Lauren M. Hancock Poetry and Prose

Tag: relationship

  • Story: The Fantastical Court Jester – 14/09/19

    Story: The Fantastical Court Jester – 14/09/19

    The fantastical court jester had a multitude of skills. Though he felt that life and himself were a cruel joke, he still amused those in the court as he was willed to. He threw up a rabbit from a hat, danced with his feet flung up and down this way and that, he grabbed the sparkling stars and the moon from wherever he could, out of thin air, and then  he would throw them into the area where the King and Queen and Princess were watching with a great sense of enjoyment, yet the parents still projected an air of judgement. Because they couldn’t act too impressed, they needed the court jester to know that he always was required to up his game, as they do say. To perfect his show, better each time, with more elaborate skills and tricks, while the King and Queen quietly sipped their glasses of red wine.

    The princess, though, utterly divine she was, was forever exuberant about his skills. Though, secretly, just between yourselves and I, the Princess had a great crush on this fantastical court jester who didn’t really appreciate his wretched life. And how could he, where he was hired as a mere spectacle, there to amuse and be laughed at, by beings in the court who he felt were buffoons who liked to belittle him. Princess never said a thing about her secret love for him because she knew that nothing could come of it, besides she was already promised to Lord Chive. She hated that obnoxious boy, yet her mother and father had picked him as her future husband because his family had much wealth hidden and also on display. They didn’t shy away from living the life of extroverted billionaires, and this fact made the King and Queen feel very pleased with their selection, of their daughter’s future man.

    Still, Princess dreamed of her jester, his smiling face, his painted, decorated eyelids, his twinkling bells on his costumes that when heard, caused her tingles and shudders, in the only good constructionist way that was known how. A tingle here was enough to make her heart leap and bound, and cause an ache deep within her stomach that no food could appease. She needed to view his shows again, over and over, because he was her living drug, the thing she most desired. How much she hated that wretched Lord Chive for being promised as her man for the rest of her life, why, she was only nineteen, she had eyes, ears, a heart and mind, surely, she could select for herself. She would choose her ironic court jester, who had recently been catching her eyes.

    The jester wondered whether there was something going on with the Princess, for she stared at him with such hunger and intent. It wasn’t as though he was undressing before her, to a tight bodysuit to showcase his pasty skin, but with bulging muscles and a well-built chest. Occasionally he caught her stares, when he dared to look at her beauty which he’d just realised was there, a wide-eyed glance into her brown docile eyes and slowly, over time, during his shows, he, too, began to fall in love. Before each show he would be nervous now, whereas before he couldn’t give a damn, prior to this, a show was just a show, but with a special audience who actually appreciated his skills, and perhaps more of him, he felt a warmth in his heart that made him fulfilled.

    Then, one morning, when the court jester was ready to perform, he took a deep breath and walked before the King, Queen, and daughter. He was wearing a brand-new outfit, selected especially to please the princess, he wore hearts plastered all over his front and his back. And as he danced slowly, sensually, catching the princess’s eyes often, the King and Queen were outraged, they couldn’t believe this treason!

    “What on earth is going on?” demanded the King. “I want to know right now!” Suddenly, the jester snapped to, what was he doing here in this love-suit? What on earth had possessed him to create and wear such a thing, when he knew that his feelings for Princess needed to remain hidden? He was just a mere jester, a slave of entertainment, nothing but a speck of dust in the eyes of someone as noble and wealthy as Prince Chive. Abashed, embarrassed and mortified, the jester hung his head, apologised profusely and walked off the stage, proceeding to cry. He wailed and wailed and wailed, knowing that he’d likely be dismissed, into their lands of the forest, where those who committed criminal acts against the royal family lived. The last time he would see his beloved princess had already occurred, it had passed, and her facial expression of confusion mixed with acceptance and love for his visual love proclamation would be what remained in his mind, forever there to be drawn upon and observed.

    But, the jester was not banished to the forest, instead he was locked up in the dungeons. Which would be a worse ending? he wondered to himself. Still, at least he could see his princess; every morning she snuck into the chambers of prisoners, and fed him her elaborate and rich breakfasts which she’d refused herself. There she told him of her love, which had blossomed before he even realised, of how his irony at life and means of still projecting happiness were what drew her to him. He would then share his brightened realisations, the moments that he knew she loved him for him, and the moment that he decided to proclaim his true feelings with the heart-suit, before the Queen and King.

    Eventually, the jester was freed, and was allowed to remain in the castle. Instead though, he was assigned a different role, and it was within the kitchen, deep in the mass of passageways, where King and Queen believed their daughter wouldn’t find him. The reason they kept him in the castle was a very simple fact: once he had received enough punishment for his behaviour, he could return to his jester role, because he was extremely talented at that.

    Love still secretly blossomed though, and whispers of their emotional affair caught wind of Lord Chive’s ears. Mortified by Princess’s lack of loyalty, he withdrew from their arrangement for future husband and wife.

    “If she cannot remain loyal, before we are even wed, why makes you think I’d like to bring her wholly into my life?” said Lord Chive to the King. Outraged at the scandal which had still unfolded beneath his very nose, he summoned his daughter and growled at her, with great anger, and he expelled her from the castle at once along with the traitorous jester. They could fend for themselves for some quite time. Of course, they would be allowed back, for not for a decent amount of time. Punishment needed to be observed firstly as something of a permanent kind. Instead of being desperate and feeling betrayed, the court jester and Princess were overjoyed at what had occurred, because now they were free, to love and be, without any need to hide from the eyes of her parents or the world.

    The King desperately missed his daughter and soon realised the error of his ways. She was the light of his life, and he had simply flung her aside, because her heart wanted to know another, not the man he had deemed as the correct, wise choice. Who was he to decide who his daughter should love? Was it his role – no, never! – to force her into an alliance that would benefit the Crown, but not the girl? He felt ashamed of himself, and sent out troops to welcome her daughter and her new love back into the castle. Once found though, they didn’t wish to accept the invitation. The irony of the situation is, sometimes a forced freedom is exactly what one needs to realise their own slice of heaven.

    © 2019 Alice Well Art, Lauren M. Hancock also known as Alice Well. All rights reserved.


    Return to All Posts


    Home 
    

  • Story: Memories of the Niceties of a Narwhal – 26/08/19

    Story: Memories of the Niceties of a Narwhal – 26/08/19

    I once knew a narwhal; he was debonair, gentle and kind. He travelled from the wide open seas to visit me, he loved to pop in for lunch or afternoon tea. His favourite meals were salad sandwiches, which we would laden with many condiments, it made them all so tasty, and devour two or three would Narwhal, the whole lot of them.

    While this narwhal was dedicated to visiting me, he was chasing a certain dream, a certain understanding, and a certain figurative being. He didn’t know who I truly was, deep inside, a broken, shattered little being. But he was drawn to this, to me, somehow he could sense this, with his strong sense of empathy, and perhaps he and I weren’t so different, beneath the surface of his grin, did there lurk a paining so wild and free?

    I knew from several conversations that Narwhal’s home life was troubled, he had a sister of the age of thirteen who was going through some monumental changes. The crowd in which she associated herself with were curs and thieves, and every Saturday and Friday evenings she would invite them around to her house, and there they’d plan their future missions with craftiness and ease. Narwhal’s parents disliked their daughter’s friends being in their part of the sea, where they resided somewhat quietly, murmuring thoughts shared over pots of steaming tea, and when the evening arrived, boy, how they were gritting their teeth and were apprehensive, because for their daughter and her friends, what constituted fun was nothing but illegalities and running entirely amok.

    Maybe Narwhal escaped this situation by seeing me, he didn’t have anything else to occupy him, except the idea and company of being near and with me. We often sent each other seaweed letters, in which he would sign off his love. This made me uncomfortable but I decided not to say anything, for fear of breaking his heart. Because I knew what it was like to be broken too, smashed into pieces, for feeling something for another being that was not reciprocated by them, an overwhelming feeling of being blue. And if it meant playing along, to allow Narwhal to feel warm and tingly, and then some, I was willing to do so, if it meant he would feel happier about himself, I knew it should be so.

     And then the strangest thing: the more time I spent with Narwhal, the more that I began falling for the debonair being that he was, with his sparkling personality, his gentle sense of camaraderie, his notion of what was right and wrong, and how to share in his love that was projected so longingly. I had once only thought of him as a friend, and now, my feelings for this special whale were growing, outright blossoming instead.

    Slowly, with growing trust, he began to share with me his inner thoughts and feelings, and my, weren’t they so touching, so beautiful and ponderous, his utterances made my heart become a-fluttering. And then his tales of sadness, of how he longed for a better life, for opportunities to become more than he was, something with substance, more serious, less fun. I was sorrowful at hearing these words, and carefully, gently, would pull him into a hug. This narwhal was a being of whom I was slowly falling in love.

    But how could we make it work? He was a sea creature, and I lived here on earth! He could survive for only a few hours upon land with the breathing apparatus on his back, but how could we make a life for ourselves when we were so very clearly different? I couldn’t live beneath the sea, and so too he could not easily breathe the air above land for me. It was a perplexing notion, and it really made me think, but the most I could do was suppress these thoughts, they made our relationship far too much, so serious to think. So it seemed that all we could do would indulge in sandwich visits, and hanging out for a few hours, reading books to one another in my bedroom. We would sit together, so cosy, as I read our favourite novels and magazines. Then would come the saddening time for the end of his visit, and wave me off would he with his little fin, and my heart would ache, oh, how I wished he would come sooner next time, for his next visit again.

    One day, I was waiting for Narwhal, he had promised he was going to visit last week, yet I had seen nor heard of anything from him, not a seaweed correspondence to read of nor speak. Usually he was prompt with his letters and responses, he always signed them off with three kisses and two hugs, but now I felt he had drifted away, why? I did not know, perhaps the reason was simply, “just because”. There could be any amount of reasons as to why he had decided to remain in the sea, to no longer visit his favourite human, little old repaired me, for his quiet love had changed me, made me whole again and of this I did know, that Narwhal, my dearest friend, was never again going to show. I could feel it in my bones, a few days ago I had felt the breaking of a type of an emotional cord, as though we were now on own, separated, nothing keeping us together anymore.

    The memories we had were precious, and I would keep them in my mind and heart always, but what happened to Narwhal, had he deserted me or been taken, harpooned, or even stolen from the ocean by humans to be tamed? I didn’t want to put a potential label to his apparent desertion, even the thought of his wide brown eyes and smiling face hurt myself so badly I wished we were one and the same. However, it was meant to be this way, I supposed, how could a human girl live with a whale, and the utmost despairing thing about it was, we had fallen for each other, and helped repair the broken parts of one another. Through acceptance and friendship, and emotional moments and times of quiet healing, Narwhal and I were in our own places of solitude and dreaming. Though never again would we meet, I would always recall my pleasant, gentle, debonair Narwhal with the fondest of dreams.

    © 2019 Alice Well Art, Lauren M. Hancock also known as Alice Well. All rights reserved.


    Return to All Posts


    Home