Ella didn’t know what to do. She had thought being married to Charming would be her ticket to freedom from her sisters’ evilness. She had thought that no longer would they ask her to do banal odd jobs all the time. She had thought that riches would buy her the happiness that she hadn’t found with her step-mother.
Obviously, it seemed that she had thought wrong.
Prince Charming was despairingly boring.
Every time she imagined herself in these same circumstances day after day for years and years, she almost cried out in desperation. Imagine waking up and having nothing more to do than read the e-newspaper. Heavens! She didn’t even have to boot up the computer and load the e-newspaper. It would all be done for her. Imagine talking to boring old people in boring formal partied and being polite to them even though she didn’t like them. Imagine growing old doing nothing, watching Charming’s hair gray and his width increase. She really wondered what it was that she had led herself into. And what was more, she no longer had her friends around her! It had been a long time since Snow had just, disappeared. Her servant-friends at Snow’s castle had been left behind. And every time she tried to talk to the help here, they responded a little too primly. And on more than one occasion, Charming had quite summarily told her to stop associating with them. It didn’t become a lady of her present status.
She found a little comfort in talking to her newest acquaintance, Pied Piper. She had come across him on cyberspace. He was quite an interesting fellow. He had many interesting tales to tell too. Little by little, Ella found herself growing closer to him than she had allowed herself to with Charming.
**
Dear Diary
It’s almost ready. The perfect recipe.
I had developed it in those days before my downfall as part of the larger plan.
At that time, though, it had been just a theory.
Quite unexpectedly, it seems that this time, the Gods are in my favor. I just heard the best news since quite a few days. The King has delayed his return indefinitely because Jupiter is in an emergency-like situation. Seems that the poor people have finally lost it. Some twit was not careful and now, the planet is in a major fuel-crisis. Apparently, there isn’t even enough fuel for the King to return. Dear oh dear.
Artemis.
P.S. I’m lovin’ it! (Stupid spell check doesn’t realize that “lovin’” is without a ‘g’ for a reason!!)
***
Rats!: You’re what, married?
Ella3000: Yeah.
Rats!: Rats!!
Ella3000: Marriage has to be one of my worst decisions.
Rats!: Tell me about it, Princess Charming. Did I tell you about the story of my name?
Ella3000: No-o. Pied Piper. Were you a plumber or something?
Rats!: Well, I was a Piper. As in, one who played pipes. I lived in
Ella3000: You play that badly?
Rats!: Ah no. You see, one time, a long, long time ago, that place was run over with rats. Live, fat rats and mice. Quite irritating they were.
Ella3000: Ooh. Live rats! Bet they were damn cute. I’ve never seen one.
Rats!: If you had, you wouldn’t think they were cute. They entered everybody’s houses and ate everything they found. Even computer wires. Of course, those times, wireless technology hadn’t reached our little town. No one thought they were cute. Everybody was out to get them killed. But they multiplied too fast.
Ella3000: Ah! No family-planning!
Rats!: Seriously. They hadn’t even heard of abstinence. Everywhere, on the roads, in the houses, tons of rats and mice were busy with just two things – eating, and reproducing. Not, of course, at the same time. It made the people really mad. The Mayor announced a reward of some million bucks if anyone could catch them.
Ella3000: That doesn’t quite amount to much.
Rats!: Obviously, in those days, a million was a huge lot.
Ella3000: Oh yes. I forget. There wasn’t wireless yet.
Rats!: There was. You’re making me feel old. Wireless tech just hadn’t reached
Ella3000: Of course. Inflation. True. It’s quite once-upon-a-time when a million was worth a lot.
Rats!: Quite. Well, I tried my hand at that million. To be accurate, the actual amount proclaimed was 2,374,991.976 bucks. Anyway, what I did, I played my pipe and all the rats left all their activities and followed me. I was walking rather resolutely towards the river and they were even more resolutely, following me.
Ella3000: And you walked into the water and they kept following and got drowned. Right?
Rats!: Absolutely. But the Mayor didn’t think I deserved my money. They tried to pay me off with a meager 999,988.328 bucks.
Ella3000: Only? How absolutely rotten!
Rats!: Oh well, I had my ways of making them pay.
Ella3000: What did you do?
Rats!: I went onto the streets and played again. But the second time I was playing a different tune and all the kids in the town started following me. They left all their activities everywhere and came after me.
Ella3000: Ooh man. And then?
Rats!: And then I held them hostage till they paid every bit of the reward. Of course, I did feed them. The kids were quite sad to have to leave me and go. Inevitably, it meant school from the next day onwards.
Ella3000: That’s cool. I wish I could do things like this!
Rats!: Well, why not? Let’s get together some day and then we’ll see.
Ella3000: Yeah, okay then.
***
For some days after, Artemis remained inside her room, emerging from it only for visiting the washroom and the odd meal. Everybody assumed that it was just part of her other oddities.
***
The reason Snow was so unhappy with the news of Ella’s wedding to Prince Charming was as much that she came to know of their decision from Gretel as much as that she’d secretly been in love with him.
She’d never been able to tell anybody.
Most of the time, she would be a little too busy to think about it. But with the time that she had in her hands these days, she could spend some of it thinking about it. And she concluded that she was pretty morose now that she’d let Ella take him away from her.
Talking to Snowy about it seemed to help.
It gave her comfort. She convinced herself that it was for the best.
She couldn’t exactly barge into Ella’s life (married) and declare her love for Charming. Oh no, she’d be called a homebreaker and then, everybody would hate her.
Also, that would bring attention to her living status.
She didn’t know that Artemis knew. She didn’t know that she’d sent after her a team of Antsects.
She was blissfully unaware of the last plan she’d made
1 comments:
"They hadn’t even heard of abstinence."
Lol.
Post a Comment