The Princess and the Plain

imasmeasmecanbe

I was thinking of developing this more so any feed back is welcome.

u might recognise the rhyme at the end its a parody of the workman's friend by Flann O'Brien





The air was electric in town that day. There was no explanation, no special occasions or celebrations. The weddings were long gone and the funerals had not yet begun. The sun hung strong and proud above the icy brown water of the Liffey and it was cold. One of those days where the weather and the temperature don’t seem to match up quite right. The streets were packed with tourists and dirty as ever, dirty as sin.
I was on my way over the Liffey, ‘twas a Friday and the dole was calling me. O’Connell Bridge at one o’clock, empty. Strange, where had all of the tourists and the atmosphere they brought with them gone? I made the dole office in record time, if only I had somewhere else to be. With dole in hand and grin on my face ‘twas round the corner I was walking when a maiden fair with chestnut hair in a carriage passed me by.
I hate the gentry, always lording it over us, making themselves out to be so much better than everyone else. So, I had me dole, I had a grin on me auld face and I thought what for? ‘Twas round the corner and in for a jar, sure that’s the paddy’s cure.






“I wonder”, says she “who that man, that ragged, rugged man who fled so hasty was”.
- Nay but a pauper m’lady.
- A pauper perhaps, but a personable pauper at that.
- A personable pauper? Why my lady, never such blasphemous words have I e’er heard spoke.
- I am no blaspheme but I am no princess either. This stately life…….. Oh how it bores me.
- Regardless it is not our place to decide where we stand in society. Some are born into greatness, others have it thrust upon them.
A silence attached itself to those last words a silence that was so deeply rooted not even the princess dared disturb it. The butler had overstepped his boundaries and she was making sure he knew it.
- Turn the carriage around.
- But my Lady you can’t. What about Lord Leeway?
- What about him? If my father is so in love with that man then let him marry the man.
- Turn the carriage around.
- I can not allow you do that.
There was no sign of the driver taking any notice of the squabbling going on behind him. On an on the carriage went, rumbling over cobblestones and disturbing sleeping spirits, long since forgotten. The Princess had had enough of her life, a life of splendor and wealth - A life where love was thrust upon her. She was obviously too good to choose for herself, often beloved but never in love.





When that carriage passed me by, I felt like for a moment I had been accepted into a world that promised more than a dole every week but as most things in life it was fleeting. I tried to put it to the back of my mind but sure didn’t that just make me think of it more. It was impossible to forget, that is of course without the help of a little Dutch Courage. So off to my usual watering hole it was. “The Rag and Rail”, best pub from Derry to Kinsale. Good company and a pint of plain was all I needed. For when you are down in the dumps, with the world on your back, on the run from the law or been given the sack a pint of plains your only man. A pint of plain and some good company can do wonders for a lost soul, but little did I know what was going to happen to my lost soul.

Princess Alexia slipped out of the carriage door and down one of the many side streets that litter our fair city. She hitched up her silken dress, took off her expensive shoes and ran. She ran away from the carriage, from her arranged marriage. She ran from her man-servant and her home in the hills. She noticed the tourists and the buskers, she reveled in urban Bohemia and finally felt at home. She came across a homeless woman, toothless and alone she was sleeping in a doorway. Alexia had already given up her life to live in the city, free of her title. What harm could it do to give up her fine apparel and bedazzling jewels as well? Checking the coast it was but a hop skip and a jump until she was free, naked but free none the less. She woke the homeless woman and it didn’t take Alexia long to convince her to swap clothes.
So there she was Princess Alexia, heir to the throne of Norway, cold and alone on the streets of Dublin. She sang as she strolled she, and she smoked as she sang. This was her new life, her Irish life. In just a matter of hours she had completely transformed herself from well-spoken member of the gentry to a foul-mouthed Fenian. “what could complete this”, she thought to herself as she sauntered down Fitzwilliam Street – A pint of plain.







I was sitting over my third pint, maybe it was my second one – I can never remember too much after my fourth. I was drinking and mulling over my life, contemplating what had I ever done? What could I ever do? How could I sort out this tip that I call life? I can’t stay on the dole my entire life, no matter how much I like it.
As I sat there thinking, nearly wishing from the corner of my eye a saw maiden fair with chestnut hair, an old, worn duffle coat and britches nearly thread-bare at the knees. She was cold and alone yet she filled the room with an air of excitement, she made the pints pull faster and purer and every fella had an eye on her when she walked in.

What’s your poison then my auld flower? The bar man asked Alexia, he asked her to her chest as did every man to talk to her there after. When she sat beside me with two pints of plain I knew exactly who she was and where I had seen her before. Suddenly I knew what my life was about, everything subsequent had been leading up to this moment. Every date, every kiss was a practice run for me to perfect my technique. Every installment of the dole was to remind me where I came from, remind that with a Dublin boy with a smart head on him can do anything in this world.
From that point on our stories became one, they intermingle as the weave in and out of realty. Sometimes when I look back on that moment I wonder what I did to make her sit beside me? I wonder if it was for me she left it all or was I merely a side project. But more often than not I just thank god that she came into my life with all the wealth and experience of royalty and a pint of plain.
For when the world has got you down and you have no where to turn, When the dinner that your brother made just makes the stomach churn, when you have no one to talk to, no one to call your own, when nothing that you’ve ever done, seems to go to plan, just keep the head up and don’t forget and pint of plains your only man (and perhaps a princess is your pleasure.)