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- lost in fabric
- Thanks for passing by. Do you have time for a cup of tea and a chat? My name is Mara and I am a graphic designer / print room technician / seamstress / DIY enthusiast and this is my blog! This is the place where I keep all the things that I like and you are more than welcome to stop by at any time of the day and night!
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A fairy tale of greed.
Once upon a time there was once a new born baby with a smile so honest and pure it was said she could make new flower buds open, clouds hold back the rain, with each smile songbirds would appear and chirp their sweetest of songs in the bright sunlight. Her mother was a lonely soul, as she was recently widowed. She now lived alone on a farm which was starting to become run down. Her home empty for all but a few essential items. She had sold her worldly goods in order to provide food for her baby. She would take her baby into the nearby town and make her laugh and smile for the coins people would throw. People would come and see the baby with the admiration of pilgrims paying homage to the god of love.
One crisp spring morning she took baby in her arm and started her walk towards the local town, she jumped over the stream, danced through fields of fresh flowers and took a step into the cold canopy of the forest. Sure enough with each step baby smiled, sun played its tune through the breaks in the trees, sleeping insects sprang to life, and mushrooms sprouted from moss covered ground, fish jumped free of the stream. All around her was a swarm of colourful butterflies guiding her path through the stumps of the trees. Baby laughed and giggled as her mouth shone like gemstones in the deepest mine. The woman heard a murmur through the trees, and saw a man dressed in vagabonds best. She called out to him as he sounded in pain, ‘I am blind’ he yelled and I can’t get home again. ‘Not now she spoke I have gold to make’ she chuckled and she left him slumped by a knurled oak tree ‘I need to warn you he yelled’ his words fell silent and meaningless like soft snow dissolving into winters harshest lake.
Little did she know she was being observed by a beautiful princess, and continued on her path until she got to the deepest darkest thorniest part of the woods. There before her, like silver shining in delicate moon light the princess stood. ‘Why so sad’ the woman asked, ‘do you not know who I am’ the princess replied ‘of course I do’ said the woman ‘you are known far and wide’. Standing before her, tall and slender and a figure of perfected youth, completion so olive and clear, eyes like the green of an emerald spring, hair so glossy rich and chocolate brown. Her clothes of the finest silk, her shoes so dainty on her feet, a tiara of woven silver lace holding down a fine veil sheet. ‘What’s for your sorrow’ the woman asked. ‘It’s my baby see’ the princess lifted from her pram a baby of the same size as the woman’s golden child. ‘She does not smile’ the princess wept, and ‘the king has banished me until she does’ removing the wrap from around her child the woman showed the princess her baby’s smile. The darkness of the wood around them was lifted like sunlight spreading over a great plain, the thorns around them turned to bright petals and the puddles of mud sprouted to life with fresh spring water. The princess looked amazed and a tear fell from her eye. ‘How much for her smile?’ she asked, ‘nothing at all, it’s not for sale’ the woman replied! The princess opened up her bag to reveal fine jewels. The woman turned her back in disgust and walked with a quick step to the town. Her footsteps had a spring in them but were troubled with the uncertainty that plague a new born foal.
The woman could not help but to peep into the artists shop, she was amazed at the lovely paintings he created. But in the back he was working on one, so beautiful it could brighten up the dullest home. She opened the old wooden door and listened to its large metal hinges creek as she as it slowly drew away from her and into the stone room it guarded and protected. She took in the smell of fresh paint as she looked enviously at the paintings hanging around her. The artist appeared from the large wooden box of paints he had been rummaging in. He was stocky with a wispy white beard that looked like the spun sugar she would taste at the Kings carnival. His fingers were long and sleek, and so elegant in their betrayal of the stumpy ham fists they served. She looked him up and down, and could not help but laugh, he had as much paint on his apron as he did on this canvases. He smiled a loving smile and his nose wrinkled into the space between his eyes. He had a large dollop of red paint on the very tip of his nose that made him look like a circus clown. The woman pointed out the most beautiful painting and asked on its price, ’10 gold bars’ he smiled back at her, she nodded knowing she could never have that much money, but she did love the painting. She thanked the artist for his time and set about her busking for the day.
The woman laid down an old red checked handkerchief on the cobbled ground before her. It was on the busy corner of the town near the excellent Mr Rossi’s Magic Shop across the way from Mr Biaggi’s haberdashery, a shop she could never understand as it was always so empty and vacant. But still she thought Mr Rossi’s customers would throw her a gold coin! Before she had even laid out her old straw hat to collect coins a small crowd had formed around her, she listened to the sounds the crowd made, ‘Its her, the one with the baby’ ‘Oh my, I can not wait’ even the flute maker had left his store and played a delightful tune to entertain the crowds as she set up her belongings for the day, after all it looked like rain and their was no time to waste. Without further warning she removed the muslin wrap from around the baby’s body, the crowd looked on in astonishment, then their faces saddened. She looked down and saw baby was upset, but a quick ditty from the flute maker’s pipe changed that. It was like a miracle, a revelation, her face shone almost like jumping fish trying to catch the moonlight, only more natural and beautiful. Her smile so wide, the clouds parted for the sun to kiss the tiles on the roof tops and the faces of the crowd. Grass stood on end, a small brood or rabbits hopped on by, everyone’s sorrows were forgotten. To everyone’s amazement even Mr Biaggi had a customer and it looked as if he could popular one day again, despite not really doing anything.
Her hat was soon filled with gold coins, as people marvelled, their pockets emptied. Some one even laid down some freshly picked fruits next to the worn straw hat. At the end of the day when the crowds had gone either to their homes or back to work in the barley fields she gathered her belongings and set about her journey home.
She passed the artists shop, he was closing but he remembered her and let her come back inside. A small log fire cracked and popped in the background of his stone hut. ‘I have some gold’ she said as she unravelled the straw hat onto his wooden table. She got paint on the rim of the hat as she laid it down her fist went greedily inside the hat and removed fistfuls of coins. ‘How many bars can these make’ she asked hurryingly. ‘Well lets see shall we’ he replied and dusted off an old pair of metal weighing scales; he emptied the fruit from a large wooden bowl and placed it on the left arm of the scales; she then removed from his locked cupboard a gold bar. The look of excitement on her face as he laid the bar down on the other side of the scales was like that of a child on Christmas day. She had never seen a gold bar before, let alone be this close to one. They tipped handfuls of coins into the bowl as her heart quickened with anticipation. Then… nothing, the coins barely lifted the gold at all, they could hardly be a quarter of a bar let alone ten whole bars. She was disappointed in the extreme as she gathered her coins back into her hat. She thanked the painter for his time once more and made her way home through the woods.
She approached the woods, and stumbled once more upon the beautiful banished princess. ‘Please’ the princess pleaded ‘sell me your child’s smile’ the woman gave a swift shake of her head and looked the other way, from the corner of her eye she saw a bright light, she turned around to see the princess with 10 gold bars under the old wooden chair she sat sadly on. ‘Ok’ she said, and a deal was done, the woman took the 10 gold bars into her bag and the princess took her baby’s smile. The baby did not seem to mind so much, she just laughed at the kind face of the princess. The woman hurried home, the stream ran shallow, the butterflies turned to moths, flower buds wilted and rain clouds opened on her. She did not mind she thought, for she could now buy the painting she had fallen in love with.
The next day she did not waste anytime in going to town, she raced through he woods with haste and did not notice her baby frowning, she did not see the beautiful smile had gone. Sure enough she purchased her painting and made her way back home. She hung it on her mantel above a fire and spent the rest of the day looking at it, amazed at its wonder. She looked at her baby and did not notice she was not smiling.
The next morning she awoke and wondered how she would ever get money to buy food and clothes now her baby could not smile. She wandered around her garden and realised what she had done. No worry she thought I will get the painting returned and swop the gold back for the smile. She made her way into the town with the painting under her arm. She got to the artists shop and was disappointed to see his hut was closed. On the door a note read ‘Business has been good; I have gone on holiday and will not be back for one hundred days’. Panic struck the woman and she ran into the forest in the hope of finding the Princess.
Footsteps later the woman had reached the deep part of the wood. She started to sweat as she wondered if the beautiful princess would still be in the clearing. Her pace quickened. The wood seemed an eternally dark place without her daughter’s smile to brighten it up. Thorns tugged against her legs and raindrops drenched her clothes. No butterflies were here to guide her, only moths to swarm in her path. The ground underfoot became dank and heavy. Fallen branches snapped under her feet and sank into the muddy ground. Owls tweeted in the high tree tops, bugs crawled across her feet. She had never known a place like this. Then before her, her prayers were answered, the princess was still waiting. She seemed more beautiful than ever, as if covered by a film of fairly dust.
The woman’s pace quickened. Above her the rain became heavy and thunder clapped from on the black clouds above, the sound of the thunder in the belly of the clouds as deafening as a huge beast clearing its blocked throat.
“You’re here” she called out.
“Why would I leave” replied the princess.
“But you are no longer banished”.
Beside the princess a baby lay with a golden smile. “I changed my mind, I wish to have the smile back” the woman called out but the princess just shook her head. “But the smile, please can I have the smile back?”
The princesses’ skin started to lose its rich olive colour; her cheeks became thin and gaunt as if they had been sucked into the middle of her ever narrowing face. Her billowing brown hair lost its shine and started to grey as it flattened around her sagging temples. Her eyes dimmed from their rich colour into a dull grey, one turned to glass, and the other looked like the haunting eye of a dead fish, it has seeping from its socket the iris appeared as if it was covered in a layer of milky film. She frowned so the wrinkles on her face became deep, her stature dropped, her spine crooked so the notches in her crooked backbone could be seen from under her clothes, her teeth yellowed and some fell loose of her shrinking gums. The few that remained hung from her worried mouth like bats in a cave. Her hands grew and twisted like the contorted talons of weary scavenging vulture. Her beautiful clothes were far too large for her new shape and they fell to the floor and revealed a hooded witches robe.
“Ha-ha” the witch cackled with her bony talons pointing towards the woman. “Greed” she said, “Greed has blinded you, it has made you not realise what you have. You were always never satisfied, always wanting more and you did not see the beauty that surrounded you. Let this be a lesson to you for taking for granted the gift your child was given”.
The warm tears fell from the woman’s eyes and rolled down her face like beads of rain pattering the pane of a window. The woman felt enraged. She leapt onto the witch in fury and anger, the witch tapped her with a swift stroke of her knotted wooden cane and the woman fell to the ground with a hollow sounding thud onto the wet moss and branch floor below her.
“My eyes” she yelled as they felt like they were burning from their sockets. “I cannot see”. She turned around and did not know where she was. She sank to her knees and found a spot by a rigid oak tree. She held her baby in one hand and her painting in the other. Blinded for all but the brightest of sunlight she sat slumped for hours.
“I tried to warn you” a male voice boomed. She recognised it to be that of the blind vagabond. “You are left with a painting you cannot see and your child has lost its smile, I tried to warn you of this witch but you only saw greed and would not listen to the words of a nomad” The woman wept. “How can I ever see again”? she screamed “I live with blindness but I can see and feel the natural beauty of your child” the blind man quipped. The woman held her bay and for the first time felt her baby’s face without the taint of greed. She opened her ears to hear tiny song birds, her hands reached to the ground; she felt the tiny petals of the flowers around her. She felt as their tiny heads grew through the wooden bark that surrounded them. She took in the fresh air and felt the cold rain on her warm face, she looked up towards the heavens and felt the sun peeping through the clouds spreading its love all over the earth, she started to see shapes and colours, and she started to sense with her eyes the movements of the forests canopy, she opened her mouth to taste a rain drop and let the corners of her mouth smile as it refreshed her tongue. Her vision went blurred, then as she rubbed her eyes with her clenched fists it returned, she looked up and before her the tramp had gone. She looked at her child and saw the sweetest smile, and her painting was a beautiful as ever. She looked but saw no sign of the witch or the tramp. Gathering her composure she made her way home.
She hung the painting above her fire place, and noticed something different, in the background, a witch peeping from behind an oak tree, and a smiling gentleman wanderer sleeping against its trunk. From this day on she never took anything for granted. Years passed and her daughter became a beautiful greedless woman and they lived happily ever after…
© David Bunn 2008
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