I am not Shakespeare. I am not Evanescence. I hate to break it to you, but Shakespeare would not be around to be writing this, because he is dead-- you know, like (spoiler alert for a completely unrelated story) Sirius Black. Not just hiding. Not lingering alive beyond the veil. Not waiting in Stonehenge. Not even in a random Tennessee bathroom (like Elvis . . . ???). Just dead. It's a very sad thing for both of them, of course. It makes me teary sometimes. Okay, not really. I don't know why I am venting this to you. This has nothing to do with anything. I am going to get on with the story now.
Catch me as I fall.
My mother and the nurse were gone. I was left standing at the window, staring out into the grey evening sky. I was all alone now. Alone to carry out my plan.
Yet now I was scared beyond belief.
"I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins that almost freezes up the heat of life."
Say you're here and it's all over now.
I didn't want to do it. I wanted out. "I'll call them back again to comfort me--" I wanted to curl up and cry like a little baby against my nurse and mother, have them forgive me for everything, for real . . . have everything be perfect again.
"Nurse!"
I stopped. "What should she do here? My dismal scene I needs must act alone."
Alone. I wanted Romeo here beside me more than ever-- ironic, how to be with him I must carry out an action I needed him to be with me as I performed.
Speaking to the atmosphere.
I clasped my hands together, beseeching God in the clouds to help me carry it out. He was all I had now.
No one's here and I fall into myself.
I felt nothing. I was really, truly alone.
This truth drives me into madness.
"Come, vial."
I reached for the vial within my bag. I felt the cool crystal glass in my hands, so sharp and cruel even to the touch.
I know I can stop the pain if I will it all away . . .
I raised the vial and peered into the liquid inside: an amber fluid with a sickly yellow tint, thin and watery, yet so potent.
. . . if I will it all away.
So much depended on that potion. How easily it could go wrong.
Don't turn away . . .
"What if this mixture do not work at all? Shall be married then tomorrow morning?"
. . . don't give into the pain.
"No, no, this shall forbid it. Lie thou there." I dug further within my bag and pulled out my dagger. I laid it on the bed beside me, in close reach. It seemed almost easier to die than to carry out this plan. Yet I had to-- or I would die.
Don't try to hide . . .
"What if it be a poison, which the Friar subtly hath ministered to have me dead, lest in this marriage he should be dishonored, because he married me before to Romeo?" My fingers were growing sweaty on the glass. The liquid inside looked so pernicious.
. . . though they're screaming your name.
"I fear it is. And yet methinks it should not, for he hath still been tried a holy man." I patted my heaving breast, reminding myself that Friar Lawrence had his best intentions, that he had wanted to help me, to turn "our households' rancor to pure love."
Don't close your eyes . . .
The plan was simple. I trusted it. I would simply go to sleep, never feeling a thing, and wake up . . .
. . . God knows what lies behind them.
In the tomb. It never mattered what happened between now and then, for I would not feel a thing. Yet . . .
"How if, when I am laid onto the tomb, I wake before the time that Romeo come to redeem me? There's a fearful point."
Don't turn out the light . . .
"Shall I not then be stifled in the vault, to whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in, and there die strangled ere my Romeo come?"
. . . never sleep, never die.
I could feel it . . . the stifling air of the tomb, the cold, wet walls, the deadly silence. My throat was tightening with the very idea.
I'm frightened by what I see,
"Or, if I live, is it not the very like the horrible conceit of death and night, together with the terror of the place-- as in a vault, an ancient receptacle where for these many hundred years the bones of all my buried ancestors are packed." I saw bones, piled around on stone biers, bloodied sheets, even--
But somehow I know there's much more to come.
"Where bloody Tybalt, yet green in earth, lies festering in his shroud." His body would just be starting to decay, only three days old . . . there would be blood from his wounds, a rotting smell. My stomach heaved.
Immobilized by my fear,
"Where, as they, at some hours of the night, spirits resort." Tybalt was so newly dead. Did he know of my love for Romeo? Would he raise himself up when his murderer arrived?
And soon to be blinded by tears.
I couldn't help it; I was so afraid. Tears were welling in my eyes. My hands were shaking.
I know I can stop the pain if I will it all away . . .
It was just as Friar Lawrence had thought. I was being weak and womanish. I forced the tears from my eyes.
Don't turn away . . .
Yet the bad thoughts still played.
. . . don't give into the pain.
I was sure now that I was going to wake up and find no Romeo to retrieve me. I was positive. I believed it so hard I knew it was true.
Don't try to hide . . .
"Alack, alack, is it not like that I, so early waking, what with loathsome smells and shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth, that living mortals hearing them run mad?"
. . . though they're screaming your name.
"Or, if I wake, shall I not be distraught, environed by all these hideous fears?"
Don't close your eyes . . .
" And madly play with my forefathers' joints?"
. . . God knows what lies behind them.
"And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?"
Don't turn out the light . . .
I was going mad. I wasn't going to be able to control myself. If the plan didn't work, I would die. I would worse than die. I was going to wake to find a dead man on top of me, or see the shroud slide away from Tybalt. I wasn't going to be able to stand it.
. . . never sleep, never die.
"And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone, dash out my desperate brains?"
Fallen angels at my feet.
It was as if I were already mad. I could see the entire scene in my mind's eye, the shrouds, the bones . . .
Whispered voices at my ear.
The spirits . . .
Death before my eyes,
Tybalt wanted revenge for his dishonorable murder . . .
Lying next to me I fear.
He was coming for Romeo.
She beckons me; shall I give in?
"Oh look! Methinks I see my cousin's ghost, seeking out Romeo that did spit his body upon a rapier's point!"
Upon my end shall I begin?
I could see him there, a full figure, real as could be, right before me . . . beckoning me . . . he wanted vengeance . . .
Forsaking all I've fallen for,
"Stay, Tybalt, stay!" I slammed my eyes shut to ward him off.
I rise to meet the end.
"Romeo, Romeo, Romeo!" I chanted the name as a conjuration to block my dead cousin's ghost out. "I come! Here's a drink; this I do drink to thee!"
Don't turn away . . .
The vial touched my lips, and the draught poured in.
. . . don't give into the pain.
It was sickly sweet, running down my throat in burning rivulets, settling in my stomach. I choked and coughed it down, letting it take over me.
Don't try to hide . . .
It tightened my innards, stopped my blood . . .
. . . though they're screaming your name.
I could feel my extremities going to tingling, then to numb . . .
Don't close your eyes . . .
My eyes were heavy, my head sore and thick.
. . . God knows what lies behind them.
My body swayed . . .
Don't turn out the light . . .
With the last inklings of consciousness, I stuffed the vial under my pillow . . .
. . . never sleep, never die.
. . . and fell against the bed.
Don't turn away.
The blackness that engulfed me swum.
Don't try to hide.
I could see flickering lights of yellows and purples.
Don't close your eyes.
My body was motionless, my countenance set.
Don't turn out the light.
I had either won or died.
Servatis a Periculum . . .
Servatis a Maleficum . . .
