The Fisherman and His Wife part 5

The fisherman went back to the castle, but it had changed. The rough stone had been replaced by smooth, polished, white marble. Imperial legions drilled flawlessly. The servants went about their tasks with such grace and perfection that they seemed to Fraco to be dancing about their work. King and queens paraded stately down the hallways.

Fraco followed them and came to the throne room. His wife sat on a massive throne twenty feet high, made entirely with gold and decorated with jewels the size of his fist. Candles lined each side of the great room. By the throne, they towered as large as a grand column and gradually dwindled in size until the ones by the door were no bigger than Fraco’s little finger. In their flickering light, Liberelle looked fierce and powerful, every inch an emperor. The kings and queens bowed before the giant throne and left golden presents at her feet.

“Well now, you’re emperor,” Fraco said when he made to the front of the long line.

“Yes,” Liberelle said, smiling for the first time in ages.

That night, Fraco slept more peacefully than he had since leaving their little cottage. He was convinced that his wife could not ask for anything more.

Liberelle, on the other hand, could not sleep at all. She tossed and turned, trying to think if an emperor was truly the highest she could go. Finally, after an exhausting night, the sun crept over the windowsill.

Why shouldn’t I have the ability to decide when the sun rises and sets? Liberelle thought. I am already emperor. Why should the sun be beyond my reach?

She dug her elbow into her husband’s side. “Wake up, wake up!”

“What’s going on?” He mumbled.

“Go to the flounder,” she said. “Tell him I wish to be God.”

The old fisherman fell out of his bed in shock. “No,” he said shaking. “You cannot be God. No one can make you God.”

“You forget the I am the emperor. I will control the sun and the moon. Go and tell the flounder to make me God.”

“No. I can’t go!” Fraco said.

“You will go RIGHT NOW!” Liberelle screamed.

Trembling, the fisherman made his way to the beach. The sky overnight was blacker than midnight. The sea was roiling like boiling tar. The wind blew him backward along the track several times before he made his way to the edge of the seething ocean. When he shouted, the hurricane snatched his word away before he could he hear them. He hoped the flounder couldn’t hear him either, but the golden fish appeared in the churning sea.

“What now?” he asked.

“She wants…she wants…” Fraco stammered, “she wants you …to make her God.”

The wind died, the sea calmed, and the sky cleared. In the stillness, the fisherman heard the flounder clearly. “Go home to your wife. She is waiting for you.”

Fraco walked up the path to find his tiny old gray shack on the cliffs. When he saw his wife, she hung her head and said nothing.

One night, years later, the flounder prince passed by the old shack. It was a cold night, and he knew the old couple was shivering inside their single room. He wanted to give them back the cottage, but he knew he couldn’t. Even though Liberelle had learned her lesson, Fraco hadn’t learned his yet. He swam away before the couple noticed him

So the old fisherman and his wife quietly passed the rest of their lives in their shack on the cliffs by the sea.