Dud Sea Scrawls The Writing, clearly, is not on the wall!

Once upon a time, when there were just tales and no fairy tales and none of them ended with “they lived happily forever”, there was a kingdom so poor and wasted that no one wanted it. As a model of early communism, the lord and the peasant looked and lived identically. With the passage of time, we would come to learn of the same kingdom as very powerful with a just and wise king.

The prince of this kingdom was going through a bout of depression. Seeking a solution to his ailment, he managed to get up from the bed before 2 PM and made his way towards the witch who lived just inside the forest that lay at the boundaries of the kingdom. This witch, for reasons beyond the scope of this tale, was temperamental and eccentric. With the passage of time, we would come to know of her as an evil witch whose heart was filled with malice.

The prince poured his heart out to the witch while she sat there daydreaming about flying off to better lands in her battered old broom. The prince got upset as the witch was not giving her undivided attention to the royal prince – he was a prince after all albeit clothed in tatters.

“I shall have you banished from the kingdom” said the prince.

“Calm down man, will you? A few centuries from now I would get paid to have you on the couch rambling on. Thank me that I am doing it for free. Anyway, when did you last get laid?”

“What? How dare you speak to me like that you pagan witch”, the prince screamed.

“Whoa….easy on the pagan stuff dude. That condescending piece of crap is not supposed to happen for another ten centuries. Anyway, listen to me and get laid. That is the root cause of all your anxiety”.

This made the prince think. The witch’s idea did not seem too bad. But, there was a problem. Had he been a normal prince, he could have had any hot chick in the kingdom summoned to his palace. But, his dad was the king and he was the prince only because no one actually cared. Plus, their palace was a rundown cottage. And he knew he sucked with girls anyway.

“Oh witch, as the prince of this land I order you to brew me some love potion immediately”.

“What? You must be freaking out of your mind. The love potion is not something easy to make and plus whatever I have is reserved for this totally cute wizard. So be gone and do not trouble me any more with your adolescent silly troubles”.

This did not please the prince. He first threatened, then pleaded, then begged and then cried declaring he would not leave until and unless he got hold of the love potion. The witch got angry, and taking her wand, cursed the prince into a frog and kicked him away from her house. The Frog Prince croaked in indignation as he stumbled into the nearby pond.

The princess of the nearby kingdom, a fair maiden, decided to grace the pond with her beautiful presence. It was a splendid sight to behold; the princess with her long golden hair sparkling against the sunlight, her fair skin like emanating a soft glow akin to a moon in the middle of the day, and her blue languid eyes serene like the deep ocean. That, anyway, is the version we will come to know with the passage of time. Actually, the princess had an acne problem, bad breath, was deathly pale, suffered from dandruff, had bunny teeth and was prone to flatulence. Since, she was the princess and her dad’s kingdom, which though poor, was not as poor as the Frog Prince’s (i.e. she and her family lived in a two bedroom apartment as opposed to a cottage), she could afford to have a couple of aides.

The aides hated their jobs because the princess was a brat, but they put up with it for the money. The princess loved to play with the royal golden ball – the golden ball was actually made of copper heavily polished. She would throw the ball far and away from her aides – being the bitch she is, and giggle as the aides scampered to retrieve the ball; something not different from playing fetch ball with a dog. As fate would have it, the royal golden ball fell into the pond during the course of this game. The princess threw a fit and her aides were, of course, not going to get into the ankle deep muddy slimy pond for the brat.

It was at this very moment, that the Frog Prince heard the princess crying. Having never seen a maiden so fair (did I mention that the prince sucked big time with girls?), her tears tugged at his heart. Diving at once to the depths of the pond (which was not all that deep), the frog prince retrieved the golden ball and threw it back to the princess. The princess, overwhelmed with happiness that her ball had been returned to her, lost her bitchiness for the moment, thanked the frog prince and kissed him on the cheeks. And lo and behold, the curse that the evil witch had cast upon the prince lifted and he returned to his scrawny self back again. Biology played its course (the same stuff that takes place in pubs and clubs all over amongst drunk people), the prince kissed the princess hands and asked her to marry him, to which she promptly agreed (did I mention that she suffered from flatulence?).

And so, the prince and the princess were united in holy matrimony – a feast was arranged the likes of which had not been seen in both the kingdoms; people’s stomachs were half full for a change. The prince rode on top of a stallion whose likes would not be seen ever after again (it was a pony) and the princess was resplendent in a dress woven by thirty virgins (they were 80 years old) and was the only dress in both the kingdoms that did not have a tear in it. The prince and the princess looked lovingly into each other’s eyes as they took their vows and as they danced their first dance together, even the wind between them seemed to be embarrassed to be between the loving couple (that was until the princess had to break wind and the prince maintained a safe distance from then on). Thus, the prince and the princess lived happily ever after.

If ever after was a month, that is. They grew a little tired of each other after a month. They grew tired of sex and the princess grew tired of the wimp that the prince was and the prince grew tired of the bitch that the princess was. The fighting became frequent. The prince was tired of his wife’s unladylike flatulence and the princess was tired of her whiny husband. The princess returned to her father’s kingdom in a fit of anger (her aides chose to stay back though).

A couple of months passed by and the prince started feeling a little lonely. And horny. He decided to take things in his hand and mend his sorry life, if he could. Thus, one fine day, the prince once again suffering from a serious bout of depression, managed to get up from bed before 2 PM one day and set out to meet his wife in the neighboring kingdom. He managed to convince his wife to go for counseling. The princess, being the attention seeking bitch that she was, was over the moon that her husband had given in first and this made her sinfully happy. She agreed.

Thus the newly wed couple found themselves on the doors of the witch again (she was the only person who passed for a distant cousin of a doctor – pagan or no pagan). The prince knocked hesitantly, this time reminding himself to be respectful to pagan evil witches who wielded power enough to turn fine young men like him into slimy frogs. Taking a deep breath and taking his wife’s hands in his hands, the prince knocked on the witch’s door.

The witch was taking her afternoon nap - partly induced by the pot she had smoked to get over her heartbreak (The cute wizard had dumped her). She was not pleased at the interruption. This was how the prince found himself at the wrong side of the witch yet again.

“What do you want now?” said the witch.

“Good afternoon madam. I would like you to meet my wife, the princess of the neighboring kingdom”, said the princess.

Despite herself, the witch smiled. She loved to see or hear about a love story and live vicariously through the couple involved like anyone of us. “So, you took my advice and got laid huh?”

The witch left the door ajar and went inside and sat on her chair. Recognizing this to be as much as an invitation that he is ever going to get, the prince hastily got inside, along with his wife.

“So, how is married life treating you both” the witch asked.

“Actually, we are separated now” said the prince.

Apart from his wife, there was another lady on the prince’s side – lady luck. Her idea vicariously living through the couple for a few minutes cruelly shattered, the shattering more pronounced because of the pot and her heartbreak, the witch was in a more receptive mood.

And so, the prince and the princess poured their hearts out. They told the witch how they conjugated non stop for a month before they were tired of each other. How after a month, they seemed different from the people they had married at first - How the other person had changed. How things had changed between them. How a gulf had opened between them and neither knew how to bridge the divide. The witch listened patiently. The room was filled with smoke from the pot she was smoking. She almost seemed asleep as the prince and the princess talked (she was).

“What made you marry the princess in the first place” asked the witch.

“Well, she kissed me and I returned to a prince from a frog”, the prince said.

“Dude, do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? I have no power to turn you into a frog. It was your perceived inferiority complex that made you hallucinate that you were a frog. Do you really think this bitch here can turn a frog to a prince just by her kissing? Stop being a wimp”.

“Huh?” the prince said.

“And you? Why did you accept his proposal”, the witch asked the princess.

“Well, he was understanding and considerate of my feelings – he wooed me by getting the ball from the muddy pond when no one else would. He understood me like no one else. More importantly, I could change him” the princess said.

The witch laughed so hard that tears flowed from her eyes. “Both of you are hopeless. You are a wimp and she is a self centered bitch who feels she is of any worth only if she can change the man in her life according to what she wants”.

“So, are you saying that we cannot be back together”, asked the prince.

The witch was silent for a minute, deep in thought. She signaled to the prince to shut up by signaling with her hands and smoked some more pot. After a few seconds, she steadied herself and spoke.

“I will prescribe you a course of treatment, which, if you follow, will make you happy. Ready?

The prince and the princess nodded.

“It will cost you a sack of rice a month” the witch said.

They were both ready for the sacrifice.

“Not that you care, but ten centuries from now, marriages will be saved because man and woman will live in such a screwed up world that surviving will take all their energy away, thus not letting them think about their marriage”.

The prince nodded, acting as if he understood, careful not to anger the witch.

“But, unfortunately, you are a bum and your wife is a spoilt brat and you have too much time on your hands”.

The prince swallowed his pride and squeezed his wife’s hands imploring her to keep her mouth shut.

“Have sex, each day the first four days of the week and do not see each other for the rest of the week. Make sure you do not even see each other’s shadow for the rest of the week. That is my prescription. Now be gone and let me smoke my pot in peace.”

Having learnt not to overstay his welcome, the prince retreated with his wife in tow. They followed the witch’s prescription and found that it actually worked. They had lots of cute, bright little children (they were neither cute, nor bright actually, saddled as they were with the prince and princess’ genes) and lived happily ever after – kind of, sort of, you know, just like you and me. They had another midlife crisis a few years after that and went back to the witch and they had to involve the princess’ ex aides in a threesome to save their marriage. But, for now, let us say they lived happily ever after - kind of, sort of, you know.