Imagine this:

A framework of red roses, with red stems, twined together like red-faced lovers. Vertically aligned beds of chrysanthemums and lilacs and American beauties in the background; a Pollock of reds and whites and yellows. In the foreground, on a star field-sprinkled sheet, a glass case, like a huge block of ice caught in time. And inside, a woman. A beauty, sleeping. Sheathed like a mummy (sans head) in white satin pulled taut over her narrow body, stretch-pant-style. Layer after layer in a latticework pattern reminiscent of East Asian quilt-paintings. Above her shoulders, she is free of it. Her long, shining, golden hair reaches her pelvis in her horizontal state. It's curly and therefore wavy: an ocean for her face to swim in. Pretty features, in any century, locked in juvenile radiance. With her eyes closed, her mouth trapped in a somnambulant scowl, she looks sad.

Stepping back, you realize there are lights around the set. Huge, expensive-looking, contraptions on metal stands, supported by sandbags, leaking wires and creating shadows where before there were none, lighting the glass coffin from all directions. Crew wander around with bundles of wire on their shoulders or hang out next to the craft service table and guffaw.

The photographer circles Beauty like a jungle predator toying with wounded prey. He snaps shots quick and violently: a junkie, shooting up. More, more, more, more… Then, he stops. There's a snap and an angry sigh; the roll ends. The photographer, European, gay, well-dressed, shouts, "OUT!" as loud as he can.

Young Beauty is oblivious.

In actuality, she is old. Ancient, actually. They found her in the seventies, in some corner of the Scottish mountains, nestled between a T-Rex fossil and half a Mammoth. It took only a few days before they carbon-dated her glass coffin: Centuries old, from a time before Grimm or Anderson or even Straparola.

The Real McCoy. The original. The inspiration.

"She's a legend, alright," says a roadie near the set. He leans against one of the studio's massive walls. "You know how many people she's made millionaires? Billionaires? I'm talkin' journalists, photographers, lecturers, filmmakers, talk show hosts. Actresses playing her in the story of her life. There's a musical version in New York, updated with all the facts, of course. Whole companies, Advertising corps., jewelry makers!, banking on her, putting her ads and on products. You know what she is?" He smiles, takes a long drag off his cigarette, lets you ponder for a moment.

"She's a golden goose," he says. "Money."

She's been passed around like a high school whore on the first overnight trip of the year. Museums, talk shows, news magazines, art galleries, endless photographers and filmmakers, the occasional Millionaire's party, even widely advertised concert venue appearances.

COME SEE THE REAL SLEEPING BEAUTY!

Live at the Fillmore. Live at the MET. Not really alive, though.

It's not a very interesting show.

First, there's the history lesson. "Once upon a time, in a kingdom far far away, there was a young princess…" Then, the dramatic unveiling. The lights go dim, the drum rolls begin, then, curtains of various dark hews of purple reveal Beauty, herself. The glass case, now on a velvet couch and inside, the star of the show, silent as a corpse.

There are multiple cameras on her and tight shots of her face fill up dozens of screens around the stage. Blonde hair everywhere.

Finally, the upclose viewing, a precession of bodies like at a funeral, come to give final respects. Again, it's nothing too extraordinary. She looks the same up close as she did in the countless photos in the countless magazines you've got at home.

Maybe you're hoping she'll wake up, just then, just for you, (lucky you). But then you remember she's dead. She's a million years old. She has to be dead.

Right?

The photographer shouts again, this time for a cigarette. "Cigarettaaaa!" he shrieks. Some young kid wakes up from a nap and then rushes forward, pulling something from his back pocket and tripping on a loose cable.

Thousand-dollar lights buckle and shake and start to fall. A crash, and a lightning-flash of electricity ignites the long black sheet. A fire flares up around the red roses, the painted stems, the wall of color.

People are shouting. Sparks and sudden flares appear everywhere. Rage-filled flames surround Beauty's glass case, a funeral pyre worthy of a legend.

The photographer, suddenly chivalrous, attempts a run at Beauty, to try to save her or… something. His crew holds him back, wrestles him outside. They shout curses at each other or at you or at God.

Whose fault was it, then?

Nighttime.

Fire trucks are lined up in two columns, half a dozen, spraying their multi-colored lights, a drug-induced-CGI-Technicolor-dream. The crew stands apart from a mob of journalists behind barricades. The press is inexplicably silent.

The moment lasts a long time. Then, slowly, firemen start to file out of the still-smoking studio, their eyes downcast, their shoulders slumped.

The European photographer, a ball of anxious energy, runs up to one of them.

"Well?" he shouts between pants. "What. Happened. To. Her?"

The fireman nearest him pauses, looks up. There are slashes of red on his face. (Paint? or…) The thousands of shards of glass on the cement floor reflect the lights on his yellow uniform. "Dead," he says, barely audible over the sound of flames. "She's dead. Cut-up when the glass exploded."

"Wait!" someone, maybe you, shouts from the huddle of journalists. "You mean, she was alive? Until… this? And no one bothered to check… all this time?"

Another endless, empty moment. No one answers.

Then, someone in the crowd, a young man in a suit-and-tie, wipes a tear from his lip and whispers, "That would have ruined it."

The End

Bio

Elad Haber is pretty confused at the moment. He's originally from New York City, he just graduated from art school in San Francisco, and is planning to settle in North Maimi, Florida. What he really needs is a laptop.