القصة للمستويات العليا
No More Happy Endings
Once upon a time…
…there was only war. She leapt up in triumph, blood dripped from her sword as she swung it down on the beast’s neck, hacking in a frenzy. She laughed. The taste of blood and sweet revenge urged her on in her manic slaying of the creature that had…
No, no that wasn’t right.
Once there was a girl who…
…who had a monster in her, clawing at the surface every waking moment she…
No! Not that either.
There was once a little girl who…
Who what?
Tearing the page away and crumpling it into a ball, he threw it over his shoulder to join its growing mass of brethren on the floor. It was dark in the office, the curtains shut to block out the intrusion of the light. He worked by a single lamp, its artificial brightness casting shadows about the room. Shadows were better than ghosts, he supposed.
He licked his dry lips, ignoring his thirst and the beginnings of a headache. When last had he drunk anything? No, that wasn’t important. This was.
On the book shelf behind him, the row of his best sellers stared down mockingly at him. They were not stories like the one he was trying so desperately to write. These were horror retellings of traditional fairy tales. Stories where the wolf ate the girl, the evil queen became the fairest in the land and giants ruled the world below. There were no good endings there.
‘Why can’t you write a happy story?’ a childish voice whined in his ears.
He turned, almost expecting her to be standing behind him, but there were only the shadows and his books. Those books that had taken so many hours. So much time. Why had he wasted so much time?
“I’m trying,” he whispered, pushing the thoughts of wrath and pain away.
A long time ago, in a kingdom far, far away, there lived a girl who…
He got up, reaching for the first book on the shelf, his first novel. The snarling face of an undead Cinderella stared up at him. What had he missed writing this? Her first birthday? Her first word? He couldn’t remember just now.
Opening it, he peered down at the dedication, the only indication he had remembered her at all. Who dedicates a horror book to a baby? He was such an idiot.
He tore the page out and then the next…and the next….and the next. One by one, they fell to the floor like snow until his movements became erratic, gripping handfuls at a time and ripping them out. He grabbed another book, a cannibalistic Gretel greeted him, her brother’s severed head grinning at the reader. This one too joined the flurry of paper on the ground.
“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” he chanted to himself, almost screaming the words out.
Book, after book, was torn apart, helping him vent his rage in that dark room. He finally collapsed on the floor, exhausted to his bones. The blank pages of his notebook waited for him. He put his head back and closed his eyes.
To be continued
