Sunday, June 24, 2007

THE NAKED LADY, A CHILD’S FAIRY TALE

Baby was transfixed by the vision of Naked Lady standing there, hypnotically swaying, slightly, gently, from side to side.

Naked Lady grew and her detail was beauty, her being, ugliness. Fast came decay and then death to Naked Lady and she was gone, but Baby wasn’t.


For the rest of his life Baby intended to live in his voyage into the depths of her colour, the red carpet rolled out, his feet sinking into the luxuriant, warm pile, leading him on to a lush velvet upholstered throne where pure beauty reigned, beauty itself, and that was all he needed and all he needed to know and experience.

Once upon a time, one late, sunny spring afternoon, just as the last diamond drops of a shower were falling, Baby had padded unsteadily off down a damp garden path and, for the most part of those other mortals, the most part of him had never come back.

“Baby Belladonna”, his mother, Lily, lovingly called him thereafter, remembering, each time she uttered the words, the smell of warm, sweet, spring rain bringing a garden to life.


“Vegetable life”, said the most part of those other mortals, even though they knew Lily was within easy earshot and Lily would blush such a deep, pure, rich red at every barb.

Baby Belladonna saw and felt that stab in Lily’s back each and every time and knew just why he should never return, for, each and every time, Baby Belladonna felt hate burn more fiercely in his heart.

Hate instead of beauty, and guilt instead of peace sat on a lush velvet upholstered throne where pure beauty had once reigned.