“A Daffodil’s Version of Romeo and Juliet,” By Amanda Burns

Oct 20th, 2007 | By | Category: Prose

Warning: May contain nuts

Recommended Audience: 18.5 +

According to Harold Bloomers,  ‘the love shared by Romeo and Juliet is as healthy and normative as a honey-coated enema after having your leg ripped off and your soul destroyed by an irate chicken wearing stilettos.’ Discuss this statement in relation to Shakespeare’s play and whatever version of Romeo and Juliet you care to invent yourself.    Talk a bit about Romeo and Juliet’s relationship, and their sex-life. Feel free to say anything you want, but don’t say anything about my mother, or I’ll f*****g kill you.

This essay is being dictated to me by a forlorn student that has recently been magically transformed into a daffodil. Once I heard his tragic story, I felt compelled to pass on this essay, as he is unable to do it himself… he spends all of his time weeping in the rain, and obviously does not have a laptop with him in the forest. He doesn’t have any arms with which to type anyway, for f***’s sake. When he is not weeping, people who are rambling through the forest unthinkingly pull his leaves off, leaving him quite naked and in insufferable physical and mental anguish. Sometimes he is pissed on by a Labrador, or s**t on by a Sausage dog. It is not an easy life. The student told me he would miss his essay deadline if I did not help him, so here I am, because I have always been especially sensitive to the needs of flowers, and especially those of flowers that were formerly people. In fact, I was once given a certificate commending me on my sensitivity towards flowers. It was one of the proudest moments of my life. Enough about me though… for now. I must be quick. I will not be able to understand him for much longer because his transformation is causing him to loose his voice, and I only got a grade C in my G.C.S.E. course in Flower-Language Interpretation. Here I go, interpreting the daffodil’s muffled but screeching  €˜flowerese’. It is a strange and problematic language. Anyway, uuuuuum… duuuuuuh… to begin the essay, for f***’s sake:

Romeo and Juliet is a bit sad, isn’t it? These poor creatures, who are only 5 and 6 years old, suffer from severe and incurable psychological disorders that are clearly the result of a dependency on crack cocaine. One of the most tragic elements in Romeo and Juliet’s relationship is that the crack they relied on wasn’t even the good s**t. It was mediocre at best.

What is most strange about Romeo and Juliet’s relationship is that Romeo is not actually even a boy. He is, in fact, an overgrown squirrel, which accounts for his athleticism in leaping onto Juliet’s balcony in a single bound, and explains his hair, and his tail. Juliet isn’t a girl either. She is a giant acorn, which is why Romeo always tries to bite her face off whenever they are together, and why the rest of the town repeatedly try to bash her in with a hammer. It is either that, or they just want to beat her up because she annoys the s**t out of them.

In my version of Romeo and Juliet, I met both of them and they were both a bit f*****g weird. They were talking about getting married, but Juliet was having trouble finding a wedding dress, because they just don’t make them for people who are actually acorns. Don’t you think an acorn in a wedding dress would look f*****g ridiculous? Romeo also realized that he was a Greek squirrel, and they had great difficulty finding enough plates to smash at their wedding. To have enough plates, they would actually have to get up off of their asses, use their brains and go to a shop and get some. This, however, would take more than 3 minutes, which is how quickly they decided to get married and ended up going through with it. Plus, being an acorn means that Juliet has no arms, so she cannot smash the f*****g plates, and Romeo’s paws are too small to hold them because he’s just f*****g useless. The two had to marry in secret because Romeo was actually already married to a Vegas stripper, named Candy.

The student/daffodil asking me to type this essay has started to die… I have watered him but I no longer control the sun (which I gave up joint-ownership of last week when I split up with Apollo) so he is beginning to wilt nonetheless. He says he can be transformed back into his original self if I shed a single drop of my blood on him, but frankly I’d rather let him die because the sight of blood makes me want to vomit. Now he’s telling me that if I do it he will turn into a handsome prince, but that is what all the guys say to me in the bar, so tough s**t, buster, it won’t work. Back to the essay…

Romeo and Juliet met in a pub, and Juliet fell in  €˜love at first sight’ when Romeo, in his leather jacket and James Dean-esque demeanor, scurried up to her and said: “Hey, baby, I have the biggest nuts in town, but you’re the most beautiful nut I have ever seen. Your eyes are so… nut-shaped that they are driving me uncontrollably wild with desire. Let us make squeaky love with wild abandon, until my squirrel p***s must be surgically removed from your nut-shaped haven.” What Romeo did not realize at this point was that he was in fact a repressed homosexual, who was displacing his desire for testicles onto Juliet. This came to light five minutes later, when Romeo kept trying to rampantly s**g Juliet. Whenever Juliet tried to kiss him, he would flip her over and try to aggressively shove himself into the wrong hole, whilst screaming: “Oh, Mercutio! I am in ecstasy! I cannot deny you any longer! The key fits!” Fortunately, he said it in Greek, so Juliet didn’t know what he was saying, although she recognised the name Mercutio, and began to be suspicious of Romeo’s secret when he kept trying to dress her in boy’s clothes. Making her wear the suit with the tie was the grand giveaway, but by then they were already married.

Romeo confessed to Juliet that Mercutio died because Romeo interrupted their dual. They were fighting over who would sleep in the top-bunk with Romeo. He went on to kill Paris, because Paris had given the golden apple to the wrong goddess – Aphrodite, who, incidentally was a fraud because she did not have an Afro (she was not even half-caste) – and then stumbled into the story of Romeo and Juliet by mistake one day when his mule died, on the way to Mexico…

Romeo and Juliet did not commit suicide out of love for each other. They were so ashamed to admit to their reliance on crack, and Romeo’s controversial sexuality, that they purchased 15 grams of the purest crack they could get Romeo’s paws on and ingested it all in one go, in one thick line which perfectly stretched over Juliet’s tomb. That is real love.

Oh, s**t! The ex-human daffodil was just about to tell me the conclusion when I saw a bee and stepped back away from it in fear. Unfortunately, this lead me to tread on the poor daffodil… With my head pressed against the ground, and listening intently, I can hear his soft, painful whispers. He is saying: “F*** you! F*** you, b***h! Aaaaahhhh!…”. He is, for some unknown reason, trying to kiss the ground as he utters his final words: “And thus with a kiss I die.” What a f****d-up daffodil. Nevertheless, I am a disgusting daffodil murderer who shall burn in the eternal flames of hell for my crimes. Thank you and goodnight.

———-

Amanda Burns pronounces the asterixes in every curse word she’s ever said. Including “shag,” which isn’t even a curse word in this country. That is why Amanda never joined the Navy. True story? Hell if we know.

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