A Novel of Fantastic Proportions

          Gwendyl heaved a deep sigh that rocked her maidenly bosom, filling the air with the deep melancholy of a wronged female.  Looking forlornly out of her small window, out into a beautiful spring day, which was full of the heady scent of wildflowers and twittering with the calls of birds. 

          The sun came shining in her window, glinting off a cascading tumult of auburn silk.  She was plainly but prettily dressed, the cut accentuating soft curves, the pale blue matching the sky perfectly.  Her green eyes, full of hurt, roamed over the grassy, rolling hills of her home townlet.

          Gwendyl sighed again, partly because she felt like it, but more because she was miffed.  What kind of a day was this?  She, the heroine, was in a sad mood.  What did the weather think it was, acting all cheery against her will.  And who put her in this blue gown? Sure, it was pretty, but it clashed so horribly with her eyes and complexion.  Geez, who did the author think he (or she) was?

          She pondered for a moment over whether or not to abandon the story before she got too entrenched, or to try to manipulate the story her way… well she was the only character so far… why not? Anyway…

          Smoothing out the creases in her magically green dress, which matched her eyes, she prepared to finally face the double-crossing, slime-ball, scummy, scummy, scummy, bad copy of a man… ahem. 

          Gwendyl put a milky, elegant hand to brush tendrils of her tresses away from her brow, and trapped them once again under her headband.  She stood with fluid grace, tucking her stool under the table and put on a pair of dainty slippers, picking up her bucket and making her way out to pasture where her beautiful brown-eyed heifer waited the noon milking. 

          She picked her way among the patches of clover and chickweed, floating over the field, calling lightly to her sweet animal.

          “Bessie, ya great big lump! Get your big, bony behind over here! I’m warning you… BESSIE!!”  The cow mooed and wandered away from her.  

          Gwendyl fumed darkly as her animal wandered across a stream.  There was no way she was going to cross that raging river, not if it meant getting her pretty little slippers wet!  She almost stamped her foot before realizing that that would be unseemly for such a lovely, ravishing young lady like herself. 

          The younger teenage boy from the farm across from hers, whose land her wayward cow had found a way onto, through a gap in the fence, watched her in fascination, chewing on a stalk of wheat. 

          Gwendyl smiled sweetly at the acne-pocked guy.  He kept chewing on the stem, staring at her, then at the cow.

          “Could you help me, a helpless damsel, in my distressed situation?” She batted her lashes rapidly to convey the adoration that would be lathered on when her simple request was fulfilled.  Her entire stance, attitude, and aura suggested a delicate, winsome awe of his manliness and capability.

          The youth raised an eyebrow, looked at the cow, back at her, and then at the cow.  A smile crept quickly onto his face.  He whispered softly at the cow, rewarded with a soft moo and immediate action. 

          “Thanks again, Gwendyl.  Bessie just has the best milk around,” he tossed over his shoulder as he ambled towards his own home, a bit of laughter and contempt in his rapidly deepening voice.

            She huffed and stamped her foot at the retreating pair.  Not again!  That was the fifth time this month.  She looked at the stream, then back at her blu…green slippers.  No way was she going to pass, not even if he kept her cow.  The cost of green dye was an extravagance she was only willing to pay for once, maybe twice, if needed.  And go barefoot?  Not even.  With a toss of her long locks, she picked her way slightly grumpily back to the house to prepare to go into the village.  

          As she gathered a basket and a few coins, she went over a list in her mind.  “Flour, a bit of meat, hair ribbons, a new copper kettle, perfume, a bit of those new berries for her lips (can’t go around with pale lips!), and some soap.”  Her mind wandered off, scorning the rough handed women who sold her favorite soap.  There was no point in ruining her own perfect, lithe hands with lye, the nasty stuff.  Ugh.  She would continue to buy her own soap, even if it cost her her incredible, ravishing hair.  There were those who would buy it, and for a handsome price.  After all, hair grew back, but hands, oof. 

          Lost in her own world of vanity and puffballs, she slowly made her way to the market.  Gwendyl bought the vegetables that never seemed to grow for her.  Potatoes, dirty things, growing under ground.  At least carrots had a green part to pull on.  Onions, among others, also just wouldn’t grow.  If she knew the words, she most likely would have called it vexing or agitating. 

          Quickly growing disenchanted with the company of the industrious people surrounding her, from the calloused but cheery women, to the slightly dirty and lively kids.  The quiet, contented faces of the older men only held a sun-lined, leathery horror for Gwendyl. 

          Hunting for the other white meat, Gwendyl scanned for a newcomer or handsome young man who didn’t have patches on his knees.  What her eyes finally fell on did not please this narcissist man hunter.  Her eyes narrowed as she made her way through the crowd towards a strapping, tanned man in his upper teens, who was laughing with his friends.

          As she made her way over, the others around him quieted down and looked furtively at each other, trying to slip away unnoticed.  Gwendyl paid no attention, her eyes focused only on her victim.  Feeling a bit confused, the handsome man looked oddly at the retreating figures.  When they had all managed to slip away, with the lone man looking about him and scratching his head, he turned around to go back to his family’s stall, when he turned around only to discover the reason for the stealthy retreat of his companions.  He smiled weakly.

          “Ah huh, hi Gwendyl.  Um, how are you?”  He grinned hopefully and desperately.  She just lowered a look on him that reeked of brimstone, wrath, and abject fury.  It would have melted through seventeen layers of solid steel.  His grin wavered; then froze in to a rictus of terror.  “Gwendyl? Is there… something… wrong…umm…?”

          “Oh, you know what you did.”  Gwendyl started to work up some tears; there was definitely a guilt trip about to leave the station of Gwendyl’s twisted neuropath ways.  The man, whose name, by the way, is Jeff, looked side to side, not unlike an ensnared rabbit. 

          “I have no clue, really!” he lied.” 

          “You’re lying!!!”

          “How… why would you say that?” Jeff frantically tried to avoid the predetermined howler that was prepping itself.

          “Don’t try to avoid a confrontation with me!! I know what you’re doing,” Gwendyl sniffed tearfully.  Jeff wondered at the redundancy of her emotions, something he never noticed before.  Of course you would be sniffing if you were teary, it had something to do with the salt in the tears.  And she was never just happy, she was cheerfully ecstatic.  “JEFF!!!!!  Pay attention! Now is not the time for philosophical thoughts about human emotions!!”

          “How do you know what I am thinking every stupid second??”  Jeff was getting a little ticked off.  Gwendyl wiped her eyes carefully, as calculatedly pretty in unhappiness as in joy.

          “How do you know I sniffed tearfully? Duh, the author says so.  Watch: “‘I have no clue, really!’ he lied.”  See? Geez.”  Jeff tried it and found that every single extra exclamation point that slipped out of her mouth irritated him more and more, then realized, he wasn’t going to feel a bit guilty about what he was going to say to this soppy disgrace to females.

          “Well Gwendyl, you’re right. I did do something.  I got a better girlfriend.  And you are only making me become firmer in my decision.”  He waved at a fetching blonde girl in a slightly worn, tan dress, complete with apron and kerchief on her head.  The pretty girl smiled brilliantly at him, and the marketplace brightened momentarily.  “You see, Zara is a real heroine.  You are only a vain, puffed up wuss.  What are you a heroine of, anyway?”  Gwendyl stared at him, aghast.

          “I’m a heroine in general!”

          “Come on.  The weather doesn’t follow your mood, but Zara can bring light and dark with the expression on her face.  Also, she’s kind to animals, works hard, and overcomes many obstacles while keeping a happy face, and she’s attractive.”  Jeff couldn’t resist it.  He stuck out his tongue. 

          “But… but… but I’m the Beautiful Farming Lass Who Was Wronged By Her Beau!  I always win the pity!!!!”  Jeff sighed agitatedly at the four punctuation marks. 

          “You also have to be nice, and actually succeed at farming.  Anyway, Zara has saved a little kid from sickness, bluebirds sing on her shoulders, and she is developing a magical talent.”

          Gwendyl couldn’t take it.  With tears brimming over, she stalked over to the perfect Zara.  Before Zara could even acknowledge her presence, Gwendyl grabbed a pair of scissors and sheared half of the thick, wheat colored hair right next to her head, and snipped randomly up and down the rest.  Shrieking, Zara whirled to face a smug Gwendyl.

          Zara tore the pretty little kerchief off her head and ran her hands through her once beautiful hair, loose hanks falling on her feet.  Zara burst into tears as Gwendyl put the scissors back and prepared to leave. 

          All of the sudden, an old lady quietly picked up the scissors, and with a few quick snips, cut off the ragged remnants of Zara’s hair, delivering a smart pageboy cut and then handed the sobbing girl a hankie and motioned for her to fell her hair now. 

          Gwendyl stopped dead in her tracks when a voice drifted over to her ears.

          “Z, your hair is gorgeous!!! I want to have my hair that way!”

          “Me too!!”

          “Ahh!!!! I LOVE it!!!!!!!”

          Gwendyl rotated slowly to see the little troupe of girls surrounding Zara, their long curls floating to the ground.  Her shoulders slumped in defeat and she trudged off down the road, in search of a new town.  One who needed a heroine, or at least a trophy wife.

The moral of Gwendyl’s story is incredibly simple: Never mess with the author.

THE END