From Dakota's book of Fairy Tales.

Once upon a time there was this lovely lady who lived, like others, in a house. It was no ordinary house, some people suggested it was more like a manor, others would say it looked more like a castle, but to the lady of the house it was just a house, her home! She wasn’t aware of the fact that others thought she lived in a castle. To the outside world her property was surrounded by a big thick wall with towers, a moat and when you wanted to knock on her front door, you had a bit of a problem when the drawbridge was up. When the lady had just move in the neighbours just ignored all that, they were a friendly bunch, willing to welcome the lady to their neighbourhood with open arms. They persistently knocked on the ladies door, or yelled out to get her attention when the drawbridge was up, but after a while they just gave up. At first the lady of the house didn’t noticed it, she was happily protected in her own home, but after a while she started to wonder: ‘what was going on out there, why was there no one knocking on her door anymore? Was everybody gone?’ She just couldn’t understand it. So one day she went up to her bedroom and glanced outside. She discovered the people were still there, nothing had changed, they just didn’t come knocking anymore. Strange, she thought to herself. The outside world however, saw the lady, standing on top of one of her towers, looking down and they thought ‘what is she looking at; she made it perfectly clear she wants to be on her own’. So, they just ignored her and life went on!

Some time had passed and one day people saw a man walking up to the moat, as always the drawbridge was up. The people talked among themselves. Maybe they should warn this man. His life wasn’t in any grave danger or anything, but everybody knew that he wasn’t going to be welcome. They decided not to bother him, it’s wasn’t any of their business anyway. So, they got on with their day-to-day lives.
The man heard all the whispers but just ignored them. He walked up to the moat and stood there for a second wondering what to do next. First he thought about swimming across the moat but he soon discovered there wouldn’t be any point to that. No matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t find an opening to get into the castle. One other point that made him decide against swimming was the water temperature. ‘Way to cold this time of year!’ he thought. He decided to call out to the lady of the house; after all, he had a pretty important message to convey. So he called out once which resulted in no response. He tried again; a bit louder this time, but still there was no answer. One lady, passing him by, suggested yelling. And he yelled! And he yelled again, a bit louder this time, but still nothing. ‘Is the lady deaf or something’ he wondered out loud. ‘No’ a man, walking his dog, assured him ‘she just isn’t paying any attention to the outside world’. ‘How peculiar’ the messenger thought to himself. A good thing he was known to be stubborn. He looked around, maybe there was something lying around, anything would be nice just as long as it could help him. A noisy horn, a sound van, a big rock or even fireworks would be welcomed with wide open arms by now. Alas, nothing! The only thing lying around was a long pole. ‘Hmm… maybe that will do’ he thought. At first he considered using the pole as a vaulting pole, but he quickly decided against it. With today’s luck, he would probably go splat against the thick wall. No, he opted for another strategy; he would use the pole as a battering ram/or a very noisy doorknocker. He walked away from the castle and then started running towards the moat, pole at the ready. Success depended merely on letting go at the right moment. His luck must have been changing while he was running, because just moments after he had let go he heard a loud, and not easy to ignore, noise. Just after the big bang, he saw a little hatch open up. ‘What’s going on out there’ the lady asked. ‘Oh, please don’t shoot the messenger’ the man said ‘I do apologize but I have an important message for you, the lady of the house’! She looked flabbergasted, so much racket just to deliver a message.'That must be some message' she thought. She just stood there for a while but eventually decided, after careful consideration, to lower the drawbridge and the messenger happily crossed it, leaving the other people, who had also heard the commotion, in awe.

*To Be Continued*