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Princess Without A Name – slightly reworked

I’ve been thinking about trying to submit this story to Hilights, a children’s magazine. With the help of my mother, Ms. Editor Extrordinaire, I reworked it a bit. It’s still too long by over three hundred words, however, and I’m trying to figure out how to shorten it. The reworked version so far is below.

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Once upon a time, there was a princess who didn’t have a name. She lived locked up in a tower, like all princesses do, and had a jolly life there. She got plenty of exercise in the big swimming pool in the basement of the tower, read plenty of books in the big library on the first floor of the tower, and had plenty of food in the pantry on the second floor and plenty of time to gaze outside wistfully from the one window that was on the third floor of the tower. It was a very good tower, as towers went.
The princess without a name was very happy there. She lived her life all alone, except for the girls that came to restock the pantry, and read about other people in books. She had, of course, read all the stories of princesses in the library, and she knew how her story would go. She knew exactly what would happen with her life.
She felt lucky, knowing exactly what was to be. It made her glad to think that one day, probably around her eighteenth birthday, a prince would come riding on a white, or maybe black, horse. He would save her from the tower by breaking into it or climbing up it or doing something else that was very athletic. Then he’d pledge his true love to her, and they would ride off together into the sunset and live happily ever after. The princess without a name liked the sound of happily ever after. It sounded like a nice way to live, though rather vague.

As her eighteenth birthday drew near, the princess without a name started to worry about two things. The first was that all the princesses in the stories had names. Not very good ones, no – for what sort of a name is Cinderella? Or Snow White for that matter? Still, they had names. But the princess without a name had no name at all. She never really thought about it. She knew who she was, and that was that. She never felt she needed a name.
The second thing she worried about was that she would have to leave her tower. She really liked her tower, being stocked as it was with good things to do and to eat and to read. She even had a few friends, if she thought about it – the girls from the village who opened the tiny window in the pantry and gave her food every week. The window was much too small to escape from of course, but the girls liked having nice chats and the princess without a name rather liked hearing about their lives, unprincess-like though they were.
Mind filled with worries, one of which being the creases in her brow from being so worried, the princess saw her birthday come and go. And no prince or horse came near the tower. As the days passed, she started to forget a little about it. She kept about her routine, and even had the village girls add a few dozen new books to the library.

Still, fate is fate, and the day before the princess’s nineteenth birthday, a prince appeared. He came riding – of course he did – but on quite an odd black and white horse that looked rather like a tall cow. His face was very sweaty and his chain-mail wasn’t very shiny, being rather caked with mud. The princess without a name looked down at him from her window at the top of the tower and waited.
“O, fairest of maidens! Princess of these lands! I am Pip, and I have come to rescue you!” He shouted up at her, rather as if declaiming, badly, from a page. The princess stifled a giggle. Pip?!
“O lovely lady, will you tell me your name?” he shouted, his voice breaking on the high pitch he put on the word “name.”
“I don’t have a name,” called down the princess. The prince blinked a few times. He looked like he was thinking very hard, and not managing it well.
“Well, then, after I rescue you, I’ll give you one, O star of mine!” he eventually yelled, sounding, and looking, rather pleased with himself at the solution he found for this unexpected development. The princess thought to herself. She looked back into the comfy tower room, her bedroom, and sighed a bit. She looked out at the prince and sighed once more.
“Maybe once you break in, we can live here?” she asked the prince a moment later. She really did like the tower. She heard the prince laugh an odd, trilling little laugh.
“Why, lady, I have a castle waiting for us far away from here,” the prince called back, still giggling. “That is where we shall live, get married and have our children! Why, this little place is scarcely enough to hold one little princess, how could it hold a family and servants and courtiers?”
The princess without a name cringed at his words. A family? Servants? Courtiers? She wasn’t even nineteen. She wasn’t ready for all that. Happily ever after had always been vague, true, but never had she heard about the happy couples having babies and servants and courtiers right away. Also, the princes had always been sweet, not annoying like this one. They were never called Pip. And their horses were beautiful.
The princess thought the matter over for a few more minutes while Pip toiled away at the door of the tower, hitting it with his sword and muttering things like “Have at you!” and “Open sesame!”
“Pip! Hey, Pip!” she called, trying to get his attention away from her faithful door that was solid oak and seemed quite unwilling to let him in. Once Pip looked up at her, wiping sweat from his brow with his hand, she continued.
“Pip, your offer is so kind. But, you see, the thing is,” she began, “I like my tower. I don’t really want to leave. So, thank you, but I’d really rather stay put.” With those words, the princess who didn’t want a name given to her turned, walked into the depths of the tower and went for a long, aggressive swim in her pool.
She never saw Pip starting in shock at the tower. Nor did she see him hacking hopelessly at the door a few more times. Nor did she see the big brass key that hung next to the door on the inside of the tower, just like she hadn’t ever seen it. She would see that key one day, when she was ready to. She would see the key and she would open the door and until then she had no need to know that it was there. Her tower was enough for her and would be enough for her until the day she would know that it wasn’t.

Three Dreams

One

I am at a wedding. I’m positive that it’s some sort of traditional Scottish wedding. I dance in circles, kicking my legs in and out in a pattern which seems correct, but as I’m doing this I’m sure that I really don’t have any clue what I’m doing and I hope that no one will notice the fact that I’m completely faking whatever the dance is supposed to be. Two people are doing the same thing beside me, but they seem to really know the dance. I end my circle by slowing down, almost to slow motion, and then with the thought of making a dramatic exit, I leap into the sky. I’m shooting up, when suddenly some thing, some sort of beast, whizzes past me, almost biting my head off. I wake up in terror.

Two

I am in the lobby of a restaurant. Leonardo DeCaprio is there, as is Angelina Jolie. They are lying back in beach chairs and are completely still, like wax statues. I go up to the restaurant, and the waiters are all standing around, leaning against the walls. I talk to them, and I come to understand that there’s a problem with the boss – that he’s stopping business or some such. I get a mental image, like a vision, of a dark room with something prowling around it, commanding the restaurant’s boss. A sense of dread pours over me, and I feel that the boss isn’t the ultimate boss in this place – that he’s being manipulated by this beast, this evil thing. I want to get out. I go back down to the lobby, where two girls are now chattering about the famous actors there. They’re speaking in Hebrew, so I can understand them, but Leo and Angelina can’t. The girls try to tell me how they met – something to do with their eighteenth birthdays. I smile, I nod, I wonder why they’re telling me this when I have no clue who they are, and I quickly exit the restaurant.

I am now out on the street and it’s dark, dusk. I turn right, and walk down the street. The sidewalk and street are separated by fences enclosing dirt, as if the gardens are blocked off for planting. I walk down further, and at the end of this semi-enclosed walkway, I see a mattress. A man is lying on it, upper half naked, asleep. Next to his bare back – for he is lying on his stomach with his face averted to me – I see what appears to be a hole in the mattress. In the hole, I see a woman’s face. I get an overpowering feeling that she is dead. I walk past quickly, but just as I turn the corner, I feel a tug at my unbound hair – the man is hauling me back, and I know in my bones that he will butcher me and stuff me inside that mattress along with the others. I wake up in terror.

Three

I am out camping with my friends. There is a bonfire going, and one of my girlfriends tries to heat water over it in a Styrofoam cup. I want to yell out at her that it will burn, but I don’t, as I’m distracted by a bread basket that is being passed around by my friends. I take a piece of bread and eat it, suddenly realizing that I’d eaten a McDonald’s dinner earlier and thinking that I’ve eaten too much and that I don’t want two dinners. I wake up in terror, and then smile at the silliness of this last dream.

The Businessman

The Businessman sat at the same restaurant every day during his lunch break. Every day was the same for The Businessman, and one of his few joys was ordering a different thing for lunch every day. He would take the specials each day, and if the specials contained something he absolutely hated or was allergic to, he would take one his favorite regular dishes. In this way, he managed to keep the favorites special, and he never got sick of them.

The Businessman had the same routine at the restaurant every day. First, he would find a table outside. Rain or shine, he had to sit outside. If there were no tables available, which happened sometimes during tourist season, he would wait. The waiters, the servers, even the manager knew him, and they always managed to find him a seat quickly. Once he found a suitable table, he would sit down and reach into his bag. He had a worn black leather briefcase, one that looked dignified but not stuffy and too new. He would take three things out of his bag at first.

The first was a bag of tobacco. The second was a box of rolling papers. The third was a lighter. Until the waiters came over – and indeed, the waiters knew not to come over until this ritual was over or they would need to deal with a very flustered man – he would meticulously roll himself three cigarettes. He would smoke one before the meal, the second after the meal, and the third after his post-meal coffee. He felt that rolling his own cigarettes was the one roguish behavior that he’d kept from his college days when he’d been wild and carefree.

The Businessman considered himself to be rather homely. He didn’t think he had particularly interesting features, and he knew that he blended in with the endless flow of suited men in their late forties. He didn’t realize that his eyes were a beautiful and rare light blue. He didn’t seem to notice the fact that he cut a fine figure. He wasn’t entirely aware of the fact that his face, lined as it was, was full of character and intelligence. He only saw himself as The Businessman, a man who knew and understood his trade but couldn’t explain what he did to others very well. Because of this, he was convinced that he was boring.

The Businessman ordered a different thing every day at the restaurant. He hoped that one day he would take a last meal there, shake the waiters’ and the servers’ and the manager’s hands goodbye, and turn his back. He hoped he would have the opportunity and the courage to go somewhere different one day and leave the business district forever. He hoped.

Monica Loved Max

Many stories begin with the words “it all began when…” Many stories are unrealistic by their nature, but that line is one of the worst ones to begin a story with. Nothing begins at a certain moment. Very rarely can we see the point in time when a transition begins, when a story starts in our lives. Looking back, we can never pinpoint the moment the tides changed in our favor or the exact time we fell in love or the precise instant when we changed.

No, most often, we realize as we look back that something has been changing or happening for quite  a while.

So it is for me. I don’t know when I realized I was in love with Max, nor do I remember when exactly I fell in love with him in the first place. I remember when we met, I remember how we got to know each other and I remember being more and more drawn to him. Then, somehow, sometime, I realized I was in love with him.

“Mon’,” he’d say. “Why are you looking at me like that?” He was so clueless. He never understood the looks I gave him, the looks with which I was trying to fathom if in his gaze was an emotion anything like mine.

It was never a subject between us – the emotions we felt for each other. right from the beginning of our friendship we acted as if nothing could or would ever happen between us. We confided all and beyond in each other, told each other the absolute raw truths about our opinions and feelings for others and we quickly knew each other better than anyone else knew us.

But I loved him. Somehow, hearing about his liaisons with other women, about his love and respect for his father and his opinions on how children should be raised – it all made me love him. He, the person he was, made me love him.

He never got to know it, though. I never worked up the nerve to break that unspoken rule of pure friendship between us, and then he decided one day to explore more of the world. The last time I heard from him he was going to take vows of silence and join a monastery so he could understand the practice of religion in such places and write an essay about it.

So while I can’t say when it all began with Max, I can definitely say that it all ended when he hugged me goodbye, kissed my forehead and smiled at me at the airport. It’s sad, though, how easy it is to pack years of equal friendship and one sided love into a few short and simple sentences. You’d think it wouldn’t be possible to fit a world of emotion into the short statement: I loved Max, and he was my best friend until one day he left. But you can.

Lucy’s Diary, Later on May 16th

May 16th, Night-time, Library

Dear Diary,

Oh. My. Gosh. I know I wrote in you only this morning, dearest, but I hope you will forgive my indulging in scratching my pen over your pages once more today, and I sincerely hope you’re not weary of me yet!

I have been waiting patiently all day for a moment of solitude in which to tell you of the exciting events that followed directly after my last writing in you. Oh, I’m not speaking about my joining Sophie and Maria on their way back to Pratt and Smith this morning – I did join them, and we had a nice walk back to the school, as the day was all May sunshine and breezes, though it is now rather cold.

No, no, Diary, I am speaking of what passed in the few short minutes between my concluding my writing engagement with you this morning and the meeting with the girls. I can barely breathe at the strangeness of it all, but you must judge for yourself the events which I shall now relate.

I got up to leave the diner this morning right after the guy I’d seen on the plane had left. He had finished his phone call in what seemed like a huff, and fairly stormed out of the place. On my way out, I paid the waitress at the cash register at the counter, and I idly asked her where or what Gaitec’s Reach is. She had no idea, so I simply smiled and turned to walk out.

Who should I bump into as I was leaving? Why, who else, but Mr. Mysterious Airplane Man! He knocked you right out of my hands, and we both bent down to pick you up at the same time. Our eyes met for a brief moment, and I cannot describe the lure his gaze, intelligent as it is, had on me. But, Diary, I worried about you first and foremost and I picked you up immediately and left the diner with as much dignity as I could muster.

He ran after me, though! I have never been more surprised in my life. He told me his name was Michael – which was odd, because I’m sure I heard him addressing the man he was talking to on the phone as Michael. He asked me, in a hurried, abrupt manner, what my name was. I don’t know why I did it, but I said it was Annie. I didn’t – couldn’t, wouldn’t – tell him my real name! I don’t know him, after all! He asked me why I had asked the waitress about Gaitec’s Reach. I had to reply that I just liked the sound of the name, because what else could I say? That I was intrigued why he would be searching for some obscure place by that name? That wouldn’t have made any sense.

For some reason that I cannot fathom, he asked me for my cell number. I have one, you know, for emergencies, though my cousin will give me hell if she sees me making outgoing calls on it… Still, I gave him the number, which is even more unfathomable to me – because, as I pointed out before, I don’t know him!

Ah, Diary, what foolishness, what folly – I know you would reprimand me if you could. But this man, this Michael, he seems, for lack of a better phrasing, in NEED of something. I have an odd instinct that I could help him somehow. Then again, perhaps I’m entertaining a mere school-girl crush?

Oh dear, it’s very late, Diary. I have stayed up and out way past our curfew, and now must hasten to my room and my bed or I will surely be found here and I don’t feel like spending time in detention if I can help it at all.

You may call me silly, and I’ll admit to being so, but I will leave my phone on tonight, on my bedside table… Who knows, right?

Much love to you, my dearest confidante,

Lucy

A Barber

In a small room with two mirrors, two swiveling chairs and three stationary ones, in a corner of Tel Aviv often overlooked by ordinary passerby, there is a barber. He seems a quiet man, a tactful man. Though it goes with his profession to be tactful and flattering as a rule, he seems rather sincere and serious when speaking of styles and colors.

Currently, it would be easy to make the mistake of thinking he was religious. The truth, if you inquire a bit, or if you hear him speaking to one of his regulars, is that his father has passed away, and he is in mourning. He is carrying out his mourning period, as is often done even by non-religious Jews, by not cutting his hair and beard and wearing a “Kipa”, a skullcap. The death of his father, not two weeks past, seems to weigh heavily upon him, because although his face lights up with a dazzling smile when greeting a true friend, it is fallen and tired the rest of the time.

All day long, he is on his feet without rest, charming and flattering the elderly women who come to get their hair dyed, joking with the men who come for a shave, welcoming in the stray stranger who finds his little shop. Despite being small, it is always overcrowded – he has dozens of regular customers, all popping in on their way to and from work, bringing their children and their dogs, making appointments on the fly or writing down their numbers for him to call them back and make proper engagements.

The warmth, the quiet chaos as customers change places constantly in the cramped shop, the kindness of the proprietor – all make the little spot a diamond in the rough of the Tel Aviv streets.

An Exercise

I’ve been researching some writing exercises the past few days and trying to find the time to really work on one. I randomly picked one from a random website – I’ve lost which one it was, or I would post the link – and decided to work on it at work today. I always use the down time between phone calls from customers for scribbling, but more often than not I’m just nattering away about nothing in particular. Today, however, I had a goal.

The writing exercise was simple – there was a picture of a boy sliding down a water slide, and the instructions were to write about the boy: who he is, where he is, what he was doing before and after the picture, etc. I didn’t actually have the picture with me at work, but I could remember it pretty well. For some reason, this ended up being the result – I didn’t follow the instructions very well, but I got an idea and went with it.

A picture frame hangs on a wall, the only ornament in the whole dreary living room. The picture, whose colors are perfectly bright and cheerful in comparison to the gray walls, is a photograph of a boy. The boy is grinning widely, and is featured mid-slide on a wild looking water ride – he’s wearing a bright orange swim-suit and upon closer inspection, you could say that he is laughing more than grinning. In fact, you can almost hear the delightful peals of laughter as you look at the photo.

So the balding man that lived in this room felt – as if the boy in the photograph was constantly laughing at him. So many times the man had tried to take the photo off the wall, and yet, again and again, he could not bring himself to do it.

And so, the man lived out his life, jumping from one hated job to another, never happy with the person that he had become. All his days, the boy laughed in his wooden frame, reminding the man of the boy he had been: so full of hope and happiness. The future had seemed endless then, opportunities just waiting right around the bend. Sometimes, when the man lay in bed late at night, he could admit to himself that the reason he never took that old photograph off the wall was that he needed to remind himself how he had squandered his opportunities, how he had wasted his life. And yet, by day, he never changed a thing, and the laughing boy that he had been shined out of the picture frame forever more, while the man he was dwindled in body and in spirit as the days passed.

Even to himself, the man never managed to explain why he didn’t change a thing. Perhaps he lived in the boy in the picture on the wall rather than in his reality; perhaps he just didn’t know how to change; perhaps he didn’t want to change really; and perhaps, just perhaps, there was no one there who cared enough to help him change. Who knows?