Prompt 188: Letters
Dear Shrek,
I know there aren’t hard feelings with us now, I don’t even know if it upset you that much, I mean you’re Sir Stoic Posing As Cruel Ogre Guy anyway so yeah. It’s sort of hard to guess whether or not you were actually hurt at all by the whole thing where I was going to leave after what you said about having played me.
You really ought to know that the thing with coming back wasn’t of my own doing. That was all because of Puss and Donkey coming to get me, filling me in on the plan. I really really didn’t get that. I don’t know why…I was so used to it then, with people using me for stuff that I didn’t actually think it could be anything but the old story coming back to haunt me.
I know you know what that stuff is like, from what you told me you’ve been dealing with it too, and I guess it’s pretty obvious you’re the guy who’d always had it even worse than me. Being a Ogre and all it’s pretty apparent. I should have said something after anyway, let you know your other friends had helped me change my mind and set me right and that it was really all because of you I went ahead and put on that crown.
I never did though so I guess a thank you note’s going to have to do, and an apology that I didn’t trust you enough in the first place to go along with you. I’m glad it’s all under the bridge now anyway.
Thanks Again,
Artie
Dear Dad Uther,
I don’t even know where to go with this. I won’t be sending you this letter either way. I haven’t got the guts for it for one. It’s funny that there’s other things I can get away with doing, like fighting off pirates and then villains, helping save a kingdom, living every day for ten years with Lancelot and his crowd always after me, learning to just deal with the bruises and to hope they didn’t break anything so I didn’t have to bother with the nurse or teachers who just didn’t like me, (and then who knows what they’d do to me for telling?) and yet I don’t feel at all brave enough to send this letter to you.
I’m hardly even brave enough to write this letter anyway. I mean I don’t like remembering it, thinking that you’re still out there somewhere. Never mind that I know you are because of the…correspondence that you sent when you had heard that I was king. A messenger with some coins in a moneybag and a request that I grant you a fiefdom of your own with no acknowledgement beyond that you addressed me as King Arthur Pendragon and signed yourself with that same last name? Did you really think that it made up for it.
I was six when you left me at school and paid them enough money to keep me there even in the summers and at holidays when all the other kids got to go home with people who wanted them. Did you blame me because of losing Mom? You know by the point you dropped me off she hadn’t died yet. She was very sick then obviously but I always wished I’d had the chance to say goodbye. I don’t think that I made her sick, I mean I asked Mr. Merlin the first time I found out he was the magic teacher if he’d ever heard of children magically poisoning their mothers’ blood and he said such a thing was impossible for anyone to do or have done ever.
I didn’t believe him then, I mean really, what else could be the reason that you didn’t want me, that you’d pretty much thrown me away. I sort of wrestled with that one for years. I mean I’m still wrestling with it even, though I’ve pretty much decided that it couldn’t be my fault there’s a part of me that says I’m the kid who killed his own mother so his father had to get rid of him.
I guess I really was just too embarrassing for words. I mean that’s what they all said all the times you didn’t turn up for Parent’s Weekend, or the Awards Ceremonies or anything. That it was because I was such a loser you didn’t want to be associated with me. I don’t know if that’s right or not now that I’m useful to you because of what I can do now and procure in the way of lands and titles. But considering that you didn’t even mention that you were my father and just went ahead asking for the land and not, you know, anything about me now, anything you’d like to say…
I can’t even go here anymore. I thought I started writing this out mad, but I’m not mad anymore. I just sort of want to cry and I’m not even sure why. I mean I’m happy now pretty much. I have friends now, the first in my life or I thought I did. Thinking about you…what they all say you must have thought, how I’m only worth the one thing to you…It’s like they only put up with me because they have to now, isn’t it? Just like you only put up with me until I was old enough to throw away and to be rid of.
There aren’t even any words that I can say. I’d like to come up with something witty, something I can send in response to your request but I’m only going to pretend it never came instead. I’m just a coward that way, just a loser, just what you always expected from your son.
I never learned to be anything different from you after all. Therefore I must not have been worth it.
Have as good a life as you can I guess. It’s all that I can think of to say now.
Wishing that I could have been your son,
Arthur.
-Arthur Pendragon (“Artie”)
-Word Count: 1018
-Shrek
I know there aren’t hard feelings with us now, I don’t even know if it upset you that much, I mean you’re Sir Stoic Posing As Cruel Ogre Guy anyway so yeah. It’s sort of hard to guess whether or not you were actually hurt at all by the whole thing where I was going to leave after what you said about having played me.
You really ought to know that the thing with coming back wasn’t of my own doing. That was all because of Puss and Donkey coming to get me, filling me in on the plan. I really really didn’t get that. I don’t know why…I was so used to it then, with people using me for stuff that I didn’t actually think it could be anything but the old story coming back to haunt me.
I know you know what that stuff is like, from what you told me you’ve been dealing with it too, and I guess it’s pretty obvious you’re the guy who’d always had it even worse than me. Being a Ogre and all it’s pretty apparent. I should have said something after anyway, let you know your other friends had helped me change my mind and set me right and that it was really all because of you I went ahead and put on that crown.
I never did though so I guess a thank you note’s going to have to do, and an apology that I didn’t trust you enough in the first place to go along with you. I’m glad it’s all under the bridge now anyway.
Thanks Again,
Artie
Dear Dad Uther,
I don’t even know where to go with this. I won’t be sending you this letter either way. I haven’t got the guts for it for one. It’s funny that there’s other things I can get away with doing, like fighting off pirates and then villains, helping save a kingdom, living every day for ten years with Lancelot and his crowd always after me, learning to just deal with the bruises and to hope they didn’t break anything so I didn’t have to bother with the nurse or teachers who just didn’t like me, (and then who knows what they’d do to me for telling?) and yet I don’t feel at all brave enough to send this letter to you.
I’m hardly even brave enough to write this letter anyway. I mean I don’t like remembering it, thinking that you’re still out there somewhere. Never mind that I know you are because of the…correspondence that you sent when you had heard that I was king. A messenger with some coins in a moneybag and a request that I grant you a fiefdom of your own with no acknowledgement beyond that you addressed me as King Arthur Pendragon and signed yourself with that same last name? Did you really think that it made up for it.
I was six when you left me at school and paid them enough money to keep me there even in the summers and at holidays when all the other kids got to go home with people who wanted them. Did you blame me because of losing Mom? You know by the point you dropped me off she hadn’t died yet. She was very sick then obviously but I always wished I’d had the chance to say goodbye. I don’t think that I made her sick, I mean I asked Mr. Merlin the first time I found out he was the magic teacher if he’d ever heard of children magically poisoning their mothers’ blood and he said such a thing was impossible for anyone to do or have done ever.
I didn’t believe him then, I mean really, what else could be the reason that you didn’t want me, that you’d pretty much thrown me away. I sort of wrestled with that one for years. I mean I’m still wrestling with it even, though I’ve pretty much decided that it couldn’t be my fault there’s a part of me that says I’m the kid who killed his own mother so his father had to get rid of him.
I guess I really was just too embarrassing for words. I mean that’s what they all said all the times you didn’t turn up for Parent’s Weekend, or the Awards Ceremonies or anything. That it was because I was such a loser you didn’t want to be associated with me. I don’t know if that’s right or not now that I’m useful to you because of what I can do now and procure in the way of lands and titles. But considering that you didn’t even mention that you were my father and just went ahead asking for the land and not, you know, anything about me now, anything you’d like to say…
I can’t even go here anymore. I thought I started writing this out mad, but I’m not mad anymore. I just sort of want to cry and I’m not even sure why. I mean I’m happy now pretty much. I have friends now, the first in my life or I thought I did. Thinking about you…what they all say you must have thought, how I’m only worth the one thing to you…It’s like they only put up with me because they have to now, isn’t it? Just like you only put up with me until I was old enough to throw away and to be rid of.
There aren’t even any words that I can say. I’d like to come up with something witty, something I can send in response to your request but I’m only going to pretend it never came instead. I’m just a coward that way, just a loser, just what you always expected from your son.
I never learned to be anything different from you after all. Therefore I must not have been worth it.
Have as good a life as you can I guess. It’s all that I can think of to say now.
Wishing that I could have been your son,
Arthur.
-Arthur Pendragon (“Artie”)
-Word Count: 1018
-Shrek