Childhood Revisited: A Sorta Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, there was a little boy. We’ll call him Sam. Sam was just like other little boys, except he lived in a gigantic castle down by Hope Lake. Every day he would wake up, go outside, and throw three coins into Hope Lake. One was a Nifty Nickel, another was a Dodgy Dime, and the third was a Quirky Quarter. The legend was that Hope Lake made one of your wishes come true if you dropped each of the coins into the lake in a specific order by 8 a.m.every day for 30 days. The first one to go in had to be the Quirky Quarter, followed in second place by the Dodgy Dime, and last but not least, the final coin was the Nifty Nickel. Now, Sam knew the order, and every day for 28 days he had faithfully pilfered coins from the castle treasury so that he could make his wish and throw them in. As fate would have it, though, on the 29th day, for the life of him, Sam couldn’t find a Nifty Nickel. The treasury didn’t seem to have one in it at all, which was shocking, and yet true. Sam was vexed because the hour was getting well onto 8 and he knew he would have to hustle just to make it to the bridge over the lake to make his wish. He could wait no longer, so he grabbed a Pedantic Penny instead of the Nifty Nickel he knew he needed, hoping that the lake wouldn’t recognize the difference. Then, turning on his little heel, he hauled ass down to Hope Lake, getting there right at the stroke of 8. The waters were a little turbulent, but he paid no mind, saying his wish three times while dropping in first the Quirky Quarter, and next the Dodgy Dime, and lastly the Pedantic Penny, holding it firmly in his hand before letting it go. He watched it tumble over and over until it struck the water with a “sploosh,” and then it was gone. Then, Sam turned around and headed back to the castle to begin his day proper.

Day 30 came and went, and Sam followed his routine, substituting another Pedantic Penny for the Nifty Nickel he still could not locate anywhere in the treasury, but he was relatively satisfied by that point that he had sufficiently tricked the gods of the lake. He just had to wait for his wish to come true. On the 31st day from the start of his routine he noticed something different about the castle atmosphere. There was almost a fog inside the castle, a dark film that seemed to cover everything. He didn’t think much of it until that night when his father, the King, and his mother, the Queen, sat him down in the drawing room to explain something to him. They both had grim expressions on their faces, and Sam’s mind couldn’t help flashing back to dropping those two Pedantic Pennies into Hope Lake. He held his breath while they told him the castle was being split in two, with his mother going across the lake to build her own kingdom, and his father staying put. They wanted to know who Sam wanted to live with, because that castle would keep the majority of the treasury for itself. It was all his decision. Suddenly, he thought back to his wish, and he wondered if the lake was getting back at him for those Pedantic Pennies.

Because his wish was to be the lord over the treasury, to decide what was to be done with it. And here it was coming true, but he didn’t know how he could choose between his parents. He had to find out what the word “pedantic” meant, he thought, before he could make his difficult decision, so he told them he needed a minute. Sam bolted out of the room and found the large dictionary in the second library, and hunted swiftly for the word he needed to know. As his eyes focused on its definition he almost fainted, because he now knew why the lake had done this to him. “Pedantic” meant, he learned, that one was being overly concerned with tiny details. While he had been focusing on small things like trying to keep his wish alive, he had neglected to see that his family was falling apart. While he had been stealing sums of money from the treasury in order to gain more than his fair share, he didn’t know that each of his parents had thought the other one was stealing the funds and lying about it. If he had paid attention to the big things instead of the small ones, perhaps he could have had what he wanted with his family intact. So, he went to the first place he thought of, the castle treasury.

And, within its doors, he instantly saw a whole pile of Nifty Nickels in the back of the room, and he fainted on the spot.

The moral of the story is to keep your focus on the big things, and the small things will take care of themselves.

Sam

P.S. This fairy tale was in response to the daily prompt, “Sure, you turned out pretty good, but is there anything you wish had been different about your childhood? If you have kids, is there anything you wish were different for them?”

Now, I know this was a fairy tale, but it had serious basis on what really happened in my life. I honestly thought that my parents’ divorce was my fault, because I didn’t pay attention to the warning signs, because I was a difficult child, because I couldn’t do what they needed me to do. And I know now that it wasn’t the case, that many children erroneously think that way, but I couldn’t help thinking that if I just could have done one thing different it would have made a difference in how things turned out for them. I felt like that little boy realizing he hadn’t known things were so bad in his family life because he had been so self-centered. It took me a really long time, and a lot of therapy, to truly understand that it wasn’t my fault. Yet, I wouldn’t change a thing about my childhood, regardless. It made me who I am now, and I guess I agree that the person I am now is worthwhile. Better the devil you know, right? Hope you enjoyed the sorta fairy tale.