Do you believe in real love?.. I do. It’s already a few days since I’ve believed in it. It started like a usual reportage from the scene of the crime. Two young people were found dead in a chapel at the local cemetery. And I was sent to light this case up. As soon as I arrived and started gathering information, in a word, doing my journalistic routine work, I got into the world of medieval novels. There were two attractive, incredibly young people, they looked as if they were sleeping but it was an eternal dream. Then I began to get to know their story, the story of timeless love… So, a young girl, let’s name her Juliet, we can’t divulge confidential information until the preliminary investigation has been completed, was being prepared for the wedding. In accordance with her parents’ will, she had to marry a young man from a noble and powerful family. She was really young, under fourteen, and her heart was free and still asleep. That’s why, mostly, she was obedient to the parents’ decision as for her life. The tragic outcome of this story occurred just some time ago, it was a hot summer night, the girl’s family, one of the most powerful and respectable families in the city, was holding a masked ball. It was an annual tradition, and it was prestigious to receive an invitation to this ball. All the cream of society gathered at the ball every year. Meanwhile, this year’s ball was in full play, Juliet looked fresh and beautiful, like a gentle butterfly, and at that very moment a young man, let his name be Romeo, from another powerful family that competed with Juliet’s family clan, incognito, with a friend of his, arrived at the ball. He didn’t mean to meet and fall in love with the host’s daughter, he came there just for fun, to have a good time, to have an adventure. And met his fate. They saw each other and fell in love at the first sight. They spent that night talking and talking, and talking… While they were talking, they found out that they belonged to the competing factions, they realized that their families would never agree to give them a go-ahead to marry. In spite of all the despair of the situation, Romeo’s confessor took pity on the young lovers and secretly married them off to each other. After that, the happy newly married had just one night to spend together. The next day Romeo killed Juliet’s brother by accident in a street fight. He stood up for his friend. Because of this tragedy, Romeo had to escape from the city where the
police were already looking for him for what he had done. And his wife remained alone, desperate, with no possibility to avoid the marriage with the other man. The priest relieved her from this disastrous situation. He gave hope to the despairing young woman. He had a plan. He would give her some portion to drink. She would drink it and fall dead. In fact, she would be alive but deeply asleep. For a while. Meanwhile, the confessor would send a note to her secret husband, he would come to the chapel where her body would be brought, she would awake, and the couple would happily run away from the city forever. Unfortunately, the plan didn’t work. Juliet drank the portion, fell dead, was brought to the chapel,… but Romeo didn’t receive the note that had been sent by his confessor to him. He came back to the city, received the news about his wife, rushed to the chapel, found her there with no breath and killed himself in despair. In a while, Juliet woke up. She saw Romeo dead, couldn’t bear the possibility to live her life without him and killed herself as well… Now, the two families of former enemies are preparing for the funeral of the two and one more. Three deaths, one after another, have reconciled them. The investigation is in process. But new facts are unlikely to appear in this story. There is nothing to add. It’s a story of real eternal love which will live even after our, my dear reader, deaths. Ann Hathaway, the special correspondent for the “Shakespeare News”
by Veronika Dimcheva, Odessa School # 10, Ukraine