A Writer's Fairytale

Mary: A Writer's Mental Breakdown

Like many girls when they were little I dreamed of my happily ever after. I dreamed of the time in my life when I would find my “prince charming”. I dreamed of when I would get to find my happily ever after. A time when everything was covered in pink and cotton candy I was like every other little girl and had a dream waiting for me. Then I grew up. The harsh reality of the 21st century set in and I was kicked from my dream world. I was 8 when this cruel reality had begun to set in.

By the time I was 18 I had completely forgotten about the fantasy that I had once dreamed. I had long since forgotten what happily ever after was and that I had ever hoped to find it. I had forgotten about prince charming and our ride into the sunset. Now, that I am 25 I wonder how long that little girl in me had been oppressed, but maybe she started coming out about a year back.  

“You should come with us,” Rebecca said, giving me one of her genuine smiles. Her bright blond hair lied perfectly straight on her shoulders. I tugged at my own curly mess that lay a top my head and spiral down to my shoulders. Her complexion was what many would consider as flawless. Her perfect sky-blue eyes and her thin figure helped to make her perfect. Her hands were small and delicate. She always wore something that looked great on her. She never had to try to look perfect, close to perfection found her. The only thing that even gave her the slight appearances of imperfection is her thin colorless cheeks, but in modern times that was easily fixed with a little bit of blush. She was what the world saw when they read books about princess. I could see a crown on her head. I could see her with prince charming living their happily ever after together.

Looking at her it become apparently clear that I was average or maybe even worse than average, I was not meant to be a princess. I had a mess of curly red hair that no matter what I did defied me to no end. I was not elephant but I was not a stick either. I was heavier than most girls. I had come to the realization at a young age that dresses didn’t suit me. Instead I word black slacks and a tee-shirts. My dark brown eyes would have been considered uninteresting had it not been for my one good quality my long eye lashes. I had chubby rosy cheeks that puffed up when I smiled. The freckles that covered my face arms and legs were like millions of tiny flaws that laughed at me every time that I saw them. My button nose was so small that when I got anger or really sad people would say that it completely disappeared.

That rarely happened when any one was around. I locked up my emotions tighter than Fort Knox and very few people had the key to get in. I was not one of the lucky few. My friend Rebecca was. She knew how to break down the walls better than anyone else and I both loved and hated her for it.  She was one of the people that saw me cry and knew what made me upset. I hated that she had the power to bring down walls that I had long since put up and that even I couldn’t break. I loved the fact that when she was able to break down the walls she would help put the pieces that I had locked up deep inside back together.  “I would love to Rebecca but I have…”

“Work to do.” She interrupted her soft voice was the exact opposite of my deeper voice. I did have work to do. I had been having a hard time finishing the project that I had been working on and it was due in less than three days and I hadn’t even started. I wasn’t lying to her. “Why? It’s one night. You need to stop shutting out the world. One day you are going to be living under a rock in some cave that no one knows the name of.”

“You really think so? That has been my life long goal.” She laughed. My sarcasm was one of the things that I had learned to master long before I even knew what sarcasm was. It was also one of my best defenses and I would use it more than I would even realize it. Sometimes without even meaning to say something sarcastic it would just come out of my mouth. My sarcasm had been perfected thanks in a large part due to the world that I lived in. “Look I would like to go…”

 I saw her face contort into a shape that I had seen many times before. Her bottom lip went down, but her top lip stayed perfectly straight. This I thought was an impossible feat for anybody but her. I knew that look well. It was the look that she gave me when she was not happy with what I had just said or done. “Don’t lie to me, Mary. I know you don’t want to, but I think it would be good for you. George and I really think that locking yourself in here to avoid the world is such a horrible thing to do to yourself. I just want you to go out and find life. Find that prince charming that you have always wanted to meet.”

 She always used that defense. I had learned my lesson time and time again and I realized that that dream was for those with their hearts broken standing on the side of the road crying, unless they were pretty and then they would find that dream with ease. I gave her my patent you have got to be kidding me smile and replied, “Will he be riding a horse? If he is I must insist that it be white or I will not go near him. Will his armor be shiner than a mirror?” 

I saw that after I made that comment she was stifling a smile underneath her hard surface. “You are impossible, but if I say yes will you say you will go?”

Without missing a millisecond, I walked over to where I kept the receipts for everything and looked at the table and then back at my friend “I would, but it looks like I haven’t gotten my ball gown back from the fairies yet. Maybe next week,”  I said, spinning around a few times pretending that I was already wearing the ball gown that I had not gotten back from the fairies.

She could no longer stifle the smile that she was trying to hide. It burst through the surface accompanied by a laugh. “One day I am getting you out of this room I promise,” she said as she walked toward the door.

I called to her from where I was still standing feeling victorious, I had won yet another battle against my greatest opponent. “Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep. Didn’t your parents ever teach you that?” 

She opened the door to our apartment and smiled “I intend to keep this one. Goodbye Mary.”

“Goodbye Rebecca. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t,” I called to her. I knew that she wouldn’t but, I just felt like since I had won the battle, I would see how far I could take it.

“If I followed that rule, I would never leave the apartment,” she remarked just as I had heard the door shut behind her.

“Touché,” I said to myself smiling. She had a point. I had barely left the apartment in over a month. I had work to do. I had to finish the story that I was writing.

I was a freelance writer and would write short stories to help failing newspapers and magazines get something out. It didn’t pay much, but it paid the bills and that was enough for me. I never needed a lot of money. I liked to have enough that I could pay the bills. I would put a little in my bank account in case jobs became scarce, but other than that I really didn’t need much money. Some of my money went to various charities around the community.

I walked over to my computer and stared at the blank page. I had a story due in three days and I had the worst case of writer’s block that anyone in the history of writers had ever had. I just kept thinking is it really the work that is keeping me from the outside or was there something that scared me? I was not scared of much, but deep down I knew that something was bothering me something beyond the four walls that surrounded me while I sat in the main room of the apartment.

The main room was brightly lit with a central light and a lamp that sat beside me. The basic black plastic coffee table in front of me seemed to mock me every time my finger hit the backspace key. The sun yellow walls laughed at me every time I looked up from my computer and looked for inspiration.

Inspiration was something that every object in the room seemed to realize that I would not find sitting in there. I refused to admit it though. I just kept looking from object to object begging them to give me some insight into the inspiration that eluded me at every glance. The lamp. The coffee table. The T.V. in the center wall. The chair grey chair that Rachael liked to set in. The brown couch that I liked. The center room light that needed the bulb changed. The room just laughed and laughed. I knew I had to get out of there, but I didn’t want to. I was safe in that room, but the moment I left the confines of the prison that I had made for myself I would no longer be safe. I would be forced into the world, and I was forced to face my problems.

I had not noticed that it had been three hours since my friend had left till I had got up from my seat and went to grab my coat from the closet. It was already 11. I almost decided that I had no reason to go out that late, but I knew that my story was reason enough. I needed inspiration I had no idea where I would find it, but I knew that it was not in this room. I grabbed a piece of paper from the kitchen. I found a pen when I went into my room to grab my tennis shoes. 

Going out. I don’t know when I will be back. I will be fine. See you tomorrow.

I taped it to the back of the closet door. That is where we always put things that we needed to tell each other. I opened the apartment door and walked out.