Roberts, Adam. "And tomorrow and." Adam Robots: Short Stories. Gollancz: London, 2013. 206-21.An attentive reader called my attention (and, thereby, called all y'all's attention) to a intriguing short story.
The story retells the ending of Macbeth with the assumption that the witches were not equivocating.
It's a version of the usual "Wait a minute—people born by caesarean section are clearly born of women . . . what else could they be born by?" objection to the Weïrd Sisters' charm, but cleverly done.
I'm giving you a scene from early in the story where Macbeth and Macduff put down their swords and pick up a dictionary to settle the issue:
I find that to be quite fun—and that would almost be enough, but the story continues quite a distance into the future and arrives at a clever solution that reminds me of one of the stories in The Martian Chronicles.
You can read the whole story yourself here. And we can all be grateful for the attentive readers of Bardfilm—among whom you can count yourself.
Links: The story on Google Books.
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Thought #1, the author does a pretty spot on Monty Python impression.
ReplyDeleteThought #2, if we take the position that the witches *were* equivocating, and given that we learned earlier in the play that drink is the great equivocator, could it not be said therefore that the witches are made out of alcohol?
But now we must ask ourselves, does alcohol float, like wood, very small rocks, or a duck? It does not, as anyone can attest who may once have gone on a fishing trip and accidentally dropped the beer overboard even though his arm had clearly been jostled, everybody saw it, clearly not his fault. Alcohol, when it comes into contact with water, promptly disappears. Therefore we can conclude with certainty that witches, being made out of alcohol, thus do not float and are, quid ipso facto detotum, not witches and therefore not made of alcohol.