The Handmaid's Tale

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Once upon a time—as all good stories begin—there were a king and queen, who lived happily in a large palace, with a large and blossoming kingdom surrounding it. Unlike most couples in these kinds of stories, the King and the Queen didn’t suffer from fertility problems, and the opening of our tale finds the king pacing up and down the corridor outside the room where his wife was struggling to bring another member of the royal family into life. He paced restlessly, looking at the family portraits lined up upon the walls. His eyes would linger at the last pictures; his own family. It seemed surreal to him that soon another child would be joining them. Every so often, a harassed looking lady’s maid would burst from the room, propelled by a volley …show more content…

It took all of her self control not to mention that many couples were nowhere near as lucky as to manage to conceive any children at all; even those who did always ended up having nasty run ins with evil fairies and curses and whatnot. “I imagine, your majesties...” she began slowly, trying to pick her way across the perilous grounds of conversation as non-confrontationally as she possibly could, “that it might be...err...beneficial to have a guaranteed bloodline. After all, this is the middle ages, and you never know what might befall your firstborn.” The king and queen both inhaled sharply, their eyebrows flying up so far as to hit their hairlines. A couple of the maids fainted and the others looked at each other in horror. A couple quickly hurried with swabs to dab the queen’s forehead. It was too soon for her to have one of her funny turns and faint. Who knew what sort of damage could be caused to her, considering her currently delicate situation? She batted them away with a lordly wave of her free hand, coming to composure quicker than her husband, whose mouth was moving like that of a goldfish, and who had gone as pale as a sheet. “My dear nurse, pray tell me that you don’t wish to imply that my darling son is...is going to die?” the queen said

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