Jebrina: The New Hamlet

     Over the weekend I participated in a lifting competition with my friend, Jenna. As we stood on the starting line, waiting to begin the half hour performance, one of the officials turned to us and asked, "Are you ready?" Laughing, my friend and I turned to each other. She said, "Are we ready?!" And I responded, "Of course we're not ready," or something of that sort. It was at this moment I wished I had the ready wit and language of Hamlet. What would I have said if I could?

Official: Are you ready?
Jenna: Are we ready? What is it that we prepare for?
Sabrina: Surely not this bar and this weight.
Jenna: Ah, but to complete it in time.
Sabrina: And is it this short half hour with which we fight? Or is it grander? Isn't always grander?
Jenna: So, Official, what you ask us - are we ready to fight against the grandest essence and stretch of life? I suppose we must be.
Sabrina: For what other choice do we have? What other choice do we have but in pushing this bar from ourselves to shove the constraints of time from our minds?
Jenna: Then is this short half hour merely an allegory for the rest of life and the time that wastes?
Sabrina: Or a test! To calculate our handle on't. Is this your test of which you question us, Official? Are you the umpire and the king? Or am I?
Jenna: Or am I?
Official: It doesn't really matter at this point. The contest is over. We're cleaning up; you should probably go.
Sabrina: Ah, it doesn't really matter.
Jenna: Did you hear? Quantum Mechanics has disproved matter. It does not even exist!
Sabrina: Ha! Official, do you hear? It does not even exist. No matter.
[Jenna and Sabrina wander off stage as their continuing discussion wanders with them.]
Official: Someone should probably take them to the student health clinic. 

 Jebrina: The New Hamlet