Once upon an early evening, a man and his wife went out on the town. They hailed fresh from a barbershop where they firmly held down the Wild Man of Borneo as he screeched and flailed and screamed. When the Wild Man's appearance had half-way began to resemble their younger son, they asked the barber to stop, and they hauled their snivel-faced snot-nosed changeling home.
Exhausted and much put-out, they decided a break was in short order. She wanted a slice of blueberry cheesecake. He wanted a beer. It was a Monday night.
They drove aimlessly, of two minds on where to stop. They bickered briefly about the hair-littered car while she upended her bra to let out more hair. Then they bickered about the bickering.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, an edifice loomed in front of the windshield. It was larger than life and more solid than breath. It resembled a camelot, the likes of where Cinderella might have danced with her prince, or where Beast courted Beauty in all his barbaric splendour. It turned out to be a stately new hotel. It was huge. It was imposing.
It would do.
The grand gilded doors opened to them and they suddenly remembered they were dressed like peasants put to the plough. They were rough and they were sweaty, and they were furry with hair that was not their own. But there was a beer somewhere inside waiting for them, and a rich cheesy wedge glistening with thick blueberry sauce, and fairy tales were a thing of the past, so they glided in and ignored the pointed stares.
They eschewed the elegantly appointed dining room, telling themselves it was too cold and housed too much frippery, but really because he wanted to sprawl lazily spread-legged and because she wanted to enjoy her desert with one foot propped up on her chair, and wasn't the garden a much much better choice? Yes it was. It was a perfect place for grubby gnomes and dressed-down dwarfs and craggy creatures of the forest. Best of all, it was empty.
A haughty footman waiter handed over the menu, and informed them there were beers, but no cheesecake. So they ordered the cheapest item of beef and settled down, ignoring two tall white tophats who peered at them disapprovingly from the kitchen door.
But the beer flowed and the beef was tender, and their loosened tongues praised the solitude of the twilight terrain. They became as Scheherazade and her Sultan, and told each other stories that grew more riveting as the dark deepened and mosquitoes blithely feasted amongst the blades of hair that the Wild Man had left on their legs.
I will build you a castle, said he of his plans for the future, I shall slay every Maleficent that threatens our coffers. And she swooned at his gallant chivalry, mightily helped along by the contents of another bottle. How proud she was of this errant knight in rusty armor, even as he promised to adorn her finger with an engagement ring seven years in the waiting.
Too soon the comforts of their cave and their tiny trolls called to them, and beckoning their steely-eyed server once more, they paid their bill while he looked down his narrow nose at their platters scraped clean of all traces of potato and gravy. At the very least, the man and his wife surmised, the dish washer would be grateful for their efforts.
So they made their way out the opulent lobby, avoiding the floor to ceiling mirror lest it come to life and shriek that no, they were not the fairest in the land. Not by a long shot. No way.
Then they got into their car and rode off into the moonrise and lived happily ever after. Or for as long as that night lasted, anyway. And as you very well know, this is not
The End...
