Life After Romeo: Dying to live
Bitter memories lay discarded around her empty room, just as they were strewn throughout the remainder of her empty life. Regrets of living lies and lost love haunted her every act. The ring she had taken from his cold, unmoving hand had its place at her bedside table; a constant reminder of the heavy burden she carried with her, always. She had given him that ring as a token of her eternal love. Night after night, she would close her eyes to sleep, only to recall the weight of him as he lay motionless against her, feeling his unseeing gaze upon her treacherous face.
Breathe; that which he could do no longer. Was his soul resentful? She would wonder, consumed by an overwhelming sense of guilt. Drowning in the hatred she directed at herself and her innate cowardice, the memories rushed up to engulf her, time and time again. It was as though her life were a repeating sequence, a broken record living in memories rather than reality. He had given up his life at the thought of her death, yet she had lived on.
Following the contours of her aged face, a single tear fell from her trembling chin. Once again, she saw his handsome features advancing towards her, could feel her heart ricochet against her satin-covered ribcage, and the blood rushing up to warm her cheeks in a blush that caught his eye. Such beautiful eyes he had, she thought, as his mischievous grin made them sparkle with untold mirth. Then, he was reaching for her and his melodious voice sent shivers down her spine. She would always remember how his words that night seemed to place a curse upon them; "Let lips do what hands do, they pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair." Such blasphemy could not go unpunished, and how they had suffered…
Oh, how better off had they been, had she turned him away; the ancient grudge of Montague and Capulet continued, with so many lives lost or ruined, more so since his death. Despair? His youthful innocence knew nothing of despair. Merely an adolescent infatuation, yet he held such a passionate disposition that he would return the sweet gift that was his life, in order to spend an eternity suffering the pains of hell rather than a lifetime lamenting her demise, how fraudulent she must seem. Could his restless soul ever forgive such duplicity? She sees it all again, a poisonous goblet clutched in his rigid hands, his face inches from her own. She recalls the crippling despair of finding not a drop of that fatal substance remaining, and then of reaching for his dagger, planning to join him in eternal bliss. Yet, that damned page boy and the guard disturbed their resting place! Her resulting panic caused a brief hesitation that would last nigh on forty years, and to this day she concealed the very same dagger. Being steered from her tomb to cries of "Miracle!" she could see nothing through the tears that had clouded her vision.
Reflecting the glowing orb of the moon, her tears cascaded over a memory-soaked balcony, and into oblivion; how she wished to follow them. How, every single day, each and every breath, and every flutter of her eyelid, was filled with his face, his voice…his death. They had named her a madwoman, driven to insanity by the demise of her true love, and wondered if her death would not have been a kinder fate; Lord only knows how she questioned that herself. Punishing her, the lord was; punishing her infidelity, her indecency, her betrayal.
Sinking into a trance she both longed for and despised; she trembled, as she could still feel his lips against her own when she dreamed. Reaching for her, she could not protest, yet nor could she allow herself to relent. So, she stood silent at his rampaging of her sinfully innocent lips, finding the simple thought of him stopping unbearable. It was only upon the return of her sweet Nurse that she was thrust back to the realm of reality, for she had surely been intoxicated by him, as she would have been if a litre of rum had passed her lips. Yet, those talented lips of his would always become cold, unyielding, and lifeless, causing her to wake, facing the sorrowful sobs that occupied her barren, inane existence.
Numerous suitors had asked for her hand, a valiant effort had been made on her father's part, to restore his daughter's happiness. Yet, nothing, no one could fill the void left by him. She no longer knew if what she felt was grief, guilt or sheer insanity. Surely, such pain should have an end? No living creature should, or could, endure such heart-wrenching agony and anguish. She may as well have taken her life that fateful night, for what she lived now was not a life, but a form of torment; an earthly perdition, created for her alone. It were as though the Fates had felt cheated out of one soul, so much so that she was to be punished here as well as the afterlife. Dwelling upon these thoughts, she would hear a voice, indistinguishable at first yet growing into that beautiful, harmonious voice she recalled so distinctly. Relieving so much of her pain, she would wait with bated breath to hear it again. What if I were to tell thee we could be, together for all of eternity? It would ask, teasing her for days only to elaborate further when the sobs shook her light frame and the ocean grew envious at the extent of brine falling from her weary eyes.
Planting the seeds of an extraordinary plan, which she watered with long coveted dreams, the ideas implanted by his voice, grew to fruition and with them came her first shards of a kind of happiness. The corresponding smile felt alien on her usually grim features yet, with her shattered expression came the revival of her shattered heart. With her first step from the great manor house in which she had remained captive since his death, came the unburdening of her sorrows and the relinquishing of guilt. Holding her head high, the madwoman made her rounds of the fair city of Verona, a city that had changed so much in the years of her confinement. A few more hours, she sighed, and she would finally be free.
Visiting what little of her family she had left, together they rejoiced at the return of her lucidity. However, what they were not to know, until too late, was that this was merely her bidding them and the world farewell. For the time had finally come for Juliet to join her lost love. Waiting for the return of the gleaming mother moon, the only witness to her woeful sobs, she removed the dagger from the sheath that she had preserved from so long ago. Walking from the sorrow-drenched ether that was her room, she lay upon the floor of her balcony, a place that held his presence so vehemently.
For a brief moment in time, all uncertainty and hesitation vanished, as she welcomed the sharp pain, wondering how long it had been since she had felt anything so strongly. She watched as her life blood slipped from the blessed wound at her abdomen, noting, as though from a great distance, how it ran more rapidly upon the removal of the dagger.
Feeling the warm breeze as it ruffled her greying hair, the tips falling into the growing puddle that surrounded her body, the glowing moon observed regretfully. The moon must have seen so much sorrow upon its platform amongst stars, she thought. Looking up, at such unbearably bright stars, she noticed how they seemed to trace the outline of his face and, for what would be the last time, Juliet relived the memories of her youth, calling that sweet boy to mind, he who had been so in love; her fickle Romeo.
She smiled.