No one knows or remembers that the statue was once a girl. A girl seen and admired once by a prince; a girl turned into a marble statue by an enchantress who hoped to lure a prince to her. And so it is said a prince began a quest to find and rescue this girl, to kiss her, defeat an evil enchantress, and live happily ever after.
But-- it is also said that along the way, the prince stopped at an inn and there met another girl, as lovely as the first, but far more real: she was not a pale figure at a window or the vagrant rumor of an enchanted statue. And the prince, who was a practical man and tired of the dust and hassle of traveling, quit his impractical quest and married a lovely girl at the tavern. He brought her back to his castle and they lived, I am told, happily and long. It is doubtful whether he thought again of a statue of a girl of his past, and if he did, it was not often or with much regret.
An enchanted marble statue, an evil enchantress, a handsome young prince-- elements of a fairy tale that could have ended differently, but didn’t. No, for the prince is dust now in some fine graveyard and the statue crumbling and forgotten.
And so I, I , will continue, in this decaying and overgrown garden, until time, my long overdue rescuer, comes and I am no more than a small pile of white marble dust.
This story is based on a dream my sister had-- a fairy tale with a marble princess. In her dream, the princess was saved by the prince and lived happily ever after. I combined this idea with my more pessimistic take of the futility of waiting around to be rescued, and here's the result.
