THE PRINCE WHO WAS ABOVE IT ALL
by Beth

The tale of how the princess became set in the princes' ways

Once upon a time there lived a prince and a princess.The princess was a beautiful, loving, energetic soul who loved the prince dearly and would do anything to make the prince happy. But the prince, being a prince , was above most forms of light entertainment and instead liked to sit on his throne all day and declare pity on the world at the millions of people who seemed quite content with their lives and their pathetic acceptance of social strata and happiness therein.
He pitied those who found adequacy in the most remedial of lives and assured the princess that they themselves were above such common existences.

Occasionally the prince was obliged to fulfil specific social highlights on the calendar, not one to break tradition, he and the princess would always attend these highlights, most commonly balls... The princess would always get excited, she she got bored of the monotony of life and quite looked forward to getting out of the castle once in a while. She would put her glad rags and pearls on and look forward to the evening. The prince would go out and buy a new, black, tailored but stuffy outfit. The princess could never differentiate between this one and the last nor the other attendants at the party who all placed emphasis on differentiating themselves from the monotyped common plebs of the world and stressed the need for individuality but as far as the princess could see they all looked rather similar. The couple would attend the ball, the princess all ready to dance and laugh and enjoy herself.
However the minute they arrived at every one of the balls, the prince would make his way to the back of the hall, light a cigarette and stand back and sneer at the people enjoying themselves, turning to the princess to say "you see darling, this is a prime example of the stupidity of the human race.. how pathetically they dance, how silly, how very unnecessary, if only they could see themselves. " and the princess would smile at the prince and nod in agreement, gladdened by the fact that the prince could
not see her foot tapping to the music under her long ball gown.

The prince and princess would occasionally attend the theatre .. the princess, who was getting increasingly bored stuck inside the castle day in day out, wouldn't care what they saw, she was glad of the distraction, generally she would find the plays somewhat engaging and would come out of the theatre with a big fulfilled smile on her face and a pounding heart only to turn to the prince to be greeted by the prince with the same surly expression of disgust every time "what a load of frog spawn jelly and pond weed." "Could the story have been more predictable? Could the actors have been any uglier? could the songs have been more bland?" and the princess would nod in agreement. "darling darling!! would you take a look at the people around us, my god they actually enjoyed this trite, what a pollution to our nation these uncultured yahoos are, no doubt they are not far removed descendants of the barbaric Grecians finding bread and circuses the height of entertainment. " The princess's smile had all but faded. "I pity them i really do, ahh well, it is at least some comfort to ourselves that we are so above the rest of society in even the simplest of things . eh darling?" the princess unable to do anything but yet again nod.

Each year valentines day would come and the princess would get excited in the hope that this year the prince would consider himself special enough for even the plainest of cards. And each year the prince would tell her about how the commercialisation of love was the fastest route to social downfall.. "to associate love, such a sacred gift with private, global enterprise and capitalism is selling your soul to the industry, well darling i may as well sweep up the dirt off the floor and stick it in an envelope with kisses for the gesture it is worth." so each year the princess would go without any gesture at all. Safe in the knowledge that this made the couples love far more special. Without possessions or gestures to have to prove their love to one another.

Then one day, the princess looked down into the castle garden and saw two young lovers, the boy picking a flower and handing it to the girl with a kiss, the girl's eyes and face lit up with the purest expression of joy. Her face rosy with warmth from the many kisses the love struck boy had laid on her cheek. the prince, looking over the princesses' shoulder, uttered the words "brainwashed at such a young age, aren't you glad we are above all that? " and then walked away. the princess put her hand to her cheek and felt it was stone cold, she couldn't remember the last time it had been kissed. she couldn't remember the last time she had been out of the castle, the last time she had spoken to anyone but the prince, Her last walk in the gardens without the prince complaining about the cold, or the heat or the birds singing in the trees destroying his peace. the prince had seemingly risen above it all, become more important, better than everything, the pleasures of life being as far detached form the rest of the world as possible, who could obviously only lower his status. Of course they were better than everything. Nothing was good enough for the prince, so that is what he did ... nothing. the princess realising a life sentence of nothing was upon her, burst into tears and because she had become so cold and hard with the barriers she had been forced to put up by the prince against the outside world, it wasn't long before her tears froze, freezing the rest of her body into an icy kind of stone. A statuesque model of perfection in the prince's eyes.




[fairytales]