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Romeo and Juliet, a New Modern Story
I will be completing a new story for Valentine's Day 2007, and it will gradually appear here as I write it.
The story will be about Romeo and Juliet, but not the characters of Shakespeare's play. It will be a romance set in an idyllic seaside village on a beautiful tropical island.
TROPICAL STORM
(THE STORY OF A MODERN DAY ROMEO AND JULIET)
Juliet sat cross legged on the white sand beach, resting her back on an empty fishing boat, a blue and white banca. In front of her, the South China Sea was as calm as a pond, its shades of blue from turquoise to navy within the bay of Port Barton. Above her, overhanging branches of a coconut palm shielded her perfect pale skin from the intense sunshine of early afternoon.
There was little movement in the air or on the shore. It was a favourite place of Juliet's. Here she had always come to relax and take in the beautiful views; to be caressed by the breeze on the days there was one; to watch the fishermen come and go in their bancas; to look out to sea and the distant islands.
It was paradise compared to what she had known as a very young child in Manila. She came from a wealthy family, but even the wealthy choked on the city fumes. At the age of 5 she had moved with her family to Port Barton, in Palawan. She adored the place; for a city child, the freedom of the long beach and the clear blue sea to swim in was a world of fantasy.
Now 16, Juliet had never tired of the wonderful views from the beach; the overwhelming sense of being at peace with nature. Out to sea, the view was forever changing, a picture being perpetually repainted by the wind and the light. A dark shadow would skim across the bay, and she would look up to see a small, solitary white cloud rushing across the sun in an otherwise cloudless sky. At other times, when the weather was inclement, a sudden sparkle of light on a dull sea would cause her to look up, to find the first hint of cloud break in a fiercely dark sky after a torrential downpour. It was always joy. On a calm blue skied day, or on the fringe of a ferocious tropical storm, to Juliet it was always joy.
How could this same scene now be dripping with pain? Beauty turned grotesque by the distortion of her own wet eyes? Two playful children rushing past her to dive into the sea stabbed her with anguish. They could have been her ten years earlier, free as the eagle now flying out to one of the islands.
They were her old dream, the idyllic representation of an existence in paradise that, before, she had loved every moment of. She wanted so much for the dream to return for her too, to feel nothing but empathy for the nature she admired so much; for the happiness and smiles of every playing, smiling child who came to the beach.
But, her dream was not there. Her father had taken her view from her and left it stained with her own tears. He had stolen her dream and left a nightmare in its place. For a nightmare is but a dream that has had its course deflected by one wrong thought. The thought had been her father's, the dream hers. No dream is safe from corruption if another can reach it.
Now the nightmare was hers too; and it was all pervading. The home that had always bathed her in happiness and security was now the nightmare's own shroud, smothering her at every move. If she shut her eyes to escape, it touched her. When she woke in the morning, it pounced on her first thought and spent the rest of the day shaking her. Outside, along the roads or on the beach, there was no escape either, for every place and every thought was infested.
Here, on Valentine's Day of all times, she sat, cavernous with a grief that eddied continuously inside her, spilling tears from her eyes as regularly as the sea gently lapping near her feet.
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All Characters In This Story Are Fictitious
