The Mythical Prince

The Mythical Prince

By D.C. McDougal, GED

He stood in his room, naked, as if it were The Garden of Eden. While having no clothes, he of course had no pockets, but that wouldn’t stop a legend like him! He reached into that non-existing pocket and found twenty thousand dollars. “Amazing!” he thought, “I must have left this in here the last time I wore nothing.”

As he pondered his good fortune, visions of dancing brusselsprout stalks pranced across his television screen. This might sound odd to you and me, but nothing was beyond the ordinary for this guy. He once slaughtered a chicken with a portrait of a guy that looked identical to him, painted by his nephew. Even though he knew it was a shame, he graciously accepted the painting cause he knew of it’s hidden potential for harvesting live stock. Anyway, the sum of twenty thousand dollars was still up for debate in his mind. Surely, in his day and age, such a sum could only buy a meager cup of coffee, but when and where to buy the coffee was not a decision he took lightly. Perhaps giving it to a beggar would be the right and humane thing to do. For surely, a beggar could never dream of having non-existent pockets, let alone ones with twenty thousand dollars in them. Or, perhaps, he should spend it at the locally owned coffee shop, thus pumping well earned money into the economy. Another suggestion crossed his mind, place it in a savings account till at such a time it might mature with interest and purchase two cups of coffee.

In a flourish he leapt to his feet, upon which he was already standing. The echos of a long forgotten proverb entered his mind, “No grass was ever seen where there were no eyes to see it.” Upon the recollection of this, he knew action and not thought would prevail the day. Without thought, in any sort of manner, he flew (not literally, just figuratively) to the nearest coffee shop. He boldly proclaimed upon entering the establishment that he had arrived to purchase some hot steamy joe, “Fore Sooth! And Verily! I have arrived for a medium black, no sugar, but all the stir sticks you can afford to give me!”

The baristas stood in shock, nothing in their lives had ever prepared them to behold the angelic nature of a naked man with non-existent pockets, declaring his coffee order with such gusto and abandon. They looked at him, and then at each other, and again back at him. Unable to collect their wits, he looked at them directly in the eye (for he could look at two different things, having two eyes that could focus oppositely, and there being only two baristas on shift). “Post haste if you please! Time is not on our side!” The senior barista snapped out of the daze first, mentally scanning the employee handbook and not recollecting a single mention of what to do in this type of instance, decided to serve him the coffee. “Yes, I thank you, and the stir sticks my young friend?!” As fortune would have it, earlier that week, stir sticks were deemed silly and no longer handed out to customers, so the barista’s informed him that there was an entire pallet of them out back that he was welcome to. During this entire exchange, the other patrons of the coffee shop were aghast at what they were seeing. Their eyes fixed as if they were witnessing the birth of a mythical being. Like a mermaid, or a centaur, or some other creature, also with non-existent pockets, had just rolled up in a Lamborghini and invited them for tea. But, no, this is a coffee shop, for sure. The coffee cost nineteen thousand dollars, he left the last thousand for a tip, cause that’s how cool our guy is.

He took back the coffee like it was a shot of whiskey. The rest of his life, he knew, would be spent lecturing middle school kids on the dangers of participating in drinking large quantities of two hundred degree liquid all at once, as is all the rage. But now was not the time to prepare such lectures. It was still time for action. Through the seething pain, he ran out to the pallet of stir sticks promised him by the baristas inside. With no construction or engineering experience, he got to work, feverishly fashioning the sticks in to a replica of the Taj Mahal, but with a pan American vibe to it, and non-existent pockets. He then quickly found the beggar that crossed his mind earlier. Upon presenting the beggar with this new residence for which to reside in, the entire occupation of the coffee shop was so moved as to hold a ribbon cutting ceremony for it; except no one had a ribbon, so they didn’t. Now, the beggar was also moved by the generosity of this gift. So moved was the beggar that he presented the naked man with non-existent pockets, a little black book. “This is it, my friend, my time has come! Enjoy your new home, I hope you like what I did with the curtains.” He uttered as they embraced. He then placed the little black book on the ground, opened it to the middle, recited a few words that sounded mystical, then took a swan dive into the pages. Inside the book he put on some decent clothes and fulfilled his destiny as a speaker at middle schools for why not to drink large quantities of two hundred degree liquid all at once.”

The End.