The Fairy Tale

Perhaps the fault lay in loving him too much, letting him consume my very being and swallow my soul.
How could I leave him knowing as I did that he was my destiny? We were bound from the beginning as husband and wife though he never knew it. Was it my fault that he forsaked me and traded my love for another? Was it my fault that he chose the easy way out? In the end, it was I who paid dearly for his choice and it was I who suffered in silence while he lived on, a life without me.
Now I am free. Free to live my life the way I want to, the way I was meant to without having to hide in the shadows and watch you. I no longer need to hold on to what tiny glimmer of hope that he will take me in his arms once more and beg for my forgivness.

How many days I have suffered in silence watching him and her doing things we could have been doing. How much pain have passed through my heart each time he kissed her tenderly or held her in his arms. How many nights I've spent wondering if he still dreamt of me from time to time even as he haunt my every dream.
I have wasted all my life on him. I have spent all my energy watching him, always just round the corner out of sight hoping that he will look up one day and see me and realise the mistake he made when he cast me aside.

Sometimes the pain would be unbearable, the nearness of him would hurt and burn my skin, my flesh, my soul, and I would fight the urge to destroy him. It would have been so simple to plunge the knife into his chest and win my freedom but I could never do it. I couldn't do it then and could never ever do it. Even now as he lies dead in his coffin, I stand there in the shawdows just watching. I cannot even desecrate his tomb to avenge myself.

How does it feel like to be free again after suffering for so long? I do not know. I always assumed that his death would free me but it hasn't. He may have gone from the earth, but his memory lingers on in me and even as they lower him into the ground, his every being consumes me and I ache to be near him. I wish to throw myself upon his cold hard corpse and be burried deep in the earth with him. Perhaps at last he will learn to love me, to accept that the easiest choices are not always the right ones. Perhpas now he will see how much better it is to be loved by me and to love me in return.

The mourners have all left now. It is just me and him. I could have just remined as sea foam all my life knowing nothing and remembering nothing, but I made my choice and I chose to follow him to be near him even though I could never have him. Now it is my choice as well to go where he goes.

In the morning, all they found was a scale on his grave. The headstone simply said," Here lies the little mermaid and her beloved prince. Together at last."

Hetarai -Part 2

Being an orphan in ancient Greece meant that fewer opportunities would become available, especially if the orphan was female. She could beg, get married, fall into prostitution or slavery. But because she was beautiful, she never had to consider any of those choices. Her aunt had taken her in when her parents had died and in doing so, decided her destiny.
Her aunt was one of those known to the masses as Hetarai. They were a group of women who were fully independent, living on their own and even having property in their own name. They were powerful and untouchable, calling those among the rich and the great their friends. Her aunt was one of them and soon she would be to, but first, she had to be educated.

Having been denied nothing since birth and then losing her adoring parents left her with an emptiness she could not fill. So she threw herself into the lessons her aunt set out for her each day. She studied everything from philosophy to art. In the mornings, she did her chores, learning how to keep her little place neat and tidy. In the afternoon, she studied with her aunt the great books of philosophers, played her musical instruments and even painted if she had the time, by evening her aunt would leave for her 'appointments' which meant she would have time to relax and walk in the gardens. Then, when Sundays came along, her aunt would take her to the markets to help her with the concept of money and how to manage it, for in those days, women had very little understanding of how to manage their finances. This wasn't to say they didn't know the worth of money, only that they were hopeless at managing it. To them, money was either enough or not. Besides, the lady of the house seldom had a clue on how much things cost because they had their slaves to do the marketing for them and the slaves were the ones who did the bargaining for them. But for her, it was essential that she learnt how much things cost and how to manage the funds she had so that she would never have to be dependent on others.
Her education with her aunt went on for two years in which time she had no other contact with other people except her aunt and the slaves in her aunt's household. But shortly after her twelve birthday, she had her first encounter.

Web

All it took was a minute or two and then her web was complete. Already she could see her first victims heading for it inexpicably drawn to it like moths to a flame. Patiently she waits for them to get caught up in the web and all its tangles. One by one they get trapped and sucked in. Still she does nothing but watch, indifferent to their pleas for release.

Another night, another hunt. She is exhausted from all the hunting but she cannot stop because it is in her very nature to do so and to stop hunting would mean to stop being her. So without remorse she begins again, weaving a web, luring the prey and then devouring them whole. Over and over she does this. They call her the Black Widow because she uses love and romance as bait before cruelly crushing her victims' hopes and dreams. She is as they have named her, the Black Widow.

Deep in her dreams she weeps. She cries for all the hearts she has broken, she puzzles over the way she treats her victims and wonders what would happen if she tries to care or even trust them. A sharp pain tells her that she must never think that way again. A shadow of a memory flits around in her brain. She cannot catch it, it is something that she has hidden and tried to forget but it is something that would help her understand why she is the Black Widow.

It is day again and the dreams fade and she wakes cold and indifferent. Rested and ready to hunt.