Entry #72

A Thousand And One Years
by Nothingman


The gypsy woman threw the bones down on the mat in her multicolored tent. The bones fell in a new pattern and the woman scowled at what she saw. She looked at the girl in front of her, spread her fingers over the bones and deftly collected them in a palming move.

“Where is my prince, wise mother?” the girl asked.

“Your prince rides the scales of an iron dragon.”

The girl smiled shyly, at the thought of a man she will know sometime in future.

“He rides the scales of the dragon up, and he rides the scales of another dragon on his way down.”

Two dragons, she thought, how brave!

“And when will I see my prince?” she asked as she pulled a golden nugget from her belt and put it on the floor.

The gypsy woman waved her hand over the piece of gold, making it vanish.

“In a thousand and one years.”

“And how will I know my prince?”

“His legs will be clad in blue, and white threads shall drop from his ears, his eyes will be covered by white glass and his weapon sack shall bear his name, ‘Nike’.”

Time passed…

In 2009, a boy, riding an escalator up in a mall, listening to his iPod and thinking of getting his spectacles repaired, was kissed by a girl who was waiting for him for a thousand and one years.

“Oh, Nike,” she whispered in his ear as she cried.


(Nothingman writes irregular short short stories at A Story A Day)