Once Upon a Bedtime

On a silent street within a silent neighborhood lies a house that is also supposed to be silent. However, inside this very house at the top of the stairs can be heard many tiny giggles long past bedtime.

“I can hear you up there!”

The mother yelled out to her daughter.

“It’s time for you to go to bed.”

“But I wanna see papa!”

The little girl yells back to her mama. Her tiny hands holding onto the rails as she peeks through them.

“Papa had a long day let him rest okay?”

The little girl looks down at the carpet by her feet.

“Okay”

She slowly lets go of the rails and takes small steps over to her bedroom.

The father places both hands down onto the table and pushes himself up to get himself onto his feet. His calves push his chair back a bit, making a slight scraping sound as the legs of the chair run against the surface of the floor. His picks up a napkin, quickly wipes his mouth with it, and then tosses the now dirty napkin onto his plate.

“I can go see her for a minute.”

He says as he walks over towards his wife.

“Are you sure? I know you are pretty tired.”

“Of course I’m sure. I want to see her too and it’ll help her sleep,”

He gives his wife a kiss on her cheek.

“I’ll be back down in a bit, leave my plate there I’ll clean it up when I come back.”

-

The father walks into a very pink room to see his daughter sitting on her bed wearing her footie pajamas. She’s kicking out her legs like she was bored and waiting until she looked up and saw her dad come into the room.

“Papa!”

She excitedly wiggles and rather ungracefully rolls off of her bed onto the floor and runs over to her papa.

“Now now now.”

He very gently rubs the top her head.

“I am not here to rescue you from bedtime, you still need to go to sleep.”

The little girl stretches out her arms and in the middle of a yawn she says

“But I’m not .. ah… ah … tired”

“Not tired at all? Oh no. we better fix that.”

The father says in a rather playful tone.

He pats the girl on her back, gently guiding her over back to her bed. She struggles to get back on the bed as she can’t touch the floor when she hangs on the side. Her dad gives her a boost up and she gets comfortable in her covers. Once under the blankets she looks up to her papa with a big smile. The dad grabs a chair and pulls it up over to the side of the bed. He takes a seat down onto the chair, places his hands together and holds then up against his face. The long parts of his fingers pressing against his lips and the very tips of them pushing against his nose.

“Alright.”

The father finally says after a brief moment of silence.

“How about I tell you a story?”

Her eyes widen and she lets out a bit of a gasp in excitement.

“Would you like that?”

The little girl sinks down into her covers a bit. Her blankets covering half of her face. Even behind a blanket you can tell that she is smiling. She quickly nods her head and she watches her dad closely.

The dad chuckles a bit.

“Alright Alright.”

He scoots the chair up a little closer to bed. He raises his hands up and he begins to tell his story.

“Once upon a time…”

The little girl’s eyes widen. Her room gets very bright and her father’s words fade away. She sees a pirate ship flying around her room made from a very bright colored wood. The pirates yell out from their ship and they blast their cannons. She can even feel the breeze that is guiding the sails. She watches in wonder.

“Wow”

A group of fairies fly around her. Making her hair fly up. Golden sparkles fall off from them as they twirl and dance around the girl. One of them even blows a kiss for her before they all fly away off to the other side of the room. The father’s voice comes back for a brief moment.

“There was even a princess”

The father explained. Then a beautiful young woman in a long blue dress twirls around the girl’s bed. Dancing as if she was attending a ball and gently bowing to other well-dressed men and women who happened to be attending.

“Was the princess pretty?”

The little girl asked excitedly, clapping her hands to everything her father was telling her.

“Not as pretty as you though sweetie.”

The father said in a chuckle.

“But being pretty doesn’t exactly keep her out of trouble.”

The little girl gasped out.

“Oh no is she okay?”

She asked worriedly with her hands covering her mouth.

“Oh don’t worry she has people to help her.”

A knight in a full set of armor riding a dark brown horse flies though the walls of her bedroom and runs around the girl. She can perfectly hear the sounds of the horse’s footsteps while it runs around the room. The knight lifts up his sword ready to battle. A dragon comes out from the other side of the room and throws fire out from its mouth towards the knight. The girl felt the heat of the fire as a gust of hot wind washed over her face. She watches nervously while the knight and dragon battle in her bedroom.  The knight slashes at the dragon, extinguishing its flames, and the dragon’s body vanishes. The knight takes a victory lap around the room and disappears through the walls where it came from.

The bright light in the room fades away. The room is not as pink as it used to be. The father now has stubble on his face, and the girl in the bed is taller and her hair grew longer. She looks up to her dad with the same wide eyes she gave when she was little.

“Can you tell me another story?”