I long ago chose to live in my corner of the world, the part of New York State in which a three-story building is a behemoth. I type this…essay? missive? journal entry?—as I wear a brown sweater in my high school classroom, a few hours before a handful of part-time thespians come to perform the comic one-act we’ve been rehearsing. Two different colleagues have stopped by to apologize for their non-attendance, but have thanked me for what I do for the kids.

I like my job, and I like doing what I do for the kids. I like that this odd little group that might never set foot on a stage otherwise is going to take on roles like Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty and delight in making fools of themselves. There is value in the life of a teacher.

But I also know what I gave up to be a teacher. I began college as a business major and an officer in the student-managed investment fund, pursuing a lucrative career in finance. I later declared my English major and received plaudits within that department, too. My decision to become a secondary educator split the faculty who knew me. Half praised me for my idealism. My supervisor at the university writing center, for one, told me she liked to “think of me out there in a school somewhere,” fighting the good fight. The other half told me to aim higher and urged me to pursue my doctorate and rise to the top of my field. I thanked them and ignored their urgings toward ambition. It was the simple life for me. Married with children in a country town, teaching high school English. That life was my greatest desire. I’ve lived that life for several years now, which means I am very fortunate. I still desire that life as much as I did at 22, which means I am very blessed.

A few minutes ago when that colleague thanked me for working with the kids, and I had wished him a happy birthday, I turned back to the football field and autumn leaves outside my window, snug in that sweater I received last Christmas. It’s one more warm little moment in a career that has stretched 15 years and will stretch 25 more. Sometimes, at these moments of satisfaction, I also feel a pang.

My smaller desire, the one I would confess to few outside of Prose, is for something I wrote to be selected for publication. That would take me beyond this little world. It would mean that I could have my provincial cake and eat it too. I could live a small life but know that my thoughts and passions had been shared, been communicated to people beyond the boundaries of my county. There is a sense in which I am a writer. I would like to feel like a real writer. I would like something I have written to be chosen.

And then, after some hugs from close friends and a celebratory bottle of local wine with my wife, I’d be back to my classroom again, a man wearing a sweater and doing what he can for the kids.

I spent my life carrying the burden of my words, thinking I had to shoulder them alone. And then I found this magic place, a place where my thoughts could rest. I thought of it as a journal of sorts, and who cares if the world could read it. But it is so much more. I thought I was screaming into an internet void, but then the void called back. A voice reached out and I thought then, perhaps I’m not alone. So thank you for your kind words, your encouragment. For taking the time to read my thoughts, to send a like my way. It’s such a small task, but you’ve no idea what it means to me. I’m not a person who does sentiment well, so forgive me for the lack of flowery prose. But you deserve to know that you’ve become a second home, this place a sanctuary from my ordinary world. For once in twenty-seven years of life, I believe that this is something I could be--not just something I could do. And that’s because of all of you.

Sincerly,

Nicole C. Westerhouse

This message is for you, and I mean every word:

@sandflea68 @Abcde @ALifeWitArt @JamesMByers @17 @Mnezz @CreativeChaos @EstherFlowers1 @MsH @Jumotki @HawkishUnderdog @AndiLutz @JimLamb @Acadec56 @AndyBetz @Tee_Hi @Noveltunity @stu_andrews @JRose @wetpetals

@IvyBee @lostAlice @isha07 @JSuggs @Brandi333 @Fortbruce @Eril_Alvaro @Bntf10 @demcmurphy @SCOTtFREE @MillieWartinez @Keggruel @WhiteWolfe32 @Whatif86 @Lepakko @AWalk @BrettHemmings1 @sherifmekdam @Amu @nk_prince @thechristo4d @Abramburica @kelsihammons @Fur_Trash

To all my followers, I truly appreciate the support and confidence you provide me with. When I first started writing on Prose, I honestly was scared of how my writing would be received; I almost didn't want to post anything. But I'm happy to say that the amount of support and kindness I've received here has been overwhelming. The majority of it has been from my followers. It means so much to me that you take time out of your own day to like, comment on, and read my writing. That is so valuable to me, and I cherish it more than words can ever say. So I'll just say this again: thank you.

How strange it seems to me

To fear such a sweet natured creature

Just by the midnight hue of its fur

To think a cuddly, fluffy kitty,

Who wishes nothing more than to be loved,

Could bring misfortune upon anyone

If anything, cats have brightened my days

Filling them with joy and laughter,

Making them not so gray

All of it would be the same,

Even with a black cat

The supposed bringer of bad luck

Well, if that's the case, feel free

To invite misfortune upon me

“Sometimes, you have to be kind to be cruel.”—Anonymous

The palace is falling to pieces. The gardens are overgrown and wild. The servants are long gone. No one goes near the palace and no one knows why. No one alive today remembers a time before the palace walls began to crumble. Before the vines began to creep. Before the palace was abandoned by everyone who lived there. Everyone, that is, except the King himself. The King has always been there and will always be there. That was the Gift Of The Sorceress. The Gift that imprisoned the King and set his people free.

♦♦♦

Once upon a different time, the palace was resplendent. It was a thing of beauty, the pride of the kingdom. The King was a great ruler then. His is gardens were another Eden and was maintained day and night by the finest gardeners in the world. The King never had to lift a finger for himself, for his servants were loyal, obedient, even proud to serve so fine a King. Back then, people came to the King’s palace every day, seeking his counsel, which was given freely and gladly. The King loved his people and they loved him.

It was the visit from the Countess that set things in motion. Gorgeous beyond words and ardently admired by every young man in the kingdom. She spent a week in the King’s home and he was never the same again. At the time, many blamed the Countess for the change in the King, but that’s unjust. We all make our own decisions, and we are accountable for the consequences to which they lead us.

The King desired her, of course. All men desired her—as did many women—for her beauty was unmatched in all the world. But there is more to true beauty than just looking a certain way. And the Countess’ beauty was truly only skin deep if anyone’s was. She treated others as the dirt beneath her feet. Her own servants, the King’s servants, the peasantry who visited the King’s gardens and came to ask advice of the King, even the King himself was beneath the Countess.

“Why do you let these common people walk all over you?” she demanded of her host. “Look at them. Those filthy common people defiling your gardens, muddying up your home and addressing you as if you were their equal.”

“Well,” said the King, “it’s true I have wealth and power, but we’re all human, aren’t we? We are all God’s children.”

The Countess laughed. “You memorized that pathetic platitude at your mother’s knee and you recite it like a parrot to justify your own cowardice.”

“Cowardice?”

“If you were any kind of a man--any kind of a monarch--you would show these people who you are. You are a King! With a wave of your hand, you can send an army to destroy their village and take every scrap they own. It is high time your people remembered that.”

“But why would I want to send an army to destroy their village? Why would I want to take every scrap they own? They have so little and I have so much.”

“That is not the point! These people should be cowering in fear of you, not coming to you with their petty problems.”

The King wasn’t sure he could follow the Countess’ advice. After all, there had been peace in his domain for many years. Things seemed to be going well. Was it wise to make so bold a change?

That night, as the King slept uneasily, his mind troubled by the words of the Countess, she came to his bedchamber. She entered silently until she desired the King to awaken, then she allowed herself to be heard. Before his startled and awestruck eyes, she disrobed and straddled him without a word.

“I need a real man,” she said as she rose and fell over his strong, eager body. “One who knows his own strength. One who puts those beneath him in their place. One who isn’t afraid to use the power he wields. Are you that man?”

“Yes!” the King moaned, almost growled, the word.

“Swear to me!”

“I swear!”

It began in little ways. The following morning, the King informed his staff that he would no longer be hearing petitions from the villagers and that they were no longer permitted to enter his gardens without paying a fee. Furthermore, anyone who appeared before the King for any reason would have to bring a gift. The servants were confused, and more than a little alarmed, but they obeyed.

Gradually, he stopped saying “please” or “thank you” to his servants when he ordered them around. He began barking at them, demeaning them, insulting them as he worked them harder than they had ever worked before. They were not permitted to touch him, or to look directly at him.

The Countess was long gone, but her wickedness had remained. It was as if the Countess had put him under a spell. But it was no spell. In a moment of weakness he had agreed to dominate, developed a taste for it, and had let it get out of hand. You can hand a man a drink of wine and he might drink it and stop right there, or he might drink another and another. It is not the fault of the person who offered the man a drink if the man chose to become a drunkard.

And drunk is exactly what the King had become. He was drunk on his newly discovered power. The peace of his domain was shattered and he gave himself over entirely to pleasure. His own ease and comfort were the only things he cared about. His people, who had once been as welcome as glad tidings in his home, grew weak and hungry as the King raised their taxes and increased their quotas. And he didn’t care.

The people of the village were desperate. They had no one to come to their aid. The King had once been their friend, and now he was a cruel and wicked tyrant. What could they do? If they angered him, he would raise his army and destroy them at a stroke.

In the end, it was the courage of one small boy that led to their salvation. Seeing the dreadful state of his home and the suffering of his friends and family, this boy set out one night to find someone to help his people. He wandered through the night until he came to a broken down shack in the middle of the forest. A place that no one came to unless they had nowhere else to go. The home of the Sorceress.

The Sorceress took pity on the boy and the plight of his village and she made a sacred vow to use all her skills of magic and mysticism to end the suffering of his people.

Two days later, a visitor from another land came to see the King. She had, of course, been warned about the custom of bringing a gift in exchange for the honor of being seen by the King, and she was certain her gift would not disappoint.

“What do you want?” grumbled the King at the woman who stood before him. She was older than he by twenty years or more, but fancily dressed and clearly a woman of wealth and importance.

“I want nothing,” said the Sorceress. “I heard of the greatness of the King who lived in this palace, and I wanted only to come and pay my respects. And to give you a gift, of course.”

“I see no gift,” said the King. And, indeed, it looked to all the world as though the Sorceress had come empty-handed.

“Many people cannot see that which is right in front of them.” So saying, the Sorceress drew up the hem of her cloak and swept it around herself. In an instant, she was gone, and in her place…stood the clock.

The most magnificent clock ever made. It was enormous, bigger than the King himself and every piece of it hand-carved from the sturdiest, finest wood in the land. It was wound so tightly and constructed so elegantly that it would never run down, and kept perfect time down to the smallest fraction of a second. And every hour on the hour, there would be a display. A seemingly infinite variation of wooden figures acted out scenes from classic stories, tales from scripture and epic poems. The performances were spell-binding and accompanied by impossibly beautiful music and the action was—naturally—in perfect synchronization with the ticking of the clock. Each hour brought a different display which was seen once and then never repeated.

Seated in his throne, the King stared, transfixed, at the clock. Even when the wooden figures were not doing their hourly pantomime, there was something to look at. All along the sides of the clock were shapes and figures ticking in perfect harmony, moving, spinning, or simply rocking back and forth. It never stopped moving, no matter what the time of day.

Forgotten were the daily duties of running his estate, forgotten were his demands on his soldiers, servants and subjects. From then on, all the King wanted to do was watch his magnificent clock. He dared not look away, for fear of missing something which he might never see again.

Days turned into weeks. Weeks into months. Months into years. Decades. And all the King did was to sit in his chair and watch the clock. His beard and hair grew long and unruly. His palace fell into disrepair. His servants abandoned him. He didn’t care. He didn’t even notice. All he saw, all he knew, was the clock. It was his entire world.

♦♦♦

Nobody goes to the palace anymore. No one remembers why that is. But if anyone did go inside the palace, assuming they got past the thorny brambles from the overgrown garden and avoided being hit on the head by a falling rock from the toppling towers, they would see nothing but empty halls, long since overrun by spiders, rats and decay.

And in the throne room they would find a man. An impossibly old man. His hair and beard overgrown, wrapping around the throne, binding him to it permanently, staring as if hypontized at a clock. The most magnificent clock ever made. A clock which will never run down, never stop, never set the old man free.

To think, this pathetic old man was once the greatest king who ever lived.

From the beginning, I wrote

I wrote about all kinds of things

Silly things, like how I was convinced my family members were covert vampires

Things that were important to me, like loved ones and pets

In the end, it all added up to one simple truth:

I loved to write

In my highschool years, I became more serious about writing

I was enthralled by it, entranced with it

In hopes of honing my skills, I took a creative writing class

And creative it allowed me to be

But it still wasn't quite the freedom,

The release of emotion,

The buildup of passion,

I so desired it to be

School ended for me,

My existence fading back into the warm, comfortable glow of home

Although, as years went by, I grew timid

Too scared to once again share my writing with the world

I was terrified, dealthy afraid of someone seeing my writing

My inner thoughts

All my emotions served on a silver platter

I couldn't overcome that sense of apprehension

But one day, I found a certain website,

And on that site, I witnessed how talented other writers were

More importantly, I noticed how kind and supportive they were

It was that comfort, that tidbit of reassurance,

That drew me back into the world I treasured,

The world I had longed for, hollow without my writing

The world of words

Even months later,

Pain flares within my heart

And tears rise to my hazelnut eyes

With the mere thought of you

I scroll past pictures of you daily

But I can't stand to look at them

It all hurts too much

To see when you were content,

When you were alive

And here with me

For 17 years, we were together

It seems like such a long time,

But so fleeting all the same

There are still many days

My mind is occupied with you

Amidst all the remaining grief,

I feel as if I'm drowning in a pit of despair

I want you to come back,

Even if just for a day

But that's not how the world works, right?

There are no second chances at life

And somehow, I'll always be empty

Without you

Selfless, genuine

You've always been so

You understand,

It's not finances that fill the emptiness of a person's heart,

It's being there,

Showing you care,

Even if it's just a brief embrace

Or a quick peck on the cheek

Your heart beats to a rhythm

Entirely its own

One that sings the loveliest hymns

And inspires others to rise above

Unwittingly, you passed that same purity on to me

With the slightest glance,

With a mere smile,

You ruined me

That was all it took

To make me truly happy

It wasn't paper money,

But a simple expression of love

Everyday, the same

Sprinting from street vendors, screaming and hurling threats

Dashing back to the slums,

A clump of old, crusty bread in one hand

Two pieces if luck happens to be shining down

Shoveling the stale food in,

Barely making a dent in a growling stomach

Settling down for the night,

Best as one can,

With the stench of filth around them

Curling up with a stiff, paper thin blanket

Quivering, because the worn fabric is never enough

After tossing and turning, finally drifting into an equally restless sleep

Dreaming of the day

The cruel king is ripped from his pure gold throne,

Built on the suffering of others

Dreaming of the day

The kingdom is saved