What Color Would The Canvas Of Your Life Be?

A short story about the journey of a princess

Once upon a time, a little girl lived in a castle, surrounded by beautiful things.

Embroidered brocade dresses, pointed shoes with long shiny laces, velvet curtains, a gigantic four-poster bed with silky sheets, and the softest mattress.

Nevertheless, the girl was always melancholic, often found at the windowsill of her room, looking out of the window with sad, pensive eyes, or wandering around the castle.

The girl happened to be the little princess of a little nation hidden among the hills, and the castle where she lived with her parents, the king and queen, was perched on top of the mountain that dominated their lands.

The queen and king tried in every way to lift their beloved daughter’s mood.

They often hosted majestic dance parties, in an attempt to lift their beloved daughter’s mood. But the little girl spent all the time in a corner, looking at the dancers sliding across the ballroom with her big, sad, eyes.

They covered her in presents, hoping to put a smile on her little sad face, but she didn’t find any solace in any of their gifts.

They gifted her a horse, encouraging her to go outside and learn how to ride, to explore the lush woods and golden lands that belonged to their nation, but she didn’t show any interest in it.

Finally, one day, while she was wandering around the halls of the castle, she ran into a hidden staircase she had never seen before. She went upstairs, feeling weirdly excited every step of the way. Then, she finally reached the top of the stairs, and found herself in front of an old, dark room, filled with all kinds of things, covered in dust, piled on top of each other.

Something in the middle of the room caught the attention of the little girl and made her eyes shine bright like never before.

It was a wooden spinning machine, that the girl immediately recognized as the one her then gone grandmother used to work with when she was younger, holding her on her lap the whole time.

The girl used to look at her grandmother’s hands with an enchanted look in her eyes. She admired them while they worked with the yarn, moving quickly yet precisely.

Like under the effect of some spell, the girl wiped the dust on the spinning machine chair and sat on it. She started working with the yarn that was still placed in the machine. In the beginning, it was all a creaking of mechanisms and pieces of yarn getting stuck in the machine, but after some time, the girl was able to get the spinning machine to work again.

While working on that yarn, at first she hadn’t anything precise in mind. But, after some time, she began to come up with a project, and a clear image started to take form behind her eyes.

After some days, when she ran out of yarn, she asked her parents if they could get her some new one. The king and queen, happy to finally see their daughter excited about something, immediately said yes and decided not to further investigate, not to risk ruining the girl’s interest in whatever had caught her attention.

So, every time the king left the castle to go carry out some royal businesses, he returned home with some new yarn for his daughter. Every time, he brought her new textures and colors, each one typical of the place that particular yarn came from.

The girl kept working on her project, enthusiastically incorporating in her canvas every new yarn her father gave her. The result soon became an entanglement of different consistencies, grains, shades, pigments, while the girl kept spinning to create the design she had in mind.

The girl grew up to be a beautiful woman, while keeping working on her project, that kept growing along with her, getting bigger and bigger, including more and more kinds of yarn.

Finally, the girl fell in love with a prince from a neighboring nation, whom she had known since she was a child. Along with his parents, he was always invited to the dance parties the princesses’ parents organized for her when she was little; the young woman learned that, while she spent those long nights in a corner, looking at the dancers and their bright, shiny clothes, he spent those same nights in the opposite corner, looking at her. He looked at her looking at the dancers, and never forgot about her.

The two met again at a dance party, fell in love, and decided to get married.

On the day of the wedding, while hugging goodbye her parents, she whispered in their ears to go look in the old, dark room on top of the hidden staircase, saying that they would find there a present from her to them.

After she left, the old king and queen, sad for their daughter leaving the castle but happy because they knew she had found true love and was going to live a blissful life, climbed up that hidden staircase.

When they entered the room, at first they just saw piles and piles of old things, covered in dust. Then, they noticed the spinning machine in the middle of the room, and, beside it, a large table with an enormous canvas laid out on top of it.

They approached the table and looked at the canvas.

What they saw in front of them was the picture of their daughter’s life, entangled and embroidered on that canvas.

It was made of different parts and populated by a lot of characters. Every part had a background of a particular color and hosted particular characters, each character clearly defined by his clothes and colors.

Every part was a phase of the princess’ life, since she was a child until the day of her wedding. She had represented the youngest version of herself in her room, surrounded by all the marvelous things her parents had gifted her when she was little, her parents outside her door, a worried expression and dark clothes, on a dark green background.

The following part pictured the girl in the old room, sitting at the spinning machine, working. The background was dark red with golden threads, and she represented her parents outside of the window, in the underlying garden, smiling, dressed in lighter-colored clothes.

The third part pictured the princess with her beloved, on a carmine red background. The two were dancing, in the middle of a room filled with other people, everybody elegantly dressed, everything bright and shiny, the couple smiling at each other.

The last part pictured the princess, dressed in white and gold, standing beside her groom in the middle of the church, under marble high columns and multicolored rose windows, surrounded by guests, the king and queen dressed in golden clothes, a golden carriage waiting for the newlyweds outside of the church. The background was light pink, white, and golden.

The whole thing looked like a magnificent, incredibly beautiful picture that put together years and years of life, wins and losses, sadness and happiness, embroidered on that large canvas.

The king and queen stood in front of the picture, holding each other, caressing that tangle of threads, colors, textures, life.

© Francesca Dallaglio, 2021