The Hamlet of the Mutant World

Nearly five years and countless disappearances later, and one thing still held true for Jamie Madrox: Rogue was the best and closest friend he’d made on the Island.

(Layla, of course, was in a league all on her own.)

So when he needed someone to talk to who wasn’t a voice in his head, Rogue was at the top of Jamie’s list. Weeks later and he was still wrestling with his and Layla’s decision to start trying for kids — or, at least, to stop actively avoiding having kids. He needed an outsider’s perspective, someone without any stake in the matter to give him some reassurance that they weren’t being extraordinarily stupid.

He knocked on the door of her hut, and called out, “Anybody home?”

It had been a while since Jamie had gone through the traditional casting process -- at least on this end of things. Barring his hastily thrown together reading of A Christmas Carol last year, the last time he'd directed a proper play had been The Mousetrap a couple years back. He hoped he wasn't rusty.

More importantly, he hoped people would show up. Twelve Angry Men lacked the feel-good allure of a musical or the cultural awareness of a Shakespeare, but he thought it was topical all the same. A bunch of people stuck in a room until they can come to a common consensus?

If that wasn't a great metaphor for Island life, he wasn't sure what was.

Sitting at the edge of the stage with his handy dandy notebook in his lap, he waited for the first audition.

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There was an underwater city full of horrors beneath their feet, and Jamie Madrox couldn't be happier to be safe in bed with his wife, sated and warm. Richards snuffled at the bedroom door from the hallway, wanting in now that things had quieted down, and it was only for him that Jamie rolled onto his feet. The dog bolted inside the moment he could, immediately curling into his wicker doggy bed with a satisfied huff. Jamie similarly returned to his own bed, sliding in beside Layla and dropping a kiss to her forehead before rolling onto his back blinking up at the ceiling.

"You know what would be really stupid?" he said, in lieu of nothing, his thoughts scattered in a million directions. "Like… the most ridiculous thing you could possibly offer on this island? And there are some doozies, but I'm thinking… I'm thinking a pizza delivery service has gotta take the cake, because it's deceptive, yanno? On the one hand, it'd be great because-- Well, pizza, right? But on the other… No phones."

It's dangerous to admit, but I've found myself appreciating this new trend of the Island's... For a man like myself, someone who's travelled the globe in search of new experiences, Tabula Rasa's traditional tricks have proved somewhat stifling, predictable. But now, for the second time in a handful of months, the environment's changed so drastically that one would be hard pressed to recognize it for the island at all, were it not for some convenient place-markers informing the way...

It makes things new. Unpredictable. And if there's one thing I've learned about myself over the years... It's that -- literally in spite of myself -- I have an appreciation for the unpredictable. Not a healthy one, mind you, but one all the same.

It makes work interesting.

Fully embracing the theme of the month, though it was a few genres to the west of his favored noir, Jamie returned to the transformed IPD office after his patrol, dressed for success and still armed with enough water to keep a few people hydrated for at least a day. Given the weather, it was worth carrying the extra weight around, just in case; dehydration was hardly the way to go, something he knew though he hadn't any personal experience with it, for once.

Spying Sawyer, however, he stopped before heading back out, the spurs of his boots clinking against the floor.

"You know," he said, in lieu of absolutely nothing, "I used to be a rodeo clown."

I like different. That could probably go without saying, given how I utilized my dupes, but just because something's obvious doesn't mean it isn't true. Seeking out new experiences, exploring new things... I wanted to know everything, live everything, because I couldn't bring myself to narrow down my interests to just one thing.

So when the Island pulls a fast one and replaces tropical shores with icy, Victorian England, I enjoy every second of it. It's new, though I find aspects of it unsettling. The ghosts that populate the streets, intangible unless required, living on the peripheries of existence...

They remind me of my dupes, but not the aspect I miss. Rather, the aspect that used to keep me awake at night, lost in existential angst. I try not to think about it when I'm out with Layla, trying to keep my attention on her rather than what's around us, but it's still there. A voice at the back of my mind...

They were alone in a dimly lit shop, save for the worker that was sifting through books somewhere near the back; Jamie could hear him, but had only caught a glimpse of the man when they first entered about five minutes ago, their arrival heralded by a tinny sounding bell. It was mid-afternoon on a Sunday, the party from the night before already a distant memory; there were a lot of parties this time of year, and most of them seemed to bleed into each other unless there was something to break them up. Today, however, was special; it marked Layla's second year on the island, and though there was no real reason to be in this particular shop beyond the fact that Jamie hadn't been inside it before, he'd had the thought of getting her some kind of trinket to mark the occasion. It wasn't one worth celebrating, perhaps, but it deserved some attention.

Two years ago to the day, he'd learned she was safe and sound; that was more than he'd known the day he'd arrived.

He'd drifted from her side when something across the room caught his eye, and he held it up, now, for examination. It was a ring, simple but elegant.

"My precious," he hissed under his breath, doing an uncanny impersonation of Andy Serkis.

They say our youth has become desensitized to violence. That the media, in its infinite wisdom, has blown the door on death wide open. By the time a child has reached their eighteenth birthday, he or she will have witnessed, on television alone, over 200,000 acts of violence, of which 40,000 murders are included. It's a big number. The kind of big that would send the Mrs. Lovejoys of the world into cries of hysteria... 'Think of the children!'

But the reality of death is not as clean as the idiot box would have you believe... There remains a difference between seeing a stunt guy fall to his 'death' accompanied by a Wilhelm scream and stumbling across the corpse of someone you know. Death -- real death -- carries a weight that's not so easily dismissed as hitting your remote's off switch. And I should know. Before the island, I made one of my livings working in a coroner's office. Gallows humor is the only thing that gets you through the day when a reminder of your own mortality is laying naked on a slab, cut wide open for anyone happening by to see. But cracking wise is just a stopgap. A coping mechanism. Because death isn't something you just get used to, even in that line of business. It hits you every time. The stench of decomposition. The lifeless stare. The simple, instinctive impulse to run away.

I've both killed and been killed. And believe me when I tell you that it doesn't matter how many times you've seen too-bright blood seep out of an actor's squib-ridden head. No amount of exposure to media violence will ever prepare you for the real thing... Even when the real thing's something you've seen before.

Looking back, Jamie'd consider himself lucky that this was the first time the force that ran this place had really sought to mess with him. Over the course of two years, his troubles on the Island had been largely self-manufactured -- personal drama born of ill-advised romantic entanglements, the sharp loss suffered by Moira and Brodie's disappearances, his prolonged flirtation with suicide. The few days he'd lost his voice hadn't been a picnic, but on the whole, he'd been in charge of his own destiny, here, the reminders of his colorful past brought up by his own doing. This, though, was different.

It was Richards who spotted it first: a shrunken hand clad in a blue glove, sticking out of the water. The dog pulled at the leash, leaving Jamie with little choice but to follow, but already he could feel dread settle in the pit of his stomach, the reluctance in his every step, born not by the proximity to a place he'd once tried to drown himself in in the past, but what potentially awaited him in the present. His reluctance was earned as he got in closer, Richards barking all the while as Jamie dropped down to one knee on the slippery rocks, the leash slipping from his grasp as he hauled the hand -- and the body necessarily attached to it -- out of the water.

The smell alone was like something out of a nightmare, sending Richards scampering off back through the trees, but Jamie barely registered it, too focused was he on the pale, wasted face of his deceased self. Shifting until he was seated gracelessly at the water's edge, he cradled the body -- his body -- in his arms, a dry sob tearing itself from his throat as he brushed back strands of stringy, too-long hair away from the dupe's forehead, his thumb catching on the thin strap of the cowl. For a man infamous for seeing every possibility, every permutation, his gaze was remarkably narrowed, fixed entirely on the corpse in front of him, his mind blank from thought as shock took over, and an eternity could pass in a second.

- Play summary.
- Initial Plot Post in slated.
- Auditions.
- Cast List.
- First rehearsal.
- Information about rehearsal schedules.
- Information about the show.
- Opening Night.

After the Island's latest prank on Halloween, Jamie was, admittedly, concerned that not enough people would show up for auditions. He'd considered postponing the casting call for a later date, but had, ultimately, decided against it. The snowstorm was such a vital component to the play's plot that the idea of performing it in tropical weather didn't appeal to him in the least, and there was no guarantee that the Island's traditional winter would extend into January. His initial timeline would just have to stand -- hopefully.

Sitting on the edge of the stage, he tapped his pen impatiently against the coil of a notebook pilfered from the bookshelf. Without looking up at the next person up to try out, he said, "Alright, please state your name and previous experience, if applicable. And... don't be worried if the answer's none, that's fine, too."