Modern 'Fairy-Tale'

Slumbering Beauty
By Metta Ray


Depression is a head disease, it is a chemical imbalance in the brain, or at least that is what the doctors would have you think.

* * * * * * *

Beauty was exactly that, a beauty. She lived in a pristine house, with her three aunts who were also beautiful women. They all wore the most glamorous clothes, and had the most recent hairdos; they were manicured and massaged to perfection.

They had everything they could ever need or want. They had Internet and credit cards, television and a home gym, servants to prepare their food and bring them anything they may ever need from the outside world. They never had to work or leave their beautiful house; as a matter of fact this is exactly what bothered dear 15-year-old Beauty.

She stared through the glass at the outside and wanted nothing more than to feel the grass, or the rain, or the wind, but her aunts forbade it. For as long as Beauty could remember, she was not allowed to go outside, she was told that it was too dangerous and that she didn’t need to go out anyway, because anything she needed would be brought to her. There were locks on the doors and windows that only the servants had keys to. This made beauty feel suffocated. It’s not that she didn’t appreciate everything she had she just wanted to do anything for herself.

The eve of her 16th birthday, Beauty felt restless. Her aunts had told her that they had a wonderful surprise for her and that it would be the best thing she had ever gotten! She couldn’t sleep and out of anticipation, she paced through the halls of the house and even though it was the middle of the night and she was supposed to stay in her bedroom, she thought her aunts would understand that she was just way too excited!
She looked in all the obvious places first, trying to find her gift. “What could it be?” she wondered. After all, she had everything already.

As she was on the floor searching for the ‘gift of a lifetime’ she felt a cool breeze on her cheek. She looked up at the direction of the draft and realized that the window above the kitchen sink had been left open by one of the servants!

She froze. She had always dreamt of feeling the grass under her bare feet, but now she didn’t know if she had the guts to take the chance. Beauty considered the punishment she might get from her aunts if she were to be caught, but decided that since it was her birthday tomorrow, they wouldn’t really be that hard on her if she were just to take a quick look. “After all, I’ll be 16 tomorrow. I’m practically grown!” she thought to herself. “Besides, it’s 2 a.m. My aunts won’t even be awake for at least another five hours. They won’t even know I went outside.”

Beauty made her decision and moved quickly and quietly toward the open window. She climbed up on the kitchen sink and took a leap into the cool darkness.

As her eyes adjusted to the blackness of night, she realized that the strange feeling on her feet was exactly what she had wanted for so long. She was standing with bare feet in the cool grass.

She was so very excited, she almost squealed like a child! Beauty caressed the grass with her hands and feet for so long that she began to worry her aunts might miss her. She was reaching for the window sill to pull herself back inside, when she heard something through the hedge on the other side of the lawn. She slowly crept toward the sound, she didn’t want to be seen for fear of being caught, not to mention, she was in her pajamas. As Beauty came closer to the hedge, she could see the cause of the sound.

There he was riding a skateboard ramp under the floodlight of the driveway. He stood taller than her, and wore clothes like the boys on X-Games. She had seen many skate competitions on TV and understood the sport well, and although her aunts usually made her change the channel, she would watch it whenever she could. He had shaggy brown hair and a kind, masculine face.

Beauty tried to get a little closer to improve her view, when a large yellow dog came busting through the hedge at her knocking her down and barking loudly.

Beauty screamed with fright, she had never been this close to a real dog before and she was worried she would be caught disobeying her aunts.

The skater boy suddenly appeared standing over her and holding back the dog by its collar. “Are you okay?” he said with a concerned voice “Rock! Be quiet! Don’t worry, he won’t bite.”
Holding Rock with one hand, he extended the other to help Beauty up.

She stared into his deep blue eyes as he lifted her to her feet. He smelled both like the men’s cologne she had sampled in magazines and the aroma of her gym socks after a hard workout. She liked it.
“I’m just gonna put Rock on his chain, I’ll be right back. Stay here.” The boy said.

Beauty stood in the dark in shock of the events that had just taken place. More had happened in the last ten minutes than had ever happened in her life. She considered going back to the kitchen window, this was way too much. But something held her there. Maybe it was the boy, maybe the excitement, maybe the grass between her toes, but he was back before she had a chance to figure it out.

“Sorry about that. My name is Chance, what’s yours?”
She stared at him in complete amazement. So this is what a boy looks like she thought to herself as she took in all of him. The way he stood, the way he smelled, the way he smiled at her...”Beauty. My name is Beauty”

And just like that, Beauty was in love with Chance.

They sat on the grass through the night talking about everything, sharing their minds and hearts and even tongues.
As the birds began to chirp and the sky began to illuminate, Beauty told Chance of her aunt’s rule about going outside and that she must hurry back in before they woke up.

They shared one last teenage kiss and she promised Chance she would find a way to get back to him that night, even if she had to break a window.

Beauty entered the kitchen window as quietly as she could and made her way back to her bed just in time to hear one of her aunts starting the shower.

“Happy Birthday Beauty!” sang her aunts. She had only just fallen asleep after her midnight rendezvous when her aunts woke her with a large box and a loud song.

She sat up in bed, delirious from the lack of sleep, and smiled thankfully at her aunts. She opened her gift and found a spectacular black evening gown and letter.

The letter told of her past and her fate.

She had been born to wealthy ambassadors who had made a few enemies in their careers. The life of their only child had been threatened when she was an infant, so to preserve her life and ensure a necessary political marriage in the future her parents sent her to live far away with three college friends where the assassins would not find her.

She was to be married to a wealthy debutant and be brought on the day of her sixteenth birthday to Yorkshire to live out her life as the wife of Sir John Banal.

A tear came to Beauty’s eye as her heart sunk with despair. “But, what about Chance?” she pleaded to her aunts.

“There is no chance” Her aunt replied.

Beauty slumbered for years waiting and hoping that Chance would somehow find her.

Of course, the doctors said it was just a severe chemical brain imbalance.