The Works of Mark EdgemonBETTER DAZE IN LA LA LAND
The Works of Mark Edgemon from All-Creatures.org

Mark Edgemon has been writing for 30 years. He writes and publishes short stories, articles, poetry and scripts, as well as, produces audio comedy productions for over 700 radio stations nationwide.

Contact Mark through his website, Creator and the Catalyst.

BETTER DAZE IN LA LA LAND

There was once a young princess, who was not as young as she used to be…but then again…who is? She was born an orphan, due to the fact her mother and father, the king and queen, were busy with their own lives, pursuing their own ambitions, in their own world.

The king would sit on his throne, which doubled as a commode and toiled day and night, in whatever work he thought would elevate him to a place of respect within his kingdom. It was one of his many blind spots. You see, he was the king. He already had respect. It came with the job.

He drank one flask of ale after another and worked hard to suppress the raging spirit, which darkened his thoughts and pressed against his mind. The torment he suffered was due to the spells cast upon him by the kingdom’s wicked witch, who also doubled as the queen.

It was her spells and his multitude of wrong choices, which found the king in the never ending, vicious cycle of work, only realizing through a fog, that his princess needed him to care. He did care some, but was unable to break the chains that bound him, with links forged in pride, one self-centered decision at a time.

The young princess grew up in The Land Of Spite, with plenty of shopping to occupy her daze. The royal mall had plenty of things to tempt the royal family, including new electronic wizardries, which could take the royal family to sites all over the world, without leaving the confines of their castle.

In order to find themselves uninterrupted from the cries and needs of their princess, the wicked queen packed the princess off to boarding school, to learn…well…whatever, in order to become more useful to the wicked queen.

Her chief instructor was a disturbing soul, who was called will, or more accurately, self will, as he was often referred to by her peers. He was her constant advisor throughout her life, so much so, that she could not make a single decision without first consulting her mentor, the always ever-present, misguided, self will.

The princess needed a shoulder to cry on, so when she would lean side ways to cry on one, she would fall on her face, seeing that no one wanted to hear her problems.

“Won’t someone listen to me”, she screamed. The screaming was inside her mind, so no one paid any attention. Sometimes, she would scream so loud, that someone inside her mind would call the mental police, who told her she would have to scream more softly. But she would just pretend that they weren’t there and of course they weren’t, which made it easy to do.

After awhile, she began talking to herself. She could make herself listen whether she wanted to or not. She knew all her weaknesses and could use them to manipulate herself by holding them over her head. She hated herself for doing it, but she wasn’t strong enough to control anyone else.

The princess secretly blamed her mother for all her emotional distresses. One day, when she was home from school, the princess threw a knife at her mother, the wicked queen. Her secret animosity was now revealed. The cat was out of the bag. That was because, the knife missed the queen, grazed the top of the bag, tearing it open, so the cat escaped. It was also not surprising the wicked queen did not know how to take care of her pets.

The queen had two black cats who were her familiars. They were familiar, because she had them so long. She used them to cast spells with her old age spiritualism.

When the queen realized the deep-seated resentment the princess had for her, she hired a wicked sorcerer called a mind prober, to use psychological trickeries and drugs, lots and lots of drugs to control her.

The princess never really had a mind of her own, but now she had ten of them.

The wicked queen was winning the day, if you call steeped in evil winning. She expanded her control over the kingdom, eventually attempting to control the king's brother, the righteous knight.

During the years of his preparation, he was vulnerable to the queen’s evil intentions, but he was protected by the God he served, so the wicked queen could only wound him occasionally, but he would heal.

The princess grew up and married a frog, bought a castle on credit and then toiled away to pay for it. She would collect money, owed on accounts by no accounts, which put a strain on her hopefulness for a better tomorrow. She learned that tomorrows are made up of lots of todays, which were turning out miserable.

The drugs administered by the mind probers caused her to gain weight, until she became two of herself. This did not help her self-esteem and she was quickly running out of steam the older she became.

The princess tried to get to know her uncle, the righteous knight, but her mother, the wicked queen forbade her to see him. The queen was afraid the righteous knight, would show her the way of truth and the princess would break free of the bonds that held her, namely guilt.

So eventually her life was ruined.

But the righteous knight had victories to win and could not spare much time to help her turn around in circles, which she could do just fine by herself.

The king was hollowed out by the choices he made and the multitude of wicked spells cast upon him by the wicked queen, and so he died from within, many years before his death.

The wicked queen ran out of people to control and accidentally blew herself up, when a spell she was casting backfired.

But the righteous knight came into his own, rescued the virtuous from the queen’s evil clutches and went on to win countless battles for good, when time needed him most.

And for the rest of the characters in the story, like all others before them, who were fictional characters in a factual world, whose contributions to life were fractional at best…they rotted.

Copyright © 2007 Mark Edgemon

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