I can honestly say that I was never a great fan of Shakespeare. I was forced to read Romeo and Juliet, and while the sword fighting was cool, it was all a bit melodramatic. Then there was A Midsummer’s Night Dream, well that never really did it for me and whilst Macbeth wasn’t too bad, not one of them ever made a lasting impression. probably the only two lines that I can remember from any of his plays was ‘Alas poor Yorick, I knew him’ and ‘To be or not to be, that is the question’.

Strangely enough though I remember the phrases, it wasn’t till I did an Internet search that I found they were both from Hamlet, one of his works that I’ve never actually read. It got me to thinking, what if we changed those famous words to;

To Blog Or Not To Blog

To blog or not to blog, that is the question
Whether it is better to blow the mind of others
By filling them with absolute drivel
Or to provide content of such brilliance
That they subscribe so as to always be informed
Stringing words together to please the souls of others
Or grouping them so as to please the search engines
To write, perchance to inspire, some bloggers dare to dream
For there are some that aspire to reach great heights
To thrill others with their cleverly woven words
While others wish only to encourage those
Who read into clicking or buying their offerings.
To research, to provide titillating information
To inform and satisfy needs and curiosity
Or to confuse, to confound, to bombard
The poor surfer who happenstance drops in to read
But then shakes their head in forlorn disbelief
To wonder what cruel fate caused the post to appear
Forsooth, the question is not worthy of contemplation
For in truth the question is all screwed
For in essence, the question should truly be
To blog with honesty and the goodness of heart
Or to blog merely for reasons that are not so pure

Keeping with the blogging for fun idea, I’ve decided to start another category which I have simply called Short Stories, and I mean really short. In a way I want to test my creativity and hopefully it will attract a bit of a following.

Prologue

It’s October 25 2598 and it’s my 600th birthday. I am not sure exactly how it happened, but somewhere along the way I became an immortal. Perhaps it had something to do with the depletion of the ozone layer in the late 1900’s, or maybe it was due to the radiation after the holocaust of 2020. The fact remains that I am alive when I should have died long ago.

There was a time when I was one of many immortals but our numbers have depleted over the years. It seems that mankind did not like the fact that we would never grow old, or suffer from the maladies that affected the rest of the human race. Once they discovered that an immortal could only die through decapitation those who paraded their immortality started to disappear. Then there were those who could not live with their immortality and they would either give themselves up or devise ingenious ways of removing their own heads. The rest of us kept to ourselves and roamed around, never staying in one place long enough that it would expose who we were.

I have seen and done many things, but since the great burning of 2025, I have been unable to write them down, as to own any form of written media was a death sentence. I have therefore become a wandering bard of sorts, telling stories to earn my keep. Some of the stories were factual but for the main I tend to manipulate the truth for my own amusement. It’s hysterical that no-one can tell which are true and which are pure fabrication, as only another immortal would know.

Things are so different now than they used to be in the 20th century. Man has walked away from much of the technology of the past. They have adopted a much more primitive existence. The only thing that you see on wheels these days are drawn by horses. Ships are once again powered by the wind and the only things inhabiting the sky are feathered. Violence and war still exists but the only weapons used are swords, spears and bows and arrows.

Myths and stories of the horrors of the past ensure that the majority of the populace are content with this humble lifestyle, but lately small groups are emerging that believe that things could be better. Intelligent men and women who aspire to greater things. Oh well, if there is one thing that I have learned over the years it’s that no matter what shit still happens.

As for me, I am Sire, the wandering Bard and I have many stories that need to be told.