The herbs sit in the water, whatever deathly effects they may bring seeping into the once clear liquid, which quickly turns a deep green colour. Now all I have left to do is wait.
My parents are shuffling about inside, making dinner. What they don't know is that I'm not going to be there to eat it.
I play out the scenario inside my head once again. They'll step out on the porch where I'm sitting now and call me in for dinner. They won't see me, so they'll begin to look around. Then they'll find my body- dead- in the flowerbeds, an empty bottle clutched in my hand. I'll be put to rest in the Montague family tomb, and…
Should I really do this?
Isn't there anything here for me to live for?
I twirl a lock of my dark, curly hair. It's grown out quite a bit in the past five years. Oddly enough, I still don't have any facial hair- just a bit of stubble. I guess some people just can't grow beards. Not that I'd want a beard. I don't like the way they cover part of the face. It's too much like a mask in that way, and I hate masks. There were so many of them at that stupid party. That lively event where everything started to go wrong.
There was one thing about that party that I wouldn't give up for anything, though. A slow, forbidden dance; those puns that I'd cringe at if they came from anyone's mouth but his; that hand in mine that will never be there again… But then the last song played and then that song ended and then we were standing out in the cold, both drunk and wondering where Romeo had run off to. As it turned out, he was busy wooing that Capulet girl. A five-year-old bitterness rises in me every time I think about him betraying us like that.
The mixture has fully mixed into the water now. I gently lift the bottle and remove the clump of drained leaves out. I twist on the lid- only to take it off again a few moments later- but first I want to really savour this moment. Wait, no, savour isn't the right word. Is it? I'm only doing this because I have no choice, right?
Well, actually… I do have a choice. I have the very real, very simple choice to not drink this potion, which is probably poison, and to simply go on living. And do I want to make that choice? I think very long and very hard about it as I sit on the porch steps and I decide, with a sinking feeling, that I want to carry through with the choice I made that morning.
"Two more minutes until our dinner is prepared," my father calls from inside. "You'll have to come in soon, Benvolio."
Guilt flares in my chest; before those two minutes pass I'll be dead.
What if this concoction isn't even poison at all? The thought has occurred to me several times throughout the day, and each time I've welcomed it. If it's not poison, then I'll live on, perhaps healthier is it's a tonic of some sort. But judging by a few of the ingredients, I am almost positive that it would kill be if I drink it. Why else could it be shimmering and swirling around like that?
Well, if I'm really going to do this, I've got to be quick about it. I pick up the bottle and raise it to my lips. Then I remember that the lid is still on and I unscrew it, my hands trembling as I hold the bottle. A bit of the dark green liquid spills out of the top. Am I really going to do this?
Yes.
I lift the bottle to my lips and drink the liquid. It doesn't taste like poison. In fact, it doesn't really taste like… anything. But as soon as it touches my tongue, my mouth is filled with an overwhelming tang. Then a burst of sweetness follows, and then… every taste imaginable passes over my tongue, and I move it around inside my mouth and over my lips and then I swallow the first sip of the liquid. If it is poison, there's no turning back now. It feels like nothingness sliding down my throat.
Some people are walking by in the streets, enjoying the summer evening. They aren't bothering to stay close to the walls, because they know no fights will be started tonight. There are Montagues and Capulets walking side by side, some of them even holding hands… all because of my cousin and his girlfriend. But I still don't believe it was worth it.
I take another sip, bigger this time, of the maybe-poison. This time the entire world seems to spin and warp around me and I get immensely dizzy. I clutch my head. Burning tears spring up in my eyes and I squeeze them shut. I can feel my head pounding and feel it in my hands, down my arms, right through to my heart. This maddening sensation subsides after a moment or two, and I open my eyes.
The people walking by outside my house are now entirely different people. And I don't even mean that some people have come and gone; people who were leaning up against a wall talking to a friend are now vanished, and others have sprung up out of nowhere. I blink; I must be hallucinating! The people change again, this time right before my eyes; I rub my eyes but they keep on changing. The poison must be working, then, to be making me imagine such strange sights! I drink the last few drops and toss the bottle aside, preparing for death to come and claim me. The bottle shatters at my feet but the shards don't fly in every direction, with some of them digging into my ankles, as I expected they would. Instead, the bottle lands without breaking and lays there in its emptiness for a moment before simply blinking out of existence altogether.
The people outside my house change once more. A dog appears at my feet- my old dog that died almost four years ago. It wags its little brown-and-white tail when it sees me, and its muddy paws on my leg feel so real that I almost believe this isn't just some hallucination caused by the poison before it kills me. The world begins to spin once more and mutlicoloured lights dance in front of my eyes for a few seconds before I pass out.
