Part I
In which the story of the looking-glass is explained
The writer feels obliged to tell the curious circumstances in which the nasty looking-glass was conceived, for it was what caused the whole event to happen in the first place; and will explain much about the whole story itself.
A while before our two protagonists were born, the International Panel for Worldly Change gathered together for the first time in years, high above the clouds in their secret chamber.
“According to this report by the Ministry of Love, seventy percent of the population in District 203 is ‘not quite happy with the lives they lead’.” the Head of the Panel roared at his fellow scientists as he surveyed them through his hard metal eyes.
“Do you know what this means, you imbeciles? It means that seventy percent of the whole damn population is getting more and more displeased with their lives!”
He took a deep breath and calmed himself before continuing, “The Ruler has personally given me this message: that if we don’t solve this ever growing public… discontent,” he made a face at the dirty word, and lowered his shaky voice, ”We all will be Deported from Kolasipublica. Forever.”
All of the remaining twelve scientists in the Panel instantly turned ashen gray at the very mention of the D-word.
“Are the Pills not working?” one scientist demanded, his mind racing through all the possibilities.
“But we just gave the Ministry of Love a fresh supply of Pills!” another argued, “And the Pills were of top-notch quality!”
“How do you know? Milsom was the one checking the Pills that day,” the first scientist slyly said, laying his cold eyes on the unfortunate initiate. “He isn’t very experienced in the ways of making Pills yet, though I am very sure the Ruler wouldn’t punish him too badly, given his young age.”
The Head swiveled his head around to look at the cowering young man. The rest followed suit, and soon all of the people in the chamber looked at poor Milsom, who, by this time, was sweating as heavily as the rain that was outpouring onto the ground many, many miles below them.
“It is your fault then, Milsom,” the Head concluded. “Perhaps you would be dismissed from your brand new job, or something along the lines.” he said, taking especial care to put the emphasis on “brand new job”.
Milsom immediately paled even further. He knew that being dismissed from one’s job was probably the worst thing to happen to one’s life, aside from being Deported, which prospects were becoming more and more attractive to him with each second that seemed to drag its feet along the ground before moving onwards. It would certainly affect his career, his relations with his fellow civilians, and perhaps even his family. Oh, what had he done?
Suddenly, an insane notion popped into his head. But what if he could turn the tables over? What if he could change their view---
That’s it! he realised, the idea slowly but surely beginning to form in his head. It depends on how you view things!
He coughed, and just as he expected, the group of men focused their disturbing gazes on him. “I know I can --- I will fix it,” he gathered up his courage, “And I know how.”
“Just give me a few days,” he very nearly begged, “I will change their minds, their view on things. I just need some time.”
The Head and his co-workers looked dubious, but just when Milsom thought he had failed, the Head relented and sighed. “Very well, young man. I hope you will succeed in your…rather misguided attempt to ‘fix things’.
“You have three days before we test your solution and report our findings to the Ruler. Meeting dismissed.” He waved the group of scientists away and entered his personal elevator, dipping his head in farewell. “Good day, gentlemen.”
Milsom watched as the remaining scientists went down, back to their comfortable lodgings on the ground, secretly breathing a sigh of relief. Some had haughtily looked down at him as they left, like they were absolutely sure that Milsom could never succeed. He flushed and tightened his grip on the steel handrail. I’ll show them all, he vowed. I’ll show them, alright.
He locked himself in the laboratory for two days and nights, never faltering in his efforts, bending, stretching and melting raw iron, sand and steel in preparation for his invention.
(The writer would love to record the steps the young boy made up, but due to some unforeseeable events, his notes are lost forever to the world and are in the clutches of the Ruler herself.)
On the third day, when the sun was appearing over the dusky horizon, he finally stopped his work, tiredly looking over his small pieces of looking-glass. They were tiny and were as thin as a sheet of gold leaf, though transparent. He tensed and gently held one piece of looking-glass in the palm of his hand.
It was time to test his contraption.
The young man slid the looking-glass into his left eye, and to his surprise, he could see everything much clearer than before. The early morning sunlight that poured all over the steel room made everything sparkle and glimmer, and even his looking-glass looked even more beautiful and delicate.
He felt a rush of amazement and joy spilling into his miserable heart, warming the very core of him up, until a bubble of laughter threatened to burst out of his mouth that was unknowingly hanging open.
He had overcome all obstacles; he had finally accomplished the impossible.
He had found a replacement for Pills!
Milsom immediately tried on all the pieces of looking-glass, making sure that all of the pieces worked, while still stunned by the very beauty of the world around him. He silently cheered and practically leaped over to the tele-caller, dialing the Head’s number.
“I’ve got it, sir; I’ve finally got it!” he shouted into the mouthpiece, “Come up and see!”
The Head muttered something unintelligible, then answered, “We’ll be right over,” hanging up almost immediately.
He burst into song, euphoria still frothing and effervescing inside him. Everything was finally perfect, and he would be praised for his wonderful invention; maybe they would even give him a raise… he continued on with his daydreaming, dancing and humming random tunes.
After what seemed forever, the Head hurried into the room along with the rest of the Panel. “Explain.” The Head simply said, holding out a hand.
“See, this looking-glass can make even the ugliest thing become gorgeous, and…” the young man blabbered, but was immediately quailed by the cold, indifferent gaze that the Head gave him when he had worn the looking-glass.
“I can see nothing remotely beautiful. In fact, you all look ridiculous, with your heads protruding out. When have you all become so…unsightly?” the Head spat, rubbing his eye.
“You have done nothing worth a rat’s arse in the three whole days cooped up in this dismal place.” he said, turning his back on the bewildered young man.
“You’re dismissed, you ugly brute.”
The final sentence hung like a dead weight in the air, threatening to fall on the poor young man. “But..but---“
“Get out of my sight, you brat!” the Head roared and slapped Milsom. “And bring your so-called ‘looking-glass’ with you!”
Without a single sound, the young man fled onto the balcony and locked it behind him, confused, tears beginning to seep through his eyes. Why did the Head react like he had seen the worst things in the whole world? He slipped one into his eye, and had his question answered ---
For the Head did see the worst, and ugliest things in the world.
From his vantage point on the balcony, he would have seen a vast evergreen forest that seemed to stretch all over the land, along with the fields of wildflowers that crowded around the metal gate to District 203.
But yet all he saw was soggy and bent trees squished together with wilted and fading flowers. Startled, he looked at his gnarled and wrinkled hands and the misshapen glass pieces in it.
Letting out a horrible wail, he crushed the looking-glass in his hands, ignoring the pain elicited from the cuts the glass made on his smooth skin, until he was sure they were pulverized into fragments finer than grains of sand.
Damn you all! He cursed the whole world, and in a fit of rage, he flung the fragments down onto the ground; the slight autumn breeze that was sending Milsom chills down his spine carried the fragments and sent them off to far-off lands, making them drift until the wind died down.
Some fragments were to drop deep into the blue sea, some were to fall into vast abysses, but unfortunately some would someday land into an unsuspecting passerby’s eye and change his perception of the world forever.
For the young man did not realize that when he slipped all of the looking-glass into his eyes, he had accidently contaminated their pure forms and turned them into tainted, man-made substances, which is the most wicked form of matter in the world.
His mashing and squashing the looking-glass made them even more impure and wicked than ever before, and as the seconds ticked by, hatred boiled and burst inside the young man, turning all his usually benign thoughts and ideas into rage-filled rants.
But he felt powerful, fearless, instead of being ashamed by his poisonous thoughts, and then, for the first time in his twenty years, he swore out loud. He summoned up the vilest and most disgusting insults he had ever heard whispered in the serfs’ alleys, and pronounced his former friends, family and enemies not worthy of his attention, screaming at the injustice and horror the world seemed to contain.
In his God-blaspheming, rage-induced rant, he somehow blindly stumbled over to the closet that served as their spare room and ripped out anything he could find, blood –-- his blood --- splattering everywhere. The motors keeping the chamber up in the air spluttered against the distraught man’s actions, struggling to prevent itself from falling down, bringing the thirteen men inside with it.
“You bastards deserve to die,” he hissed at the men plastering and hammering at the locked glass doors demanding what on earth he was doing to their chamber, and grabbed at a bottle containing some colourless liquid he knew was hydrazoic acid from the closet.
They all widened their eyes as they figured out what young, placid Milsom was going to do, and yelled at him not to do it.
But he had his mind made up, and he climbed on top of the rumbling (and oddly, flying upwards through the atmosphere) metal cylinder that served as their meeting place and opened the chute to the engine room; uttering a cry, he poured every single drop of the chemical downwards into the hot cell.
A terrible silence filled the air, the stench of fear and passion getting stronger and stronger every moment that passed.
For a moment, the rest of the men inside almost believed that the young man hadn’t dumped two whole liters of explosive chemicals into the very core of the engine itself, for he was only Milsom, and no one else.
But as the chamber trembled and flew higher and higher, and the sound of liquid bubbling filled their ears, they knew they were doomed, and though they knew their end was inevitable, they continued to bang their bruised fists on the glass doors, some grabbing their now useless emergency parachutes. Who would have thought that the chamber would go up, not down?
The young man wheezed and swayed to and fro outside, the sudden cold and lack of oxygen itself in the tropopause making him lose consciousness. Let them go to hell; they sure deserve it, he thought to himself as he closed his eyes for the very last time. At least I got the last laugh.
Just as he closed his eyes, the engine could stand it no more, and lashed out in anger, bursting in flames. It split apart with a loud bang while continuing to spin its way up into the heavens, until it erupted into splinters of molten metal and steel. Nothing was left in the explosion.
But somehow, little snowflakes began to fall, until the whole land was covered in snow and ice; it was all good and well, for the citizens of District 203 hadn’t seen such a sight before, but after a few years, they realized that it was now perpetually snowing.
The roar of the wind blowing and the bitter snow made them more cold and indifferent; and at last, a slight layer of frost covered their hearts and made them uncaring, emotionless zombies.
What did it matter to them if the government suddenly did not give them their needed Pills? Why did it matter if food rations would have to be cut in half due to the snow? Was there even a meaning to life? So what if it just snowed and snowed?
But the scientists working in the laboratories deep below the ground (and safe from the cold) did care. After a series of infuriatingly difficult experiments, they finally deemed the top-secret explosion of the chamber in the troposphere had caused an imbalance of the natural chemicals and aerosols in the thin air.
And they found that snow would slowly but surely form and drop to the ground far below if a certain amount of a mixture of certain chemicals was injected into the troposphere. (Again, the writer has failed to recover the exact data and formulae; all were destroyed in a fire.)
On top of her icy throne, the Ruler smiled, pleased that her reign over District 203 was finally cemented in stone (or snow). In a matter of years her armies of scientists would make her neighbouring countries succumb to her rule, and her empire would become even greater; for she now had something they did not --- complete control over the icy weather. She was not only a Ruler; she was a Queen.
“A Snow Queen,” she said out loud, a small, chilling laugh passing through her tiny mouth. “The one and only Snow Queen.”
Or so she thought.
For she had failed to calculate the bravery of the men of her neighbouring countries; nor did she take into account the two playmates playing together on their balconies, far, far away from her cold throne and scepter; for how could she have know that soon her reign would be jeopardised by two mere children?
This is where our marvelous journey truly begins; the true tale of how friendship overcame all the obstacles that came in her way, how love can inspire and spur humanity onwards in pursuit of freedom---
The story of the foudroyant roses.
Part II ＊ Part III＊ Part IV ＊ Part V ＊ Part VI＊ Part VII
Spoiler
This is the first part of my contest entry for SporkPunk's 21 Century Fairytale Contest! Please tell me what you thought of it. 
Kudos if you know what fairytale this is; it's one of my favourites.
Kudos if you know what fairytale this is; it's one of my favourites.
Keep at it.
