By Ryan McCue
I was not raised on fairy tales. I don’t believe my parents had anything against them; perhaps they just found the practice a bit antiquated. Most of my youth was spent watching action movies, looking up to the likes of Bruce Willis or Arnold Schwarzenegger rather than Hansel and Gretel. I long considered the world of fairy tales as separate from my own. Nowadays, however, I see them as having quite a bit in common.
Sophomore year of high school. I am informed, to my surprise, that I will soon have to figure out what I want to do with my life. The question weighs on me for many days and many nights.
My mother leaves the choice in my hands. I am reminded of Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack’s mother entrusting him the family cow which their futures so depend on. She asks him to sell the cow, nothing more, nothing less. A simple task. And yet Jack does not come home that day with money, nor does he bring back food. He arrives home gleefully with some beans and a childish hope.
We laugh at Jack for his foolishness, the ease with which he is swindled. Had he ever truly intended to sell the cow? Maybe, maybe not. Ambition and folly are two sides of the same coin.
I decide to apply to film school, and it certainly feels like I’m bringing home magic beans. I had not made any films, nor ever made an attempt at writing one. It’s one thing to come home with purportedly magic beans if you’re a horticulturist, and another if you’re a poor boy named Jack who nobody wants to hire. Perhaps I had been swindled by the allure of Hollywood. Nonetheless, I’d made my choice and I would stick with it.
I apply. My family is supportive. Unlike Jack, my mother chooses to place her hope in the dream I’ve chosen to follow. For a moment I am relieved, but I soon find that this is stressful in its own way. Jack was an underdog. His mother considered him a fool. Whether those beans grew or stayed in the soil for eternity—he had nothing more to lose. If Jack had anybody believing in him, I imagine he would have shown a bit more trepidation before beginning his climb.
Out of Jack’s beans a great tall beanstalk grew, towering high into the sky. Meanwhile, I am admitted into a film school on the other side of the country.
I have my worries, but I am excited to embark on my journey. A part of me has been craving an adventure, a chance to reinvent myself. And I could finally get out of Florida. So I climb up my own beanstalk, and enter a land that I had heard was full of ogres and giants: Hollywood.
Jack is a different boy each time he climbs the beanstalk. He walks among monsters, hiding his true self with ease. He lies, he deceives, and in the end: he returns home with riches.
In the summer before my first semester of college, I buy a new pair of glasses. A new wardrobe. I try to exercise more. Death of the old self, birth of the new. In fairy tales, a person can be torn apart limb by limb. So long as the pieces are put back together again, they’ll live.
I start college. Attend classes. Make new friends, and fall out of touch with old ones. As I work on student film sets, I try to feign confidence. I fear that with one misstep I will be eaten alive. How did Jack do it? He tricks, thieves, and swindles as if he has been doing it all his life.
March, 2020. I fly home for a spring break that will never end. Jack always climbed back down the beanstalk with a prize, a token of his accomplishment. As I re-enter my childhood home, I wish I had brought a hen that lays golden eggs with me.
A few days later, a pandemic sweeps the nation. My college says we will be learning from home indefinitely. I ask what will happen to all the possessions I left behind.
In quarantine, Jack’s story no longer feels relevant. I look at twitter. People are talking about Rapunzel. Look how easy it was for her, they say. And she was locked up all her life! Did she really want to leave that tower, I wonder? After all, she was safe there.
I seal myself in my home, and I wait. Old friends occasionally show up outside. Perhaps one of them is my Prince. They invite me out, but I lie, say I’m in class. Or tired. Maybe tired in class. They’re aware I’m lying, trying to avoid them. They ask why I am so averse to catching up, so against rekindling old memories. I consider telling them. Telling them that I want to continue moving forward. That I do not want to slip into the past, into old habits and old selves. If I did—I fear I’d lose any progress I’ve made towards my happy ending. Why stray off the path now?
The old friends do not hear my reasoning, as I do not tell them. In jest, they call me cold or emotionless. Not always in jest. Of course, I disagree. But how we see ourselves in the mirror is bound to be different from how others view us. Unavoidable, really.
I ask a new friend if he knows any fairy tales that resemble my situation. He recommends Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince. I give it a read. It’s the story of a golden statue with a heart of lead, who at night weeps for those suffering around him. With the help of a swallow, he donates pieces of himself in order to lighten their pain. I find the comparison amusing. Maybe I could try being a bit more sympathetic, I think. I’ll get around to it when this is all over.
Days pass, then weeks, then days, then weeks again. The year draws to the close; another semester comes to an end.
I recall Sleeping Beauty. Everything in her kingdom is thrown into a hundred year slumber—servants, the flies on the wall, even the fire in the hearth. It is as if time has stopped. The story provides me some comfort in a period of great stagnation.
Patience. Waiting. What was she dreaming about all those years? The past? The future? Or something else entirely?
The bags under my eyes get darker. I try to improve my sleeping habits. Less time awake, more time dreaming.
I make plans for the future. I write them down, knowing they will fall through. I lay awake and dream of what my life has in store. Fairy tales often end with a wedding, but what comes next? Surely Sleeping Beauty had trouble adjusting to the new world, a century removed from her own. Surely Jack could never forget the land of giants that always looms above him. Surely their happy endings could never last.
Day by day we climb higher and higher, stories giving our world form and direction. But what to do once the summit is reached, and the story ends? We fall into a life undefined. A terrifying world of infinite possibilities and limitless potential.
