Alone

The queen rests alone, she says.

The queen dines alone, she says.

The queen sleeps alone, she says.

The queen needs no one, she says.

Alone, the queen sits, contemplating the terrible fate she has made for herself. Her royal highness struggles day and night to accept her terrible temper and awful attitude. Suitors from kingdoms beyond have come to her castle, bearing open arms and many gifts and each time, she has shunned them away. The queen is too abstract, too perfect to be owned by some tawdry gentleman, she says. The queen is so pure to be tainted marriage, she says.

Her food grows cold before her. The massive dining hall could have been filled with people; bustling nobles and their plump wives, gawking and rendezvousing with old friends. But the queen sits in the dark, eating her chilled meal and sorrowing in her own loneliness.

Is this the price of purity, or perfection? She awaits her king to sweep in the doors and take her away from the dreary land thrust upon her by her womanizing father. She can imagine him, brimming with muscles and bravado, flowing hair that sways in the winds of eternity and a smile to scare away the darkness of the fleeing sun. She yearns for him, she desires him. She wishes she could manifest him from the darkness and toil of her silent dining hall. But she can’t. She simply sips a little more wine and cries a little harder.

She has grown to question her existence. She has made for herself the abject horrors of loneliness and solemnity. She could have been a lovely and fair queen, one with an open soul and a liberated people. But her loneliness has thrust her into a depression which has in turn afflicted the entire nation. No one is allowed to be happy. No one is allowed to be in love.

“This is no way to live. Not for me. Not for my people.” The queen moans aloud. She takes the knife besides her: large, powerful and glistening in the candlelight. “This life is meaningless. Love is meaning. Without love, you have emptiness. You have sadness.” The knife reflects her horror and depression. She can see herself crying in its shimmering face. The red curtains flicker behind her chair; blood upon the blade of liberation.

She shoves the blade into chilly flesh. The sting is replaced with the beauty of lifelessness; the light of falsified love. Again, she stabs. And again. The speed of the stabs increase and increase. She moans with each shove. The blade spews blood across the table and into her untouched food. The candles flicker and brighten. Her breathing becomes heavy and quickens. With one last stab, right to the heart, she screams aloud a wondrous and satisfied moan. The blade slinks to the ground and the queen rests motionless in her throne.

For the first time in her life, a smile creeps across her face.