"All my life's buried here;

Heap earth upon it."

-Oscar Wilde, "Requiescat"

Ophelia closed her bedroom door softly and let her head drop. Her forehead met the door with a soft thud. She closed her eyes and breathed hard, fighting the tears.

In her mind's eye bloomed images, memories of Hamlet, her own sweet Hamlet: the way his head and shoulders, bent over his book, were illuminated by the sun in the library; his wide, dashing smile as he fenced with his friends; the warmth in his eyes when he had looked into hers, Ophelia's, and told her, in his precise way, how he loved her. And she remembered his cold, desperate fingers clamped around her wrists, his staring eyes devoid of warmth or even recognition, as they had roved over the room. His strength, his lack of hesitation, as he had thrown her away from him. His cruel, cold words that still rang in her ears and burned in her soul. You should not have believed me. I loved you not. Get thee to a nunnery. I'll give thee this curse for thy dowry.

She squeezed her eyes shut, but felt the tears, coming hot and fast now, warming her cheeks in streaks and trickling, salt, into her mouth.

"Oh, woe is me," she forced out, past the lump in her throat and the teeth clenched against the sobs, "to have seen what I have seen, see what I see."