Peas, Frogs and Glass Slippers
We walk in droves. A kettle of vultures heading towards the castle to claim their reward. Some look for fame while others look for power and wealth.
“One item,” we were told. Through grassy plains and deserts dry, we clenched our items, our one chance of having it all. We come from poor homes, supported by the tiring labor of our fathers. Our mothers, our protectors, our guardians and nurturers. We told ourselves we were doing it for them. That were we to win, our parents would get every single dime, we lied through our teeth. We had to tell ourselves these lies. Guilt held no rope over a future king. After scorching days and sleepless nights we had arrived. The castle stood tall, steadfast. A Goliath of a challenge stared us down. We file in a neat line with the rare few who were rich enough to obtain an item worth something headed to the start, brimming with confidence, bound to get shattered. Prince. A word that used to be assigned to those in high power, had become such a dull word. Each and every one of us was a so-called prince. We had our kingdoms of soil and manure which we ruled with a worn-down shovel, so when given the opportunity to change everything we dropped everything to escape our cycle. We no longer wanted to be princes. We all want to become kings.
The crystalline gates opened and sucked in the proud gentleman at the front, who now look terrified as he clung to his bars of gold. It was not a minute before the man stumbled out, lifelessly. His deadpan eyes rolled over each one of us. He tried to attempt a smile, straining his lips to curve upwards as if saying “good luck, you’ll need it”. Few men scurried out of the line and back home, terrified at the thought of becoming a lifeless husk. The rest of us knew there was little point in leaving. What was the point in returning home to our monotonous lives, not even taking a chance at changing your life around completely? From zero to hero we all were the Hercules of our own stories. A man who lacked strength but had bravery to make up for it and only needed to take that first step to become a God. As men entered one at a time, we realised something. No two people had brought the same item. We had each brought what we thought made us different to everyone else. Items such as family heirlooms and incredibly rare items were being sacrificed to please this Queen to differ ourselves from our competitors. More and more people had begun to filter through the castle, and they all exited limply, meandering towards the horizon. Towards home. Towards nothing. By this point, jewelry, clothes, perfumes, money, pets even a ‘brave’ man who tried bringing himself had clearly not impressed her. Every ore possibly found in the deepest crevasse’s of the universe would be tossed aside. At least the man who tried bringing himself got time to explain himself to the Queen which is more than others could say, but alas he was ushered out in much the same manner. Some had tried cutting limbs and sacrificing family, but they were always immediately forced out, souls intact, body and dignity, not so much.
It had finally come to my turn. After seeing hundreds of men gone by, I clenched the item in my pocket. The man in front of me slumped back home, a different man than the one who I had learnt so much about. The guards had gotten tired by now and simply beckoned me with a slight nod of their head as if knowing I was destined to melt along with the others. I stepped up to the plate. I somberly walked past quartz pillars and magnificent artworks of her (assumedly) ancestors. There she sat, atop a bejeweled throne. She had rich, black hair and a dress made from the purest of silks with darkish reds streaking down it, giving her the appearance of the devil himself. Her eyes were covered, by what could only be described as the most magnificent crown one may have ever seen but her mouth grinned widely from ear to ear, cruelly stalking her prey down before tearing them down to the bone. Surrounding her, a shield of golden pride seemed to fend off any attacks, with swords and arrows littering the ground at her feet. She was a queen in every sense of the word. A queen of a country screaming for help. A symbol of richness and wealth when the rest of us had to beg for scraps. She was known as the Ice queen, a widowed woman who had closed her heart off and whose demeanor was as cold as her name suggested, so why did I need her approval so badly?
A maid rushed up signaling me with her hands to give her my item. Gently folding it in her hand, I stood proud. I would be chosen. I really wasn’t like the others. I could do everything they could, and more. I was an artist. An enabler of passion and wisdom to be illustrated in a still painting. A picture paints a thousand words and my paintings wrote a novel so rich I knew the queen would have no choice but to choose me over the rest. I had spent months on this painting. I had sacrificed so much to get here, and I knew it would pay off. Some had money sure, but so did the queen. Some gave pets and clothes, but the queen could easily get her own. Now an original painting. That was something only I was able to give her. Something unique to me. The queen took a scan of my life’s work and in a flash, tossed it to the ground and with her heels proceeded to squash it along with my dream. Her beady blue eyes stared me down. It wasn’t disappointment. It wasn’t anger. It was her smiling, trying to hold back laughter. That’s what my work was. A laugh, a joke. It was kind of funny. I thought I was special. As I was forced to head out by the guards, a ball in the pit of my stomach began to swirl. A feeling of loneliness and despair took control of my body as I threw up the ball. My soul hit the floor once, bouncing once before slowly making it’s way upwards like a balloon, slowly drifting away as a small child looks towards its escape with hopelessness, the string in his hand dangling in lost dreams. Dragging my feet to its next landing I was lead back outside where the sun’s vibrant and gleeful rays pierced through my thickened skin as I looked back towards the next man in line who I looked at with pity as he too looked as confident and happy as I was before I headed in. I weakly smiled back at him knowing he would join the rest of us as I joined the slow group of men slowly heading back to a place we all secretly thought we would never have to return.
None were successful. We all returned to our lives. We knew there was no chance we could win the queen’s hand in marriage. We knew she had set this up for her entertainment. But despite knowing this all, we still wanted was to know that we were special. If life was a fairy tale, where was the magic. Where was the hard work paying off and where was the part inside of us that wanted to go somewhere, get something. We all secretly thought we would be the Hercules of this story but little did we know we were just faceless characters fading into the background. We worked so we could eat so we could sleep easily, to get up early the next morning to head back to work. That was life. We would never be kings nor individuals.
Written Explanation
This creative response took inspiration from Salman Rushdie’s short story “Auction of the Ruby Slippers” from his book “East-West”. I tried to mimic Rushdie’s style of writing by starting off the piece in third person, switching to first person and then ending in third person similarly to “Auction of the Ruby Slippers”. I also tried to mimic Rushdie’s way of implementing magical realism through the shield of golden pride protecting the queen and the soul of the main character physically leaving his body as a ball. I decided to set my piece in more olden times, not wishing to add technology and have simpler characters such as the Queen and “princes” much like Rushdie likes to do in a lot of his stories. In many of Rushdie’s stories he likes to question how one should define a life well-lived so I decided to have the story end with the character realizing the uselessness of his life with each so called prince vying to prove that they were each unique. For this essay I decided to focus on Rushdie’s themes of individuality. I did this by using the main characters loss of confidence and belief in what made him special have him become another lifeless zombie like all the rest before him. I used the final paragraph to fully illustrate the main characters complete loss of self by changing the perspective back to 3rd as he blends in with the rest just as the story started before he tried to step out and be unique. I decided to add the symbolism of Hercules as a weakling who was special in order to contrast to the characters who were weaklings that wished they were special. Rushdie uses a lot of symbolism and uses characters such as Chekov and Zulu to help emphasize the themes so I took inspiration from that.
