A Lost Sense (Narration)

This is another addition to the seven essays on alcohol, based off of the characters in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

 

A Lost Sense

 

Together, we stand together.  Autumn colors shine through revealing windows, and the Friars words echo through me as if I were in an empty grave, my body the coffin, and my soul the motionless cadaver. In a dream, I stare into my Emily’s eyes, and, for just a moment, I see the expression of desire, longing and fright which kills my own soul reflected from within them. With a simple kiss, the air of death slides away and fear withdraws from my company. The grave now becomes a church, deserted and chilling, and the coffin of marriage is newly born with a coffin of love, and the worries of family.   The Friar speaks his final words and leaves in his wake two noble hearts, which, with nothing more than a silent kiss, separate.  Em, my wife, leaves to see to her nurse and I to sing a song of glee in the center square.

            “My life has changed; my love is fulfilled, but my life, changed. Forever will people remember the story of me and my Emily.” I step out of the binding church and into a new world filled with colors showing little of their darkness. Even the blackest of them looks as soft and light hearted as my floating soul. And the clouds, not a hint of rain shines through their silk covers, as they invite me to lay my heart on their fluffy surfaces for an afternoon in peace, an afternoon away from the binds of time. I walk - but the shadows dance in a song of love around me - toward the square where I see Mario and Benjamin drinking heavily on uncapped flasks. 

Young children poke their heads out of cottage windows to listen to the harmonic melody coming from the corner of the plaza, where a drummer and a singer create in beautiful unison. Everything is alive with their heavenly music. I see a blind woman dancing alone, at ease with her surroundings, as she recalls a magnificent memory that only her broken eyes can see. I see men and woman gather to dance in ecstasy on the light, cobblestone floor. I even see the clouds swaying in union with the soft melody of their instruments. He hits his drum in perfect unison with my gleeful steps, and a stream of music that calls to even the most innocent child advances into every limb of my body like a peaceful adrenaline. Louder he plays, and louder my heart beats as I feel my warm toes pounding on the contrasting pebbles below. 

I walk over to my friends, discussing the beauty of the wedding, the joy of the dance, and the taste of the drink. It was only after finishing a flask that I noticed the man sitting across the plaza, melancholy love in his eyes, and desperate jealousy as he began to stumble towards me. 

“Oh great Alexander,” he began, the smell of hard liquor on his tongue stumbling his sentences, “I challenge thy power and reputation to a duel that most certainly will be my undoing.” 

            “Thou may darest to mock me as much as thou likes, but the couple of us shall never share a piece in the same duel.”

            “Ho coward, thou mockest me then run away from a duel that will settle us? Reason seems to escape your surroundings. Surely thy reputation is not false.” 

            “I am no coward, nor is my reputation false. What type of man challenges his own family on no cause? Surely he is the true culprit of false representation.”

            “Draw, foolish man, and I will prove my reputation to thee. I am no family of yours, and surely would stab this rapier into mine own flesh if the prior was true. I spit at the smallest idea of your kind. Now duel!”

Turning to walk away, I notice the mask of a king had once again receded back into a greedy boy, and the arrogance and curiosity that had once surrounded him before now emanated from his sorry body. I laugh at his horror of the mention of my marriages to Emily, his sister; for he had not known of our courtship, and greatly despised me. As I turned to walk away, a swift cry erupted from my fellow and Mario lie on the ground dead, a bloody rapier in his heart. 

“What have you done to Mario?” I shouted with such control in stark contrast to the thoughts racing through my mind

“What have you done to my sister?”

“I have wed her; she is the only thing I love in this life.” As I walked over to the door to look at Mario, I felt the rage emanating off of his killer. His neck turning a poisoned crimson, slowly moving skyward from balding head and to vicious eyes; eyes which began to glow in a way I thought only the devils eyes may, evil, as if black death was fixed on me.  

A puddle of blood drained from Mario’s lips, and with the drained blood seeped his dying soul. A deadly frost began to cover my friends head, sucking both heat and life out of his motionless cadaver.

His murderer now held up his sword in drunken taunt, in false hope, and I withdrew my own to avenge my lost friend. I knew it sin to fight a drunk man, but he had killed my friend, and as I looked from Mario’s whitening fingertips to the dead man’s visionless eyes, a emotion of utter loathing eradicated within my own body. A hatred long preserved within my soul finally began to present itself. I filled with fear, loathing, but worst of all true malice was building from within me.  I knew it was sin, to let the feeling overtake me; but my limbs became engulfed by it, absorbing every muscle and nerve in my body. I forgot about simple things like memories, and love, they all seemed too childish for me now, and simply allowed the devilish manner to posses my entire being. Everything around me was filled with malice, and I with a new energy, a new emotion, a regret that would revenge my true friend, and my true love. I knew I should have hated it, but instead found myself addicted to it.  It told me to cut at his legs, pinpointing simple targets, and I did, I listened.  My sword now moved with quicker speed, and found myself easily breathing as the intoxicated man began to pant. Left to right I swung, each time going for a fatal hit that would end this brawl, a simple cut that would kill. I stabbed low twice, towards the old man’s stomach, but was parleyed in each attempt; then, with amazing grace, swung and hit not sword, but meat. 

It was a gory blow, one that cut straight through the heart of the bloody man, an immediate howl grew in the room, and it filled my drunken conscious.

“You have broken my heart.” The man slurred, “You have broken my heart, but with it you have broken your wife’s heart. With my death comes my victory.” With those words, the frost of death covered the man, chilling his face, and numbing my own bones.

 

“How easily you take others lives to save your own.” Many people had loved me, however, I let sin control me, and it was merciless in its punishment. Emily could not be with me, I could not let her- she had lost the love for me knowing I had killed her brother. Now here I sit in a room full of thick stones and a door which locks me in; all have turned their backs to me for my sin- all who I once loved no longer love me. Alone, I stand alone.