©Jason I. Stutz 2019

Snow White entered the doors of that little sales office off drab and lonesome Highway 9.  If ever there was an angel visiting earth, her shining white legs, black hair and rosy cheeks emanated light like one.  Doc rose immediately to his feet and bent forward to shake her hand.

“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Doc…”

“–just ‘Doc,’ Ms. White. That’ll be fine,” he encouraged flatly and smiled warmly.

“Ah, well, that’s very kind… Doc,” she corrected herself to him and they giggled. “A true pleasure to meet you, Doc!”

“Ah, very kind of you, very kind,” he said, as they sat in their seats across from each other. He lined his gaze with her resume.

“I hope it provides you with an acceptable representation of my skills,” she said.

“Oh, Ms. White, to be honest, I fear you are too good for us.”

Snow White hesitated with her left hand patting lightly her heart, “I’m certain I’ll do a good job, Mr. Doc…. Doc!”

“Ms. White, us poor and simple dwarfs will feel that we are getting the better end of your employment here.”

Snow White’s heart pounded a single sound of power, as though ringing a mighty bell made of love.  In the ethereal realm above them, Snow White was a bursting sun of light, and Doc knelt at her feet.

Ms. White and Doc stood up together on the plywood and blue industrial carpeted floor of Doc’s office, at a close arm’s length.

“Well, thank you, again, Mr… (laughing)… Doc.”

“And thank you, Ms. White.  Will we see you tomorrow morning?”

Snow White took a moment and looked around her.  The file drawers were stuffed with papers randomly; books were strewn everywhere, even on the floor; the telephone, all through her interview, rang softly in the background almost continuously.

“Well, I don’t mind if I start right now!”

The Seven Dwarfs

The other dwarfs all deferred naturally to Doc, for he was the boss.  Doc, for his turn,  deferred naturally and spiritually to Snow White, even though she was accustomed to deferring always to her employer. She had all of their hearts in mind in everything she did, in the office and otherwise.  Once the man got there who would sweep Snow White from her marble slab into his arms, awake and alive, they wouldn’t have her around anymore.  They would sigh in their desk chairs all the rest of their days recalling her to their memory.

Aren’t they fools for her?  Or are they holy fools in service to their eternal bride?  Angels of light and grace adorn the sleeves and hem of her dress, are at home in the trill of her voice; they have, as a great mansion, her heart.

That morning, Ms. White took her desk and made it neat, kept the good from the old system employed by the previous Office Manager, and created new systems that worked in her and the dwarfs favor.

Grumpy came in as usual to start his day, and Ms. White would now become aware of his micro aggressions.  She felt hurt.

“Grumpy, why are you so angry?”

He looked at her with wild eyes and a pained look, “You wouldn’t understand!” he shouted.

She demurred, nodded her head as to a sweet child, and returned to her work with all that took place with him in her heart.

Next, Sleepy walked in, drunk on insomnia from a night of only 3 hours rest.  Sleepy fawned over Snow White, for she was the only thing he had seen for several years that made him see colors, and her smile made him feel like he could sleep a whole night and then some.  Sleepy dreamed on her smile as she said her “Good Morning” and his head fell softly to the surface of her desk.

“Oh, dear, Mr. Sleepy, are you still tired?”  Please come to rest on this mat while all the rest of us work. And he did.  He curled at her feet like a cat and slept all morning and well into the afternoon.  Whenever someone entered, she held her finger to her lips and pointed at Sleepy’s sleeping body to let them know not to disturb him.

Again, came Grumpy!  Stomping on his two feet and harrumph-ing at everyone!   “It’s the morning and I haven’t had my coffee!”  Snow White simultaneously hushed him, pointing to Sleepy, and reached to the coffee pot on her right to pour it for him.  Grumpy stood still, stammered a few words back at himself, and… well, he actually said, “Thank you…” his voice trailing off silently in his throat.  Grumpy took his brief case and went to his desk, curling his coffee cup to his chest.

Happy is a very happy dwarf.  No one has ever seen him frown.  Occasionally, his eyebrows squinch upward as though he is confused, but he only starts to laugh, again, very soon after.   When Happy entered the sales office that Tuesday afternoon, his face transformed from ordinary Happy to sublime, so that his spiritual awakening happened on first sight of her.  His inner light bloomed like a piercing blue-white Sun, and his feet rose from the ground for a beat as he absorbed her affirmative heartbeat of hello into his chest, with her joyous smile, her look upon him greeting him the first time, his delight meeting hers.  He floated on toward his desk, vibrating loudly like a bell.

It was getting to be a hot day.  The bright, yellow sun’s light reached through the dust of Highway 9 like a gazillion arms reaching everywhere toward everyone. Through the thickest rust-red cloud of dust emerged a small figure toward the glass front door.  “A-aaaaa-aaaaa-cheeeeeeeeeeewwww!” said the small, fat man, dropping his handkerchief accidentally as he stepped inside.  Snow White stepped forward to assist but he had already bent to pick it up.  As he bent, he noticed her standing before him, black silk shoes resting, anticipatorily on the blue industrial carpet.  His head cocked and he stared up at her. Snow White bent her lovely waist and reached to the carpet to get Sneezy’s handkerchief for him.  She raised it to the level of his cocked head and gave it to him as he stared up at her.  His face changed and he smiled hugely… and sneezed.

“Oh, dear, me.  Are you well, kind sir?”

He smiled and nodded his head emphatically, “Oh yes, yes, yes, I am very well, very well… Ach-oo-oo-ooo!”

Snow White reached behind the desk to pull another handkerchief from the handkerchief drawer, marked, in worn letters, “Sneezy’s.”  She laughed a bit nervously, “These must be yours.”  Sneezy thanked her and went his way to his desk, sneezing no less than three times before sitting down and two more times once he sat.

A dust devil spun down Highway 9 as Dopey came through the parking area.  A broom hung from his hips and scraped the ground behind him.  He was Happy’s cousin, hired to do the janitorial work.  But, one day, a client came in very wroth to see the dwarfs in person and they all whirled around as headless chickens (even Doc was afraid), until Dopey changed the man’s mind and sold him three more Saturdays of landscaping for 125% the price of two.  But Dopey still carries the broom at his waist and sweeps the floor of the break room and bathroom every day.  He says it helps him clear his mind.

As the wings of many angels are as rays of the midday sun, Dopey stood with those around him, like an Aspen tree that had that light pushing through all of its little leaves.  His spine bent and swayed from the force of the wind at his back, that slightest of dwarfs. Dopey, caught sight of Snow White as he was entering the sales office.  She angled to look up at him as she was searching for something on her desk.  Profound joy exploded between her eyes and she gasped.

“How do you do, Mr. Dopey,” she demurred, shaking her head ever slightly as her flesh trembled ecstatically from the force of her heartbeat.

“Oh, White, the whitest snow, the surest fit, the best of all!  Oh, White, Snow White!” sang Dopey as he entered her aura to greet her with a slight but sharp bow before heading off to his desk.  Piles of sales receipts lay uncashed occupying the right side of his desk.  At least the customers were happy!

Snow White took note of his song and filed it in the back of her brain.  There was something of a message in it.  “I will be the best for you all!” she heard herself say in her mind, in an odd voice, half-conscious, almost…as though… falling asleep with that thought.

Bashful had been unaware that anything beautiful would touch him that day.  He especially avoided Highway 2 in case a flower leapt out to caress him as they always did.  He felt the flowers’ attentions even as they began to notice him coming near, and his face would bloom red and he would run quickly past them or hide until the flowers guessed that he was gone.

Suffice it to say, Snow White is akin to a trillion flowers blooming all at once, and the gift of her attention offers those trillion’s scent.  As Bashful approached the industrial glass front door of that little sales office off dusty, old Highway 9, his blood, at once bloomed and sought to hide inwardly, so much that he thought his heart would break from the tension.  Snow White stood watching him with greatest care, gentled her gaze upon him, and kept him yet in her heart, as though to say to Bashful, “Come.”

Bashful had by now re-exited the front door and swung his back against the brick wall, breathing and giggling to himself ecstatically.  Snow White stepped forward from her desk to the industrial glass front door and peered askance through it.  Her eyes met Bashful’s as he turned his head toward her.  He smiled and shirked back, giggling, moving his hip closer to the wall that connected them.  She placed her hand on the glass and stepped around the door.  He turned to her, eyes wild, joyous, terrified.  He calmed as she communicated herself to him through her eyes.  Bashful’s eyes softened and whetted. His smile about to burst, he reached forward and embraced her.  Snow’s knees bent to catch the whole of his weight, he bounced in her arms, and they laughed and laughed, bouncing and laughing hearts embracing!! They felt each other’s skin happily touching.  So beautiful!  So cool!

As Snow White returned to her station, Sleepy lifted his head from her feet.  His face rose to a huge grin.  He had no words, not even a sigh.  His body received, for hours, the peace that it had long desired.  Snow White surreptitiously hid the coffee pot under her desk for the time being and turned to smile her warm heart at him.  Sleepy gathered his brief case and rode a wave of calm to his desk. He began his work, clear minded, the fullness of his breath soothing and relieving him, at last.  He was so relieved, in fact, that his  head floated softly to his desktop and he slept another two hours, right then and there.

The day progressed. The phones got answered and directed according to Ms. White’s impeccable, intuitive judgement.  The file drawers, like glacial ice melting in springtime, slowly receded back into the drawers, filed by category and re-placed alphabetically.  Everyone’s needs were met by her wise and adept decision-making.

By the time the work bell rang where it hung on the frame of Doc’s office door, the dwarfs and Snow White had raked in $2.75 million in sales for fulfillment in the coming season and cleared another $4 million + in back, undeposited sales receipts. They each, Snow White and the 7 dwarfs,  considered within themselves their retirements.  But the phones still rang- and rang and rang- so that the needs of the community they served overwhelmed their fantasies, at least for now.

“DING, DING, DING, DING!!!” rang the work bell!  “DING, DING, DING, DING, DING!!”  The 7 dwarfs all rejoiced around Snow White and sang out, “See what a little order can bring!  A little order makes our work to sing!  See what a little order can bring!!” And they lifted her upon their shoulders and paraded her to every corner of that little sales office off dusty, old Highway 9, as she scolded them and laughed, “Oh, boys!  Oh, boys, I tell you!  You ain’t seen nothing,  I tell you!”

~~The Witch~~

The week progressed in that little sales office off dusty old Highway 9.  Word spread amongst the town’s folk about the good things that were happening there.  Of course everyone in town was treated to the creative genius, financial fairness and the height of customer service given by the dwarves and Snow White, and many were astonished to discover that every customer was treated with the same regard as themselves.

The Mayor’s Wife heard, too, about the dwarfs’ success and became quite curious about Snow White.  On Monday or Tuesday of the following week, she decided, she would reward them with a visit.

The Queen’s Reward

At once rose a dust cloud on the highway and the blazing sun receded to a fiery display upon the sky.  A tall, jack knife of a woman stepped onto the asphalt of the sales office parking strip, a handful of contracts squeezed tight in her fist.

The industrial glass front door was pushed through with her conviction, almost, it seemed, before she placed her fingers upon it. Her red, patent leather, high heeled shoes and the jewelry adorning her every joint, she was a startling site to begin with.  But not as startling as how she peeled her eyelids to look at you with such icy blue eyes (ice that knocks you cold, blues you might drown in if you aren’t aware- for awareness is the life raft of your life).

“Hey, Miss!  Cool it down!  You are a fire hazard!!  Oww!!!” Snow White stabbed playfully at the witch, whose eyelids wilted and turned crust-brown from the shock of being joked with.

“O-ooh…” she snarled woundedly, feigning, also, to be sweet.

“I am the Mayor’s wife, if you’ll please mind my obvious position of influence.”

Snow White shirked back, shocked at her egotism and confused, for she knows no one is but equal any other in the eyes of God.

“I came here today to greet our town’s new “shining star“!” the witch chirped suddenly, a smile, like a martial art, suddenly erected on her face.  “Everyone is talking about yo-u-u-u!” she sang condescendingly, and torqued her head as though waiting for Snow White to explain her brilliance and beauty.

“Oh, I’m sure!!!” she snorted, and waved her hand at the witch, highly amused.

The witch halted, confused by Snow White.  “Where is Doc?” she altered the already awkward flow of their interaction.  Snow White reached her index finger up to the witch as though to make a point, or ask a question- speechless.

“Cheh–… (a moment pass)… gosh!” she swallowed hard. “I don’t know!  Ha!” shaking her head like a drunk person to her parole officer- the clown, the total dramatist that she is.

“Must I find him myself, Ms…. what do they call you?  Your name,” cooed the witch too directly.  Scanning with her eyes upon Snow White’s desk, she found an envelope with her name on it- a thank you card sent by a happy customer.  “White.  Hmm.”

“Pleased to meet you, Ms…. Mayor’s wife,” Snow White cajoled but flatly.

“Oh-h-h, why not,” said the witch, as though completing negotiations that never occurred, “Call me “Queen.”  Isn’t that nice?” And she settled on it herself and felt very pleased.  “I am as though your Queen, so you may call me that.”

Snow White shrank back without turning her face from the witch for even a second and went to Doc in his office.  Yellow light poured through the frosted glass pane of his office door.  Doc was becoming anxious, already aware of the Queen’s entrance, as the hairs on his neck and arms stood straight out and his spine chilled- as happens whenever the witch is near.

“Where is Doc?!” she scowled in Snow White’s direction, frothing spit through her thin, pale lips.

Snow White’s spine straightened and she sang like a bell,  “May I have your name, Ma’am?”

“I’ll keep mine if you keep yours…. (her eyes roaming Snow White’s desk, instantly betraying her own suggestion)… hmmm…. how do they call yo-u-u?”  Snow White bent her head and left knee in annoyance.  In the etherial air above them, Snow White was the power of Christ, blazing light-blue rays of that power.  Her interlocutor was a scaly, leather winged demon intent on fury.

“What seems to be the problem…?” Snow White said flatly, inquiring now into the nature of this witch.

“Problem?  ‘What’s the problem’?!'” the witch opened her mouth, her micro-thin, pale lips curled to shape the first word, and out flowed fire and lightning, the sounds of frightened Earth, the complaints of murderers endlessly finding their own reflections in eternity. From out the witch’s mouth flowed the terrorizing screams of jackals on the hunt, and under them, the sound of a small, hungry child, breathing under a huge rock- hiding lest she is found- and inside of her, held in a safe box to which she had long ago hidden the key… something worse… something far worse, never to be looked at or ever seen by anyone ever… never… ever…

But, Snow White saw… almost… all.  Her face (pressed hard by the force of the Queen’s noxious wind) was soft.  The Queen saw Snow White was unchanged by her words, was without effect from her fury, and became quickly, intensely interested in finding out how to destroy her.

“Perhaps Doc has some knowledge as to why you are angry,” Snow White said.

Doc turned the knob of his office door slowly and peered out like a child afraid of his governess.  “Stay!” he shouted through whispers to Snow White as she approached.  Snow White turned her shoulder to him and acted nonchalant.

“Well, should we call the cops?” asked Snow White out the side of her mouth.

“It wouldn’t do any good… her husband is the mayor.  Tell her she looks more beautiful than you had heard and that I’ll get back to her soon.  I’m away… (cough, cough) terrible cold!”

Snow White turned, offering a last amused, suspicious look at Doc as he shut the door even more, so that only the pupil of his left eye could fit between the door and the jam.  He waved her on frantically, “Go!”

“Mrs… I’m sorry I didn’t get your name, although I hear you are of very high position in our town, here.  And you,” she gasped theatrically, “Madam, you are more beautiful than I had heard!”  Her stomach tightened into a knot to say it, though.

The Queen softened, twisting her wiry face from gray, furious spite to the shameful radiance of her vanity.  “Of course,” she acknowledged, regally.  “People underestimate how fair I am!  Really, I’m not a monster at all.  I am the fairest one of all!  You will treat me with respect worthy of my position, yes. I’m sure we’ll get along fine… fine!  Yes?”  She said the “Yes?” rather chirpily and left it Snow White to reply.

Snow White stood, quite a bit rattled on her feet, even as the vast consciousness of her giant soul reached out around her.  She didn’t like to lie.   It showed on her face and the queen, always ready to detect a lie, saw it.

“You don’t find me… fair… Mrs… what was your name, again?”  As the queen, ever lifted her face to inquire again about Snow White’s name, her mind, at that moment, cracked, Helpless against her own bias, the glory of Snow White’s loveliness shown into her sight- brighter than the glory of the million angels who each knelt gratefully at Snow’s knee.  The Queen’s mind had only ever opened to see the beauty that was upon herself.  Imagine the difficulty of accommodating such a vastly new self-concept: poor Queen- hither had she been in such control of everything she saw.

And… well…? She did not take it well.  The Witch turned with an evil smile to her vanity mirror as she had it always ready in her purse.  As she pet her impossibly smooth cheeks with the front and back of her hand, totally engrossed in the vision in the small round mirror, she lifted her cobalt blue eyes for a moment before returning them to the mirror.  “Where’s Doc?” she asked suddenly, as though sweetly, as though Doc’s best friend was inquiring of his whereabouts, as though someone with only good intentions was asking about him.  But the Witch was visibly shaking- her hands; her face twitched.

Snow White stood, her feet grounded her energetically through the blue industrial carpet and the plywood floors, through the basement that no one knew existed, and through the concrete and diamond foundation, to the earth, to the center of the earth.  The Earth, ever thankful for Snow White’s feet upon her, sent up love through her entire body, Snow nodded thankfully to the great Mother.

“Oh, he has a terrible cold, ” she giggled!  “Went clean through all of Sneezy’s stock!!” Snow White chortled, waving her arm across her body as to say aw shucks!

The queen looked in the direction of Doc’s office before turning toward the industrial glass front door.  “I hope you have a fair day, Ms…. White,” she said, actually remembering it, needing an evil thought to accompany the memory for it to stick in her. As she went to push the handle she tripped on the rubber mat, catching herself but barely.  She turned back to scowl at Snow White who saw her being human. Interpenetrated by Snow White’s emanations of light, again! the rageful, jealous demon that wrapped its body around the queen and controlled her every movement was penetrated again by Snow White’s beauty, its self-concept shaken even further.   The shaken demon emerged through the Witch’s skin for one moment, temporarily loosed.  “But she is fair!,” the little girl hiding ‘neath the rock sweetly said. “This won’t happen again,” the demon hissed threateningly into the witch’s ear.  The Queen, terrified at his wrath, in her eternal confusion, shoved the little girl inside of her deeper and “understood.”

As the Queen stepped one red, patent leathered foot into her luxury car, she stopped to look up into the field of loveliness unchanged around Snow White and mouthed several very wordy curses in her direction-  and in the direction of Doc, Dopey, and the sales office in general- before at last stepping in and swinging shut the door between herself and the world she despised.

Snow White stood behind her desk, spine erect, not moving and barely breathing for several minutes as the light of the sun showed its last rays through the industrial glass front door. Dust, like golden flecks on a beam of light, sang.  The sunset burst around them into an array of reds and yellows.  The Witch’s car tires kicked gravel at the sales office facade as she lurched out onto Highway 9 toward the neighborhood she owned and the unfortunate people she paid to fearfully play various roles in her life.

Moments, minutes went and only the gentle Earth moved upon its axis; nothing else moved of its own accord. As the dark of night at last put the light of that one day to bed, a large tear stretched up and out to relieve its burden from Snow White’s crystalline eye. “That woman…,” shuddered loose from her voice.

She breathed- not fully, not yet- and ran through her experience with that woman, the mayor’s wife, until she understood. She breathed again, a little fuller, a little more.  But something was stuck- something- she wasn’t sure.

She thought of quitting her job; she thought of moving to a town nearby where there was no wife of any mayor there.  But then came Grumpy through the hall, complaining how only 97.3% of his customers were satisfied and angry that the coffee pot was somehow missing (even though the only place he avoided looking was the exact spot Snow White hid it).  Her heart reached out for him, total comprehension, and connected to his soul.  His soul laughed and his body shook from the laughter, rippling his skin like water on top of a lake; even as his mouth overflowed in complaint of all that was wrong in his world.

Snow White laughed and felt a strong affection for him. She invited him to look under her desk if he thought it would do any good.  Grumpy’s eyes lit like a laughing child even as his downturned lips mouthed his sincere disbelief that it would be there, right there in that exact spot she was pointing to.  “Thanks, anyway,” he grumbled, almost inaudibly.

“Well, then,” Snow White concluded, her heart bursting with laughter.  “I wish you a wonderful evening, Mr. Grumpy.”
“Oh,” he chortled.  “Just ‘Grumpy,’ Ms. White.  “That’ll be fine.”  And he floated home on the wings of love.

That night, as Snow White lay in the bed of her motel room,  she felt very ill at ease and didn’t sleep at all. The headlight beams from the highway entered through her windows and exited her room like the pulse of someone’s feverish thoughts. As her body began to let go, and her eyelids fell to the peace of their closure, a frightened thought held her to it, awake. ‘If I fell asleep, I would never wake up.’

Finally, as the sun began to peak its head above the horizon, the thought began to relent and she was given the respite of a few hours rest before she began to the day of work with the 6 dwarves and Doc.

Doc had felt very ashamed for his behavior the previous day regarding the Queen.  He stopped by the fruit and flower stand on Highway 8 before turning onto dusty old Highway 9 toward the sales office.

A large wicker basket with a tall handle hung for sale on the wall, and he filled it with ripe fruit, daffodils, lavender flowers, and baby’s breath, to be waiting for Snow White when she arrived.

“Thank You, Ms. White,” he wrote with a grease pencil on a 3×5 index card and propped it up on a pear.

Snow White entered like a ray of light from the full, summer moon.  She was never-the-less, ever-the-more troubled by the previous day’s events, not to mention her strange thoughts and fears which haunted her to this very minute.  As she looked upon the fruit basket, her fear submerged beneath her loveliest smile, and her heart sobbed a tear of compassion for her frightened boss, Doc.  They hugged, a sweet hug that did not forget the pain.  Doc teared till his face was wet.  To hide that fact, he turned toward his office and went to his phone to begin the day of work.  Snow White beamed a conscious ray of love toward Doc.  She stood solid in her black, silk shoes, her bosom squared to him.  The telephone receiver already held to his left ear with no one on the other end, he turned his glance to her, and his eyes sparked a comically embarrassed laugh in return.

A Pretty Young Thing Like Yourself

The little girl was pushed to sleep, sleep, sleep, as the demon hissed his commands into the witch’s ears.  Her hands’ movements unconscious upon the kitchen counter, poisons few in the world knew existed, found their way to a rotting apple and suddenly it looked fresher than the day it was plucked from its tree.  Underneath the heavy rock, the little girl cried and cried and cried, “No! No! Not her! Not her!”

“Sleep, vermin.  Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep…” hissed the demon.

The Witch decides to pretend to be anything but the witch

and visited the office that very next day.  She entered the parking lot and through the industrial glass front door that seemed to open just before she reached for it, as the little girl pounded her little fists against the inside of the Witch’s cold, stone casing around her heart.  At last, the demon poked her with the fire of his fury and she shirked back and was silent, overcome by fear of pain.  The little girl had never fought the demon before.  With her silent, the witch was free to use any words she chose.

“Oh, Snow White, a pretty young thing like yourself surely is missing her calling in a dirty old place like this… drab sales office off of dusty, old Highway 9- wouldn’t you say?  Hmmm?  I hear Doc is single, though,” the witch, disguised as a patron, hissed into her ear, winking grotesquely.  “Not a bad catch for a dwarf, eh?” The witch cackled inside herself, seeing the split in Snow White’s demeanor at these suggestions.

Snow White, her attentions divided between Doc and the happy gift Doc bestowed upon her, and the strange woman speaking incredulities in her ear, yet could not help but feel the emergence of those questions she had hid from herself as much as anyone in her company.  She is “30 years and as frisky as a young cow, ” she thought.  “Surely there is a man to meet me where I am,”  and softly questioned her boss, Doc, in this regard.  She had turned her cheek from the false-patron of the witch to consider these thoughts, so the witch saw her chance and removed the pear under which the 3×5 card was placed and replaced it with the deadly apple the demon taught her to create- so red it could burst.

As Snow White gently sought to return her attention from where it was fixed in her fantasy, the witch pushed Snow White’s hand to the apple like a pushy match maker.  “Eat,” she said, as though forcing a lead pipe into her stomach with that word.  Snow White kindly nodded, her head felt like cobwebs in every corner, and spiders traipsed along their threads as she raised her hand to her mouth with the fruit on its end.  “Snap!” went the flesh of the apple between her teeth.

That darned apple- at least Adam and Eve were able to share it with each other.  A witch, (herself poisoned by it more years ago than one can count), was stung by fears that Snow White might have what she did not. She made herself beautiful, again, with her black magic, and brought the shiny fruit to her as a wretched gift from her poisoned heart. “Who is more fair, now, Snow White?”  asked the witch.  As her peerless flesh fell upon the blue industrial carpet, the weeping earth jolted, and the witch snatched the life out of Snow White’s belly, only to spit and stomp on it with the poisoned, grey flesh of her wretched feet.  Snow White’s eyes rolled back, and her heart at once fell victim to the witch’s hate, and her mouth filled with the flavor of that fruit- its strange, sticky flavor stuck to her tongue and would not dissolve.

Snow White sought the poison nectar with her mind as she slept, cold on the marble slab: fantasies of marriage, of sex she didn’t know she had while in the awakened world. She sleeps, on the slab of marble that is her desk, barely breathing- softly breathing only enough to keep alive.

Her dreams now imprison her- dreams of what could be if she were to be pleased completely.  But she is completely alone in her sleep, endlessly.

As she sank into the deep of deadly dreams, she released the sound of her voice into the ether with the words, “Would if…?” and was frozen there in that part of her mind by the too sticky, too, too sweet taste of that deadly fruit.  “Would if…?”

Before anyone could notice her on the ground, the dwarfs all raised their heads from their desks as if to answer to her soul’s naive inquiry, “If it’s me, I would…” but no one was there to answer to, for she had fallen.  By the time her head hit the floor like a melon, the witch could be seen driving out in her luxury car to the neighborhood she owned, cackling… cackling… cackling like a match that struck and struck and struck.

~Song of Snow White~

Snow White sought and sought for her eternal mate.  But she found her vision lost in the thicket of dreams she could only barely admit to having.  She watched her body fret in those dreams, cut off from the awakened world, submerged in those dreams.  Her soul cut off by the sticky, sour taste of those aimless dreams.

Slowly, with Snow White’s determination, the dreams began to become more beautiful, more hopeful, whereas at first they were dark, desperate, searching and afraid… and, to her embarrassment, vain. Snow forgave herself her misgivings as childish fantasies.  Slowly, her body relaxed and her scent began to flow out from her.  Soon, the scent that was freed from her body was recognized as coming from her loins.  The office filled with her aroma and the dwarfs all bathed in her perfume, each dreaming their individual dreams about her.  Thus they knew, also, that she was alive.

Snow White’s soul, observing from above, noticed that each of the dwarfs dreams were as complex as each dwarf was, and as unique.  She realized fully each dwarfs limitations and hopes was expressed in their dreams.  Unfortunately, she saw their dreams were unfulfillable unless they, themselves went through a process to change themselves.  But each, even Doc, was satisfied already. In their reflection, however, she realized her own dreams were as complex and textured and began to seek them more exactly.

She found she did not know what her body wanted because she was always in service to other people.  She had stepped so ably upon her own desires that she drew them to a shadow place where no one else could sense them, and her aroma ceased to flow.  She was returned to that deeper sleep of unfulfillable dreams, and did not know.  Work in the office commenced, always with eyes upon dear Snow, anticipating the moment she would awaken, again, to live and work with them. The dwarfs’ hearts all sobbed as they worked.  Any thoughts of heaven were already actualized in this dream of her living and working with all of them, again.

But as she held court within herself as to her unique desires, she found layer upon layer of desire already expressing itself- desires she fought, thinking them childish or obtrusive, or unworthy.  She began to question her desire.  Soon a very specific image of what kind of man she desires began to emerge, and the aroma that was for days silent, flowed, also, again, but now was a raging fire of song booming from her loins.  Not only the entire sales office filled with the scent of her longing, but out the partially cracked windows flowed her scent like purple pollen.

Days and days her dreams became more specific and her scent grew larger. The entire lot began to hum with new life.  First, birds and insect came- and soon, by the dozens of varieties. Butterflies circled in the dynamos of gentle breezes that came by for a sniff.  And the blue jays came to sing the songs of awakened springtime, fluttering gaily near the sliding pane windows of the office. And the bees came, and even the spiders swung as on lazy hammocks on their webs.

As her dreams flowed, so did her aroma.  By the fifth day of her dreaming, her song was so thick with aspiring love that flowers popped out of the cracks in the asphalt and burst out near dusty old Highway 9 all the way down to the stoplight a half-mile away.

Snow White, amazed by such wonders, began to notice that there was a specific man, not a fantasy that she dreamed of, but a real human being, who lived, and who she longed for with the whole of her desire.  Upon realizing this fact, her song boomed ever brighter; her song sang to the furthest mountains and rang across the hills.  Gradually, men began to awaken to it, even, thousands of miles hence.  First, a sniff of something wonderful, and then their minds would awake and their whole being was charged by it.

Their poor wives.  So sweet was the love song of Snow White that they could not but seek her, finding themselves wandering for miles in search of its origin.  But one man breathed that holy whiff and something behind his nostrils rang like a bell and knew.

 

The Man, John

“I am the arrow! God be my bow!” she shouted from her ethereal throne above her body.  She looked into her heat to the bottom and reached till she held the bounty of her desires tenderly in the palms of her hands. “These are my desire’s arrows.  I found these, most rare and precious treasures in the bottom of my heart’s abyss.”

“Pluck the arrows and send them, ” said God.  She plucked the arrows and pulled them upon the bow of her prayer.  Only one was sent; only one was needed.  It flew up, into the sky, over mountains and into the heart of the man, John.

The man, John, was young but of a kindest heart.  His presence in a pub softened every gentleman and most every hardened heart.  When he sat next to a man on his stool, the man felt lucky to be alive that day, just to swim in his aroma, to feel the vibrations of John’s voice in his chest.  And even with little more than a few pleasant words, everyone’s hearts celebrated his having visited with them after he departed their company.

Snow White’s awareness awakened to this man and when she acknowledged him as “him,” her sex sang out so loudly that the the driest mountains between her and he burst with the songs of flowers and birds.  The insects all hummed in reverent prayer and thirsty animals came to the moistened vales to prance with their beloveds.  The flowers, watered by her desire, gave off the prayer the sky was asking for and, at last, sang down a load of loving rain from heaven.  Thus, the desert was transformed between them.  The animals all sang and pranced up to the place this man stood, his ruddiest cheeks, the glory of man, gentle, beautiful.

He jut his elbows out from his sides and his chest heaved a great breath in, from the call of her longing, as the oxygen mixed with her scent charged him with divine power.  A flower, one of the trillion progeny of her song, plucked itself from its stem and, falling upon his silk boot, offered itself for him to smell- a suicide of devotion to the love that gave it life.  Acknowledging the sacrifice, he reached down, raised it to his face and breathed its life into his nose.  He blessed the little creature and placed it in his breast pocket, where it would live sustained by the love of his pounding heart. He looked around him and mentally left his now failing plans for the day, to the bees and ants and worms who took to it in honorable service.  And he began to walk along the thousand mile, blooming vale, in Snow White’s direction.

With his initiating footsteps, Snow White’s body visibly convulsed on the marble slab and her scent grew to such a pitch that every desert of the earth drew rain so that the sand became moist.  Seeds were drawn from far and wide who flowered in them.

More about The Man, John

John sent a lightning bolt through his fist upon the drunk trouble-maker’s face, sending him to his back on top of a small, wobbly bar table.  The trouble-maker, stayed, breathed his breathes and became still.  It was not John’s fist that stayed him, but that it was John himself.    Every man in the bar stopped, awakened to their nature- their behavior incited their gentlest of friends to violence.

Each considered his own part.  Each was stabbed in the heart seeing his own nature.  Each repented there and then never to fight even if his life depended on it- and they never did (never had to), again.

John, for his part, was grieved by his loss of self.  He saw the man sprawled out upon the wobbly bar table, and John’s face, normally placid and congenial, torqued into such a terrible dimension that the heart of all who looked upon him broke upon his grief.   Miles away, in a bar on the other side of town, old enmities were suddenly forgotten, and men who had long held rage in their hearts embraced one another in burly, powerful arms, uncertain to begin with, what their problems ever were.

John’s best mate, Omar, was there in that pub that day, and he came softly behind him.  His cautious hand upon John’s shoulder was met with anxious revolt.  John turned and saw Omar’s face, and wept, his eyes streaming, his vision distorting Omar’s wonderful frame.  “Dear friend, John, do not worry too much- he is okay.”  John turned again, wincing his face as he saw the man still stayed upon the table.

“I am going to be ok, John, ” the stayed man spoke from his back.  “I have received your lightning and am receiving it still.”  John’s eyes teared and his heart wrenched. Tears squeezed out through his eyes.

“I am so sorry…” he choked, gasping heavily.  “I am so—…, ” he said and his wind could carry his voice no more.  “I am so sorry…” he said in his grieving heart silently.  His hands rose to hide his face only to remind him: the hand with which he committed the offense, his right hand, on his right arm, the hand furthest away from his heart. Would he always hold his right arm in suspiscion, now? He held it to his eyes in recognition, unable to process it.  Poor John blubbered until he collapsed with his face upon the little square table where he sat, unsure even what to do with that hand, unable to accept it as part of his own body, still. “I am so sorry…” he wept and his body heaved.

The stayed man, unable to bare John’s grief anymore, forgot the lightning still ringing through his soul, and tried to rise from his table to console him, but he slipped on a puddle of beer and fell backward so that the table flipped over and fell on top of his chest.  Some men laughed, while others, including Omar and John, quickly rose to free him from the table’s burden and helped him to his feet.  John saw the mark on his eye where his lightning struck, filling with blood and became so grieved that a prayer convulsed from him.  Light knifed out from John’s heart as the hand he struck him with rose to touch the trouble-maker’s eye and instantly healed it.

John and he embraced each other and laughed into each other’s burly chests. The men all around could barely look each other in the eye, as God was present in each of them.  They stood there shuffling on their feet, their hearts singing and stunned.  The atmosphere of what happened there rang through and through.

Destiny

Doc stood at the altar of her desk, her body a memory of what once was- a sign, now, and a reprimand to the heart of Doc.  ‘For, if not for my weakness…,’ Doc thought, and turned his face in shame so that his heart clenched like a fist around his love for her.

But, as the man approached from the road, Doc sought over his shoulder and found there a relief and a regret- for, if Doc had been stronger, more true, Snow White would have married him and not the god of a manly man now entering the sales office, taking a mere second’s eyeful of her body before plunging his mouth upon the lips of his mate for the first time. John’s mighty breath filled her nostrils and released her mind from the power of sleep.

Up turned her eyelids, soft pink rose petals, eyes as clear as a summer sky.   Her body received, again, her spirit, and filled with energy.  She coughed and she let go of the last resistances to life and life’s motion, and, now, reached her arms full of hot blood to the neck of her beloved.  The Kiss.  The Kiss.  Oh, my, The Kiss.  The Kiss was Cinderella’s shoe placed on her foot by the court minister.  The Kiss, the spoil of all separation.  The Kiss, the foil of misery and death.  The Kiss made several galaxies halt their immediate choreographies and choose at once a better course, for the good of everyone in all galaxies- for ever, ever after.

Amen.

________________________________________________________________

Afterword

She is woken from her dream by the kiss of the man who came to fulfill that dream.  Such was the joy of God that day.  He heard of her from the other men on their search, her fairest scent, her beauty not a single word in any language could even approach to claim knowledge of.  That noble, wise and gentle man, who could lift her with the tips of his fingers as she delights under every star in heaven, at last, swung her around his hips, at last, laughing with his eternally beloved, Snow White.  His kiss was the shoe that fit upon Cinderella’s foot- his kiss, the redemption of every wish, the fulfillment of her dreams, once poisoned, now redeemed.  The dwarves, though they lusted, and fawned, and gave themselves over at even a fluttered lash from her eyes, bended at their wastes to bow to this man.  And the witch, miles away in the neighborhood she owned, sat in front of her fireplace and suddenly a wave of regret like lava bursting through a sealed volcano overtook her and melted her bones to the iron floor beneath her.

The dwarves each felt within themselves the results of their actions.  All of them felt for her a love consumed by the fires of dreams.  Sleepy turned upon the glass coffin and released his fantasy that he could lay with her there always and forever.  Grumpy, felt within himself the thorns of his complaining, the pushing away of good things, of Snow White’s affection, the complexity of his fears about love, the fears that he will never be good enough.  The grief he felt for his actions.

Happy lay his eyebrows once upon his inner eye and ran his life before himself as witness:  hadn’t he always been happy?  hadn’t he always been happy?  hadn’t he always been happy?  a tape reel repeating over and over and he could be no other way.  He wished for one moment of sorrow and turned his head to witness Snow White enveloped in the strange, beautiful man’s arms, waving goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodby…. and his heart awakened like one that had been shocked by an electrical current.  His eyes burst and he wept.

Dopey stood sweetly, wavering in the breeze that flowed inside through the opened industrial glass front door.  Wavering sweetly, his garments flapping like flags, watching her face, her eyes delighted beyond all, saluting with his eyebrows, saluting her.

And Doc, a grief too keen to say.  His face folded inward like a funnel into the grief of his heart’s contractions, and he came not forth from his office for 32 days.  He sat in stillness, as the soft voice of the Universe blew like a wind through his ears.

Knowing that Snow White would have been his over all the dwarfs, if his courage had been in him that day when the Mayor’s wife, the witch, came to visit.  For, he is the boss-  the boss, but never a man.  And she slept; and she is gone.

 

 

 

Empty

Later, after many years had passed, Snow White remembered the dwarves all who she loved and never was a birthday passed without a phone call or a little note.

Eventually, Dopey’s grandson, Empty came to work at the sales office with the other seven.  Dopey scooted his desk over one foot and six inches toward the rear and Happy scooted his desk over one foot and ten inches toward the anterior wall.  After Grumpy moved his desk two feet toward the break room and file cabinets, Empty was convinced that there was space enough for him to start to work there.  As soon as news arrived of Empty’s hire, Snow White immediately bought a plane ticket and flew to visit the dwarves at the no-longer dusty old sales office off Highway 9, and to meet this mysterious new dwarf for the first time.