Note: I cut out some lines because they greatly slowed
down the story. I tried not to, but I
found I had no other choice if I wanted this to be at all powerful.
Death
Before Death
Then she is well, and nothing can
be ill.
Balthasar's words repeated over
and over in Romeo's mind as he kicked his mount into a headlong gallop. It could not be true. It could not be true that Juliet was dead…
was gone… forever…
Her body sleeps in Capel's
monument, and her immortal part with angels lives.
Even though his mind said that
Balthasar was telling the truth, Romeo's heart kept a tenacious hold on a slim
hope- a hope that Balthasar was mistaken, that this was only a dream- a
nightmare- anything… as long as it meant Juliet was not dead…
I saw her laid low in her
kindred's vault…
Balthasar was mistaken. He had to have been mistaken. Romeo wanted to believe the lies he told
himself- he had to. If he let
himself believe that Juliet was dead… If his love was dead, then he was dead as
well. So he couldn't believe it. Wouldn't believe it.
Then she is well, and nothing can
be ill.
The mantra that meant his death
if it were true began again in Romeo's mind.
He drove his lathered mount to still greater speed, Balthasar striving
to keep up.
Her body sleeps in Capel's
monument…
Romeo stared at the tomb without
really seeing it. He had sent Balthasar
away, but hadn't noted when his servant had left… Reality had come crashing
down on the one tendril of false hope he had left… had severed it along with
Romeo's soul.
"Thou detestable maw," he whispered,
as if the tomb were a living thing- an evil predator that had torn Juliet from
him and with her, life itself. "Thou womb of death, gorged with the dearest
morsel of the earth, thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open, and in despite
I'll cram thee with more food!" With a
cry of anguish- the chilling cry of a dying man- he pushed at the crowbar, and
the tomb creaked open.
"Stop thy unhallowéd toil, vile
Montague!"
Romeo stopped in the tomb's entrance
and sagged against the wall as if his world-weary body could not support
him. Will this blood-bath never end?
"Can vengeance be pursued
further than death? Condemnéd villain,
I do apprehend thee. Obey, and go with
me, for thou must die."
Romeo laughed hollowly, mirthlessly,
at the unintentional irony of the challenger's words. "I must indeed," he said, not turning from the darkness of the
grave. "Good gentle youth, tempt not a
desp'rate man. Fly hence and leave
me. Think upon these gone: Let them
affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,
put not another sin upon my head by urging me to fury. O, be gone!" He turned, his eyes the hollow, soulless pits of a man already
dead; whose only link to life is the fact that his heart still beats… though
not for long. "By heaven, I love thee better than myself!" he cried, trying to
get it into this youth's well-meaning but foolish head that he didn't want
to kill anymore… "For I came hither armed against myself. Stay not, begone. Live," as I cannot… "and hereafter say a madman's mercy
bid thee run away." Don't make me
kill you, fool… Romeo was tired- tired of life, tired of killing, tired of
the foolish vendetta between his family's and Juliet's that had brought this
all about. But he would fight, if he
had to… if he were forced to…
"I do defy thy conjurations and
apprehend the for a felon here," the other said, voice thick with confident
bravado.
This youth's foolishness and the
futile senselessness of the inevitable duel flamed a hot fury within Romeo's
soul- fury, despair… they were one and the same, now. "Wilt thou provoke me?!" he shouted, the words exploding in
angered exasperation from his mouth- from his heart… He yanked his blade from
its sheath. "Then have at thee, boy!"
The fight was a short one- Romeo was
easily better with the blade, and his sword was fueled by desperation. The challenger soon fell, bleeding heavily…
another life on Romeo's hands… another youth cut down by Romeo's blade.
"O, I am slain! If thou be merciful, open the tomb, lay me
with Juliet," the youth gasped with his dying breath, and then breathed no
more.
"In faith, I will," Romeo said
quietly. "Let me peruse this face." The
flickering light of his torch illuminated the dead man's face, casting an
unsteady light on it that gave the face the accusing cast of a demon's insane
grimace. "Mercutio's kinsman!" he
gasped in shock, "noble County Paris!"
What he said next, he did not
know. His eyes were fixed on Paris'
face, which in the sputtering torchlight and Romeo's grief-mad mind changed
into the face of Mercutio, then to Tybalt, then back to Paris- all dead because
of him. Romeo stared down at his bloody
sword and hands. So many have died…
because of me… I killed them. Blood stains my hands… my heart… By living I
only bring pain and death. Even to my
Juliet…
He stood abruptly, hoisting
Paris' corpse over his sweat-soaked shoulders and staggering into the
tomb. "I'll bury thee in a triumphant
grave. A grave?" His eyes fell on Juliet, pale and cold yet
beautiful even in death, and the sight wrenched at his heart. "O, no, a
lanthorn, slaught'red youth… for here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes this
vault a feasting presence full of light.
Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interred."
He looked around the tomb that would
be his deathbed with a feeling that ran close to satisfaction, a half-emotion
that nestled by the grief burning a hole in his heart. "Tybalt," he said, seeing his
cousin-in-law's corpse, "liest thou there in thy bloody sheet? O, what more favor can I do to thee than
with that hand that cut thy youth in twain to sunder his that was thine
enemy?" Tybalt will be happy I am
dead, Romeo thought, not without a wry edge to the sentence, as will
much of Verona… I do a favor to the
world by killing myself.
"Forgive me, cousin!" he said to
Tybalt's corpse in a harsh, deadened voice, and turned to gaze hungrily one
last time at his love- at Juliet. "Ah,
dear Juliet," he murmured. "O, here will I set up my everlasting rest and shake
the yoke of inauspicious stars from this world wearied flesh…"
Indeed, Romeo seemed ages older than
he was. His body was young, but his
hands were bloodstained and his eyes showed that his soul was already tethered
to the grave. He seemed infinitely
exhausted- a boy who had seen more than many man; a boy whose passionate heart
had been slain by Fate's cruel blade.
"Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! And lips, O you the doors of breath, seal
with a righteous kiss a dateless bargain to engrossing death!"
He picked up the potion, looking at
it as a prisoner might gaze at his liberator… and to him, it was his
liberator. The poison would save him
from his own tattered soul… "Come, bitter conduct; come, unsavory guide! Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on the
dashing rocks thy seasick weary bark!
Here's to my love!"
Romeo gulped it back, and the potion
burned as it scraped its way down his throat.
He shuddered at the taste, but could feel himself growing weaker
immediately… could feel his life fleeing from him. "O true apothecary! Thy
drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I
die." He crumpled to the ground as
everything blanked out to darkness. The
last voice he heard sounded somehow, impossibly, like Juliet… and then he could
hear nothing at all, and never would again.
Fate holds no favorites in her heart
Yet falls on the
innocent with immense rage.
The world holds no
love for others' joy
And destroys them
at an early age…
Poison runs through
fooléd veins
Blood flows to end
a lover's life.
Fate plays cruel
tricks to tragic ends
Yet good will
result at the end of strife.
