Margaret Atwood - Hag-Seed

“No way, man,” says a voice from the back of the room. “Not playing a fairy, that’s final. Like I said.” SnakeEye, a man of definite opinions.

A universal sentiment: no hands go up, all faces close. He can hear what they’re thinking: as with Miranda, so with Ariel. Too weak. Too gay. Out of the question.

“You’re bringing in an actress for Miranda, right? So, bring in a fairy for the fairy,” says Shiv. Murmurs of “Yeah,” soft laughter.

Felix could ask them why they think Ariel is a fairy, but he knows why. Flies through the air, sleeps in flowers, delicate. Looks like a fairy, acts like a fairy, is a fairy. As for Ariel’s song that claims he sucks like a bee, forget it: who with any sense of self-preservation would sing that? Not only is Ariel a fairy, he’s a super-sucking fairy. You’d never live it down. You’d be reduced to a cipher. You’d suck, in every possible way.

It would be useless for Felix to point out that Ariel isn’t a fairy, he’s an elemental air-spirit. Equally useless to tell them that that “suck” in Shakespeare’s time did not have the many derogatory meanings it has since acquired, because it has those meanings now, and now is when they’re putting on the play.

“Let’s talk about Ariel for a minute,” says Felix, which means that he will talk about Ariel, because no one else in the room is going to open his mouth on that risky subject. “Maybe we’re seeing this character as a fairy because we aren’t thinking widely enough.” He pauses to let this sink in. Wide thinking? What is that?

“So, before sticking on a label, let’s list his qualities. What sort of a creature is he? First, he can be invisible. Second, he can fly. Third, he has superpowers, especially when it comes to thunder, wind, and fire. Fourth, he’s musical. But fifth, and most important.” He pauses again. “Fifth : he’s not human .” He gazes around the room.

“What if he’s not even real?” says Red Coyote. “Like, if it’s Prospero talking to himself? Maybe he’s shaken hands with Mr. Peyote Button. Wasted out of his mind, or maybe he’s crazy?”

“Maybe it’s, like, a dream he’s having,” says Shiv.

“Maybe that boat sinks, the one they put him in. So the whole play happens right when he’s drowning.” One of the newbies: VaMoose.

TimEEz: “I saw a movie like that once.”

“Or he’s got an imaginary friend,” says PPod. “My kid had one of them.”

“Nobody else sees him,” says Leggs.

“They see him when he appears as the harpy,” says Bent Pencil.

“They hear him,” says HotWire.

“Well, yeah, okay,” says Red Coyote. “Though it could be that Prospero’s some kind of a ventriloquist.”

“Let’s suppose that Ariel is real in some way,” says Felix. He’s pleased: at least they’re talking. “Suppose you’d never heard of this play, and all you knew about this being called Ariel was what I told you about him. What kind of a creature have I just been describing?”

Mutterings. “Like, a superhero,” says Leggs. “Fantastic Four. Superman kind of thing. Except Prospero’s got the kryptonite or whatever, so he’s got the control.”

“ Star Trek kind of thing,” says PPod. “He’s an alien, like, he’s had some kind of spaceship accident, he ended up on Earth. He’s trapped here. He wants to take off, go up to his home planet or whatever, like in E.T., remember that one? That could cover it, right?”

“Doing what Prospero says so Prospero will help him get back there.” 8Handz this time. “Earning his freedom.”

“Then he can be with his own people,” says Red Coyote.

Murmurings of agreement. This all makes sense! An alien! Way better than a fairy.

“How do you see the costume?” says Felix. “What does he look like?” He won’t mention any of the traditional ways of portraying Ariel: the bird feathers, the dragonfly outfit, the angel, the butterfly wings. He won’t mention, either, that for two centuries Ariel was always played by a woman.

“He’d be, like, green,” says PPod. “With those bug eyes, like aliens have those big eyes with no pupils.”

“Green is for trees. Blue’s better,” says Leggs. “Because of air. Ariel for air. Air’s blue.”

“Can’t eat human food. Only flowers and stuff.” Red Coyote speaking. “Natural. Like, he’s a vegan.”

General nodding: with this theory the bee-sucking activity is covered with no loss of honor, because that’s the kind of thing you expect from aliens: weird eating habits.

“Fine,” says Felix. “Now: what function does he perform in the play?”

An undertone of mumbling. “What do you mean by ‘function’?” says Bent Pencil. “As you suggested in your notes, he’s the good servant. He does what he’s told. Caliban is the bad servant.”

“Yes, yes,” says Felix. “But where would the play be without the tasks Ariel carries out for Prospero? Without the thunder and lightning? Without, in fact, the tempest? Ariel performs the single most important act in the whole plot, because without that tempest there’s no play. So he’s crucial. But he acts behind the scenes — nobody but Prospero knows that it’s Ariel making the thunder and singing the songs and creating the illusions. If he were here with us now, he’d be called the special-effects guy.” Felix does another of his panoramic around-the-room scans, aiming for eye contact. “So, he’s like a digital expert. He’s doing 3-D virtual reality.”

Tentative grins. “Cool,” says 8Handz. “Scurvy cool.”

“In our play, then, Ariel is the character Ariel, but he’s also the special effects,” says Felix. “Lighting, sound, computer simulation. All of that. And Ariel needs a team, like the team of spirits he’s in charge of in the play.”

Light is dawning: they love fooling with computers, on the rare occasions when it’s possible for them.

“Monster cool!” says Shiv.

“So who wants to be on Team Ariel?” says Felix. “Any takers?”

Every hand in the room goes up. Now that they grasp the possibilities, they all want to be on Team Ariel.

The same day.

The sun’s declining; its light is cold, pale yellow. Along the top of the inner fence two crows are perched, keeping watch. No hope for you, my friends, thinks Felix. I’m the only one coming out today and I’m not dead yet. He climbs into his frozen car. After two tries, the motor starts.

The outer gate swings open, propelled by invisible hands. My thanks, ye demi-puppets, Felix addresses them silently, ye elves of barbed wire, tasers, and strong walls, weak masters though ye be. As he drives away downhill the gate closes behind him, locking itself with a metallic thud. Already the air is darkening; behind him, the searchlights blare into life.

His car follows the highway, then turns off and snouts its way along the narrow snowy roadway toward his cave, almost as if he isn’t steering it but commanding it by thought alone. He allows himself to feel relief: the first and greatest obstacles have now been overcome, the first goals achieved. He has captured his Miranda, and Ariel has been transformed and accepted. He can sense the rest of his cast emerging as if from a fog, their faces indistinct but present. So far, his charms hold good.

His car stops as if grounded. Luckily there’s no new windrow of hard-packed snow and frozen sludge to be shoveled. He parks and locks, then trudges up the lane to his hovel, snow creaking underfoot. From the field to the left comes a glassy whispering: it’s the dead weed stalks that are sticking up through the drifts, glazed with ice, stirred by the wind. Tinkling like bells.