King Thrushbeard Revisited

1

Once there was a girl who lived in the penthouse of the Ritz hotel. She never loved, and didn’t know what love felt like. She had no name. Her parents died right after she was born. So she lived in her penthouse for many years, until one beautiful autumn day somebody knocked on her door. It was a boy from the penthouse on the other side of the City. He introduced himself and said that he loved her and wanted to marry her. Our girl didn’t know what love was, so she told him to get lost and closed the door in front of his face. She cried for a while, and then went to bed. She had a dream that night. She saw a thrush bird sitting on the branch of a tree, singing a song. The song opened her veins and entered her heart. It started beating in her sleep, which eventually woke her up.
“What was that?” she thought, listening to her heart.
The heart was calm and didn’t answer. She went back to sleep and saw the thrush bird in her dream again. This time the bird was silent. It was just looking at her with its big sad eyes, then flew up into the sky and disappeared. She woke up again and decided to do some research on the internet. The first thing she found on google.com was a picture of the boy that knocked on her door the other day. His name was Thrush. Was, because he died the day she turned him down. That’s what a newspaper article said. That’s when she fell in love. For the first time and for the last time. Nobody came to the funeral, when she died of a rapture of a heart. Only a thrush bird was sitting on a branch of a tree behind her grave, singing its song.

2

Friendly Conscience – Part I

Once upon a time there lived two parents who dreamt of having a child. They tried every possible clinic in the world to conceive, but nothing worked. The woman thought she was cursed. The man thought nothing; he was just doing his man’s job.
The woman got pregnant when her husband was on vacation. To keep the baby and lie to her husband or to tell him the truth and divorce him? After having thousands of internal dialogues, the woman decided to keep the baby.
The husband was very happy to hear the news, and bought for his wife a penthouse in the Ritz hotel. You see, he was the president of the Country That Didn’t Exist On The Map, and could afford pretty much everything.
Meanwhile, the woman’s conscience was becoming louder and louder, until one day it spoke out to her husband. The man was furious. He said he would kill her. She believed him. But it was too early for the baby to be born, so they both waited. He told her that she would not name the baby. Never. She told him something too, but it wasn’t that important, because she went into labor. That day the baby was born.
When the baby was born, the man killed his wife. The same day he jumped out of the penthouse window. The baby lived. The little girl never had name, and never knew love. If her parents would stay alive, maybe the thrush bird’s songs would be less sad and lead to happiness.
Friendly conscience – Part II
She was sitting on the windowsill of a penthouse in the Ritz hotel with her legs hanging down, whistling a song. Suddenly a little mosquito landed on her palm.
“Do I know you?” she asked without expecting an answer.
“You knew my grandmother,” said the mosquito. “But the bug repellent killed it many days ago.”
“I’m sorry,” said the girl, not really feeling sorry. “Can you take a message for my friend, a thrush bird?”
“Piiiiiii,” said the mosquito.
“Meaning…?”
“Some things don’t mean anything,” he said (it was a male mosquito, that’s why he couldn’t bite) and he flew away.

3

Fairy-Tale Case No. 999: The Day When Everything Changed

Something happened that day.
“What can be worse than Friday the 13th?” she asked him once. He said: “Monday the 13th.”
So it was Monday the 13th. The room was full of smoke. Shattered glass was lying all over the floor. The broken window was lifeless in the dark silhouette of the night. The water was dripping from the ceiling, breaking into the silence with echoing music.
There was a baby crying in the room. The cry wasn’t loud; it was rather timid and cautious, as if it knew that nobody would listen anyway. She was crying herself to sleep. Several minutes passed when it finally worked.
The sirens became part of the scene. They were getting louder and louder, until they woke up the little girl in the crib. This time she didn’t cry. She listened. The night suddenly became full of sounds, smells, visions. She licked her lower lip, tasting blood in her mouth. The glass had cut it, making her experience pain in her first day of life. Life that wasn’t meant to be.   
It was Monday the 13th, the Day When Everything Changed in the penthouse of the Ritz hotel.

4

Waterfall and Times Square

She was 16 when she got the telegram that meant to change her life forever. And it did.
She was wearing a green pullover on April the 15th, 1998. She was about to go to school when they knocked on her door and handed her the telegram. She had to call somebody in Moscow. She remembers being in a fog, going to school with her friends, the usual routine that somehow changed in an instant. The long wait had come to an end. A new life was ahead of her. Going to America. Finally her dream was coming true.
By the way, her name was Waterfall. Her parents named her after the place where she was conceived. This information is important because that little detail made her a pathological male kisser. When she saw a man, she couldn’t keep her lips away from him. That’s why her parents were worried what would happen if she went to New York City where there were so many males around.
“She’s just kissing, nothing else,” said the father as-a-matter-of-factly.
“Remember, what happened, when we were ‘just kissing’?” said the mother, implying that sultry night at the waterfall 17 years ago.
But there was nothing to be done. The visa was obtained. The bags were packed. The last instructions were given. Waterfall was thrilled!
One night before Waterfall’s flight to JFK, she had a dream. Her fairy godmother (of course she had a godmother) gave her a gift – a bolt of green silk.
“It will always be with you throughout your journey, my child,” said the godmother in a raspy voice. She was getting old, and breaking into children’s dreams was never an easy task for a godmother. Frankly, it was quite tiring. “Whenever you approach a male, the silk will unfold and wrap your face up in a cocoon, so you won’t be able to kiss.”
Waterfall fought an urge to tell her godmother that she actually enjoyed kissing, and didn’t need such a gift. But instead she said:
“I don’t mind being a pathological kisser, but with one little correction. I want to kiss only one special male, forever.”
She said it without really thinking. But it was a fairy godmother she was talking to. So it happened. Waterfall met him in the Times of the Square while feeding the thrush birds. They kissed the first second they laid eyes on each other, and since then never parted their lips. And yes, they lived happily ever after; that’s how people who are in love live.

P.S. They called their son Times Square.

P.P.S. He was a brother of Thrush.