Darlene's Fairytale

Once upon a happy ending, a story started. Darlene's story. It began with a faint spark in her thoroughly pink bedroom, so faint that it was hardly noticed by her mother, who unknowingly was the one who fueled it and gave it its first wisp of life.

That night did not seem like any other. The four-year-old still started to get ready for bed at eight o'clock, she still washed up, brushed her teeth, put on pajamas, and brushed through her short chocolate-colored hair with the help of her mother. Darlene was still tucked into the thick pink blankets and was given a goodnight kiss when her father passed by. He too played a role in the start of her story. The large yet neat and tidy man noticed some dust on the bookshelf right across his line of vision, so he walked in and brushed some dust off with his hand and it stopped at a book. It was a story book that he gave his daughter for her birthday about two months ago, hoping to give her the same passion for books that he had.

“Honey,” he said to his wife in his deep bass voice, “why don't you read us a story?” He handed the book to his wife and settled down on the soft white carpeted floor of the child's room, looking out of place but feeling right at home.

“Good idea!” said the lovely voice the man on the floor fell in love with. It was indeed a good idea, or a bad one if looked at differently, that Darlene's mother was the one reading because her voice was like a lure, a shiny lure to a young fish named Darlene. This was the first time she was read a bedtime story and she was wholly entrapped after the “...and they all lived happily ever after, the end.” The happy ending. With wide eyes, Darlene could feel it starting. It settled in her heart before she fell asleep that night and dreamt of magic, princes and princesses, and especially castles.



In the neighborhood where Darlene's family lived, the plants were more noticeable than the houses. There were full-grown Narras, Molaves, Ipils and Acacias, magnificent trees, situated near the roads that they made a canopy and people without their own cars could walk without having the harsh sun pound on them.

This made it ideal for little Darlene and her older brother, Darius, to walk their chow-chow puppy, Chacha, after Darius's grade school class. They walked as far as they could until all eight of their little legs were weary. They passed by some houses that had nothing remarkable about them. There were even some streets where all the houses looked exactly the same except for the colors. Sometimes they passed a street where there were only two small houses on them.

But there was one house that was notably unusual. The children and their puppy rarely passed by it because just before the said house was usually the spot where they got too tired to go on. It was at quite a distance from their own house. And this one, it did not even look like a house. It was the one exception where it was more noticeable than the plants around it, but it was still definitely not as beautiful. It was painted a very light gray with some green accents, and took the form of a thin rook in a chess set. It was cylindrical and about five stories high, and looked only about one room wide. It was not beautiful at all, and looked like a cheap and ridiculous partial castle imitation. It was comical and almost hideous. And it was abandoned for as long as the children could remember.

To Darlene, though, what with her insistence of fairytales every night feeding her imagination, the rook was enough of a castle to her. She delighted whenever they could muster up enough energy to reach far enough to see it during their walks. But as Darius grew older and acquired more homework and friends his age, he seldom walked the dog with his sister anymore. In turn, Darlene did not feel like walking without him, so that habit of theirs slowed down and eventually stopped.

Until, of course, little Darlene grew old enough that she could walk Chacha around the neighborhood on her own, and every time she did, which was almost daily, she visited The Rook. She would reach the locked gate in front of the building tired from the trek. But tired or not, she always kept still as she supported herself with her fingers holding onto the dark, rusty metal wires that made up the gate. She stared at the building and saw magic and beauty and possibilities where other people would have just seen a failed architectural attempt. She could see herself in there, in the building, in a grand princess dress, just owning the castle. During her daydreams Chacha would always sit in front of her walker's feet, also staring at the building while sticking her tongue out, panting and waiting for Darlene to get her fill.

In the process of growing up, Darlene transformed into someone taller and more slender. No more baby fat, but she never did lose the innocence in her eyes. They were brown eyes that were surrounded by long, thick, dark eyelashes, had no use for eyeliner and mascara, and were the first thing everybody noticed about her, even when she was a child. But upon closer inspection, people, strangers, classmates, teachers, and sometimes even her parents, saw that something was off. Between the lashes, her eyes were unfocused, distant. They were looking at the fairytales that were always in her head. They never really looked at anything. That was, unless they were looking at The Rook. If anyone could see her then, they would have been captivated. The physical beauty of her eyes accompanied by the beauty of its intense stare was enough to make people, for want of a better word, want her. And somebody, or something, did.



Chacha the chow-chow had a son. The little fur-ball was a terror. He defecated and urinated everywhere, chewed up everyone's footwear and everything else he could get his little mouth on, so he was named Chewy. One day, he nudged the door going into Darlene's bedroom, surprised to find it open. He sniffed around for awhile, urinated on the carpet and jumped onto the bed. He burrowed into the pink blankets and hit something a little hard. It was a book. It was the book. The book that Darlene's father gave her, that Darlene's mother first read to her, that Darlene, now a young teenager, read from every night before going to bed to give her her dreams. That book that she cuddled in place of a teddy bear. The book that was now shreds of paper in Chewy's mouth.

“Chewy?!” Darlene screamed from the doorway. The puppy glanced up with the mangled book still between its teeth. Then he continued to rip the pages apart even more. Darlene was told by her father that if Chewy misbehaved, to slap him lightly on the snout and say, “Bad dog!” That was how they trained Chacha. With this in mind, Darlene stomped into her room, in front of the bed and in front of Chewy. All the emotion she had for her book gathered into her arm and she screamed, “Bad dog!” And she gave him a slap that almost made him fly across the bed.

All the screaming attracted the attention of the rest of Darlene's family, even Chacha. It was after dark and a weekday so everybody was already at home. They came to the doorway just in time to see Chewy being reduced to heartrending whimpers. Her parents were shocked. Her mother had her hand to her mouth, and her father's eyes were wide with disbelief.

“Chewy!” Darius pushed his way between his parents and went to gather the terrified fur-ball from the bed into his arms. “Darlene, what the hell did you do?!”

“He ruined my book,” she answered quietly while keeping her head down and gathering what she could of the book.

“You know that he chews everything! You should have kept your door locked!”

“Dad,” she said, trying to get someone to side with her, “it was the first book you gave me.”

“You still shouldn't have let your emotions get the best of you,” her father replied, shaking his head. “Poor Chewy's shaking like a leaf.”

“Oh, Darling,” her mother said. Darlene lit up and thought she finally had someone on her side, but when she looked at her mother, she was looking at Chewy. Darlene had had it. She walked past her red-faced brother still holding Chewy, her disappointed looking parents, and Chacha. She walked as fast as she could until she was outside the house. Only Chacha followed her out, but Darlene did not want to have the mother of the little monster who destroyed her book trailing along, so she shut their gate in front of Chacha's face and walked away.



It was the first time she went to The Rook at night. It was also the first time she went completely alone. Because she had been thinking all the while about what happened at her house, she was more tired than usual when she arrived at the gate. She flung herself at the gate and almost fell through because it swung open. She caught herself before she hit the ground and was suddenly awakened. She examined the gate and could not find the chain and padlock that she had always seen there before.

She could actually go into The Rook now. And she did. She walked up the barely visible path and into the door. It looked exactly like any old door that houses from this neighborhood had.

She found everything she could have wanted in there, like dresses, and she put one on. She explored the building and went outside through another entryway and found that the building was transformed. It was now actually an actual castle.

But after two days there, she realized that she was lonely. She missed her family even if she went away feeling like nobody wanted her. She went back to where she thought she came from but every door she went out of went into a garden. So she thought she would try her luck and go outside the garden and maybe she could find her way back somehow by going out of the garden. When she stepped between the hedges, she saw that it was a maze-like place but she went on anyway. But after a few twists and turns, she always found herself back at the entrance, facing the castle.

I have to get out of here!

She thought of breaking through the hedges. She had to come out somewhere if she did it in a straight line. She faced the castle and walked backwards with one hand outstretched behind her, making sure to keep an eye on the imposing structure, until she felt tiny, prickly leaves on her fingers. She did an about-face and started prying the stems and thin branches apart. She gained little scratches on her bare arms, but she continued. She forced herself into the niche she made and continued prying and pushing on until she reached the other side. Her hair and dress came out rumpled and had bits of leaves and stems in them, but she had a wavering smile on her face. She breathed heavily, but went on, encouraged to not have the sight of the castle straight in her face once again.

She repeated her process of walking backwards while keeping an eye on the hole she just made until she felt the hedge behind her. She emerged with a relieved smile ready on her face, but her cheeks fell with the sight she saw.

It was the castle, once again just some meters in front of her.

Darlene's body was weak from exertion and her legs were shaking. She slid down, and a small puff of yellowish particles lifted and fell as her bottom hit the dusty ground. She leaned back on the hedge, just avoiding the second useless hole she made. Her face crumpled of its own accord, and tears erupted from her eyes. She brought her knees up to her heaving chest and just stayed like that. She thought to herself, this is how I end. Trapped. Hopeless.