To Kiss Or Not To Kiss ... The Frog
(An Adult Fairy Tale)
To Kiss Or Not To Kiss ... The Frog
(An Adult Fairy Tale)
The little princess stopped crying and looked at the lake and its surroundings. No sound came from the trees and the bushes, and the lake was still. She looked at the pure water of the lake and saw her reflection as still as everything else. She disliked the stillness of her reflection so much that she began to make lines in the water with her little finger. The reflection broke into many parts and each part, a different form and a different colour. Suddenly all the birds of the forest began singing and the insects began playing their fiddles. The wind blew and made tiny waves in the blue lake. The little princess wanted her broken and divided reflection, which was continually receding from her, to become the fish, the snails, the frogs, and the other creatures of the lake. And that is what happened.
When all the parts of her reflection had become small water creatures and had swum away from her, the princess looked into the water before her for a last time. To her chagrin, the girl saw no reflection of herself. She began crying again; this time because she had lost something of herself that she liked so much. She determined to focus on her wish and bring her reflection back. She needed it for the times she combed her hair and for the times when she wore a new blouse of a different colour that changed the colour of her eyes. Soon, her reflection was back and placed itself before her in the water. She was saddened, however, that because she needed her reflection so badly, the lake made of her tears would be without water creatures.
At some point, the sun found itself much closer to the west of the sky. A cool breeze swept over the little princess' face and dried her tears. She looked around and gazed at her long mischievous shadow, which was cast on the east side of the forest. She did secretly like her shadow. She had often turned it into a little girl and played with her whenever she felt lonely and in need of a playmate. The princess' playmate knew of so many strange games and spooky places in the forest. Once, she had even tempted the Queen's daughter to go along with her on a rampage of stealing little eggs from the unguarded nests on the top of a remote bushy hill. The princess was thrilled by the thought of doing all that was deliciously disgraceful. Hence her obsession with this dark entity that had no tangible existence and no independence of identity.
On that day, as her shadow was a long and a late afternoon kind of shadow, the princess wished it to become a boy, a little prince. In no time, her shadow became a prince her own age with singular glances that brought a smile to the princess' face. He was so very much like the mischievous little girl, as if her twin brother in all ways.
They had just begun to play hide and seek when they heard the girl's nanny and the palace's gardener calling the princess and looking for her. The little girl was so happy to be rescued that she forgot all about the dark little prince and ran towards her nanny and the gardener. They took her back to the palace without seeing the little boy who was left behind, unattended and without anyone or any place to go to. It was only when the princess was tired and wanted to sleep in her clean, fresh bed that she remembered the little prince and her lost shadow.
"Oh, my swarthy prince, my poor little playmate", she sighed and walked to her bedroom, grumpy and sad.
When the Queen found out that the little girl had lost her shadow in the forest, she came to her daughter's bedroom to comfort her. She told her that sometimes early losses were part of growing up, that different people lost different parts of themselves at different stages of their lives. And when the nanny was tucking the princess into her bed, she told her that shadows were not as important as reflections, that little girls didn't need their shadows to comb their hair or to see the changes of their eye colour.
"But my shadow was so nice to me and liked me so much. It followed me everywhere, like a pet!" the princess replied. The nanny who hated all shadows, kept her silence at that time, gave her a good-night kiss and left the room while smirking at her own shadow.
Once she stepped out of the princess' bedroom, the nanny felt a tension inside her between her love for the princess and her hate for the girls’ shadow. She had an urge to find the boy and kill him, but she knew that by doing so, she would be harming the princess too much. So, she remained awake all night, thinking about what she would do with the little boy. Just before the dawn, she thought of a way to make the boy invisible, simply inaccessible to the princess. She wrapped her shawl around her shoulders and ran to the forest with a torch in her hand looking for the little boy. It was only at dawn that she found him. The handsome little prince, pale and anguished, was asleep on a smooth rock under the lime-tree. She picked him up and held him in her protective arms. She had decided that the princess was going to be better off by the vanishing of the little orphan boy, by his transformation into a frog in her blue lake. So the shrewd nanny cast a spell on the forgotten prince and turned him into a red-eyed, dusky frog. She, then, lifted the sleepy creature and put him on the sludgy grass close to the water. The frog prince woke up, smelled the freshness of the sand, and croaked with great joy before diving into the deep water. On her return, the good nanny assured the princess that her shadow-prince was neither lost nor dead, but happily swiming in the blue lake of her tears.
Seven years passed. Impressed by her beloved nanny, the princess had learnt to dislike shadows and forgotten all about her own as if she had never had one. She had also reached an age when knowing herself and all else was a daily obsession. Now, she had the habit of going to the dark forest on summer days to sit on the smooth rock under the lime-tree and read her beloved wise books. She had read on all kinds of topics, from poetry to "how-to-dissect-a-frog-without-causing-him-pain". Her nanny had moved to another fairyland, as her services were no longer required. But the princess always remembered her, especially whenever she read something by a saintly author cajoling the readers to dislike all shadowy creatures.
On the other side of the story, the dusky frog was feeling lonely. He always missed his best friend, the princess. So he ate a lot. He ate a lot of insects, mostly the big ugly ones. With the passing of the time, he became bigger and bigger. The frog-prince was now too big in size for a frog, as he had been too small in status for a prince.
One day, while in the forest near the lake, the princess got tired of reading and decided to relax a little. She gently rubbed the bridge of her nose upwards and squeezed her soul out of the middle of her forehead. It was in the form of a golden ball. She began throwing the ball back and forth between her two open hands. She was most joyful doing that, as her soul was her favourite plaything. Suddenly she dropped the golden ball and saw it fall on the ground, rolling straight into the lake. The Queen's daughter rushed to the lake, took off her shoes and socks, and waded in looking for the lost ball. But the lake was deep and the bottom could not be seen. Her soul had vanished into the depths of the lake of tears. At the loss of her plaything, the princess began to cry, knowing too well that she would be nothing without her soul. She cried for a long time, unable to comfort herself with other thoughts. As she lamented, she heard a deep voice echoing nearby.
"What makes you suffer so much that you cry your heart out?" someone uttered.
The princess looked around and saw a huge dusky frog stretching forth his ugly slippery head from the water.
"Ah, ghastly water-splasher", she said, "I am crying for my golden ball, my playful soul, which has fallen into the lake."
"Do not cry anymore, dear princess", answered the red-eyed giant frog, "I can help you, but what will you give me as reward, if I bring your playful soul up to you?"
"Whatever your heart desires, sullied frog" said she, "My fragrant soaps, my jar of scented herbs, and even my crown of fresh flowers."
"I do not need your fragrant soaps or your jar of herbs; nor do I want your crown of flowers, beautiful as it may look. But, if you will love me and let me be your companion and lover; if you let me sit by you at your dinning table and sleep with you in your cozy fresh bed -- if you promise me this, I will go to the bottom of the lake and bring to you your golden ball."
"Oh yes," said the princess, "I promise you all that you wish, if you will but bring my lost soul back to me."
But she thought, "What a brazen toad! What a gross cunning creature! He shows up at my most vulnerable time, hoping to be accepted and loved by me. He doesn't realize that no dusky creature is worthy of being a princess' lover".
In contrast, the frog, upon obtaining the princess' promise, dove down to the bottom of the lake; and came swiftly back with a golden ball in his mouth. He dropped the shiny soul on the grass, before the feet of the princess. The Queen's daughter was ecstatic to see her soul rescued and in her possession. She picked it up, held it on her face, rubbed it softly on her nose bridge and let it get inside her head. The princess was a soulful maiden again, but not yet mature enough to keep her promise. She ran away from the forest without even thanking the giant frog who was screaming his thunderous croak, croak, after her, as loudly as he could, "Wait, wait! Take me with you. You can't break your promise, imperfect princess."
But it availed him nothing. The princess ran home and soon forgot about the jet-black gigantic frog, who had no choice but to dive back into the depths of the lake made out of his beloved princess' tears.
The next day the princess was sitting at a long dinning table opposite the Queen having lunch. She heard something with a resounding splish splash noise coming up the marble staircase. She looked into her mother's inquiring eyes and before she could open her mouth, they heard a booming knock at the door followed by a deep and loud voice,
"Princess, imperfect Princess, open the door for me; I am the dusky frog prince, your long lost shadow; do not avoid me".
The princess was surprised and frightened by what she heard. Her heart was beating violently. The Queen stood up pensively, paused for a while, and then uttered with determination.
"My dear daughter", she said, "your lost shadow has finally found you and wants to be united with you. Why are you so afraid of him? Why don't you open the door?"
"Oh, mother, I don't want to be united with this ugly creature. He wants to be my lover and share my bed, while I truly dislike him and don't want him in my life. He is too much beneath me. He is an ugly croaking frog and I am a pink-nailed princess for God's sakes."
"But he is a part of you, my dear", Queen pointed out, "How could you live without your shadow, monstrous as he may be?"
"If you remember, mother", the princess complained, "I wanted my shadow to be a handsome prince of my age, not an ugly frog. It is my nanny's fault. She turned him into a creature that I cannot even touch."
"But you had neglected him and had left him alone in the forest" replied the Queen, "Your nanny did the best she could to help him survive when you were too young to take care of him. But now that you are a big girl, the burden for your shadow's fate falls upon you. If you embrace him with love, he will become whoever you want him to be. You can change him at any time if you put your heart and mind into it."
"It is easy for you to say, mother", the princess said pensively, "You, yourself, have always told me that any attempt to change savage creatures is doomed to failure!"
- (Silence)-
"All right, I will let him in."
The princess opened the door and the bulky black frog hopped in slowly and followed her like a shadow, step by step, to the foot of her chair. The princess sat gracefully and in silence to finish her meal, her eyes fixed on her plate. The bulky frog, resentful of the princess' indifference, jumped on the long table and knocked over her plate with his slippery fat leg.
"One kiss from you and I will turn back into a prince and then we can marry, move into my castle where you can prepare my meals, clean my clothes, bear my children and forever feel lucky for doing so."
The princess felt a flush of rage creep into her face but wore a friendly
smile and slowly got up from her chair to leave the dinning-room.
"What if we get married first? I wouldn't want to kiss you as some girl-friend, but as your wife!"
"That's fine, my dear. We get married and then you will kiss me in my bed and make love to me."
"Of course, I will. We will make love and you'll be inside me. Would you like that?"
"Oh yeah! I'd love to be inside you; I wish to be inside you all the time, forever and ever."
"Is this truly your wish?"
"Absolutely! There is nothing more that I wish at this time!"
"Then I'm going to make sure that your wish comes true. We will marry tonight and we'll be together for life. Why don't you now go to the castle's bath and wash your entire body clean. You wouldn't want to turn into a filthy prince and appall your wife, would you?"
Leaving the frog and his euphoria behind, the princess walked to the castle's kitchen where she spoke to her chef and ordered, as usual, her supper menu. She then climbed the stairs to her sitting-room, accompanied by her two attending maids.
That evening, the princess dined sumptuously on a repast of lightly sautéed frog-legs seasoned in a white wine and onion cream sauce. For desert, she sat near the fireplace and was served, by her chef, a glass of hot chocolate with mint-flavoured cookies. Her newly returned shadow, which was now in the form of a charming black prince, was cast on the wall. The princess gazed at a beautiful painting over the fireplace and fell asleep on her cushion. The painting showed an old lime-tree in the forest, shading a little girl reading on a smooth rock near a blue lake.
It is said that the princess and her shadow lived happily ever after. But it is also said that it was not so, as the princess was always prone to probe into everything within and without her, including her frog-like shadow, unafraid of losing herself in the chaotic depths of memory lane. It is said that it was so and it was not so.
, Azadeh Azad
