Lucid Waking

The Ugly Princess

    Once upon a time there was a little princess who lived alone. None of the other princesses would look at her. She was not a pretty princess. She ruled over a bouquet of flowers. Her flowers thought she was pretty, but she didn’t.
    One day, when the princess was feeling particularly ugly and the other princesses were out and about, the princess went to a pond to be alone. She pulled out a piece of paper and a pen and started to write. She knew she was special (as all princesses were) but it was hard for her to look at her reflection in the water. As she wrote, a water lily opened up on her pad. Noticing the princess, the lily sighed daintily.
    The princess turned around. "Sorry, I didn’t notice you."
    "Well, why not? Everyone notices me."
    The princess was taken aback. "I’m sorry."
    The lily sighed again. "What’s wrong?"
    "Well, I’m not very pretty."
    "Don’t be stupid," the lily said, "you’re beautiful."
    "All the flowers think so. But the princesses don’t."
    "How do you know? Has anyone ever told you you weren’t pretty?"
    The little princess blushed. "Well, no."
    "And who cares about what the other princesses think anyway?"
    "The princes and kings and queens and all their subjects."
    "Who cares?" the lily said, irritated. "They’re all nobodies. Your subjects love you and that’s all that matters."
    "But what are flowers," the princess asked trying to save face," they can’t think, they’re small, and no one cares about them."
    The lily laughed. "Humans are too superficial and they change too much. Flowers know who they are and what they want to be. They will always be there for you as long as they live."
    "They don’t live very long."
    "No one does. Especially not humans; they’re very careless."
    The princess turned away from the lily and stood up. She looked at her reflection in the lake and saw that she was pretty. Not as beautiful as some other princesses but she didn’t care. She smiled and went back to her flowers, a little bit happier.

“Not much between despair and ecstasy”

The Ugly Princess