The Lady of Shalott

I woke from the state of dreaming. I lay under the warm blanket. I looked around the room, carefully averting my eyes away from the window. If I looked through it I would die. My mother used to tell me stories of the curse. And I pondered what the purpose of my getting up was. I looked over under the small mahogany table. There was a small wicker basket full of fruit underneath. There was one everyday but I didn't know how since my tower had no doors, just the forbidden window. It was the night fairies that delivered it. I picked out an apple and took a bite. It crunched loudly. Oh, how I longed for a hot pie from the marketplace.

I sat on the stool that faced the mirror. I looked through the mirror out the window. I wondered what it would be like to walk among the living. I sung my song mournfully.

My voice echoed through the valleys and hopefully only the early rising farmers heard it. I was so bored of this awful terrible half life. There were no moments to define my existence. Nothing to make it worth living except the hope that one day someone might come and take me away from all the silent pain.

I started a day's work on the tapestry, the monotony. Wishing for something out of nothing. It was my window of hope. And even so I was all right, I was the living dead. But all right. Everything was going to be fine until I saw him.

The shining blonde curls and the long tanned legs. My head and my heart exploded. I wanted to be near him. I wanted to touch him. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to see him. Properly. I didn't even know his name. I wanted him more than I'd ever wanted anything before. My head turned. Itching towards the window. I almost safe when I saw her.

She was talking to him. She was smiling and laughing. Suddenly he bent down to her and kissed her on the lips.

My head, my heart and my life whipped around and stared out the window. My heart broke into a billion tiny pieces. I burned with real emotion for the first time in my life.

I was so angry. Anger, like a bright orange forest fire burning and destroying, leaving nothing but smoke and rubble.

And Love. Love like nothing I'd ever felt before. A billion times more powerful than anger or hate.

Love. Love was deep black wall that could never be broken. It was rage, bliss, it was smiling and fighting, love was innocence and perfection, it was being pain, misery, patience. It was everything.

And then something dropped a bucket of ice cold water on my head. My spine tingled and my brain separated from my body and I almost watched myself climb out of the window and down the tree hanging near it. My body ran to the river to a boat that was moored to a nearby jetty. On the boat my spidery, wispy hands wrote, using a stick of pure white chalk, 'The Lady of Shalott'.

Those hands untied the boat from the jetty before the rest of myself lay down in the boat. And suddenly my head rejoined my heart and I felt the water take the boat down the river that I'd only ever seen through a mirror. My heart thudded faster and faster but slower and slower.

I knew something was going wrong but I didn't care. I lifted my head to the wind tasting so many new things, the fresh morning dew on the grass, so plain and colourful, the sodden autumn leaves, oddly like dirt, the sweaty working farmers, salty and fresh, but at last, the hot pies. The hot pies tasted best, salt, with a combination of fat and some odd ingredient that I assumed was meat.

I heard the children playing, laughing and screaming, loud almost blocking everything in its wake. The adults talking, trading and flirting, a quiet background noise, the merchants trying to haggle the price of their produce up, a voice that smiled, promising finest quality. The whistling of the wind through the trees, making hollow sounds like someone singing. Someone far away from this time and place.

And the boat travelled further down the river until it reached a castle shading out everything around it except for a fiery orange ball. For the first time I felt the prickle of the golden light. The warmth burnt feelings into me that I'd never felt before and probably never would again. Just like anger and love. I was ecstatic. I lifted my head to the sky and let out a laugh like I'd never done before. It was fantastic. I was finally free.

But then I looked up the river and I saw him. The shining blonde curls and the long tanned legs. It was him. All I could think of was him. He was real. Not just a ghost of the tower. Him. With her. I was trapped forever.
"I love you." I whispered to him.

And then there was nothing.