Once upon a time, in a magical existence called reality; there lived a boy. The world was quite unique, for its magic could only be seen by those birthed with a unique power…..the power to believe…And this boy was born with an immense power to believe…; to believe in the magic of the place to grant miracles.
The passing of eons had quite changed the definition of royalty…What is royalty? I ask you…Is it only the medieval concept of living in castles and other such subtleties???? Is it not the social isolation that we see in our day to day life: In schools, in workplaces, in playgrounds….There will always be an individual who is kept away from the crowd because the ‘Commoners’ deem him to be too royal. Some ‘Nobles’ thrive in this isolated atmosphere…. Wearing that isolation as their prized credential. But our unwilling prince in the story…he hated it. Hated walking alone on the edge of his broken dreams: With only his shadow to keep him company. He hoped that in this game of hide and seek ….. someone would find him fast; before he drowned in the loneliness.
Born into a noble class, the expectations of climbing higher up in the social ladder weighed down upon him like the sky. He had grown up to etiquettes and manners befitting of a prince….but with a lack of ambition that created a disregard to authority. He hardly behaved like the rank he was born into…
Elders say that with age comes the ability to understand the meaning of love. Our prince quite agreed to this fact…until he met the princess of this fairy tale…And all he could think of was “Pretty”…Vague…but that was till where the thoughts of a pre-teen ranged to….He was entranced by her.. But he never talked to her, never asked the princess her name. The mind is such a fickle thing….it doesn’t remember what it absolutely has to: Like the name on the label, when the princess sat next to him doodling on her book label; But it retains all the worthless things, like the shoe she kept doodling…..
The Shoe of CINDERELLA
Or perhaps it was not the mind, but our prince who was a bit of an idiot?
That had been only the starting mistake.. Some mistakes are small like a crack… others large and prominent like a castle of glass… While still there are other mistakes which just appear to be small, like a crack in a castle of glass.
The butterfly effect. A small cause in your surroundings can cause the greatest of changes ever witnessed. Our prince never understood why he liked the visual arts. He went from painting to music to movies… A world of fiction and chords and hues had opened. And he loved this world because he was no prince here.He attached himself to anything that would remind him of the princess of his dreams…She had moved away…Not so far so that he couldn’t see her…But far enough so that he wouldn’t see her.
While she was out of sight... She never went out of his mind... He dreamt of her to have grown into a perfect beautiful princess like she was supposed to. They both grew up, moulded by situations… never crossing paths. But as he fell in love with his paintings, he slowly but surely fell in love with the girl that was its inspiration… But fate had a tiny problem: Our prince had quite forgotten the face of his beloved along with the name that he never learned… How were they supposed to meet?
And before he could go any further into his thoughts, the prince was jarred to his senses by a sharp tap with a metal scale… He had been sitting in class and dreaming about ‘her’ as usual. But was again interrupted by his partner.
His partner was a flight risk. Untamed and uncontrolled. She was the first one to acknowledge him as him…not by his grades; not by the royalty the others had made him. She had many hits and even more misses in life. While she was beautiful, her encounters with love had been disastrous. It left her with rumours tailing behind her and gave her parents, who couldn’t care less about her. Those were the side effects of being dumped twice, caught once and being cheated on once. She was broken when she had met him. But in return for the ignoring his royalty, he began to treat her as someone special.
And she slowly began to heal. Heal all of the injuries that society had given her. He was her saviour. Her prince in shining armour. And even though she was terrified to fall in love again… but love is the worst disease; No? The prince had enjoyed the maid’s company… She had treated him like an equal. Without any presumptions. And so when he finally felt he could move on from his dream to real life… Fate intervened… She would not let that sacred match go in vain.. And that night he dreamed… the dream he had not had in a long time… He dreamed of the princess. And although he could not see her face: He knew she was the personification of imperfect beauty in his dreams. Why imperfect you ask? Because in no way could his sleepy mind could recreate that sought of beauty. Right?
Love is finally when you cannot sleep because finally reality is better than your dreams…
And now he couldn’t decide… He had fallen in love twice. And his head pained while his heart throbbed. Or was it the opposite. With his head in his hands he felt the beat of his pulse, that whispered out an answer in Morse code, he could not decipher. The silence of his thoughts were deafening and the rhythmic pumping of his fragile heart was measurable in the Richter scale. How could his heart bear that any longer: And for once in his life he couldn’t decide. He needed time... The time it would take to count all the stars in the sky…that’s the time it would take to fix his heart.
The skeleton of his past had finally caught up…And no matter how much tight he grasped for an answer... He could not stop the crimson soaking through. He had made promises of not falling in love with anyone other than the “Girl of his dreams”… Ten thousands of promises… Now he had ten thousands of ways to lose.
She had seen him in distress… but never in sadness. Her saviour was sad. She tried her level best to annoy him.. For that was the only way he knew to draw his attention. But everything failed to work. The prince would not emerge out from the nightmare he was having. And so in desperation she began to draw on the only surface she wanted to… The arm of her prince.
Lifting his eyes, the prince met the worried eyes of the maid.. He had made her worry.. and now he felt sorry for that. He imagined never meeting his partner… Missing her from his life, And he felt scared. Because he knew that if let her go he would never find her again in the crowd: For no matter who he asked no one would listen, cause no one else cared. Finally he came to his answer. He would go with the one who really existed.. not with the sort of imaginary angel that existed only in his dreams. And partially satisfied at finally being able to decide he absently began rubbing the ink marks on his arm.
And he saw it.. The shoe that he had yearned to see for many years sat inconspicuously doodled on his forearm.
And for a moment he could not think. For that wave of ecstasy wiped out any thoughts in his mind. No words in any language could describe what he felt. Even the divine kanji cannot write down emotions.. for when we come even close to jotting down pure emotions, these mortal instruments will burn into cinders. And in this elation he asked her the question.
He did not even no what he asked her.. but there was one word that he would forever remain engraved in the very soul of his being. ”Yes” she had said… And he had finally smiled. A beautiful smile that got reflected in the no longer broken mirror of her partner’s soul. And as the brightest shooting star, The sun, passed overhead, he promised… to never let her go… If this was all a dream he never wanted to wake up… for reality was not worth it…
And he held her hand tightly in his to never let go…
So I ask you audience… Does this story really need a happily ever after to get a happy ending??
