Fable

The house looked innocent enough. The front walk was covered with trailing roses, not trimmed and tame, but curling wildly about their frames. Wild flowers peeked out of the tall grass, bright spots of color in the deep green. A small fountain gurgled happily into a pond just to the left of the door. Small gnomes lounged on the banks, chatting with each other as they fished. The sweet smell of roses filled the tranquil air, wafting down into the open cottage window.

Once into the house, the tendrils of succulent smell were at a loss. Pots and pans piled haphazardly threatened to topple into the already overflowing sink. Stacks of newspapers were starting to compost on the kitchen table. Odds and ends spilled out of the drawers that weren’t stuck shut, cascading down in frozen waterfalls to the pool of garbage that was the floor. The gnomes had long since given up on the cottage; the owner accumulated goods faster than even their wily thieving could remove them. No sooner would they snatch away a trinket than he would come back, laden with five more.

Finally, the roses decided they had had enough. What was the use of prettily framing a cottage that was slowly turning into a cesspool? They reached their whippy branches down, poking and stinging the little gnomes. Grumbling, the gnomes went out to find a solution. They found an agency and hired a maid.

Rachel was bored. Sure, those little black and white French numbers were fun, but holding a useless feather duster while dodging the groping hands of lonely old men wasn’t in the job description. She, unlike many of her compatriots, had joined the maid force to clean. Nothing pleased her more than turning a mess into a sparkling, squeaky clean home. A compulsive cleaner since her earliest days, her mother had sent her out in disgust to make her own way in the world, after she had found Rachel carefully polishing the cow. With a sigh, Rachel broke from her thoughts, and trudged off to her new assignment: Rose Cottage, 53 Storybook Lane.

Walking up the rose covered path, Rachel eyed the cottage in disgust. Great, she thought, another old man hoping for some poor princess to come along and give him his fairytale ending. Those men were the worst. They had nothing to do while they waited for their dream girl to arrive, so they kept their homes obsessively clean. They simply hired maids as a diversion from the monotony that comes before the fairytale. But when Rachel opened the cottage door, she couldn’t believe her eyes. The place was a mess! Finally, a place she could use her talents. Excited, she pulled back her long, dark hair, rolled up her sleeves and got to work.

The compost heap out back tripled in size in the first five minutes, groaning as it strove to change the old newspapers into food for the roses. The drawers found themselves emptied, cleaned and organized until they once again fit flush into the cupboard. The dishes were scrubbed until they sparkled, years of accumulated grime giving up in the face of Rachel’s determined scrubbing. The throw-away pile took on a life of its own, sucking small, unwary objects into it, feeding on the junk in the cottage. Rachel would pick up an item, and if there was any doubt at all, she would throw it out. It took her until late afternoon, but the cottage was finally spotless. Happily exhausted, she idly flicked away the dust coming in the open window as she waited for the cottage owner to get home.

The door let out a small sigh instead of its usual creak as it swung open on freshly oiled hinges. The young man looked at it, askance. Shaking his head, he brought in his bundle of newly acquired goods and threw them on the already towering mound on the kitchen table. At least, that’s what he meant to do. Instead, one sailed out the open window, landing in the pond with a splash. The others scattered around the empty kitchen, with one landing in the hand of the waiting Rachel. She promptly threw it away. This angered the young man, who immediately began yelling and gesticulating wildly as he ran around the house, searching for his beloved stuff. This evolved into a wonderful row between Rachel and the young man, who she later learned was named Spencer.

The gnomes shook their heads and stuffed their ears with cotton as the angry cries rang out, late into the night. As darkness faded into day, the arguing finally ceased. The gurgle of the fountain could again be heard. Cautiously, the gnomes pulled the cotton out of their ears. Still quiet. They peeked in the window, giggled, and hastily backed away. A month later, Rachel and Spencer were married. They were quite happy, for a time. Every day, Spencer would leave on his endless search to collect. Rachel would stay at home, cleaning the house, trimming the roses and chasing the gnomes with a duster. Every night, Spencer would come home with the day’s findings, Rachel would throw them out, they would argue the night away, and make up with the dawn.

One evening, though, Spencer came home without any knick-knacks. Alarmed, Rachel checked him for germs, planning on sterilizing the house the next day, but Spencer wasn’t sick. He just “hadn’t found anything worth bringing home,” he explained with a shrug, like it was no big deal. Awkward and uncomfortable, they went to bed soon after sunset, careful not to touch under the big down blanket.

The next morning, Spencer was late going out. He even offered to help tidy up the breakfast dishes before he left. Disgusted, Rachel shooed him out the door. As if she needed, or even wanted, his help tidying up. Rachel cleaned morosely, half-heartedly sweeping the floor, even though the day was beautifully dusty. What was the matter with Spencer, she wondered, could she really get along with a man she couldn’t clean up after? This continued for days, sometimes he would bring home a trinket or two, sometimes nothing at all, but she could tell his heart just wasn’t in it. The cottage was still clean, but the night no longer resounded with their angry cries, and they no longer fell in love again each morning.

One morning, as the rose scented tendrils crept in through the window, concerned about the people in their cottage, Spencer made his biggest mistake. “I think I’ll just stay home today, maybe tidy up the vegetable garden.” This was the last straw for Rachel. Wildly waving her duster, she chased Spenser out of the cottage, down the rose-lined path, and slammed the gate behind him.

Now, she waits in the spotless cottage, spending her days tidying the garden, polishing the furniture and dusting the gnomes. She waits for the perfectly messy man to come along, one she can clean up after and be happy with. But each time a new man comes, hoping to be messy enough for the beautiful Rachel, he begins to falter, she begins to doubt, and he, too, is thrown out of her immaculate cottage. She still waits for her fairytale ending.

Journal:

What process did you use to select and narrow down anecdotes to use in your piece?

I thought about what would make a good story, then tried to condense them to fit within the page limit. I would like to go back to this piece and expand the descriptions, it seems like a fun story to work with.

Is your Resolution positive or negative? Negative.

What is the Moral? When in doubt, throw it out!

Do you think your Reversal comes off successfully; does it “surprise” the reader? Why or why not?

Yes, I think so. Most people probably aren’t expecting it. I was even surprised as how it turned out. The house ended up being dirty, so Rachel was happy, and later, when Spencer wasn’t messy enough, she got unhappy.

Did you return to Machiavelli’s fable as an example and point of reference while you constructed your piece?

Not as much as I turned to the people who had had Machiavelli’s fable explained to them in class. Katie was especially helpful in clarifying the points in the story.

What was the most challenging part of the assignment?

Trying to keep it within the page limit. Sorry I went a little over!

Do you feel better prepared to construct your next story after having done this assignment? Why or why not?

A little bit better prepared, but if I do end up writing another fable, or expanding this one, I’d really appreciate it if you could give me the explanation I missed in class. Some of the points were still unclear, but I tried to follow the handout.