The Princess of the Dusk







The Princess of Dusk never knew what it was like to live in darkness. Her world was in perpetual sunset, the sky in hues of orange, yellow and red. Candles and lamps and other things that existed as protection from the dark gathered dust in the corners of attics and in old drawers, relics of a forgotten age.
People were always on the streets, in the markets and around the parks. Hard days ploughing the fields never seemed to end, but neither did long days lying in the grass, listening to the birds and watching the clouds in the amber sky.
Darkness was something only talked about in hushed whispers, a long forgotten foe that had been banished from the land. It was the monster that lay under the bed, a nightmare from a children’s story. For the kingdom believed that dark meant deceit, villainy and deception. Darkness was a place of great evil, where people revealed the worst in themselves.
The Princess had a different perspective. She had grown up in a palace of gold, with gardens of red tulips and yellow sunflowers. Her bedroom was large and filled with every toy she could ever want, and she played outside with all the other children, never having to come home until their legs were exhausted and their eyes were tired. Without dark she was never given a bedtime, only told to sleep when tired and wake when she was ready as that was how the world of dusk worked. To any child it would have been bliss. 
Yet, the Princess of Dawn was not an ordinary child, she was a girl who craved the dark.
Ever since she had been a little girl, she had been a restless sleeper. For an hour or two she would shut her eyes then be awoken by the light. Her parents had tried everything to help her, they had boarded up her windows, had given her scarfs to wear over her eyes as blindfolds and had even hung blankets from the ceiling around her bed, all of it to no avail. Every night the Princess crawled into her bed, made sure the blankets were surrounding her, and her blindfold was on tight, but still she awoke to the tiniest crack of light. 
Often she would close her eyes and wish, wish for a darkness that would coat the world just long enough to allow her to sleep. Some nights, when her blindfold was on tight enough, and her bones were the perfect amount of tired, she believed her wish had come true. But then, sure enough, she would be awoken by a light from a crack they had failed to board up.


////

I thought of this while waiting for a bus and I LIKE the idea but the ending is a little strange so I wanted to wait and see if you liked it before posting part two.
Originally my stories are posted on instagram, but the 300 word limit os a little confining so I come here to post everything I've written and a little bit extra!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Secret Notes

Image
To the side of the bookcase in the spare room, slotted right down the narrow crack between shelf and wall, there are tiny folded bits of paper. If you are small enough to squeeze a finger in, or resourceful enough to fish around with a coat hanger, you can take them out. Each one contains a different message, carries a different emotion. They are there to be read, but it’s vital they are put back in place, lest they fall into the wrong hands. The first note Sam had found when his little brother had stolen his fiddle from its case and when he found it, the bridge was cracked and there was a long scratch down the centre. His mother had waved away his compliant, explaining Aiden was only young, and after all, it wouldn’t be that expensive to replace, but she didn’t seem to understand the principle of the thing. He had come to the spare room, because his bedroom didn’t have a lock, and attempted to hide himself away. Sulking with his back against the door, he noticed a l...
Read more

So go, be daring - (I graduated!)

Image
  “It’s better to err on the side of daring than the side of caution. So go, be daring.”  I never uploaded pictures of my undergraduate graduation. It was one of the worst days of my life and I can’t look at the photos without seeing all the sadness that I was tucking deep down inside myself. I couldn’t understand why I was supposed to be happy. It felt like a funeral for my old life, where all my friends were going off to bright futures and I truly didn't believe I had one. I had never lived without a plan before and I didn’t believe I could. I wanted to go to my masters graduation because I got it. Finally. I understood why this is a celebration. Why it’s not the ending to my story.  I didn’t graduate as anything. I’m not a doctor or a lawyer or a nurse or an engineer. There is no set path for me to follow, I have to carve it myself. And yes that is terrifying.  But I am brave.  I have realised I have it in me to forge my own path.  The chancellor to...
Read more

Day 10: The Duck Pond

Image
Every day he passed the duck pond. It was in the park between his wife’s job in the hospital, and his job at the bank. He used to always take the scenic route into work with her, through the park and past the pond, dropping her off at the edge of the fence, then briskly racing back through the paths so as not to be late for work. On dry afternoons they would take lunch together and eat it opposite the ducks. He always packed a sandwich with chicken and lettuce, an apple, a small yogurt, and of course some seeds for the ducks. It gave him endless amounts of pleasure, watching the little things waddle to him, collect their food and scramble back to the safety of the water. Springtime was always his favourite, when the baby ducklings would scarcely step onto the grass at first, but after a few weeks would grow and warm to him enough to take food inches from his feet. Most people didn’t understand his obsession. His colleagues were continually confused to find he had once again abandone...
Read more