In the merry month of May, Snow White met up with Knight Errant and began a week of friendship, intimacy (of a nonsexual manner), meaningful discussion, and fun she had not known in quite some time. The silliness of it all took her by surprise and although terrified she decided to go with it. (Clearly she had experienced far scarier people when she lived at the castle.) She decided not to doubt but to enjoy and trust.  The lad she met seemed to react in the same manner and all was right in the world for at least one-week…maybe even 10 days.

Then K. E. went back to Fantasy Island where the waters were warm and the surf consistent. With his departure the miracle of their meeting vanished like the light of a shooting star. Of course we all know that a shooting star isn’t a star at all, quite often it is interplanetary dust.

As if Snow had taken a bite from that stupid poisonous apple (again), life (which had been momentarily glorious) became dull, lifeless, kind of mean, and seemed a fable she had made up in her mind. Though she had an active and somewhat naive imagination, she willed herself to be rational. In her attempts to keep the man something real she tried all kinds of ways to keep her heart open, but these attempts fell upon deaf ears and blind eyes.

Then Snow’s reality in the shire began to suffer from the wear and tear of life. She lost a dear friend to Death. Then, drunk on medieval verbiage, her father Don Quixote bonked his head on another windmill and had to be hospitalized. Yearning to speak to her Knight On Shining Shortboard across the globe as an adult who understood these kinds of trials, she was met with indifference. The man treated her as though a stranger: insane, demanding and quite frankly, deluded.

Then other mishaps of life took place making her believe she had been wrong about her choices in foxhole buddies and the sacred bond of trust.  Much like Chesterton’s tale of The Poet and the Lunatics, she became accused of things she had not done: her perspective (which she felt non-threatening) was labeled dangerous.

And so barely a month after meeting the handsome but clearly hallucinatory Knight-errant, she woke one morning to birdsong (at least 8 crows and a couple of hawks), the smell of fresh coffee, and the buzz of her phone with numerous text messages beckoning her time, love and understanding. But on this morning she wanted love and understanding, she wanted friendship and an unconditional ear to sigh into.

2 very small, furry ears are what she got. They would have to do.

She hastily threw some things in a knapsack: sunscreen, kibble, a book on how the Dutch made Manhattan, her Swiss Army knife, a deck of cards, a sweater and visor. She grabbed a leash and bottle of water for her four-legged friend, jumped into her large pickup truck, and drove north to a beautiful, isolated beach she knew of.

On the way up the coast she pondered calling the handsome Parsifal but thought better of it knowing that he was probably smoking pot feeling sorry for himself while searching for the Holy Grail on Ebay. He meant well but was a rotten listener.

Instead she turned up Yellowman as loud as the dog in the seat next to her could handle. He didn’t seem to care as he was enjoying hanging his head out the window, tan curls flying.

Arriving at a remote bluff above a crystal blue sea, Snow was dragged down a dirt path that clearly stated NO DOGS but neither she nor her current Goldendoodle cared about the consequences. Carefully navigating a steep flight of rickety stairs to a cove smelling of all things ocean, she slipped off her sandals and began to walk.

Snow White felt the hot sun on her pale skin and rejoiced in her awkward body that never quite fit in with Barbie’s crowd.

Stopping after sometime she shed her confining clothes and jumped into the cold sea, while the small dog barked after her too scared to follow. (Please note she was wearing a skimpy bikini that she probably had no right to wear…but she didn’t care.)

Climbing out of the water newly baptized with the belief she was a fairly good human, she began to play ball with her incredibly relieved canine companion.

He thought she was the cat’s meow, and had no problem saying so.