A Modern Fairy Tale Part 1

I have a hyperactive imagination and I consider it to be a blessing. You don’t always want to look at ‘A’ as ‘A’. ‘A’ could be ‘B’ or ‘C’ or ‘Z’. It’s up to you to create. And destroy. I can relate hundreds of instances of creation and destruction that I have done single-handedly. One day when I woke up from my sleep, I thought the bed was floating on the clouds. It was an amazing experience. I could see my 72 year old grandmother watering her plants on the terrace garden. For the first time, I noticed that she talks to her plants as though they were her grandchildren. Next I saw my mother return from her morning walk. I was surprised to see that she stops on her way to feed the pigeons some grain that she…oh my God…carried in a little pouch! Slowly as I glided down, my window came into view. I never knew how my window looked from outside. Today I caught a glimpse of it from the other side. There was a girl lying on the bed. She would be roughly of my age and height. She was lying on one side and there was a lingering smile on her face. Her short brown hair fell over her eyes as she slept. I didn’t know her name but she looked vaguely familiar. I recalled having seen her often.

As I floated just outside her window, I peeped in to have a closer look I noticed that the walls of her room had been newly painted in a dewy green hue. The sun was peeking in through the huge leaves of the coconut tree just outside her window. It was casting a psychedelic pattern of light and shadows over the empty part of her bed. All of a sudden, I felt a jolt. The bed on which I was sitting started rocking and I felt a tremendous force sucking me into a point in the sky. The point grew into a sort of a tunnel which, I understood was the place I was being sucked into. The walls of the tunnel were now closer and I heard a rhythmic beeping sound emanating from it. It engulfed me and the bed and the beeping sound got louder and louder. Then darkness. Silence.

My eyes wouldn’t open. I felt airsickness. The alarm was screeching now. It was seven- thirty. Finally light. Whoa! I was blinded by the sun streaming through the open window! There was a weird pattern on my bed, as though somebody had been sleeping there beside me and had got up in a hurry, leaving the sheets all messed up. I brushed the hair away from my eyes, sat up and turned the alarm off. Mother was back from her morning walk. I heard her in the kitchen rustling up a breakfast. Another day. Any other day. Why do nice dreams have to come to an end? I already knew the answer. To bring us back to the real world. The real world is harsh, cruel. There are no flying carpets, talking plants and wormholes to take you to a different universe. But there are the ogres, the trolls. The fairies, nymphs, dryads. The ogres wear power suits and have power lunch. The dryads wear couture gowns and chiffon sarees. They all carry wands made of thorns. They wear crowns made of Blackberrys! They cover their eyes with Ferragamo or Ray Ban for their eyes will burn if they look at light. This is the real world. And I am a part of it.

I bathed and put on my power linen shirt, denims and Police shades. I was now equipped to venture out into the real world.