had a fixed job, but lived on a meager pension.

What sort of culture is in a cardboard box?

Otto smiled smile and reached inside. He pulled out a worn paperback. This he slid across the table to me.

"William Shakespeare’s The Tempest," I said, reading from the battered cover. It featured a drawing of a beach with a palm tree. The letters DL in thick red ink had been hastily scrawled. They stood for Decadent Literature, in the shorthand of old Regime bureaucracy. All of the Shakespeare was designated such, and was therefore contraband before The Fall.

I flipped through the pages. Yellowing but legible.

Twenty-four more copies in here, Otto said. Most are clean. Twenty-four! Some without their covers, but with all the pages. I checked.

That’s a hefty load of old blacklist books to find in one place these days. The depository will appreciate these. I think there’s only about three other books of the Shakespeare there now.

I’m not taking them to the depository. Not yet anyway. I found them, and I’m keeping them.

I peered into the box. Generally, found-books went to the free depository for public borrowing. The library, such as it was, had long since been destroyed.

That many rare books were just lying around? I said.

I found them together like this. In one of the hangars at the old Region B Airfield. A lot of stuff ended up hidden in there. Probably bound for the furnaces.

My god in heaven, Otto. That entire place is still covered in mines.

Otto’s slight smile shrank away. He looked around with manic energy, stood up, and patted various parts of his rotund body. All there. Guess they missed.

Like a hidden mine itself, his somber face exploded into laughter. The clown aspects never left him.

Otto...

Dimitri, please. He put up a hand and sat back down in his chair. I trust the intelligence I had and the map I was given. I have friends who looked into it.

They aren’t trained for that sort of work.

My cautious friend. Do you want to know more about these books? Or do you prefer to remain angry over the fact I could have, but did not get blown to pieces?

It was pointless to argue with him.

All right. What do you intend to do with all those Shakespeare plays?

"Just that one play. They’re all The Tempest."

Then what can one man do with so many copies of the exact same text?

Otto squinted at me. What can I do? Why I’m going to stage it, of course. I’m going to put it on.

Put it on? I looked at him, then back to the copy of the book on the table. How, in a place like this, I gestured out my window. Where? Who will help you?

I’m still working on who, but I have ideas.

UN aid packages haven’t been shipped in two weeks, mines in the airfield, winter setting in, and you think people will want to put on a show?

Otto shrugged. It’s not like anyone around here is leaving the city any time soon. You included. You are quite available to help me out, I know it.

Ah. And how do you expect me to help? Not as an actor, I hope, because if that’s it—

Heavens, no, he said too quickly. That is to say, I know you don’t enjoy it.

I had done one act with him in the street as a child and vomited with nerves before the end. It was the only time I had tried to perform.

Then what?

Do you still have that old camera of yours?

One of my few personal possessions I took with me from my true home during the evacuation—the camera my father gave me as a child. Damaged in the early days of the revolution, I hadn’t repaired it.

Yes. I’ll never get rid of that.

Do you think it could ever be fixed? That perhaps you could fix it yourself?

It’s possible. Might be fun to get it going again, but, I gestured to the ragtag collection of tools in front of me, you see what I have to work with here.

Otto grunted. What’s that you’re working on now, anyway?

I promised Old Lady Zlotsky I’d fix her television before some national ballet comes on. Personally, I can’t imagine getting that worked up over dancing, but she insists. It’s her TV after all, that’s the...what is it? What’s wrong?

Otto put down his copy of the play and cocked his head to one side. Have you not been told? Mrs. Zlotsky died morning before last.

Died? No, I sure as hell wasn’t told. Why are you just telling me this?

Otto turned his palms to the ceiling. I thought you knew already; I swear it. When did you last visit her?

I shook my head and tossed a screwdriver across the table. I felt dizzy when I realized the implication. The last night of her life. We...I was talking to her about the TV set.

We both sat a minute without talking. Otto asked finally, Did you know her especially well?

Not any better than you did. The conversation about this TV job was the deepest we’d ever had. Days before the ballet. Horrendous timing, damn it all.

Ninety-five, though. Not the biggest shock in the world, right?

I agreed. Surprised she lasted that long in that drafty suite of hers. She’d been sick, too.

A long time. Otto picked up the book and flipped through the pages. Maybe she was just holding on long enough to see that ballet.

Tell me, Mr. Culture. In her place would you have tried to, as you say, hold on in this world just for a live ballet on TV?

No. But I’m not 95 either.

Again, we didn’t talk for one minute. This time Otto flipped at the pages of The Tempest even faster. He looked at me, then looked out the window. Then back at me.

Flip, flip, flip.

So, as to your camera, Dimitri—

Yes, yes. I will fix it one of these days. Why do you care so much about it at a time like this?

Because I would appreciate it if you took some pictures of rehearsals and performances.

If it happens, yes, I will.

Oh, it will happen, Otto said. He stood up. I have a few people in mind to play roles. But until then, you can help in another way.

Let’s hear it.

Tell you what. I’ll leave this box of books here for the moment, while I buy you some of Bruno’s real coffee. You look like you could use some. I’ll explain the rest over there. Just, don’t make me lug that all the way to the café.

Leave it if you prefer.

Otto and I stepped out of my building two and a half minutes later. We bundled our coats against a light breeze. He noticed my worse-than-normal limp.

What happened to you? Or is that just how old age settles into a bad knee?

Says the man 21 years my senior. Who cannot even carry his own box of books to the Café, I may add. How can you expect to put on a play when you can’t carry your books as well as a schoolboy?

Often, I teased Otto, though this time it was as much to do with distracting myself from the depression settling deep into my chest about Mrs. Zlotsky’s death.

Marcel is going to help. I’ll let him lift the heavy things.

Otto walked a step behind me as we made our way to the café. He’d done this for years. I’m not sure why.

How is he? I asked.

Doing well.

We walked on for two minutes, our silence broken by a car engine revving its way around the corner.

Vehicles were slowly making their way back into our parts of the city. A hand full of merchants had a beat-up truck. A wealthy downtowner would on occasion have business in the still-suffering sectors. A rudimentary bus system had even been established again.

That notwithstanding we could usually cross our streets without checking for traffic.

This time a Provincial Guard jeep rounded the corner and came down the street in our direction. It squeaked to a halt in front of us. A Major hopped out of the back—the military commandant of our sector of the city, Anton Zelensky.

Gentleman, he said as he approached us. You’ve saved me some time.

Otto was on a first name basis with the young officer. On the whole, the local population addressed him by rank, though he never insisted civilians do so. It was done out of respect for the man that turned on and arrested his own commanding officer in the Regime Army in the midst of revolution by the authority of my countrymen.

Luckily much of his platoon had already deserted or agreed with the mutiny. I suspect he would have done it, regardless.

That display of heroism, far before the outcome of the war was certain, earned him the rank of Major in the Provincial Guard, assigned to oversee our sector. At 28 he was the youngest to ever attain such a position.

Long before that, though, when the Regime was still crushing all of us, Zelensky joined the ranks of Otto’s street-children. I was well into high school by then, but Otto would tell me about him.

Never once laughed. But he watched every trick, every joke with those big green eyes of his. That perfect side part in his hair even back then, always shushing the other kids when he thought they were being too noisy for the show. Can you imagine?

Otto saved him once from choking on a hard candy. Zelensky had always appreciated that and made certain Otto and his wife were safe in the pseudo-anarchy of the earliest days of The Fall, though he took his duties to protect all of us as serious as anyone ever did. Since police forces were still in their infancy and patrolled only downtown, Guardsmen were our only law enforcement at the time.

Good morning, Anton, Otto said. Join us at Bruno’s?

He shook his head. No time this morning, I’m afraid. I was just on my way to deliver this.

He produced a paper from a pocket in his fatigues and handed it me.

What is it?

We found this in the late Mrs. Zlotsky’s apartment. She’s left all of her belongings to you, to do with as you please.

I looked at Otto as though it had been his decision. He shrugged.

Me? Why me?

I don’t have that information, Zelensky said. You have the right to whatever is there. I have a guard posted there for another day or so. He knows.

What would I ever need from a deceased elderly woman? And why should it be me? I didn’t even have the chance to fix her TV.

She hasn’t had family in years and years, Otto said. It makes sense to leave her things to someone that was kind to her.

All right. Yes. Yes, that’s. Thank you, Major. I’ll head over after some coffee, if that’s acceptable.

Fine, fine.

A few cordial words, and Zelensky turned crisply away. He jumped back into the jeep, and it buzzed down the street.  

I think I need that coffee now more than ever, I said.

Wait, you two, someone called.

We turned.

Tomás, Otto said. Have you met Dimitri?

No, said Tomás as he approached us. Not yet.

Tomás here is a gymnast, and a bit of a ballet dancer, speaking of. First person in the play. Wanted in before he even read the script. Didn’t you?

Tomás bounded around as a gymnast does. Short hair, defined muscles visible through the cut of his blue peacoat. Calves and thighs to match. Broad smile as tight as the rest of him.

That’s right, he said. Ariel.

I’m not familiar with the characters, I told him.

Ariel is a magic, fairy-like being, Tomás said. A sprite.

The match was evident. Already in my mind I saw him tumbling and flipping around the place as the mythical entity.

He was going to participate in a project I was working on just before The Fall. State approved circus nonsense. Otto sneered. He was the first one I asked when I put all this together.

I happened to overhear your conversation with Major Zelensky, Tomás told me. I have a favor to ask of you.

I’ll try my best, I told him.

May I join you at Mrs. Zlotsky’s place, and take anything you don’t want?

Of all the possibilities I’d considered, that wasn’t one of them.

There are still the clothing Exchanges, Tomás, Otto said. I’m sure you could...

No, it’s not for daily life. It’s for the play. May I look through her closet? She had some of the finest coats and capes and such. You remember, when she used to be able to walk around town?

You’re looking for a costume? Otto asked. From the dead? That’s twisted.

Twisted? Tomás said. Let’s be fair now, Otto...

Relax everyone, I told them. After all they’re just going to donate or get rid of what I don’t want. Is there a specific article you’re hoping to find?

Tomás shook his head. No. He turned to Otto again. Ariel is a fairy, after all.

Otto cleared his throat. Yes, that’s...yes Ariel is a fairy.

So I should go beyond the same rags and coats we all wear. Items I can’t find in the charity shops or the relief packages. You’ve read the whole play now, right?

Yes, naturally, Otto said.

Then you’ve seen how different Ariel is. Not just a fairy, but...well it’s the type of role few people alive in this country today were allowed to see. You’re always talking of culture, Otto. Well, that’s what this is. If I wear just one thing of hers, now that she no longer needs it, it’ll stand out to whoever comes to this show. If anyone does.

None of that attitude, Tomás, or they won’t find you in it at all. It’s not too late to cast you as a tree instead. Or in your case perhaps a shrub?

Tomás waved a hand blindly in Otto’s direction, and kept talking to me. Look, I’ll know it if I see it. One piece of clothing, only from the things you don’t want. Nothing more.

This Tomás was earnest. I respected that. He would move his hands while he spoke, but not in a conventional fashion. People tend to chop at the air with their hands. We cut weeds. Tomás eased clouds out of his way. I couldn’t tell if he did it on purpose, or if it was his natural way of talking. But if he moved with that much grace while talking, his movement on stage would be a pleasure to watch.

You’ll show utmost respect while we’re there, I told him. No ransacking, no bull running around in a China shop to discover things.

Tomás’s eyes widened. Not at all.

Otto, it doesn’t bother me. I won’t take any of her clothes. Somebody else will end up with them, might as well be him.

Otto shook his head. As you wish, my friend. Seems a tad ghoulish, but if you’re okay with it.

She loved ballet, I said. She probably would love the Shakespeare too. If she’d ever had the chance to see any. Tomorrow then, after lunch. Meet me there at one?

One, Tomás said. And thank you. Thank you for your help.

Can we grab coffee now? Otto asked. I’ve not had any this morning yet, if you’ll recall. Are you coming with us, Tomás?

Thanks, but no. I’m going home and read over the script for some more ideas that you’ll find ghoulish. He pounded his fist into his hand and smiled as he walked off.

I regret asking you to join, Otto called after him.

Tomás did not look back, but leaped into the air and clicked his heels.

I like him, I said.

The two of us turned toward the café. After a few steps I asked Otto, "You don’t truly regret putting Tomás in the play, do you?

Otto snorted. Are you joking? You saw him just now. Who else within 100 miles could play a better sprite?

You could, at his age.

At this, Otto laughed. I have a few tricks left in me, I suppose. He pulled a pencil out of his coat pocket and with sleight of hand made it vanish, as he had done years ago in the streets for the children. That made me smile. Now, let’s discuss venues over coffee.

The Café was the whole name. As plain and direct and unassuming as the owner, Bruno. In fact everyone just called the place Bruno’s. Papa and I would have lunch there once a week or so when I was a child.

Sandwich? he would ask my father. Such a deep voice. Papa always ordered a sandwich when we went to The Café, and Bruno knew his order. He knew everyone’s order. Even the Party chairmen when they came in only once a year or so.

You? he’d ask me. I was one of the few who changed his order every time I came in. I’d