anything imaginable. by Tulusu.
a/n.
Sight-players are a very sad thing indeed. They type out the keys on a piano, and don't hear the music inside their heads generally. They simply become the very essence of the notes in type, and not their own beautiful, glowing, version of the song— a dream based on an archetype, but still somehow magnificant and origonal. I do not write this work of f.f. to capture the scripting or origonal essence and every detail of BATB. Nor do I look down upon the origonal. But this is a story trapped in my mind, and I have to tell it. Because I think BATB has a beautiful idea for this story to begin with, and I love BATB in general, but my story MUST be told. BATB (the television work) does not belong to me. It belongs to it's respective owners, and it's core to every man before me and after me that belongs to the human history. The formula is an archetype. I apologize in advanced for any problems with paragraphs that strain-line or spelling mistakes. We must all try our hardest, and some of us are just plain dislexic and have spell-lock on our computers that change things when they really don't need changing.
You're not ugly. Not outside or in, and I am inside. I'm really ugly. I can hear every mistake I make, and I can't understand .. what's happening to me.. she said. Long ago. I don't understand why I can't ketch up with myself!
You're tired, I said. You have had such a busy life. Just to keep up with everything
demanded, you've rushed on ahead of yourself. I've done that too, trying to ketch you .. at times myself. Life, I guess.
She laughed. I'm sorry!
Don't be, I insisted. It's okay to make mistakes .. but .. I don't see you making the same ones.
I do. Over and over again.
Like what? I asked.
She just smiled.
Once, when it rained, she placed her head on my shoulder and embraced me. How more love spoils each thing before it I'm not sure. I wonder if love really spoils, or if it's only greed. I wonder if I really loved her then. Or merely thought I did. I surely cherished her. But I couldn't have loved her. One kiss, and a hand was merely friendly in comparison. I wish sometimes I could revisit each moment passed, and have just the same surprise and warm feeling as before. But it is too late. I'm rotten.
If you knew me, you'd think differently about the ugly.
No, I said.
A long silence passed, and she asked if I'd tell her another story. One with a girl and a really beautiful beast in it. I told her about the snake-groom and the farmer's daughter. It's chinese, and one where the daughter rids her husband of his day-light's form by holding onto him through every change he made. Through every night and day for a long time, wishing his terrifying side to brush away. Eventually, the husband's scales fell off, and emeralds were laying on the floor. These he placed away, in a box, and left forever.
Why did they fall off? she asked me.
Maybe he went to a phycologist.
She laughed. She didn't do that often, so it was a great thing to hear.
I really don't know. But if it was me, it'd be because .. I was afraid to loose her. Maybe he son changed things.
Son?
I continued the story. The snake hadn't had an occupation previously, and since he couldn't hunt things like he had before, he decided to join the navy of sorts and later bring all good fortune to his wife and his son. He wanted his son to be a scholar, after all! Off he went to the sea, but not before packing every comoddity he could think of inside their house he had built himself of sticks and mud away from her evil sisters and wretched mother. Both wanted his old emerald scales for themselves, and would either try to steal them or marry him. Since he wouldn't take them for second or third wives, they plotted to kill his wife and consoul him when he returned, hoping to become the second wife taken each.
Lord Snake, as he had been named, warned his wife before he left for the sea, that her sisters weren't to be trusted. Every day they came to their house, asking if she needed something more then what had been placed inside. "Don't you need to get some water?" They'd ask her.
"No, my husband placed enough water here," she answered.
"Don't you need some more food? Some fruit? Some meat?" To each of these her reply was no. "But did he place a swing in there? Like the one we use to swing on when we were young?" And she had to admit that there was no swing in her house. She missed her sisters, and her heart ached for them. Taking her little son, she went and played on the swings with them for old times sake. They both took the sides of the swing, and pushed so hard she fell off the cliff behind her. Assuming her dead, they slept in her house and waited happily with little remorse for her husband to come back and possibly reward them with emeralds or a marriage.
However, a pelican cought the mother and child just before they hit the sea below them. If he had not, the mother would have surely survived, but they child would have sunk to the bottom. The Lord Pelican took his ketch to his nest, and laid them down there to have a look at his ketch. His sight was not very good, but he could tell that what laid before him was a little child, no bigger then he, and a girl— beautiful, motherly, and kind-looking. He was also senile, and somewhat selfish, and had taken an adopted motto of "finder's keepers, loser's weepers." He'd feed them fish for their dinners, and made the girl tell her son that he was his own son instead of Lord Snake's. Whenever she disobeyed him, he threatened to throw her into the water, and she would never be able to climb back into the nest again, at it's heigth and swim.
"Don't you love me?" He would ask her.
"Yes, Lord Pelican," she would reply sadly, before bursting into tears.
A fisherman passed by on his boat one day, while the pelican was away. The girl cried out to him that she was Lord Snake's wife and that he must send the message that she had been saved and where she was at. The man tried throwing a rope later her way, but each time the rope fell back into the sea, too high was the climb. But the fisherman forwarded his message to Lord Snake, when he arrived back from his journeys, and he was so angry that some say he spat into some rice-whine and gave this to the wicked sisters, saying it was a marriage drink from where he came from. They died, and then his next order of buisness was to build so long a rope, and swing it so good, that he could reach his wife and child with ease from a boat and take them home. He had learned much about ropes and knots, suprisingly having a knack for it, and all this he did within a single day.
On shore, wife and husband embraced eachother, holding their child and kissing him as if they had never seen him before. From up above, Lord Pelican saw his stolen katch, and swooped down to demand a duel with his beak and Lord Snake's saber. They fought for their wife, and when Lord Snake had nearly won, Lord Pelican flew away with half his long, long, long beak missing. That's why a pelican's beak looks half-done. Justice done, the Snake's left for home, and enjoyed the fortunes that Lord Snake had brought from across the sea well.
She was lucky, that the Pelican caught her and her child both. She never had to worry for his life. Never had to worry about how they'd see eachother again.
That's not true! I said. When she was old, she must have thought about that.
I didn't say her own.
My mouth closed, and I tried to think of something comforting or nice to say. Yes, was the final solution. I hope I can catch you both, one day, when you have a child.
Her smile dropped. I hadn't been sure why. Now I think that it might have been because she wanted me to be Lord Snake, and not Lord Pelican. Maybe not.
There are worse beasts, she told me after that, then someone who looks like an animal. Much worse. Evil.
I'm not without evilness, I had warned her.
She laughed at me. Quit acting so much .. like you're still fourteen. Everyone thinks bad thoughts. It's really no big deal. We can paint over it, though, with art and .. like we do. She held my hand, then, and smiled.
Paint on, I thought, if painting beauty is the key to love.