Oversleeping beauty
“Why do you have to go?” asks Butter. As her name suggests, she is a milkmaid. Rounded with creamy, freckled skin, she looks and smells as delectable as a cinnamon bun.
Coleman, as long and dark as Butter is plump and fair, rolls out of bed and pulls on his pants. He is, like it or not, a prince. “We’ve already talked about this,” he sighs. “It’s a family obligation. I have to kiss my cousin, the princess, and wake her from an enchanted sleep. You have nothing to worry about. It’s just a kiss.”
Butter spits angrily onto the earthen floor. “Yeah, right. I’m not an idiot. Even I’ve heard of true love’s kiss. You’ll kiss your cousin, fall in love and get married under a cloud of songbirds. You’ll be covered in bird shit, and Timmy and I will never see you again.”
“I’ve told you a thousand times that’s just a myth,” he rumbles, trying to convey the extremity of his exasperation while speaking softly enough not to wake the baby.
It doesn’t work. Timmy starts howling and Butter throws him a glare that would reduce a lesser man to ash.
Coleman stands next to the bier, hands stuffed in his jacket pocket. His fairy godmother, a wraith robed in eggplant-purple wings, swoops into the space beside him.
“Isn’t she beautiful,” she murmurs, her voice the rustling of musty parchment.
“I guess so.” He cranes his neck and takes another glance at the young woman on the bier. She is reedy like the rest of the family. Her fine hair is the color of tarnished silver, and her skin is a consumptive, chalky white. She looks cold and unhealthy.
His godmother tut-tuts. “Once you kiss her, you’ll see her truly, with love’s own eyes.”
Coleman raises his head and scans the room. Her parents are staring at him with naked expectation. He lied to Butter, just a little. If he awakens the sleeping princess, he will have the right to claim her hand. He could, if he wishes, be king.
He shakes his head. No, he wants to be a simple man, Butter’s lover and Timmy’s father. Besides, helping his cousin — he doesn’t even remember her baptismal name — would destroy his nascent family. The equation doesn’t balance. He is done here.
“I’m sorry,” he says in a scared, arid voice. “I can’t do this.”
His godmother shrieks, but she can do nothing. Every fairy is born with a finite number of curses, and she has used them all.
The earth is unbearably cold, and the sun is unspeakably hot. The planet, feverish, shivers as death approaches. A slender husk, light as an insect, buried under endless rubble, stirs slightly. Her synpases sputter and spark for the last time. Has my prince finally come?
