A Meretriciously Deceptive Box of Voices

von Marcus Krug

 

Once upon a time there was a queen. That queen had a daughter. And that daughter was a princess. Of course, she was. And yet, the princess was forced out of the castle, by the queen herself, and hence decided to share a cabin in the woods with seven hardworking men.

Technically speaking, the queen wasn’t the princess’ real mother, but her stepmother. After the princess’ real mother had died, her father, the king, didn’t grief for too long. He took a new wife shortly thereafter. Word had it that he wasn’t quite fond of the term widower; even though another rumour claimed to have heard that the king himself gave the orders to turn him into one, in the first place.

Anyway, the new queen was a real badass type of a stepmother, one would only encounter in fairy tales of old. The fact that the princess was removed from the castle and lived alone with seven men, shows that there had been some serious animosities going on between the two of them.

The queen herself was a very competitive person. Nobody really understood why someone in their right mind would want to compete with the princess’ beauty, but the queen did. Not understand, but compete. And since the queen couldn’t bear the princess’ presence in the castle any longer, she – one fateful day – ordered one of her most loyal guards to bring her stepdaughter out into the woods and take care of the increasingly nasty nuisance the princess had become to her.

 

The sun had almost set when the guard brought the princess out into the clearing in the deep and dark forest. In the treacherous twilight, shadows were moving around behind the trees and bushes. But she couldn’t tell whether they were from beastly or manly origin. The wind was pushing a chilly breeze through the leafy twigs and branches. The princess slid off her high horse and stepped onto the mossy ground; her feet sank in, almost an inch deep.

As to be expected, the guard shouted “Run!” And run, she did; over hedges and through ditches. Will I get out of this alive? or Will he fulfil his task? were the princess’ predominant thoughts, when suddenly a bolt from the guard’s crossbow struck one of the old oak tree’s lower branches, right above her head. This partially answered the princess’ pressing questions.

Then the princess heard a second arrow being released from the guard’s crossbow. A split second before the bolt’s tip would have split her pretty skull in half, something swept the princess off her feet.

To the guard this looked close enough to what he considered a successfully accomplished mission. So, he turned the two horses around, left the clearing and returned to the castle.

 

“What the …”

“Shhhh!” An old and wrinkly face, close to the princess’, with an old and wrinkly finger in front of its lips, hushed. The little man pointed silently to a rope tied to a sycamore tree close to her feet and to another equally old and wrinkly man over by a big beech tree, who was holding the other end of the rope. When she looked over, the other little man smiled and waved at her.

“… fuck! You are all midgets!” the princess burst out after all seven of the hardworking little men had gathered around her.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no, she has used the M-word!” the little men were whinging in a chorus of deeply resonating sad voices while stroking their long beards. “You see, around here it is rather uncommon to make use of the unpleasant M-word!”

“How else am I supposed to refer to you guys, then?”

“What about our names?”

“For that I would need to know them!”

And this was how the princess was introduced to her new companions.

 

Upon return to the castle, the guard reported back to the queen, omitting crucial details he, however, deemed unnecessary mentioning. The queen, sceptical by nature, went to her chambers and consulted her old friend, the magic mirror.

“Mirror mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all?”

The mirror, warping itself inside out, forming a face that was trying to resemble the queen’s, but hardly succeeded, said “My queen, you are the fairest here, so true. But the young queen beyond the mountains at the seven dwarfs is a thousand times more beautiful than you.”

It goes without saying that the queen was glowing white with rage. What followed were numerous attempts to assassinate the princess, including one to do away with her with the help of the famous poisoned apple, executed by the queen in disguise herself.

 

The king wasn’t very pleased with the decline of reputation this discord had brought upon his once so honourable and reputable family. When after yet another consultation with the talking mirror, the queen had – in a fit of anger – torn it off the wall and smashed it into pieces, the king decided to let one of his most progressive craftsmen take care of the issue. While the queen took her daily bath in a tub full of ass’s milk, the craftsman went into the queen’s chambers and fixed the mirror as best as he could.

“My queen,” the king intercepted his current wife on the way back to her quarters, “we must try and find a way to put an end to this most unpleasant of all quarrels.”

“You are a fool to believe that my enjoyment of life can exist side by side with your daughter being present in this world!”

The wise king made a sufficiently sad face. “My queen,” he sighed, “I have already taken measures to bring joy back into your life.” The king looked down on the floor mimicking an even sadder self than his voice could even convey, and ended with, “My daughter won’t be a source of bother to you any longer, my beautiful wife.”

Like all people with a disposition towards vanity, the queen found her husband’s recent words exceedingly flattering. And as soon as she returned to her quarters, she found her talking mirror back in one piece hanging on the wall where it always used to be. She was so excited that she shut the door quickly and went straight up to the mirror – her thoughts revolving only around one single question.

“Mirror mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all?” she asked. The mirror again, warped itself inside out and answered the question as truthfully as always. The queen, an unversed laywoman when it comes to lip reading, just listened to the voice.

“My queen, you are the fairest here, so true. Because everywhere in your kingdom, and even beyond the seven mountains, there is nobody left that is more beautiful than you.” This was exactly what the queen had been dying to hear all this time, and thus suspended all her disbelief voluntarily.

 

The voice, however, didn’t come from the mirror itself. The king’s skilled craftsman had found a way to rid the talking mirror of its overly honest vocal cords and voice box and replaced them with his own invention, a small and round and black box that glows blue at the edges when it’s turned on. The craftsman named it Alexa. And since Alexa didn’t only answer question, but was also quite keen on listening, the king was always one step ahead of his scheming and plotting queen.

And thus, the skilled craftsman became the kingdom’s first minister for security and intelligence. The king could ensure the safety of his realm and reign. The princess took care of the dwarves’ house, while they were working hard. For Alexa’s voice was unerringly mirroring the queen’s deepest wishes, hopes and desires, the queen grew quite fond of Alexa’s mendacities. And everybody lived happily ever after.