Pyramus and Thisbe

The flowers had already withered away and the berries that had been so red and plum, were hanging rotten from the branches. Thisbe and Pyramus, lying in their sorrows and regrets, were found a day later. Their blood already soaked up by the roots of the tree and the grass. Which, before was a rich green, now a dry brown that when stepping on it caused a crunch as unpleasant as that of bones dislocating. They lay there, eyes once so vibrant and alive, now looked a dull color of blue. If you looked deep into them you could see the desperation of love, though hers different from his. Everything around them was dead, either from the tragedy itself, so unfair The Fates were now considered cruel and unjust by the people of their village, who worshiped the beauty of the couple like a holy thing or from soaking up their blood, poisoned by their own mournful state.

Thisbe, an interesting girl, a child still, but burning with love the people around her couldn’t understand. She believed that Pyramus was her soulmate, the one she was to spend the rest of her life with if not for her parents, who she proclaimed to be vile for not letting her be wed with him. They, protesting not only because of her young age but also due to the fact the two families had a grudge of their own, refused. It was known to the whole of the village about it, though not about the fact that the children were madly in love. Their ill feelings seemed childish and unfair to both Thisbe and Pyramus.

Their only salvation from insanity was the small fault in the wall that divided their houses, a mistake no one could bother covering up, and the only reason for the cure of Thisbe’s melancholy, which loomed over the house on certain days.

She, like any other, would sit by the fountain, in the central square of the little town, with the girls her parents allowed her to play with, and tell them stories. The quiet rush of water kept her secret lover, that to them only existed in whispers and giggles, away from the ears of the wrong people. She would tell them of his proclamations and his stories, and they listened in awe and hidden envy.

Now, two days prior to the great tragedy, Thisbe and Pyramus were once more at their respective places, conversing of nothing and everything at the same time. Lips close to the small opening, declarations of great love and irrationality spoken into it like a string of cords etched into the wall itself. Maybe even now it could be heard as the words still quietly echo in the marble.

“Oh my dear Thisbe how I wish to come close to you, to embrace you in my hands and kiss you blind. I have seen you from afar, your brown hair as beautiful as the silk brought from the farthest lands. Your skin is as clear and charming as porcelain itself, your eyes shining like the fire of Prometheus, the only thing keeping me alive. Oh how I wish that we could somehow be together, even without our parents blessings and if only this wall was not to decide us and shattered into a thousand pieces” Pyramus pleaded to the wall, no reply came, it stood firm and thick, maybe even more so after his words, as if putting a foot down after making a point “Oh my lovely, how are we to survive this torment.”

”I do not know” whispered Thisbe, more as a surrender than a statement “We could escape together, go to another village and disguise ourselves so that no one could find us” she reached for an idea out of anguish.

“Then let us do that, let us meet at the white berried tree, the one by the lake, and let us run away together so that we are not miserable anymore.”

“You are sure we will be able to do it” he spoke in such hurried and reckless tones that the fear of the words potentially reaching someone in the house hung over Thisbe’s mind.

”Yes, let us meet early in the morning, and disguise yourself for too many people could recognize you if you don’t.”

During those two days and two night their hearts burned at the awaiting.

When the time finally arrived, Thisbe, leaving the house earlier than Pyramus, heavily veiled to cover her features, arrived at the tree, made to wait for him. As she did, a great tiger approached the stream. The tigers mouth, splattered with blood from its previous pray, which must have been a sheep or a deer, drank some of the water which cleaned it and in turn became dirty and crimson.

Thisbe, in great fear, ran to hide in the nearest cave. In the action she had managed to lose her veil to the wind, it carried it to the tiger’s side. The tiger, curious as to what the strange thing was, picked it up and marked it with his teeth by blood and tears.

Pyramus arrived later, saw the tiger with the bloody mouth and the bloody veil of Thisbe beside it, and cried out in agony.

“Oh my dear Thisbe why must you leave me so” He fell to his knees right at the bottom of the white-berried tree “I cannot live without you in this world” he drew his sword, it seethed.

With little hesitation he thrust it into his chest, the sharp metal going through. He fell back, hands now lying almost limply by his sides.

Thisbe came out of her cave and saw Pyramus, his blood trickling in a pool around him and fell on her knees beside his dying body. She gripped his shoulders and cried as she looked into his eyes. He had not died yet, he saw that he made a mistake, that Thisbe was alive and that he died for nothing. The regret and the desperation clanged to his mind with claws that hurt more than the wound itself. He realized then that he didn’t want to die, he wanted to live and to run in the far away fields with Thisbe, but nothing could stop this, nothing could stop after the thread was cut by those forsaken scissors. When his mind was blurry and body paralyzed, he looked at the branches above him and let one last teardrop down the side of his face.

Thisbe, with no other choice left, took his dagger and drove it into her heart, she lay down beside him and as she passed she realized that she was truly happy for the first time in her life, and as she looked up at the same branched in the last moments of her life she felt content as she left one last smile bless her lips.

The berries of the tree, that had once been as white as the purest snow, now started to turn a sinful shade of red. The villagers, upon discovering their bodies noticed that the dried fruits changed color and announced that a curse was laid on their town, and that the fruits should be forbidden to grow. As those who ate it would be fated to die a painful death of heartbreak.