No More Heroes

How long had they been here, wondered the princess, as she looked out of the barred window at the snow flakes falling like the tears on her face. How long had she and her friends been locked in the treasure room of this most impenetrable fortress, waiting in vain for some hero to come and claim them? How long had the dragon outside the fortress walls gone without a decent meal? How long had the ogre, who guarded the treasure room, held his forbidding battle-axe aloft, waiting for some bold adventurer to come and challenge him?

“What the hell is wrong with men these days, anyhow?”,griped the Princess, quaffing tea from the holy grail and munching rich-tea biscuits provided by the horn of plenty. “I’m the most desirable, sexy woman in the world; tall,blonde, busty and gorgeous and this room is full of objects of unimaginable magical power. You’d think that some brave hero would have rescued me by now”.

“But people don’t go on quests to win prizes these days”, said the Genie of the lamp, “They go on game shows and besides, they don’t believe in you or I anymore. We’re just mcguffins for their kid’s bedtime stories”.

“But I’m not just a mcguffin”, protested the princess, “I’m a passionate woman. I’ve got needs. The most beautiful woman in the world whose biological clock has been ticking for almost two thousand years but, instead of being carried off in the arms of some handsome knight, or even a slightly less attractive O.B.E, to love happily ever after, I’ve been left on the shelf for eternity like some old maid”.

“I agree with the princess”, said the meaning of life, “I don’t see much purpose to my existence, if priests and sages have stopped wondering about me”.

“I understand how you feel, princess”, said the Genie, “I really do. I’ve waited centuries for some handsome Aladdin to give my lamp a rub but there’s really nothing we can do except wait”.

“Well, why can’t I just rub your lamp and wish us up a hero?”, asked the princess, stroking the lamps long slender spout.

“Because, Princess, as I’ve told you so many times, only a quester can rub my lamp. You, though I loathe the objectification of women, are a magical object just like me and my lamp or that crock of gold at the end of that rainbow over there”, replied the Genie, gesturing towards a rather gloomy looking rainbow in a corner of the room and the pot of gold beside it.

“But we’ve just got to get out of here”, said the princess, weeping onto a pillow of golden fleece until its short blonde curls got very damp, “There’s a great big world outside that I may never see. If no one is coming to rescue me, I’ll just have to find a way to escape”.

“I’m sure you’ll make it, princess. You only have to break down the impenetrable door to this treasure room, fight the ogre who guards it, slay the dragon who sleeps outside and make it through the forest of darkness, then you’re practically half way home”, said Hope, sticking its head briefly out of Pandora’s box before being dragged
back inside by the hands of sickness and despair.

“But why do the ogre and the dragon continue to guard us. Don’t they know that there’s no point. No one is coming to fight them”, said the Princess, hammering on the impenetrable door angrilly, “Hey! You out there. Why do you bother guarding us? No one’s coming to seek us out! No one goes on quests anymore!”.

“Ahh, but Miss.”, said the ogre, ogling, which is what Ogre’s do when they see a pretty princess, “You forget that I am not just here to keep heroes out but also to keep ‘Damsels in distress’, like you, in and so, aslong as you can’t get out, I still have a purpose to my job”.

“Damn that ogre”, strummed The Harp That Plays Itself, dischordantly, “It’s worse than my old master, the giant, with all his fee-fi-fo-fum-ing”.

“We do have a cornucopia.”, said the genie, “Hypothetically, if we were to command it to churn out endless gold bricks, then eventually there would be more gold bricks in this room than the room could hold and that would force the door open”.

“Good idea but, unfortunately, I’d probably get crushed underneath all those gold bricks, no, there must be another way. I just have to start thinking like a hero instead of a bimbo for once, said the princess, pacing up and down upon a dusty, old moth eaten flying carpet.

“Wait”, said the princess, her eyes lighting up, as if suddenly touched by the fingertips of king Midas, “What date is it?”

“December the 24th, 2011”, said Sampo, the magic mill of Finnish legends, in a broad Finnish accent, “Why?”.

The princess hitched up her voluminous taffeta skirt, and all the magical objects got a glimpse of her lovely long legs as she slipped off her crystal shoes and silk stockings, hanging up the stockings above the magical fireplace in which a dying phoenix had made its nest, “You’ll see”, she said.

Suddenly, they all heard the sound of tinkling sleighbells and the clip- clopping of hooves on the roof above, “Woah, Donner and Blitzen. Woah Prancer and Dancer, Comet and Cupid, Dasher and Vixen”, boomed a cheery baritone.

“What on earth is that?”, said the pre-christian pheonix, as a chimney started appearing in the roof over its head.

“He’s called Santa Clause”, said the Princess, pulling down her top slightly in order to show some more cleavage, “And it’s his lucky day”.