The Princess of the Pea
Long
ago, in a country perhaps not too far from here there lived a king and his
queen and their son. It was not long ago that his son had reached maturity,
this meant that he would have to find himself a bride and a future queen. His
parents searched the land for a girl of pure enough blood to be his wife, royal
blood is for utmost importance to keep the blue blood as blue as possible. It
was, when they were desperate and tired of travelling near and far looking for
a girl or royal blood that they came up with a plan. A princess would have a
skin so fair and so sensible that if she would sleep on 20 mattresses she would
still be able to feel the pea sitting underneath.
A
few years passed, at first many girls came to the castle to claim they were of
pure royal lineage, but time and time again they slept like roses in their
beds. Tucked away with their face barely an inch from the ceiling and every next
morning at breakfast they would ask the girl about their night. They never
complained, you don’t complain to a royal family who have offered you a place
to sleep. So every girl who rang the bell of the castle was send home the next
day, disappointed with the results they had given up.
It
seemed like the weather had become as tired and dreary as the prince, he was 21
now and was not yet married. He felt a sort of shame growing over him, like a
mould slowly rooting on his skin and turning him into a rock instead of a
mature human being. He hoped the sun would come out soon so he could ride off
into the world and forget his predicament of eternal loneliness when the
weather took a turn for the worst. It stormed for days, lightening struck
close-by and the rivers in the land had started to overflow, the storm didn’t
seem to seize but grow worse every day. In this ghastly weather a girl knocked
on the door, soaking wet and shivering. The butler opened the door and saw the
girl, cold to the bone and wet to the skin, he couldn’t let her freeze in the
pouring rain so he took her in. The prince sitting in the kitchen having his
own private party while eating last night’s leftover chicken overheard the
conversation and decided to peak around the corner to ear where this fragile
voice came from. He stuck her nose around the corner of the kitchen and saw a
beautiful blonde girl, almost radiating, dripping dress, bare-feet and her hair
in strings covering her face. She said she was a princess and that she was on
her way to her parents when she got lost in the storm, she had been wondering
about for days.
The
moment this news came to the ears of the king and the queen they ordered the
girl to use the princess room and the bed with the many mattresses in the hope
she was a real princess. Exhausted as she was she went to bed right after being
given some food and some dry clothes. No matter how much she tossed and turned,
how many times she changed position, the bed just wouldn’t be comfortable. She
didn’t sleep at all that night, the shadows on the ceiling grew long and tired
and went back to sleep on the carpeted floor. That morning she got out of bed,
not being able to suppress her yawns snuck into the kitchen and made herself a
glass of warm milk with sugar to ease her body. At the breakfast table the
royal family seemed strangely concerned about her night rest and the bed. “Excuse
me, if you don’t mind, my rest is my own business, a bedroom is a closed room
and so is my night, this topic of conversation is highly inappropriate to be
discussed.” She seemed to have offended the king and queen, but curiosity
sparked into the eyes of the prince. He went after her to apologise for his parents’
behaviour, but he found her, curled up in her bedroom with a book still in her
hands, sleeping. He picked up the book to put it down, ‘The Book of the City of
Ladies’, he had heard of it but his parents condemned it for its modern view on
women. She opened her eyes noticing that what she was holding before was gone
her eyes falling on the perfectly trousered knees of the prince.
She
got up, eyes the prince who was holding her book. “Excuse me, sire, it is very
inappropriate to find yourself in a lady’s room when she is in, especially when
she is sleeping and it is extremely rude to help yourself to whatever she is
reading. I hope you will find your princess for I will be taking my leave in an
hour.” At any other occasion the prince would not have cared, but this stung
his heart, he wanted her to like him. An hour later she was wearing borrowed
shoes, a borrowed dress, a borrowed bag filled with food and left into the
forest. She was glad to be away from any sort of royalty, she despised their
traditions and believes and the story about going back to her parents was just
a story, she has left for good and had gone off into the world to find
happiness in solitude.
The
prince would wonder off alone into the forest, travel the world to find her, he
never did. She would always be on his mind, until he died of old age and a
bitter heart. The kingdom he inherited was left for the taking and the castle
would turn into rubble a few hundred years later, it would all be forgotten,
the pea turned into rock and was conserved in a small box by the CIA,
presumably used to shoot John F. Kennedy, but nothing was ever confirmed
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