flipflop_diva

Life in Fairytaleville was rough. Princesses were always being attacked by evil witches. Evil witches were always having their plans undermined by rude princesses. Most animals were only ever considered as cute and lovable sidekicks, even if they could talk and seemingly had wise words to share. Other animals still couldn’t talk. And the princes, although technically having the power in their male-oriented world, were nowhere near as memorable (or likable) as the princesses.

It was rough times for everyone in Fairytaleville, but at least some of those people got stories written about them or movies made of them or were able to burst into beautiful songs at the drop of a hat. But the other people? The so-called background characters? The men and women and girls and boys just trying to go about their lives? It was even rougher for them.

Jessica Milton was one of those people. Jessica was born in a normal way to normal people. And she grew up normally. The daughter of a man who swept trash out the city center and a woman who mended people’s clothes, and not in the cool magic way that a Fairy Godmother did. Just a normal, boring way that a person with a sewing machine did.

Also, her name was Jessica. A perfectly okay name for perfectly okay people, but did anyone tell tales of a Princess Jessica? Of course not. Because Jessica was a common name, unlike those who named their children such things as Aurora and Ariel and Jasmine. Jessica always reminded her parents that they doomed her from the start, but every time she did, her mother would just shake her head.

“You don’t have to be a princess to be make a difference,” she would say, as if they didn’t live in a land where the princesses were indeed the end all and be all of their entire world.

And so Jessica grew up in the background of Fairytaleville. Most of the time she went unnoticed as she went to school, played with the other children and did her chores. A couple times she did end up in a rousing dance number, which was always a lot of fun, but for the most part, life was ordinary and unspectacular. Just as she was. She wasn’t drop dead gorgeous. She didn’t have long blonde flowing locks. She didn’t wear ballgowns or have a pet sidekick. And she didn’t have any spectacular talent that she could tell — she wasn’t a good fighter nor a good singer and she definitely didn’t have any magic powers.

But one thing Jessica did have was her beliefs. Mostly the belief that the world existed beyond Fairytaleville and that she and her friends didn’t have to be regulated to the background of existence forever if they didn’t so choose to be.

This belief didn’t really help her much when she was a young girl dreaming of her own Prince Charming and a ride on a magic carpet, but then Jessica turned eighteen, and she knew what that meant. Because one thing Jessica was good at was reading, and Jessica read everything she could get her hands on. Including books about a world where teenagers turned eighteen and finished high school and went on to a place they called college. Where they could learn more surrounded by people their own age. Where they could discover what they wanted to be in life and were not limited to homemakers and seamstresses and garbage sweepers. Where they could have roommates and friends and even boyfriends and girlfriends.

“I want to go to college,” she told her parents on her eighteenth birthday. “I think I would like a girlfriend as well.”

Her father gasped. “I raised you better than that!” he said. But Jessica’s mother scowled at her husband.

“And I raised you better than that!” she told him. She turned to her daughter. “If you want to leave Fairytaleville, then you should. But it won’t be easy. The real world doesn’t have magic, and people don’t always sing and dance, and there aren’t very many happily ever afters.”

“But I could come back if it doesn’t work out,” Jessica said.

Her mother shook her head. “That’s the thing,” she said. “Once you leave the world of fairytales, you can’t come back. You can visit, but it will never be the same as it once was.” She smiled softly at Jessica. “It’s your decision,” she said. “Just be sure.”

So Jessica thought about it. She thought of the dreams she would be giving up if she left, and she thought of the dreams she would be giving up if she stayed. And in the end, she made her choice.

“And you chose to come here?” The little girl squirmed in Jessica’s lap, trying to get a look at her face. “To Mommy and me?”

“I did,” Jessica said.

The little girl nodded. “Do you miss it?” she asked. “The other place?”

Jessica took a moment, letting her eyes sweep from her daughter to her wife to her laptop on the coffee table, the one containing the book she had been working on for years now. The one she had just sold to a publisher.

Sometimes she did wonder what would have happened if she stayed, what she would have become, but she never wondered long. Because she knew.

“No,” she answered her child. “I don’t. Because leaving that world was the smartest, most real thing I’ve ever done. And I’ve never, ever wanted to go back.”






Fiction! But inspired by Ellie, age 5, who was singing an original tale of woe the other night asking, 'But how can I be a princess, if I don't have a pretty dress?'



This was written for therealljidol. If you liked my entry, please consider voting for me! You should also go read the other amazing entries. You can find them here. Voting should be up Thursday!