Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 52915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
I never expected my greatest challenge in saving my life would be navigating extreme social awkwardness, but maybe I should have. It figures I’d end up with a sword in a situation where a sword has no use.
I suppose I’m waiting just like the rest of the travelers to The End, but I’m not waiting for The End. I’m waiting to be saved. Just like real princesses do in most stories, now I think about it. Rapunzel sat around tossing her hair out the window. Snow White got poisoned. Cinderella toiled for her stepmother and sister. Sleeping Beauty wasn’t even awake for most of her story. Basically, they were all very passive. But if I was supposed to be passive, why do I have this big fucking sword? I feel as though I am supposed to fight for what I want.
I decide to set out into the forest, knowing that I have the tool needed to overcome any kind of resistance. I’ll find my way back, and I’ll find people who want to help me. But none of that will happen if I just sit here.
Standing up draws the attention of all those waiting for the tavern to open. They look at me with anticipation, as if I might know something about the tavern, and when it opens. It doesn’t have posted hours, so I suppose it could be in five minutes, or five years.
“You know what, motherfuckers? I am a princess. And this is not my end.”
With that, I walk into the forest, hoping that I am heading toward Charming. I suppose I must be. If I am walking away from The End, then I must be going towards him.
The forest seems pretty much like I would expect a forest to look. Trees, birds, a general air of cheerful wilderness, replete with endless flower fields amid the trees that might stretch into forever, or be over in a few hundred yards, and nobody would know.
I am keeping an eye out for sign posts, or perhaps kindly travelers, or maybe even unkindly ones. I see nothing. I walk for what feels like a very long time before the trees start to thin and then to clear. All very uneventful, I suppose, but that makes sense, if this is the bit before The End. Can’t have things happening there, at least, nothing new, right?
Through the trees, a village awaits me. A picturesque, cottage type alpine village, the kind you see in videos of Switzerland, the sort that never seems quite real. The air is crisp here, it sparkles against my lungs in a way that might be painful but isn’t. I didn’t realize I was walking so far uphill on the way here, but I can’t say I am surprised.
The village is full of smiling, happy people. They remind me somewhat of the travelers to The End. I get the notion that many of them are ready to make that journey themselves. There are lovers celebrating being reunited, people carrying vast fortunes about without any fear of them being stolen, there are still others who are loudly proclaiming lessons and morals they have learned of late. This village has the feeling of celebration about it, a sense of everything being very generally okay. I can’t help but smile just because of the energy of the place. This is the happily part of the Happily Ever After, I think, perhaps.
Then I see a little sign, tucked away in a corner. It simply reads: “Loose Ends.”
Curious, I go to investigate what’s there, and there I find forgotten plot points meandering around, looking vaguely confused with each other. I know they are plot points because they’re not quite so much people with faces as they are people with faces that don’t matter. They have a sort of blankness to them, an emptiness. They have become suddenly irrelevant, and that is of great concern.
“But what about the green tea? What about the apron business? Aren’t we worried as to where the stolen coffee pot ended up?”
They are asking one another questions that clearly make no sense because they have all lost their contexts. They are waifs and strays, and they are not able to go to The End. I feel a little sorry for them, though in a certain sense they are more free than any of the others who are going to The End. These unanswered questions, these unresolved stories, these will not be ended. These will remain open for eternity, in a kind of narrative purgatory. It could be seen as a blessing or a curse.
“What are you doing in this part of town? You don’t belong here,” a pretty woman says to me. She’s the first person to acknowledge me since the bartender at The End. I am relieved, at first, just to be spoken to.