Photo-Credit: Emmy L. Gant
Genre: Shakespearian Fantasy / Grim humor
Word Count: 100 words of text, exactly
Ill-Met by Rain-Light!
©March 9th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
The King stepped into the urban jungle, followed by his retinue. He stared at his Queen, who emerged from behind a trash can, with her attendants.
“Ill met by rain-light, proud Titania!” His voice fell like rain, cold and stinging.
“What? Jealous Oberon, maker of ill-winds and trash-bins, here?! Fairies, skip away. He causes floods and Climate Change!”*
He looked around, and paled. “I take it all back! Come home to me!”
“What’s done cannot be undone. It’s ALL your fault. You wrangled with me over a mortal child who was mine to foster. Fairies, hence!”
And Planet Earth died.
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*I’ve always thought that Shakespeare must have experienced some glimmering of Climate Change, but in a fairy-world sort of way. In Act 2, Scene 1, when Titania meets Oberon, she tells him that the strangeness of the seasons (everything being topsy-turvy, as it is today in our world) is due to their fighting:
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound:
And thorough this distemperature we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
And on old Hiems’ thin and icy crown
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which:
And this same progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.
And thanks, as always, to Rochelle, our generous and talented Fairy Blog-Mother, and to Emmy L. Gant, for that beautiful photo-prompt!