He opened his eyes and viewed the crowd in front of him.
All dressed up and nowhere to go. Every color of the rainbow lay in front of him, every shape, size and orientation.
A pounding headache from too many drinks the night before.
Sunlight glinting through the clerestories hitting his eyes at just the right angle to emphasize the pounding in his head.
The pounding in time to the murmuring spreading through the crowd.
The smell of the decorations, just a little to perfumey.
The music just a little too loud.
It was perfect, she had said. It will be perfect. It has to be perfect.
Now he was here, on this day, at this moment, amidst the perfection, finding only fault with it.
It was too perfect. She had managed to get it so perfect that it was TOO perfect.
A camera flash startled him for a moment just before he went back into his musings.
This perfect scene in front of him seemed like a scene that should be on a movie screen. It was just the flatness of it all – the fake facade that this whole hullabaloo was representing. This was not right.
The colours, the fake smiles, the people he had not seen in forever, those who just came because it was a wedding. He didn’t even know most of these people.
He didn’t even like most of the ones he did know.
The organ played, the crowd got silent, stood and turned to the door. It took all of his strength not to run down the aisle to grab her hand and drag her away. Away to their own private solitude where they wouldn’t have to pay attention to what people wanted or what they would say or what it would come across as to the world.
Where they could be just him and her and not have to think about anything else.
He wanted privacy, but he wasn’t born into privacy. The world was watching. His brother was right – what’s the use? They had been born to be public spectacles.
This lack of privacy was what had driven their mother mad and what ultimately drove her to her demise.
He missed her.
It was “necessary” he had been told. A prince does not get married in private, but rather in the public eye for everyone to see, for everyone to celebrate.
He was a prince of the people – ripe for the picking, for everyone to love, hate, judge or criticize.
This is what he was bringing the woman he loved into? It was a cruel fate. It was downright disgusting.
He looked up, feeling slightly nauseous and disgusted that he would bring such an amazing creature into this difficult situation that was his life.
Then he saw her.
A vision in white, her dark hair lying long down her back, her eyes searching for his smile.
Her eyes only on him.
The woman he loved, in the public eye.
Cameras on her. Reporters whispering into hidden microphones. Crowds surrounding her and the world watching her.
Yet amidst all the business and public and crowds, it became the two of them, locked eye to eye and heart to heart and nothing around them mattered any longer.
It was still only him and her.
Privacy among the crowds.
He had found his long-desired privacy in her joy.
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For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Kelly Garriott Waite challenged me with “The flatness of it all…” and I challenged Kelsey with “When you juggle everything, something has to drop. What happens when it drops and shatters?“.
