Everybody knows what happened to my previous owner, but not a word about me! So let me tell you how I laid forgotten in that dusty room of that ruined castle. That was no fairy tale ending for me…
One day, the noise awoke me. The grime of several lifetimes obscured my view, but the sounds were my guide. I felt the uncaring hands grabbing me and heard the rough voices shouting.
‘Oi, Mick, look what I’ve found!’
‘Wow! That might be worth a bob or two!’
‘Hands off! I bought this pile and everything in it!’ This new female voice was shrill and commanding, although her hands were gentler.
Later on, other knowledgeable hands touched my gilded frame with reverence, shined the glass to perfection, and I wasn’t blind anymore.
‘I bet you have a story or two to tell, old timer!’ The bespectacled man laughed. If he only knew!
Suddenly I was back where I started. The room looked almost exactly the same as before, although the furniture was tasteless, scant, and vulgar at the same time…
The owner of the shrill female voice was talking to a little rectangular object. ‘Now, girls, are you ready to learn how to put on your falsies?’
She droned on and on for ages before approaching me. ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?’ She pouted.
By the rules of magic, I’m bound to tell the truth. Therefore, I took in her inflated lips, her perfect teeth, the thick eyebrows, and the artificially slanted eyes caked in makeup. I noticed all the alterations that only a skilled scalpel could have done before I started looking for an answer that never came.
Wherever I searched, they all looked the same; beauty had departed this plane of existence!
‘Well…’ I started tentatively. “Trouty” jumped back in amazement. If her voice was shrill, the screams and ululations she uttered made me shiver, tremble, crack, and finally shatter. Strangely, I felt only relief, as I watched the broken glass scatter like shiny confetti.
With no real beauty left, better this way!