Alas, poor Brad! I knew him, [Name Redacted]; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar?
–Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Brad cracked open a fresh Natty and walked into the party. “This is the night,” he thought to himself. This Halloween he would finally shack up with [Name redacted]. He and [Name redacted] would finally build a spooky Halloween shack. It would feature spiders, bats, and spooky spiders. There was just one problem: he was a skeleton. He did not have vocal cords and could not talk to [name redacted].
He took a sip of the Natty Light and the piss beer spilled into a puddle on the floor. It was a miracle he was even standing, let alone a freshman writing for The Sundial Humor Magazine. He lacked ligaments, a musculature structure, and any kind of circulatory system or internal organs. It was a miracle he actually wanted to build a spook shack with [name redacted], for he had no brain. His empty skull was a nebulous void filled with the idea that he somehow wanted to be with [pronoun redacted]. As he took another step into the party, what would have been his index finger, fell off. He came to the realization that this was his last night on earth. It was as if the mystical force of a writer holding him together was running out of places to develop this character. Or alternatively, a cheap Halloween themed plot device involving magic. Either one is viable. This is a college comedy magazine; I’m not going to try too hard. After all, you, kind reader, probably have a skull filled the same void that occupies Brad’s skull.
Brad was in a hurry. This skeletons’ mortal coil was coming to an end. Brad, the skeleton who wanted to build a small shack with a completely anonymous person, was about to die. He tried to bring the natty up to his jaw bone again, and his tibia fell off. Even in this process of a quick departure from the mortal coil, he knew he had to play it cool. [Name redacted] hated people who look like they tried too hard. He cautiously began to saunter towards the person of his affection. Rib bones started to fall off. Guests at the party stared as if they didn’t understand his fate was being controlled by a single, bitter, and omniscient author who did not want him to succeed. The rest of his leg fell off and sat in the hallway of a college apartment motionless. Then his hand, his wrist, and his spinal cord. As the collection of vertebrae fell out of alignment his skull rolled over and fell at [Name Redacted]’s feet. Luckily, [pronoun] was Princ[ess] Hamlet, a [possibly gender bent version of Hamlet, but a guy can dress up as a girl version of Hamlet, there’s nothing weird about it, and a girl can go as Prince Hamlet, come on, this is the twenty first century], and had forgotten to bring [possessive pronoun redacted] Yorick’s skull prop.