Ranga's fall

"Ranga, you're a disgrace. What use are these huge eyes on your twin heads?" King Ranvijay looms over Ranga, who laid on the bed of the royal suite. Six-foot-tall King's reproach and his protruding belly from the royal robe, made Ranga sink under the covers. 

Ranga's painful cries, after he fell from the second floor of the castle, had awakened the King from his blissful slumber. Ranga's three-and-a-half feet body didn't do justice to his appearance. He had two heads springing along from a neck that had three-sixty-degree mobility. Four spiky horns covered his bald heads. Giant yellow eyes and four ears were distributed evenly on two heads over the green body. A foul-smelling mouth revealed two fangs whenever he smiled, and the teeth, let's just say, weren't pretty. The King's rebuke, although harsh while he was lying on the bed with two out of eight legs broken, made sense since his job was to keep an eye on the princess, and he failed.

The good thing was that Ranga was lying on the bed that smelt of the princess. Her enticing smell surrounded him. Her dark brown hair, spread on the pink pillow, had left its mark. He picked up a strand and wrapped it around his fingers.

Ah! His pain crept up from his legs to the heart.

Everybody either made fun of him or was scared of him. When he talked, either a roar or a hiss charged the air. That's why the King hired him to spy on the princess. Ranga was ugly and not a threat.

Princess Shweta was the most graceful creature Ranga had seen in his life. She never complained when she was frustrated with her father's ridiculous rules. She had some friends but was not allowed to meet them outside the castle, and they were too scared to visit since Ranga became her companion.

She was a quiet girl. Her face lit up in the evening when a flock of birds visited her on the balcony. She stroked them on her lap and fed them seeds with her hands.

Shweta had a strange room with big and small boxes placed vertically on the shelves.

"What are these boxes? What do you do here for hours?" Ranga asked one day.

Shweta laughed. "These are not boxes, silly. These are books. Each of them has a new world inside them. You can read them if you like."

"Read? What's reading?" Ranga is fascinated.

"Oh dear! You don't know how to read. It's the most magical thing in the world. I'll read you a book. Which one you want to listen to? Do you want to listen to a story about a girl who falls in love with a beast, or a girl who falls asleep for a hundred years in a rose-covered castle, or a boy who can't lie..."

"What're you reading?" Ranga tiptoed to have a look.

A tiny boy in a yellow robe stood on a round grey ball, watching the sun and the stars.

"The Little Prince. It's about a pilot whose plane crashes in the desert, and he finds a young boy from another planet..."

"Another planet!" Ranga jumped. His twin heads danced. "Yes!"

Princess's soft voice soothed Ranga into drooping off on the floor at her feet. One of his heads laid on the floor, but the other one was up because he needed to listen to the fascinating story. She smelt of the lavender, the flowers he brought for her in the morning.

"You're beautiful, but you're empty . . . One couldn't die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together since she's the one I've watered." Shweta paused. 

Ranga, who was constantly watching her fuchsia lips and grey eyes, knew a tear would drop anytime.

"Stop, lovely princess. If reading hurts, you don't have to." 

She continued, "The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched; they are felt with the heart."

But Ranga could see the most beautiful thing on earth, and he could touch it too. Daring wildly, he placed his lanky hand on her velvety, pale one.

She was surprised but not disgusted, as he feared. She spoke softly. "I need to go. Sorry, I'll complete the book some other day, Ranga." 

Her behaviour puzzled him. There's so much he didn't know about this beautiful soul.

That night Ranga couldn't sleep with Princesses's teary eyes haunting his dreams. He lay awake on his bed close to the door on the other side. The shuffle of steps, then the clack of the wardrobe, made Ranga peep in to investigate. The princess was furiously stuffing a duffle bag with her clothes.

"Princess, can't you sleep?" Ranga slid into the room.

Shweta spun her glassy eyes in shock, and the bag tumbled on the floor.

"Are you going somewhere?"

She plopped on the floor with her knees drawn in, and hid her face. "I miss him."

It was a blow to Ranga's guts. "Him?"

"He's my rose, the sailor. I met him on my last voyage with my father. We spent nights star-gazing, reading books and sharing our dreams on the ship. I can't forget him. Father wants to keep me away from him. He said I should forget him, but I can't. Ranga, I told my sailor to wait for me at midnight on the full moon night by the sea. I need to go. Please don't stop me, Ranga."

Did Ranga have a choice? His heart bled, but with a steady voice, he said, "What'll I tell your father? He'll kill me."

"Tell him you were sleeping. It's not your fault," princess pleaded.

Ranga picked up her bag from the floor and swung it over his shoulder. "What's the plan?"

Shweta swung on her feet, gave Ranga a kiss on the head and steered to the balcony. Ranga held on to the bedsheets while she climbed down the balcony to the ground safely.

When Ranga could no longer see her, he climbed the balcony rail and tripped over it.