The Mirror's Tale

                                                (1,705 words)

                            THE MIRROR’S TALE

Long ago, I was created by a witch who was bargaining for a reduced prison sentence. King Walter White had decreed that no witch in the Kingdom was permitted to cast a spell turning any member of the royal family into an animal. Only commoners could be treated like that. But the silly old creature went and turned a cousin of his into a frog. Thus it was that--young and innocent, not very savvy about the ways of the world, and a bit overly proud of my magic power--I found myself hanging on King Walter’s royal wall. I was a handsome young mirror back then. Bright and shiny encased in my ornate gold frame encrusted with precious gems. A lot different from how I am now--old, cracked and gathering dust. Here’s my story: 

       As it turns out, people have an odd habit of talking to themselves when they’re in front of a mirror.  I was privy to all the gossipy little secrets of the royal household. And admittedly, I liked a good bit of juicy gossip as well as the next fellow and had a fine time chatting with the servants about the goings-on in the castle and was always eager to add my two cents into the conversation.

 But when I was first hung, there wasn’t much juicy gossip because back then the king’s beautiful wife Virginia only did good things. All she talked about was how she prayed for good harvests, saving elephants, and what poor, sick people she’d visited to whom she fed chicken soup. She never had wild parties, smoked, drank, laughed too loud or had any interesting love affairs. 

BOR-RING! I could barely stay awake when she started blabbing but as soon as my eyes began closing, she’d knock on my glass. “Irving!” (That’s my name). “Wake up. I need to tell you about the new tofu and kale recipe I found.”

Her royal prophet piano man Billy Jowl the 1^st warned her by singing about what would happen if she didn’t develop a few healthy bad habits. Virginia, only the good die young. And that’s what happened. She died young. Three years after the birth--in a winter storm (hence the weird name of the baby) to a daughter--Snow White. 

Being rather picky, it took King Walter about twelve years searching all over the place to find a replacement for Virginia. 

 Snow White was left unsupervised and spoiled by the household staff who felt sorry for the semi-orphaned little princess. By the time her stepmother Dakota Tucker arrived on the scene, she was pretty much bouncing off the royal walls.

    And then things got a whole lot more interesting.

Dakota was a far cry from Virginia. She was a feminist and insisted on keeping her last name. She drank, smoked, and had raucous balls in the palace all night long every weekend but--out of spite--wouldn’t let Snow White attend any of them because Snow White refused to call her mommy and would only call her Mother Tucker.

According to the Grimm Brothers, who publish the Royal Gossip Column in The Daily Herald, Snow White was an angel and Queen Dakota was as evil as the day is long.  But let me tell you: I knew them both up close and personal. Snow White was no more of a bargain than Queen Dakota. Together they were a recipe for disaster.

Right from the get-go they couldn’t stand each other and fought about who was fairer.

“You can’t go the ball,” Queen Dakota would say. “You’re not old enough.”

“No fair, Mother Tucker! I am too old enough. I’m almost sixteen!” Snow White would exclaim, and start throwing and breaking expensive royal heirloom vases and other stuff.

“You’re the one who’s no fair,” Queen Dakota would yell. “You cheat at cards, you steal my smokes, and sneak drinks from my expensive gin!”

“Do not!” Snow White would shout back.

“Do so! You’re a sneaky little liar.”

“Am not, Mother Tucker-you dumb drunk! I’m a lot fairer than you are.”

“No way! I’m fairer. I don’t cheat at cards. Ask anyone.”

    They would often end up in real cat fights and the royal butler would have to separate them.

I tried not to get involved but knowing my tendency to put my two cents where it didn’t belong, they were always running over to me to make a decision like I was some kind of judge.

“Mirror, Mirror, on the wall,” they’d shout.

“Stop calling me Mirror,” I’d say. “My name is Irving.”

“Who cares what your name is. We just want to know who’s the fairest – or at least who’s less unfair,” one of them would say.

I really thought they were about equally rotten but finally, just to get rid of them I said Snow White is the fairest. That was my big mistake. I should have kept my big mouth shut. This random choice caused a whole domino effect that led to my ultimate downfall.

Snow White walked away smug as all get up, but Queen Dakota was in a mighty rage--a lot of which was directed at me. But for once I held my tongue, did the job I was made to do and just reflected her angry face which just made her angrier.

Next thing I knew, she was standing in front of me talking, batting her long false eyelashes, putting on bright red lipstick and plotting how to get rid of Snow White. “I’m going to get Hunter Thaddeus to lure her into the forest, kill her and bring me back her heart. So there!”

What she didn’t know that I knew because Snow White had yakked about it to me was that she and Hunter Thaddeus were in love. So he took her into the forest with a letter of recommendation for his dwarf friends, telling them what a sweet, helpful girl she was. Which wasn’t true. In fact, she was a pain in the neck. Refused to do much of anything. Said she wasn’t a servant – she was a princess. And they should be taking care of her.  But Hunter Thaddeus was their good friend, and protected them from the wild animals and thieves in the forest, so they were stuck with her. 

Then Hunter Thaddeus killed a wild boar and gave its heart to Queen Dakota who--having no medical training--couldn’t tell one heart from another. So she figured she was good and rid of Snow White. She had the butler open a bottle of expensive champagne, had the cook fry up the heart with butter and onions and had herself a fine little feast to celebrate her victory

 Meanwhile, as time went by, back in the forest, reporters and photographers disguised as birds and hiding in the trees were combing the woods for stories for the Brothers Grimm and caught sight of Snow White and Hunter Thaddeus frolicking about and BAM-O--there it was in the Daily Herald, and Queen Dakota--an avid fan of the gossip column--found out. She was not a happy camper. She immediately fired Hunter Thaddeus and set about planning her next plot.

She stood in front of me in her old-peddler-woman disguise holding up the bright red poison apple and practicing what she would say in a creaky old peddler voice.

When Snow White saw the apple, her mouth watered. She hadn’t had a good piece of fruit since she’d been living with the dwarfs who were strictly ‘meat and potato’ men. Breakfast, lunch and dinner--nothing but meat and potatoes. So she took a handful of the gold and gems the dwarfs had mined, and gave them to Dakota-disguised-as-a peddler, who grabbed them and quickly made her exit.

Snow White, overly excited to finally have a piece of fruit, took a big bite out of the apple. Too big a bite, and the piece got lodged in her throat.

The rest is more or less history. Except it wasn’t a prince who saved Snow White. It was Hunter Thaddeus who had changed his name to Tad Hunter, cleaned himself up, and become a successful actor. Luckily, he was in between plays and was visiting when the apple incident happened, and he quickly did the Heimlich Maneuver.

It was headline news in The Daily Herald: FAMOUS ACTOR RESCUES EXILED PRINCESS SNOW WHITE FROM SUDDEN DEATH! 

   Along with some vivid shots of the apple flying out of Snow White’s mouth, they reported seeing a mysterious old lady tra-la-la-ing through the forest cackling about a poison apple and how now she was the fairest of all. But they had been unable to get a photo of her, and asked that anyone who had any information regarding her identity contact the paper.

The next day, after they had read the news, realizing that Dakota was still out to somehow kill Snow White, the happy but hunted couple snuck away in the dead of night to a very faraway place where neither the Grimm Brothers reporters nor Dakota could find them. And I guess they lived happily ever after because that’s how fairy tales end. But don’t quote me on that.

Unfortunately, when Queen Dakota read about Snow White’s rescue, she remembered that I had heard her plotting, and panicked--fearing that I would report her to the authorities and she’d be charged with attempted murder. And so my fate was sealed. She grabbed me off the wall, hauled me out the door, and dumped me on the floor of her waiting coach causing a crack in my right side and a couple of gems to fall out of my frame, and threw a smelly old blanket on top of me. Handing the coachman directions, she got into the coach, and placed her feet on top of me. When the coach arrived at our destination, she dragged me into the shop of a junk dealer who had a dark, dust-ridden store in a bad neighborhood where no one ever bought anything. He leaned me up against an ancient spinning wheel who told me she was instrumental in causing another princess to fall asleep for a hundred years. But that’s another story. 

The End