Once upon a time, long long ago,
there was Sultan that was madly in love with his wife. After many years of
happiness, the Sultan found out that his wife had been cheating on him since
their first day of marriage. He was so hurt and ashamed that he had her
beheaded. His heart turned black and hard as a stone. He thought he could never
trust another woman.
He felt
lonely after a few months and decided he would take a new wife every night and
the next morning he would kill her before she had the chance to disappoint him.
The whole
town was in a frenzy after they found out what was happening. Everyone was so
afraid of the crazy Sultan. Word spread throughout the kingdom of the horrible
murdering Sultan. A very special woman heard the horrible tales and decided to
do something about the problem.
She
traveled for two weeks to reach the horrible Sultan. When she arrived in the
town she went straight to his house. It was afternoon and the Sultan was on the
prowl for his next victim.
“Sultan, I
have come to end your ways of suffering. Take my hand in marriage tonight and I
can show you how happy you can truly be,” the wise woman said.
“What is
your name woman,” the Sultan asked.
“I’m Scheherazade
Latrodectus, but you can call me BW. I can make all your dreams and desires come
true,” the woman said.
The Sultan
married the woman the woman knowing he would kill her the next day. As they
both lie in bed, BW started telling the tales of her past. She had the Sultan
engrossed in her black-eye stare.
As the Sultan listened, he noticed
that he became very tired and almost hypnotized. What the he didn’t know was
that BW was not actually human. She was the fabled black widow that would use
her storytelling to put her husband in a trance before killing him.
The Sultan fell flat on the bed
just as BW finished her final story. Right before closing his eyes, he was shocked to see the beautiful BW had transformed into a horrible eight legged, poisonous fanged monster.
She frantically wrapped him in her constricting-poisonous
web that would slowly kill him overnight. She wanted to make sure though that
he would never hurt another woman in the town. Instead of leaving him to slowly
die, she decided it best to inject her deadly venom into his heart to seal the
deal.
The next morning, the Sultan’s
staff woke up to the horror of what happened the night before. BW was nowhere
in sight. The news quickly spread across the town and the town’s people celebrated
for a month straight.
BW left the town feeling good that
she saved so many innocent lives. She still roams the world to this day,
seeking justice for those that can’t seek it themselves.
Author's Note:
This story is loosely based on
Arabian Nights: Scheherazade. In the original story, a Sultan was betrayed by his wife, so he kills her and then takes in a new wife every night. Before the new wife can betray him though, he kills her the next day. Scheherazade wants to stop the killings so she decides to marry the Sultan. Instead of being killed everyday, she tells the Sultan an ongoing story and says he will have to wait until the next day to hear the ending. It was really fun incorporating a different legend into this classic story. I tried some of the same plot line in the story, but I had to put a scary twist to it. I liked turning Scheherazade into a half human/half spider heroin that swoops in and saves the town people from the evil Sultan. The reason I chose this image was because I wanted to show the reader that Scheherazade could morph from human to spider form. I thought this was a great image that could capture that moment where she was in mid transition from human to spider. I think it's a creepy photo as well. My overall goal was to make a traditional story have a more sinister plot twist.
Bibliography:
Book: The Arabian Nights' Entertainments
Author: Andrew Lang
Illustrator: H. J. Ford
Year: 1898
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