What I remember is that I was awakened by a man I’d never met kissing me. He was a very handsome man, but I didn’t know him and that’s not how it’s supposed to work for nice girls from my background, believe me. My breath must have been awful, since I’d been asleep for a hundred years. Yes, literally one hundred years. It’s such a weird story. What they told me was that at my christening, someone, an old friend of the family, put a curse on me and said, “When the child first sees her own blood, she will die.” But she didn’t think it was a curse, she insisted it was a gift, and everyone was shocked and said, “Oh no, no, no, no no,” so she changed it, she said, “Then when first she sees her own blood she’ll fall into a deep deep sleep. She’ll grow up as graceful and beautiful as a flower and then she’ll fall into a deep deep sleep. She won’t die, she’ll fall into a deep sleep when first she sees her own blood.” But no one in my family ever told me about this, until afterwards I mean. It’s crazy. I was a baby obviously but as I got older they all knew I had this curse on me and they never told me about it. They didn’t want to or they didn’t think they should or something. I know. I know. That’s what my family’s like.
So I wasn’t ready for it, but sure enough it happened just she like said, one hundred years. I had nice dreams though, I remember that, and then I woke up and it was a hundred years later, and this man I didn’t know was kissing me, and I wasn’t ready, there was a layer of dust lying everywhere, over everything, and I remember I thought to myself, oh if only I could just sleep a little longer.
Well I ended up marrying this handsome man who kissed me even though I didn’t know him, and we’ve had a lovely life together, full of balls and banquets and horse-drawn processions, and everybody loves the story of how we met. He’s a wonderful provider, a good husband, a good father, and his head looks fantastic on the coins and stamps. The older I get, though, the more I realize I really was given a gift, maybe it was a curse but I see why she would have thought of it as a gift appropriate for a newborn. Sometimes now my husband will wake me up by kissing me, very gently, and it’s so sweet and beautiful but still, all the same, I think, sometimes I think if only I could have slept a little longer. Just a little bit more.
So I wasn’t ready for it, but sure enough it happened just she like said, one hundred years. I had nice dreams though, I remember that, and then I woke up and it was a hundred years later, and this man I didn’t know was kissing me, and I wasn’t ready, there was a layer of dust lying everywhere, over everything, and I remember I thought to myself, oh if only I could just sleep a little longer.
Well I ended up marrying this handsome man who kissed me even though I didn’t know him, and we’ve had a lovely life together, full of balls and banquets and horse-drawn processions, and everybody loves the story of how we met. He’s a wonderful provider, a good husband, a good father, and his head looks fantastic on the coins and stamps. The older I get, though, the more I realize I really was given a gift, maybe it was a curse but I see why she would have thought of it as a gift appropriate for a newborn. Sometimes now my husband will wake me up by kissing me, very gently, and it’s so sweet and beautiful but still, all the same, I think, sometimes I think if only I could have slept a little longer. Just a little bit more.
