By Neil Triffett
There once was a Kingdom in a tumble-down forest, filled with all the regular things Kingdoms are filled with: a King and Queen, knights and quests, and, of course, a Princess who had been cursed to fall into a deep sleep if she touched the point of a needle.
Unfortunately, the Kingdom’s main income stream was its sewing industry, so it wasn’t long until the Princess happened upon a needle and pricked herself with it.
The Princess dozed off, and, to everyone’s great surprise, the citizens of the Kingdom did the same. Wherever they were – in their kitchens, riding their horses, or taking part in their Zumba classes – the townsfolk felt their eyes close.
Soon, the whole Kingdom was gently snoring. Leaves fell from trees and weren’t swept up. Birds built homes in roofs. The weeds crept in, curling around buildings, along streets, up people’s noses.
Luckily, as with most spells, there was an escape clause. A handsome Prince hacked his way through the overgrown weeds, kissed the sleeping Princess (this was many years before the Kingdom’s #Metoo movement) and the citizens awoke.
Many townsfolk found themselves in strange positions, from the middle of the street they had been crossing twenty years earlier, to the bottom of the staircase they had tumbled down shortly after falling asleep. Swim teacher Tiani Baker awoke to find her face covered in mould, and her grade-one swim class at the bottom of the pool (it took months to disentangle the bodies).
The King and Queen tried to lighten the mood after The Reawakening. They decked the square with streamers and food and invited all the townsfolk, even the ones they didn’t like, to a grand celebration.
But things soon turned sour.
Joyce Scanlon had been hoping to conceive a child, but, upon waking, found she was fifty-three.
Robert Millwright, the local realtor, was being sued for selling a house on a sinkhole, though no one knew the exact moment in the last twenty years the sinkhole had formed.
Elderly citizens Lesley and Stuart Grinwald could no longer go on their eagerly-anticipated retirement beach holiday, as the beach had been washed away, a casualty of the climate crisis.
Everyone was furious! How did the Princess get cursed with such an obscure condition? Why couldn’t they keep her away from needles! How could they simply rely on some random Prince showing up, when they could have drafted a more robust rescue strategy years ago?
The King and Queen did the only thing they really could – they threw some cash at the problem by giving everyone a small handout, and returned to their castle.
For a time, things returned to normality. Cafes boomed with the extra injection of cash. Citizens could finally pay their medical bills, which were quite large, considering the ailments that had wracked their bodies, unchecked, for twenty years. The King and Queen assured their citizens that all the needles in the Kingdom had been destroyed (this was a lie, however. The sewing industry was far too big and powerful to let that happen).
But it wasn’t long before the cash ran out. Protests took place on the streets, and conspiracy theories spread online in Facebook groups, saying the Royals had been complicit in “the great sleep”. A very strange meme started circulating, one which accused the Royals of performing medical experiments on citizens as they slept, and no one bothered to discredit it because they were angry, and logic was insulting.
The King and Queen decided it best that they go away for a while.
On a mountain top in Nepal, the Royals held a meeting. They couldn’t stay in exile like this forever. They couldn’t scapegoat the sewing industry, either. Blaming the witch was risky, too. They had to come up with something, and fast.
‘You know …’ said the Princess, ‘We could just be truthful? Practice radical honesty? I mean, you did piss off that witch, and I did prick my finger on that needle. I knew it wasn’t a great idea. So did you. If we take responsibility for our actions, everyone might just get that we made a mistake.’
The King and Queen saw their daughter was right. On returning to the Kingdom, they held a ceremony in which they placed the Princess in a giant tower, then sealed the doors and windows so she could never escape. No needles were allowed within a one-mile radius, because the stupid girl had a habit of touching things she wasn’t supposed to. This was all her fault!
The townsfolk, thrilled to see a good old-fashioned scapegoating, applauded the King and Queen for their self-assured leadership, then went on their merry way.
Everyone was happy, except, of course, the Princess.
The Princess, now bound up in her tower, brooded on all the ways she had been wronged in her life. Her parents had always been getting her kidnapped by dragons or manipulated by sorcerers. They didn’t care that she didn’t want to marry a creepy guy who kissed her while she was sleeping.
The Princess found a website for a counselling service, and she worked through all her past traumas with a therapist named Denise. Denise said the Princess should find ways to re-parent herself and form new relationships, which was a bit hard as the Princess was locked in a tower.
One day, when the Princess was feeling particularly angry, she pulled a needle from her secret drawer and pricked herself with it.
The Kingdom fell asleep yet again. Days and weeks and years went by as the King and Queen, the Princess, and the townsfolk snored. Sinkholes appeared under more of Robert Millright’s homes, and the Grinwalds missed yet another retirement holiday opportunity, as the town they planned to visit was obliterated by bushfires whilst they slept. Tiani Baker’s new swim class sank to the bottom of the pool.
Another Prince arrived, but, upon reading the “Do Not Resuscitate” sign stuck to the Princess’s chest, he decided everyone in the Kingdom looked peaceful enough as they were. And so, he headed off to find a Princess in a kingdom elsewhere.
Neil is a creative who loves to make offbeat work about social issues and communities. His debut feature film EMO the musical screened on Netflix and at MIFF. His short films have screened locally and internationally at festivals from Edinburgh to Palm Springs. He is currently writing for games, educational theatre, and film projects.
HOME 