As I was trying to think of ways to engage Shakespeare creatively I decided to write a chapter on a section of play, kind of flesh it out. I picked Romeo and Juliet as the play I wanted to write about - I know everybody makes fun of Romeo and Juliet because they're so young, but I wanted to give them some real feelings and emotions like I like to imagine they shared. I set it right after Romeo killed Tybalt and is being forced to flee for his own life. It's kind of long, but I hope you like it. I've modernized it a little bit, as there are quotes from Keats (who wasn't alive at the time) and references to chocolate, but I think it gets the emotions I was trying to convey across. – sorry, I know it’s kind of cheesy.
I walk out of the room, frowning to myself. The wind blows outside, howling as it scrapes branches against the windows. The branches look like long brown bones, grating down the length of the panes.
I whirl around, footsteps echoing down the hallway. He stops, watching me.
I whirl around, footsteps echoing down the hallway. He stops, watching me.
“Oh,” I say, my hands fluttering. “You frightened me.”
“Juliet,” he says, his eye brightening, walking towards me again.
I turn to look at him, the tone of his voice making me look at him more carefully. I wait for him as his slow footsteps move towards me.
“Juliet,” he repeats again, his voice a whisper.
“What is it?”
He looks at the ground, his head bent, his eyebrows lowered.
“Romeo, what is it?”
He takes a deep breath, raising his head so that his brilliant brown eyes meet mine. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
The breath catches in my throat. For a moment I can’t breathe and then I gasp, looking up at him. “What is it?”
His mouth purses into a thin line, his eyes searching mine, the atmosphere around us tense with energy. He pauses, flexing and un-flexing his jaw. After a moment he slowly says, “Have you ever had someone die? Not just anyone, someone close to you. So close that . . .”
I stare at him, confused. “Someone die?” I repeat, “What do you mean?”
His eyes burn into mine. “Tybalt . . .” he starts, chocking on his words, “I-”
I reach my hand up, shaking my head, “I know.” I stop, tears filling my eyes.
He takes a step towards me and then stops, his eyes full of concern. “What are we going to do? They have a warrant out for my arrest.”
I shake my head, shrugging as I look down at the floor, “what can we do?”
“We could leave,” he answers slowly, watching my reaction closely.
“But Romeo . . . my family.”
“It’s hard,” he says after a long pause, watching my face.
I shrug, staring past him.
“Losing a loved one is . . . deep, stabbing.”
I look up at him, then away, my eyes searching down the empty school hallway.
He watches me for a long time and then groans, turning around on his heel. He walks down the hall and then turns and walks back again. He stares at the ceiling and then finally turns to me. “What do you do?” he asks after a long pause, running his hands through his hair, his voice strained.
I turn my head to look back at him. “What?”
“When it’s just . . . empty.”
I half-grin, “Eat chocolate and veg on the couch I suppose. I’m not a great fighter of depression; I kind of just let it take me.”
He nods, his eyes dark.
I scrunch up my eyebrows, realizing he is no longer talking about my dead cousin or my family, “Why?”
He doesn’t respond, his thoughts lost somewhere deep in the horizon. The wind groans outside, the first drops of rain pelting onto the fogging glass. I turn to look at it and then back again.
“Romeo?”
“Bitter-sweet chocolate,” he says, looking back at me.
“What?”
“Loss is like bitter-sweet chocolate, rich and sour. You can’t take too much of it at a time. But maybe they’re happier, safe from pain or danger.”
I pause, thinking about that. “That’s a good way of describing it,” I say after another moment. He nods. “It still hurts though,” I say, blinking away the moisture in my eyes.
“It burns, but inside, something you can’t drown with water, can’t put out . . . ever.” He looks away from my face, his jaw tight. His face crumples for a moment, as though he’d tied a weight to it and the weight was pulling it down to the ground. Pain flashes across his eyes.
I walk towards him, the sudden urge to reach out and comfort him taking me by surprise. He looks up at me, his face smoothening, his eyes still hard and murky. Instead of reaching out to him I stop a few inches away, suspended just out of reach. “There’s always that sense of loss,” I tell him, my eyes searching his tired face, trying to read the lines etched into it. “Although,” I add, “losing chocolate is not on the same level at all.” I half grin, and then let the smile die as his face remains grim and stoic.
“It’s a slammed door you can never open.” He stands there, silent, his own words ringing through the hollow hallway.
I watch him as he thinks. After a long time he shifts his weight, tilting his head to the right. “Do you believe in life after death?” he asks, staring off into the distance again.
“Some people do.”
He turns to face me; his eyes pierce mine, his face earnest. He reaches out, grabbing me by the shoulders, his jaw tense, “but do you?”
I stare at him, my mind reeling. Do I believe in life after death? “I’ve never really thought about it before.”
His eyes don’t leave mine, but the fire ebbs out of them, leaving them cold and gray. His hands loosen around my arms, dropping to his sides.
I take a step backwards, balancing myself. After taking a quick breath and shaking my head to clear it I look back up at him. “Why?” I prod.
“Because I can’t stand it if there isn’t something after . . .”
“After what?”
His eyes drill into mine. He opens his mouth and then closes it, shaking his head, “just after.” He turns his head to stare at the row of windows edging the hall, “you know they’re alive, but on a different level than you, in a different place. You wouldn’t ask them to come back, couldn’t ask them because you know they’re better off,” he stops, looking at me with his deep brown eyes, “but you’ll miss them all the same.”
I stare at him, my heart aching with him. He stares at the floor, his eyes shining.
“There’s a poem,” he says, turning to me, “by John Keats. He describes a scene etched into a Grecian Urn. ‘Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss, though winning near the goal – yet, do not grieve; she cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, for ever wilt thou love, and she be fair’ . . .”
He pauses, leaving me in stunned silence. The rain pounds down on the glass, making plinking sounds as it pelts the ground outside.
“He’s talking about idealism,” Romeo says, “being perfect. Everything is frozen in a flawless moment, but it’s frozen. You’re happy, so happy, but you’re stuck – forever. So close to being happy, but never happy. It’s like reaching as hard as you can, seeing the end in sight, but not being able to reach it. Never quite touching . . . I guess that’s the other side of missing someone so much. If you never had those passions then you would never miss someone so much, but you could never love them as much either. If you choose to feel deeply, you feel everything deeply. Joy and fear.”
His eyes search mine, his face asking a question I can’t hear.
“Romeo,” I say, reaching my hand out towards him. He watches my hand, his eyes shifting away from my face. My hand pauses, hovering in the air between us. I look back up at his face, the tense energy still vivid in his features. “Romeo, I-”
He reaches his hand out, taking mine in his. I try to pull it back, but his grip is firm, and after a moment I stop.
“I don’t understand,” I say, staring at our hands.
I look up at his face, watching as his lips press together, forming a thin line.
“Romeo–”
He takes another step towards me, urgent, cutting my sentence off. I’m in his arms, crushed against his chest. I gasp, too stunned to move.
He holds me close, rubbing his chin across my hair. “Juliet,” he whispers into my ear, “Juliet, Juliet, Juliet.” He rubs his chin along my jaw bone, “run away with me?”
I pull away, pushing against his chest. His arms loosen enough for me to pull my head back and look at him in bewilderment. I don’t know what to say. My mouth forms the first word that comes to mind, “Romeo–”
He watches me, his face so close to mine I can taste his breathe on the air. I lean my head sideways, looking up at him. He leans towards me, brushing his lips across mine, watching me intently. My heart explodes, thrilling inside my chest.
I shudder as his warm lips touch mine again, pulling towards him, my hands struggling to find their way around his shoulders, to pull him closer. He kisses me again, this time long, lingering, but soft. I pull at him, wanting fierce, wanting power.
He pulls away.
I stop, gasping.
His eyes run up and down my face, his forehead creased.
“Romeo,” I say, my eyes finding his, seeing the fire there, the flames. He’s exultant; his face shining. The way his arms wrap around me, there’s a kind of vitality in them, something different than energy, electricity. "You'll come with me?"
“But Tybalt,” I say.
His arms drop like I’d punched him. He steps away from me, his eyes dying, turning into the careful gray stones they’d been before. “Then I’ll go alone.”
“Romeo, I’m sorry,” I say, my eyes filling with tears until he becomes nothing but a blur.
The wind roars outside.
“Please,” I say, blinking, trying to stop the tears. What am I trying to say? Do I love him? Do I love him enough to leave my family, to leave everything? How can I not leave with him? Romeo? I blink again, reaching my hands up to wipe the tears away, shuddering.
He's gone. My eyes stare out at a dark hallway, empty.
He's gone. My eyes stare out at a dark hallway, empty.
