It was a sad day, a day of woe and misery, a day of foiled plans and aspirations, a day of sad discoveries... You don’t believe me? Ah, but you weren’t there to see it happen. The horror, the… terror… Ah but I digress. Clearly I remember it, the long dragging of the day like ruined claws of rusted steel across the fragile tapestry of my innocent and unmarked flesh sweet and soft as a baby’s bottom. And at the end of it, was it over? Nay my friend, for locked up was I within the most horrid of horrids, the most putrid of putrids, the foul, the accursed, the dreaded Tomb.

Still you do not believe me my friend, but I speak it true. You say that I have been living in my own world too long, yet I say that ‘twas the foulest, the worst, the most trialing of tribulations. Yet still you do not believe me…

Brace thyself then thou sweet innocent child, for the horrors upon which I am to unleash upon thy most tender and uninitiated of minds…

It all started innocently enough… I woke that day, fresh, ready for a new day. I rose from my bed and approached the ornate full length mirror upon the wall and chanted my morning ritual:

Mirror, Mirror on the wall,
Am I hot, or not at all?
Am I handsome, dark and tall?
Or am I hindered by parts that are small?

True, often have I been accused of being but a good-looking pig with but a brain the size of a peanut, but I tell you sweet listener, that had all peanuts been the size of my brain, why, never would we see a hungry squirrel ever again. But I digress.

My mirror is holy to me. Every day I view myself and am filled with confidence knowing my brilliance. I become from coal, a diamond of purest attractiveness, the woman’s best friend, hard, untouchable, yet clear and without blemish. And like the diamond, I am rare and valuable, I am precious, I am perfect. Imagine then, the horror I was to face when this was put to test that one fateful day…

I set out that day upon my quest. I spotted comrades along the way and greeted them, yet as usual, they ignored me. I ignore them in kind. Peasants, little worth my time. I focused on the task ahead. It would mean the difference between the life and death. I went over everything in my mind. I had prepared well, my instruments were in my pack, the books stored within my mind, I was ready.

I hastened to the location and took my place amongst the others of my league. It began. The trial was simple enough to my mind, yet its application strained me. Before me, she stood. The temptress of the halls, the most insidious of snakes of serpentine sensuality: Pfeiffer… I spit out the name that had once been as sweet wine to my lips. I was unable to focus, to concentrate, too engorged were mine eyes upon the undulating movements of the charm she wore upon her body. A pink butterfly, tattooed indiscreetly on her waist, seeming to drift and sweep the room with its hypnotic sensuality.

I fought temptation, long and hard we battled. A clash of the wills it was, but simultaneously a battle fought with our bodies, hers enticing mine to abandon my goal and mine doing all it could to resist. I knew I was to her as she was to me. I could see it in her movements how she longed for me; how she too wished the trial to be over that she may have me. But it was not to be. We dueled long and hard, she moving deftly, subtly with a feline grace and beauty that unnerved me. I stared at her long and hard, following her movements, my quest nearly forgotten.

Then our eyes met, and I was undone. I drank the view of her in and was lost in the emerald green of her gaze. I know not how long I spent gazing at her feline grace and beauty, it may have been days, years, I know not, all I know is that my quest had been forgotten in her beauty.

The trial ended, and I knew I had failed. I scrambled with my tools to attempt a semblance of labor, yet all for naught. Her swift yet supple hand snatched the field of battle from me. Her emerald eyes looked upon me, not with the green caress of nature, but the jade stab of a coiled snake. She spoke:

Jonathon

For that was my name

You haven’t even written your name on this. And here I was thinking you had it all, yet it seems as if you really are just like all the rest.

Her words smashed into my like so many quarterbacks pumped up on steroids. I was nothing to her, I was just as anyone else. Normal. All had been for naught, all lost for a single tattoo of a pink butterfly on the most perfect of waists. I bowed my head in resignation, acknowledging my defeat, feeling the full impact of her words. How could I tell her she was the cause of my downfall? I couldn’t. I was lost to the world now, creating a cataclysm of unknown proportions. How many women would wail in despair knowing that I in my perfection am now lost to the world? Yet because of her words, I doubt even that now.

So here I sit now sweet listener, banished by her, Ms. Pfeiffer, to the Tomb. I gaze outside at the sun and wish things had gone differently, but alas, my quest is failed, my will is broken, and I am not the man I was. I have failed my Final Exam, and cruelly, I must next year repeat High School Literature… The horror… The terror…