Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time, I was an ordinary girl. Well, ordinary in the sense that I woke in the morning, ate and talked and played during the daytime, then slept at night. I was (am), after all, the princess. As others have pointed out, my life is far removed from the ordinary lives of the common people. I like to believe that apart from my inherited wealth and royalty, I was (am, I am!) still an ordinary girl. But there must be some reasoning behind my fame and fortune, otherwise, why do I feature in these tales so often?

How these years drag on. Decades in bed, sleeping, while everyone else sleeps around me. My mind’s eye sees the morning light come in through the window, making visible the slumbering maids and servants in my chamber, then the sun goes down, and the nights are more silent than they have ever been. The next day is the same, and the next, and the next again. The only thing that marks the passage of time is a vine that has reached my window. It put one tendril over the window ledge, then another. I wonder how long it will take to come into the room itself. 

Decade upon decade, in my bed of luxury and imprisonment. Silk sheets and plump pillows surround my body, which has not aged or decayed in all these years. The prick of blood is still a red point on the end of my finger. 

Wandering through the castle nearly one hundred years ago, I saw something that I had never seen before, and then I fell asleep. If I was another girl, another type of girl, would I have made the same mistake and pricked my finger on the tip of that spindle? Would you, storyteller, have written me as a peasant who falls into a hundred-year enchantment? 

Tell me, storyteller, why is it only princesses who have noteworthy things happen in their lives? Are we only a device for you to tell your tales? A blank slate to design upon?

Oh, how the time drags. It’s alright for you; it’s not taking you one hundred years to write this story. To sleep in bed for longer than a day, let alone a century, however, starts to become rather tedious. When will you lift this enchantment? Please let it not be another hundred years.

Is the magic starting to lift, slightly? Is that your work, storyteller? I don’t think I could see the sun rising and setting through my window until recently. Maybe that’s the fault of my memory. Lying in bed for so long does affect your thoughts. I still can’t open my eyes properly but I do feel like something has changed. 

The light travelling across my room is more noticeable now. I can feel the heat of day across my face as the sun rises, and the cool of the night as the sun retreats. Can I open my eyes, just a little? Just so I could see the view from my window properly? 

And what of the noise? For so long I lay in deathly silence, I was hardly even aware of my own breathing. Now I can hear something but I’m not sure what it is. There seems to be some stirring out there, outside of this enchanted castle. 

(Storyteller, tell me, what are the boundaries of this enchantment? The whole castle is under this spell, but what about the lands around the castle? How far from the castle walls does this sleeping spell reach? And what do the people who live nearby think of it? Are they going about their everyday lives, careful not to cross the line of somnolence? Have they forgotten about me, trapped here, out of sight? Are they so used to seeing the castle on the horizon that they do not even register its presence anymore?)

To flutter one’s eyelids - what a triumph. I am certain that I can hear something outside now, too. Has someone breached the castle gate? Was it closed before the spell was cast? If someone enters, will they, too, fall into an enchanted slumber? This is most unfair, storyteller, that you control everything and we must simply do as directed.

Ah-ha, you do not control everything, storyteller. I have opened my eyes, for a full second. You must be busy writing something else at the moment. Yes, I can open my eyes and close them again at my own will. I can hear too. Someone is approaching. Oh, storyteller, this is not fair. You know I have been alone all of these years. My clothing is rumpled, my hair unbrushed. What surprises have you in store for your audience? I would like to know, too.

Let me think. It will be a wicked witch or a prince. Which one would I prefer, given the choice? The princes are boring and self-interested. A witch might be ok but you tend to make them simplistically vindictive. I don’t want to risk another hundred or so years sleeping here. 

There is definitely someone coming up the staircase. After silence for so long, the footsteps on the stone steps carry all the way to the top here. 

Yes, I have my eyes open again but I can not rise from this bed. At least I can look around better. There is my bedroom window, with vines growing all over the window casing. What a lovely frame.

The footsteps are getting closer. Soon, someone will be coming through the door. Have the maids woken up yet? Oh, I sat up! There are the maids, still sleeping by my bed. It must be uncomfortable for them. I hope they won’t be too stiff when they get up.

Can I keep my eyes open? That’s better. I can move around in the bed too. Even better again. I know you want me to be the damsel in distress, storyteller, but it’s tiresome, to be a prop for someone else. I know the prince isn’t a bad guy. They never think they are. But I just don’t think that they have ever thought their motives through. Maybe in the next story, you could put a prince under a hundred-year enchantment instead? It would give him some time to think about his actions.   

Finally, I’m up and out of this bed. What a relief, to move and stretch and walk. I know this isn’t the ending that you had planned but, to be honest, you gave me too much time to think. It goes without saying that one hundred years is a long time. I just don’t want to be the beautiful princess that the charming prince kisses, or the subject of a spell by a frustrated witch. 

Ah, just in time. My intruder is at the door. It must be the prince. There’s a manly air about his step. A witch wouldn’t sound like that. 

The other thing you should have considered before you started your tale, are the boundaries of the magic spell. This vine has crept all the way up the outside of the castle wall. Yes, it’s a bit thin where it touches my window, but it will bear my weight ok. Goodbye castle, goodbye prince, and goodbye storyteller.