How To Disappear Completely

it all depends on where you're at

Evan found an intriguing story and asked the provocative question: the Lady or the Tiger?.


This is my analysis of what I think really happened, the happy ending to an otherwise unhappy choice.

Opera:
She waves her hand to the right, indicating the door the young man must choose. He opens it. A fierce snarl echoes throughout the arena. Horrified, his eyes dart to the princess, his mouth uttering infathomable pleas. The tiger crouches. The princess starts. Justice will be achieved. But her heart bleeds. Her mind snaps. Shrieks burst from her lips. She tears herself from her privileged seat and leaps from the parapet. The tiger springs. The prince disappears beneath a frenzy of blood and fur splattered. The heap of princess-that-was stirs. It crawls, agonizingly slow, towards the carnage in front of the right door. The tiger looks up, blood dripping from its jowls. The pile-of-princess stares the tiger in the eye. "You think you have owned him," she hisses. "But no one takes him from me." And gathering the last remains of her lover in her arms, she kisses him, desperately, the breath leaving their bodies as they enter the great beyond in passionate embrace. Of course this all takes about 20 minutes for them to stop singing to each other, and finally just die....

Gothic Romance Novel:

The princess waves her hand to the right. The young man steps forward and opens the door. Jubilant music bursts forth as the enchanting lady steps from behind the door. The young man looks up at the princess, seated in the arena. Her eyes, streaming the misery of her choice, stare resolutely away. But no matter. His hand reaches beneath his tunic and draws forth a dagger. He plunges it into his chest and sinks to the ground: he would have chosen the tiger. The crowd gasps, arresting the princess' attention. Mortified, the princess throws herself over the parapet and lands beside her dying lover. "No, no, no," she moans. "How could I live with another woman?" her lover gasps. His eyes close. He is gone. From behind the left hand door, the tiger growls. The princess looks up and crawls over to the door. Flinging it open, she stares the tiger in the eye. "Do your worst," she cries. "I am already dead!" The tiger springs. The princess is no more. The crowd hushes in awe. From thence forward, the arena was abandoned and public entertainment vanished from the land. A rose briar, watered by the blood of the lovers, grew over the spot where the two fell. The arena crumbled to dust, but the briar grew and grew. And they say that when the moon is full, you can still see the princess weeping over her loved one, just before the tiger springs.

Hollywood:

The princess waves to the right hand door and nods to her handmaiden who is positioned strategically near the parapet. The young man steps forward and opens the door. A fierce snarl echoes throughout the arena. "Father! You just don't understand!" she whines to the king as she leaps to the top of the parapet. A gasp ripples through the crowd. The handmaiden hands the princess a rope and dagger and the princess belays down the wall into the arena. She tosses the dagger to her lover who turns just in time to plunge it into the heart of the springing beast. "Darling!" he cries. "You didn't think...," the princess asks anxiously. "Never!" and he shuts her up with a passionate embrace. "We defy the world!" the two shout at the consternated arena. The two run through the now empty door and escape through the castle air ducts. They lived happily ever after in a rose-covered cottage on the edge of a village with very nice schools. Their eldest son went to Harvard.

:EDIT:: There is also the Camus version wherein the young man soliloquizes for 1500 words, facing the inevitability of his death, and we get a very detailed description of the splinters in the door and the smell of the dust in the arena.