Rapunzel, Don’t Let Down Your Prince

Luke was in a tight spot. Doors were slammed. How could he? That was always the newest girlfriend’s refrain. But they were all the same. The same desperate, clingy girls who populate the ghetto like mosquitoes in a swamp, waiting to suck his blood and his future dry.

But he was looking for something serious this time. Someone who knew what it meant to love. He needed a real girlfriend. He left his latest girl’s apartment, his head down and well on his way into the rest of his life.

But then he heard the voice of an angel.

Keisha was alone once again in her bedroom on the twentieth floor, with her Sony headphones and Walkman, singing so that her perfect soprano voice drifted down to the street below.

Her perfect blonde hair, snug in a ponytail that touched the floor, whipped around as she danced to her own tempo. Songs about love that transported her to a different world. She desperately wanted to escape the ghetto. The songs she listened to transported her to the loving arms of a man, relationships that promised escape. To anywhere away from her cramped one bedroom apartment.

She lived with her aunt, who ran a tight ship. She was strict and wouldn’t let Keisha leave the apartment. For her aunt was deeply afraid of the ghetto and what it could do to a young girl like Keisha - especially those young men who roamed the streets like so many lost souls. It was a dangerous world out there, and Keisha needed to be kept safe at all costs.

As it turned out, the cost was significant. Keisha had lost all faith in finding love.

At the moment of Keisha’s loss of faith, Luke looked up. All he had to do was cock his head and he could hear every word. Every angelic tremble of her vocal chords promised him real love, this time.

He had to meet this girl.

He made his way over to the massive apartment building where the voice was coming from. He waited until someone left the apartment and snuck in behind them, and proceeded to take the stairs to the top floor.

But he was disappointed. No one answererd their doors on the top floor. Dejected, he went back to the street and started singing right back at that beautiful voice. He sang in the direction of the girl’s voice, hoping. Hoping for a miracle.

The girl’s singing stopped. Suddenly, he saw a face appear in a top window.

“Hello!” he shouted, smiling up at her window.

She merely shook her head. The men of the ghetto were all dangerous, and he was probably up to no good, wanting all the wrong things from her. Or, maybe that was her aunt's voice, telling her to be wary.

She closed her window, and when her head whipped around to walk away, he saw at least twenty feet of hair swish behind her. My God.

“Wait!” he shouted.

She turned back around, and that’s when he shouted: “Let down your hair!”

Keisha froze. Was this man telling her to loosen up?

Suddenly, Keisha's aunt could be seen creeping up behind Luke in the street. Her aunt was going to throw something at Luke! It was barbed wire, the same wire that kept Keisha from leaving their apartment.

Keisha screamed. Luke turned around, just in time for her aunt to blind him.

Keisha started screaming, "Here! Here! I'm letting down my hair!"

But as Luke was blind, he could only fumble his way forward towards the sound of her voice.

"Sing!" he cried out.

Keisha started singing. She sang the sweet overtones of Duran Duran with her perfect pitch. And Luke followed her voice.

Keisha then let down her hair.

"Pull!" she screamed.

Luke caught on. Keisha pulled him up, ever so slowly, but upwards, towards her bedroom.

When Luke finally arrived in her bedroom, he sat down, and cried. Keisha wasn't sure if he was grateful, or sad, or what. But he then suddenly grabbed her hands.

"Will you marry me?" he asked.

Keisha didn't know what to do. Should she rebel, and marry this man? Should she follow her heart and go away with him?

Could he help her leave the ghetto?

"I will," she whispered.

And with that, she pressed "stop" on her Walkman and the tale came to an end. For, these types of stories cut us off from reality as does barbed wire cut our eyes.