Once upon a time there was a girl who was in a deep sleep. It was a sleep akin to death, though she could still dream. And in these dreams she would soar and revel and move mountains. The body, however, was lost to her. Her limbs lay unmoving under invisible chains that kept her captive.
Until one day a man of great renown came across the sleeping girl. He liked the look of her rosebud lips and wanted to feel them against his own. So, he kissed her, not knowing that this simple act would awaken her from the sleep that had kept her prisoner for so long. The girl’s eyes fluttered open and fell upon the face of this man. Revived by his touch, she was instantly enchanted. He had brought her back from a dreaming death. He was her Great Liberator.
As she gazed into the man’s eyes, an uncontrollable fire began to lick at her soul and she felt, for the first time, a stirring in her body she had only ever dreamt of. She felt her body sigh open. She was awake and she wanted to feast on all of him now, not just the lips—but the brain, the penis, the fingers, the eyes! She could not survive on a kiss alone! She rose from her bed and made a silent vow that she would use this unchained body of hers to follow her Great Liberator to the ends of the earth.
When he turned his back and walked his way, the girl followed. She followed him through backstreets and alleyways, down dirt paths, across mountain bridges, through strange forests and dark caves, often losing him completely. She would panic and claw at strangers, asking if anyone had seen her man, her Great Liberator. And though many people knew of his greatness, they could never tell her where he was, or where to find him. After many months of dragging her feet with no sleep and nothing to eat, she came upon a pier where the ocean flung out in every direction in a great expanse. There on the sea in a beautiful boat was her Great Liberator. Through a small round window in the belly of the ship she could just make out his face. But soon his figure grew smaller and smaller and after a while he was completely lost to her, lost to the far-flung seas.
So, the girl waited and wasted, growing spectre-thin and sickly. She waited through nightfall and moon cycles, through seasons and years, for him to return to her.
Once in a dark moon, the man would sail by, back from a grand adventure. In those moments the girl would dance and sing and jiggle her hips, she would spread her legs and arch her back, she would recite poetry and paint her body, she would do back flips and turn water into liquid gold, she would pile up her hair as high as the heavens and adorn herself in all manner of seashells in order to win his attention. In order to be his lighthouse. But only the hungry beasts of the air would come and peck at her solitary figure upon the pier. Never her love.
Occasionally, her Great Liberator would come onto the shore, where he would go to his grand house upon a hill. The girl would scurry behind him and wait in the front garden, watching his shadow make shapes through the paper walls. Here, in the garden, she competed with the magnolias and the camellias. And though these flowers were fleeting beauties, they were easy to pick, enjoy and throw away. He never turned to the girl. Soon thereafter, the man was back at sea and once again the girl mourned the sight of his receding figure. She would long for him with every flame in her body until the flames incinerated her to a tiny ember. The girl was blinded by a need so furious she could not see beyond this man.
She could not see beyond to the ever-changing horizon, where light and colours promised new chapters of life-giving love. Nor could she see her own little boat, now decades old and rotting, knocking at her feet at the bay side, waiting for her to steer it towards an adventure she could call her own. Nor could she see the beach beneath her that breathed life for her, wave after wave, nor it’s sandy warmth that led to many deep rock pools and captivating, wise companions. No. Her eyes were trained on a beautiful man, who once upon a time had rescued her from a deep sleep. She could not see that her Great Liberator was in fact her True Prison.
And so, she stood on the pier, through nightfall and moon cycles, through seasons and years, waiting and wasting for a man and his boat to open its doors so her life could begin.