Two Sides Of The Same Coin..?

Part of my job involves being 'behind the scenes'. I get a secret thrill at being involved in everything (more or less) that goes on in the Department. I like being able to sneak under the tapes, push past the velvet ropes and nose about.

Sometimes, I don't like what I find.

It might have gone like this...

Romeo and Juliet loved each other. They loved each other very much, and had agreed to spend their lives together; and this is just what they did, happily, for many years. Nothing lasts forever, though, and life presented them with their toughest challenge. Juliet became unwell and required increasingly invasive treatment, necessitating more and more time apart from Romeo. This was not how they had planned it. It all seemed so very unfair. There seemed to be just one chance for them to go on being together; one last choice that they could make, together, one denied them by conventional society. They steeled themselves to do it, but in the end, only he was strong enough, and, as it turned out not strong enough for them both. Their last gambit had failed, and togetherness had become bitter separation.


Romeo and Juliet loved each other. They loved each other very much, and had agreed to spend their lives together, and this is just what they did, happily, for many years. Nothing lasts forever though, and life presented them with their toughest challenge. Juliet became unwell, and required increasingly invasive treatment, and the treatment, or the disease, changed her. She wasn't the same person she had been. Romeo tried to stay with her, but he felt her drifting apart from him, and from herself. He couldn't cope anymore; it was just too hard, and there wasn't the support. He had to do something, anything to stop the pressure... It wasn't really her, anyway; she wouldn't have wanted to go on like this.

There's a third story, but it doesn't bear telling. How many sides can a coin have?

Sometimes, maybe always, tragedy is just tragedy. Some of us just feel it more than others.