You know, I haven’t posted any fiction for a while. So here’s a little unnamed story I wrote a while ago mostly to amuse myself. Enjoy.
***
”Help me,” she called from the top of her tower, her voice the tinkling with silver bells.
She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He was just a child back then but he knew he had to be the one to save her. So he searched and searched but couldn’t find a way in.
“Don’t go!” she yelled with tears in her voice as he ran for help.
He found help but couldn’t find his way back to the tower no matter how he tried. His father beat him for my apparent transgression and told him never to lie like that again. He never did, but couldn’t get her out of his mind. He tried to find her any chance he got but was never in the same place he had found it.
Years later when he was old enough to become an apprentice, he made sure his father apprenticed him to a smithy, where he could become big and strong.
And he did grow to be not only a strong, but a very handsome man. All the village girls tried to catch his eye with increasingly laughable stunts. Some tripped and fell, dropped things and became hopelessly clumsy in his vicinity. Some batted their eyes, wore next to nothing at all and had their dresses malfunction whenever he walked by. Some came to the smithy, spending all their money to shoe horses, order pokers and the like. The smith was a shrewd man and saw the opportunity inherent in having his apprentice handle talking to the customers. He lived in fear of the day the boy would fall in love and choose a bride of his liking.
The smith’s fear was, of course, needless. The boy grew up remembering the dream of a beautiful woman, locked up in a tower, waiting for him to find and rescue her. He thought up many versions of the time he would finally meet her face to face, trying to imagine what he would say and thinking of ways he could rescue her.
What the smith did not expect, and therefore did not know to fear, was for his reliable assistant to just up and disappear one day. Ever since the night he got beaten for talking about the woman in the tower, he had never mentioned his object of affection to anyone. So when he considered himself ready, he gathered his things and walked out of the village, never to return.
He walked all over through the land, going back to his boyhood haunts, looking for the tower and the woman. Whenever he got hungry, he would trade work for his keep. Most often he would sleep underneath the stars and dream of finding the tower.
Then one day he walked out of the woods and into a clearing and the tower simply stood there.
”Help me,” she called again from the top of her tower.
“I’m coming,” he yelled, an inappropriate elation filling his chest.
Just as he had before, the young man circled the tower, not finding a way in.
“I can’t find a way in!” he shouted at the woman.
In response a long braid of golden hair fell down from one of the windows circling the top of the tower.
“Hurry! The witch will be back any minute!” she cried, her lovely face barely visible from so close to the tower.
The little boy who grew up didn’t hesitate for a moment to grab hold of the braid and start scaling the wall. As he climbed, his thoughts were solely upon all the scenarios he had imagined throughout his life.
The young man reached the top of the tower and the beautiful golden haired woman inside.
“My savior!” she cried and descended upon him before he had a chance to catch his breath. She kissed him, full on the mouth and before he could say another word, darkness took over and he never saw the light of day again.
When he regained consciousness, his face was covered in his own blood and his eyes were gone. The young man could barely move he was so weak.
And in his prone state he could he could hear the silver bells ringing once more “Help me!”
Recent Comments