Roger was mad with his daughter. He had done everything humanly possible to convince her not to give her heart and life to the young man named Romeo. Personally, he liked Romeo but he considered him a misfit for his daughter Juliet. He had sent some people to her daughter to discourage and make her change her decision of tying the nuptial knot with Romeo but she was adamant. She even called her father names. Juliet thought her father wanted to impose the son of his rich friend, Brown, on her. Before eloping with her lover, she had spoken harshly to her father:
“Dad, I know your plans. You have promised your friend that, come what may, you would marry me off to his son, Brown. Your plans won’t work as I have made up my mind and nobody can change it. No power here or up there can change it. If you like, disown me, I don’t care. This is twenty-first century, not the stone age. I’m free to choose who to associate or not to associate with. It is my decision. It is my life and my future. You lived your life the best way you wanted to live it. Why not let go off me to live my life, too? Were you not the one who told me that monopoly is the menace of free enterprise? Do you want to monopolize my life to your own delight and at the expense of my joy”?
“Calm down, Juliet!”
“No way! I won’t calm down!”
“Let me talk!”
“What have you to say? I won’t calm down. You have caged me all this while in the name of love and affection for me. When I was fourteen, you didn’t allow me to have boyfriend the way my friends did. Now I am twenty, I want to be in control of my life. I am no longer a caged bird. Let me explore the beautiful air, the irresistible scenery of life.”
“Juliet, please, I love you and don’t want you to fall prey to the talons, paws, and fangs of prowling beasts. My dear, don’t go. Listen to me!”
“I’m gone and gone forever. Never you look for me. If you do, I will report to the police. I will say you are a kidnapper.”
“Don’t do this to me, my love! Don’t leave me the way your mother did when you were only a year old!”
“My body is here but my soul and spirit are with Romeo, loser!”
“You will regret this and come back here, begging!”
“You are kidding, Roger! You are out of your mind.” She rushed out in anger with her luggage.
Roger burst into tears. “What have I done to deserve this? What love potion did Romeo give my daughter? She had never talked to me the way she did. Is she really the daughter I trained or someone else? He sat all day, feeling sad. There was influx of thoughts in his heart. One suggested to him to commit suicide, another told him not to. He was at a loss, feeling empty, weak and watery. He hit his head on the wall three times and fainted.
Meanwhile, Juliet and her lover Romeo lived together in Peace State but their home was not peaceful and their union full of bitter acrimony, hatred, argument, out right disagreement and violence. They lived like cat and rat in the same house.
It was always a beautiful day in Beauty Estate but their own lives were marked and blighted with ugliness. Juliet was not pleased with that life but she endured. There seemed to be an unwritten agreement between them to fake true love in the public glare. They used to wear the same designer clothes together whenever they had an occasion but their lives were never the same, their opinions and ideas were always at variance with each other. There was no iota of unity between them. They smiled at each other in the company of their friends. Their friends even envied their relationship. Some of them even approached Romeo and Juliet for advice anytime their union was about hitting the patch. Expectedly, they had never failed to give wonderful and helpful pieces of advice to their friends. They were masters of theory when it came to relationship but in the practical aspect, they were nowhere to be found. They lacked what Shakespearean Romeo and Juliet had. Their union was a complete opposite. One could best be described as a wolf, consuming the happiness of the other who would best be dubbed a sheep.
Juliet was dying slowly like victims of Sobibor but she would never own up to her friends. One of them had pointed out some marks on her face and body but she lied, telling her friend that she had a domestic accident. She claimed she slipped after having her bath and would have given up the ghost had it not been for her love, Romeo.
True to her words, what happened to her was a domestic accident powered by Romeo. It wasn’t a new thing to Juliet. Suffering and smiling had become an inseparable part of her life and existence. She was a regular punching bag to Romeo. At the slightest provocation, the latter pounced on her, beating her to a pulp. Sometimes, he tied her to a chair and flogged her like a police-man torturing a criminal refusing to confess all his criminal acts. Juliet had begged her love in vain times without number to not flog her again, always saying:
“Baby, stop doing this to me!” You know I love you! This is not how we started. We built our relationship on true love but along the line, we found ourselves here. Let us find a lasting solution to this, Romeo, so that we can always be on the same frequency and page, please!”
“I have no time for negotiation. For this home to be peaceful, it is all in your hands!”
“How, my love?”
“Stop nagging! Don’t try to find out what I do out late in the night! Never you read my text messages. They contain vital information. Never you complain anytime I bring home my mistress! Is that taken?”
“How can you say that, Romeo? Did you take time to listen to yourself? How could you be so brazen and heartless by bringing a strange woman to our home and matrimonial bed? It’s unfair, dear! Don’t you think it's high time you changed for the better? Most of these scarlet ladies out there are HIV positive. What you are doing is putting my life at risk. Have you forgotten so soon how I left my father and forfeited inheritance worth billions of US dollars just because of your love intoxicating me like wine?” Tears began to stream down her cheeks.
“Spare me all of that, loser! I don’t care! Your foolishness brought you to my life. I never loved you in the first place. What attracted me to you was your father’s wealth and your body. The wealth has stopped flowing to you and me. Your body that used to give me pleasure is now weak and could no longer do her bidding as before. You have lost your fervour for that thing. You are no longer a good player on the field of comfort. That made me look for a lady with a tiny waist and the toughness of a tiger to take your place while you are still alive. Get away, loser!”, leaving the room.
Juliet broke down in tears again and refused to be pacified. How can sheep and wolves dwell together? How can fire and ice be in the same place? How can mad fellows and those in charge of their lives co-exist? Who shall explain to me the philosophy asking one to hold on to an unproductive union? How can one stay put in a desert? Who would expound to me the riddle of a man in the heart of the ocean refusing to jump into a life boat at his disposal? Would Plato of this world be so kind as to justify the logic behind the odds prevalent in our planet?
Cupid must have shot at Juliet’s heart, making logic illogical to her, telling her that when it came to the matter of heart, reason was like treason and treason a criminal act mid wifing bondage in eternal prison. Who would pull out Juliet from the dunghill of her ignorance and passions? Who would deliver her from herself? What would remove the blind fold from her eyes?