Eyelash

Sleeping Beauty was a whore.

      Everyday, she met yet another man in the kingdom. Everyday, she convinced him that they were perfect; that they were “it.” She didn’t have to try very hard: her bright blue eyes and flowing blond hair did much of the work for her.

      Every night, Sleeping Beauty got what she wanted, slept in her lover’s arms, and was only an eyelash on the pillow by the following morning.

       A memory.

The men she slept with often spoke of her the next morning. “Kiss-and-tell” was the law of the land, and when it involved Aurora, the princess of the court, said law was often expanded to “fuck-and-exaggerate.” The hyperbole from the stories might have filled an English textbook, had they been grammar-school appropriate. Some said Aurora was peaceful and passionate under the sheets, others recalled only her heavy breathing, still others mentioned hours upon hours of bliss. The stories changed and changed. They got stranger as time went on, and few believed Aurora herself was the change.

Despite all this, every man always remembered one specific detail: she was beautiful when she slept. Waves of hair at her sides, lips curled up in a slight smile. Nearly every man in the kingdom could remember this picture. Nearly.

Aurora was careful. Married men, betrothed men, possibly-soon-to-be attached men were never approached. Sleeping Beauty was only a waking beauty to those who found themselves with other women; hence, the women let her be. She didn’t step on their toes, they never stepped on hers.

That’s not to say Aurora was perfect. Oh no, not perfect at all. She lived for the rush of adrenaline she experienced at the touch of male flesh, and by early adulthood was unimpressed with her kingdom’s single selection.

“They’re dull,” she used to say, “and I’ve had them all before.”

He left me. After he slept with her, he said there was nothing else waiting for him in the city. And he left. Gone. No forwarding address, just a note on my pillow where I assume a tear, an eyelash, had been laid there the previous evening.

Not my eyelash. Hers.

I had loved him with all my heart, just as I had loved her. I lost them both to a desire too-late discovered.

Really, though, I lost myself. My days became consumed with thoughts of revenge, and I dissolved into insanity. Princess, best friend, or neither: it no longer became important who Aurora was. The problem simply was that she still was.

I wanted her dead.

       The plan was foolproof.

What does that make me?



       Tip-toe tip-toe. They’re downstairs. They’ll hear you. They’ll know you’re here.

There it is. There’s the needle. Prick her finger, do it, do it now!

Wait. Let her speak. Yes, you can have the spinning needle, darling. Can’t you mend my dress for me? It was torn last month.

Yes, I waited this long to fix it.

Oh, not blood! Not blood! Here’s your tea, this should help.

Is there it enough in the tea? Will it do it? Will it? Will? What will become of me? She will die. She will die. He will be sad. She will die.

      This should do it. Smelling salts? No dear, those are terrible. I won’t give them to you, not over your dead body.

Her dead body lay in front of me.

Dead.



When she awoke from her poison-induced coma some ten years later, she was celebrated. Her face hadn’t grown a year older, it seemed, not a wrinkle, not a scratch. Her blonde hair had lain beautifully at her sides, her lips curled upwards in a slight smile. Nothing had changed, save a spot of blood, rosy red, on her finger. The cut never seemed to heal, and occasionally, the crimson would drip from her hand.

She woke the day before my wedding, and sought me out in the city, remembering our friendship, oblivious to either’s betrayal of the other.

“Darling, how I’ve missed you!” A lie, of course. She hadn’t been awake. She’d hardly known what she’d missed.

“I’ve heard of your marriage, splendid, darling!” Over exuberance. I watched her eyes light up. Ten years later, I hadn’t forgotten that look. How could I? It was so obvious, so devastatingly clear what she was thinking. She was remembering who she had been. The touch, the caress of another body. That was the glance. That was the smile of desperation. I turned away.

“Your fiancée,” she cried, “I must meet him!”

“At your will, Princess Aurora.”

He left me the next morning, following my first true love miles upon miles away from here, away from the city, after she left a drop of crimson on my pillow. I suppose I might have left too, I might have followed him. I might have said, “Why don’t you love me? What is she that I am not?” Then, what’s the use? Who does my life matter to, if not to him?

I can be a Sleeping Beauty, too.

I can sleep forever.