Fantasy

© 2001 Chew Yuin-Y

Once upon a time in a land now long forgotten by mankind, there dwelt a king and a queen.  Both longed for a child to bring some cheer into their lives and to inherit the throne.  For many years, it seemed as though there would be no heir to the throne, as is the usual burden that must fall upon kings and queens in fairy tales. 

Then one fateful day, while Queen Ana was strolling in the palace garden, she came upon a young lady sitting under one of the royal coconut trees. 

"Who are you?" demanded the Queen.  "What are you doing here?"

"Why, don't you recognise me, Queen?" said the stranger, standing up.  "I am your fairy godmother, the Fairy Bee." 

The Queen took a step back and scrutinised the lady.  "It is you!" she shrieked, and threw her arms around the fairy.  "But I thought you were a lot taller than this." (Indeed, the Fairy Bee reached only to the Queen's shoulders and the Queen was not very tall.)

"Well, some fairies don't get very tall, you know...  Anyway, I come to offer you a wish."

"Only one wish?  Isn't three the usual number?"

"New rules, Queen.  If you're over 30, you only get one wish."

The Queen blushed.  "I'm not that old!"

The Fairy Bee laughed a little laugh, obviously not believing her goddaughter.   "Now, what will you wish for?  Hurry up – I haven't got all day."  She tossed her hair and gave the Queen an impatient look.

"I wish for a child," answered the Queen almost immediately.  "Boy or girl I don't care.  Even if the child is as small as my thumb it wouldn't matter."

"So be it.  Come round to this tree tomorrow at noon."

With that, Fairy Bee vanished. 

The next day at noon, the Queen hurried out to the coconut tree.  She found a perfectly round coconut lying on the grass.  She picked it up and ordered that it be split open very, very carefully. 

When it was opened, the Queen was quite delighted and astonished to see a little boy, smaller than her thumb, sleeping peacefully inside the coconut.  The King, whose name was Timothy, was informed of this and soon came running to see the boy that was to be his heir.

"Isn't he a dear?  I think I'll call him...  Francis!" said Queen Ana.

"He's so tiny," murmured the King, taking no notice of the Queen's name for the boy.  He couldn't help wondering how the country was to be run by someone who was not even as big as the palm of his hand. 

The trend at the time was to have a grand buffet in honour of the firstborn and the King, not wishing to be called old-fashioned, followed the trend and held the largest buffet ever in the country.  Special guests included the Fairy Bee, who was asked to be Prince Francis Felix Chalcedon Friendlie’s godmother. 

The King's fears about his son being so tiny soon disappeared when Prince Francis grew bigger in size as he grew older.  By the time he was 17, he was quite normal.  The people loved the prince for his congeniality and good heart.  The young girls of the country were particularly smitten by the combination of the prince's good looks and good nature.  

Unknown to anyone, the Wicked Witch of the West had been cooking up a plan of revenge.  The good King & Queen had invited everyone to their son's buffet – even the Witch.  But the Witch was seated by the door, although she wanted a place by the window.  From then on, the Witch bore a grudge against the whole royal family. (Some historians are of the opinion that she was actually just looking for an excuse to do some evil and wreak some havoc on the land.) 

Standing over her huge, black magic cauldron, the Witch cackled in glee as her plan was put into action eighteen years after the Day of her Humiliation, as she remembered it.  Dancing around the cauldron of bubbling green and purple liquid that glowed, she chanted:

"Giant squid in the sea so deep,

Little chicks that chirp and peep;

Forever and ever my spells shall keep

Prince Francis in everlasting sleep!"

When she uttered the last word of that spell, Prince Francis collapsed there and then, causing great confusion in the palace.  The King summoned the best physicians; the Queen fell down in a faint; the servants rushed to and fro in a most chaotic manner. 

In the midst of that hubbub, Fairy Bee appeared.  With a wave of her wand, every single person in the palace sank into a deep slumber.  She looked sadly at her godson, lying on his featherbed.  She said in a loud voice (Fairy Bee never could keep her voice down), “O my dear godson, I cannot break the Witch’s spell, for it against the fairy rules.  I can only alter it – and so I shall!  A hundred thousand years hence, you will be awakened by the voice of one yet unknown! And when you wake, so shall the rest awake.”

She then magically transported him to the topmost room of one of the palace towers and vanished.

A hundred thousand years passed and the palace was overgrown by weeds and other flora, particularly Rafflesia flowers.  The stench from the numerous Rafflesias that flourished there was enough to keep any would-be intruder away. 

On the 100, 000^th anniversary of Fairy Bee’s alteration of the spell cast by the Wicked Witch of the West, a young lady by the name of Evonne happened by the area.  Now by that time the world had changed greatly and it was well into the twentieth century.  As I was saying, Evonne happened to be driving by the Forest of No Return, to give it the local name.  Sitting at the wheel of her metallic blue Proton Wira, imported from Malaysia, she cast a glance at the forest.  A sharp gleam of reflected light caught her eye.  Strange, she thought.  She stopped to take a better look.  She spied the top of what looked like a turret peeping just above the treetops.  Curious, she decided to investigate this peculiarity. 

Battling the pong that pervaded her sensitive olfactory senses, she made her way through the woods.  She soon arrived at a clearing.  She was most thankful and rather surprised to find that the odour emitted by the huge Rafflesias had disappeared by then.  She had no time to dwell on that though, for the next moment, she realised that right before her was a wall of stone.  It was rather moss-covered and overgrown with an array of creeping plants.  Gingerly, she reached out and touched the wall.  Suddenly, part of the wall seemed to vanish before her very eyes.  Startled, she couldn’t budge an inch.  But she recovered after a few short moments and gathered her courage to explore beyond the wall. 

Walking forwards, she found herself staring at a tower.  A formidable red and grey brick tower.  She became even more curious.  What could be at the top of the tower?  She wanted to go up and see for herself but she could see no way to get up. 

Trying to figure it out, she failed to notice five creatures, the size of a mouse deer, crawl slowly across the grass to her.  They fixed their beady black eyes upon her.  It was a few minutes before she noticed them.  She stepped back and her foot touched smallest one, causing her to give a little shriek and turn around.  Seeing that it was only a snail, she relaxed.

“Well!  It’s only a snail,” she began, then stopped in surprise, seeing the other four. 

The snails had cone-shaped shells that were a queer transparent bronze colour, decorated with thin white swirls.  Their soft bodies were as clear as glass.  She stared at the odd sight.  The five snails surrounded her in a semi-circle.  They gazed at her, not moving nor making any sound.  All of a sudden she could hear them speaking, although they seemed to be devoid of mouths. 

“I am Yeshua,” said the largest snail.

“My name is Aster,” said the second in line.

“I am Konig,” said the third, whose eyes were a little crooked, so Evonne thought. 

“They call me MC²,” said the fourth.

E = mc², thought Evonne, recalling Einstein’s theory of Relativity.

“And I am Cylie,” said the smallest of the snails.

Evonne smiled at the little one.  “A cute name for a cute snail,” she said to herself.  Then she heard a chorus of small voices, all perfectly in tune: Think of a wonderful thought.  Any happy little thought. 

“Huh?”  Evonne blinked at the snails.  Looking around, she saw no other living thing.  She began to really doubt her sanity but she heard that ‘chorus’ again: Think of the happiest things.  It’s the same as having wings. 

The words reminded her of the Peter Pan movie that she’d watched in her childhood.  She regarded at the five beings with a mixture of curiosity, suspicion and disbelief.  She sighed.  “Oh all right…  I’ll try it.”  Why am I talking to snails, she asked herself?  I must be completely mad.

Nevertheless, she closed her eyes and thought of the happiest things she could.  When she opened her eyes, she found herself rising higher and higher into the air.  She was dumbstruck.  She kept going until she reached the top of the tower.  She saw an open window and peeked in.  She beheld a room richly decorated in an ornate manner, with a four-poster bed right in the middle.  On the bed lay a young man, handsome & elegantly dressed in deep maroon. 

“What on earth…” she began, still gazing around the room in wonder.  A movement on the bed caught her attention.   The young man sat up and blinked his eyes.  He turned and saw Evonne.

“May I ask, who you are?” inquired Prince Francis, looking quizzically at her.  (I am happy to state that his good manners had not deteriorated in spite of his hundred thousand years of sleep.)

“I’m Evonne.  You are?”

“Prince Francis Felix Chalcedon Friendlie, son of King Timothy & Queen Ana.”

What a mouthful for a name, thought Evonne, but wisely kept her thoughts to herself.  “Why are you here?”

The Prince replied, “Honestly, I don’t know.  Well, won’t you come in?  I daresay it’s a lot more comfortable in here than to be floating out there.” 

“I suppose so,” answered she, and no sooner had she said that than she found herself inside the room. 

The door opened and the King and Queen rushed in; King Timothy’s grave countenance more solemn than ever and Queen Ana looking quite frantic.  Seeing Evonne there, the royal parents demanded an explanation.  The Fairy Bee materialised unexpectedly and saved all parties a lot of trouble by doing the explaining herself.

When the explaining was done, the King looked at his son.  “Well, son, I suppose now you’ll want to marry this young lady.  That’s the way it always goes, isn’t it?”

Prince Francis fixed his eyes on Evonne.  She returned his steady gaze.  After a few seconds, the Prince turned back to his father. 

“No, Father, I don’t.”

King Timothy and Queen Ana were most astonished by this statement.  It was most bewildering to the two royals, who were accustomed to the traditional ways.

“Why so, son?” queried the Queen.

“Well, I don’t think I’m that ready for marriage yet.  Are you, Evonne?”

Evonne shook her head.  “Not just yet, I’m afraid.  I’m only twenty-two – still a bit too young to settle down,” she said, with a little laugh.  “Besides, I doubt if I’m royal material,” she added. 

Fairy Bee, silent for a while, then chipped in.  “Don’t worry about it, my dear. Your job here is done.  I have other plans for my godson here anyway.”

“You do?” Queen Ana said.  “What are they?”

“I have in mind a certain Princess Jaci Catherine,” began Fairy Bee.  “Oh, I almost forgot about you.”  She turned back to Evonne.  “Would you like to go home now?”

“Back to my car would be good enough.”

“So it shall be.”  Fairy Bee waved her wand and Evonne found the room around her fading away in nothingness.  In no time at all, she was back inside her car.

She sat up straighter, wondering if it had all been a dream or some sort of hallucination.  When she finally decided that it was a mere phantasm on her part, she felt a hard object in her pocket.  She reached in and pulled out a brooch of topaz.  Engraved upon it were the words “Thank you” in fancy lettering.  She stared at the brooch in incredulity.  Was it really all a mere figment of her imagination?  She simply didn’t know. 

- THE END -

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