Week 4 Storytelling: 100 Wives and Counting

Day 1

She betrayed me. After all that I have given her, she has deceived me. How could I be so blind? How did I not notice the distance between us... She disappeared for hours. I didn't think much of it. I thought she needed her own time for self-reflection, but there was someone else. Am I not enough? Did I not deserve the same love that I have devoted to her? That woman is now dead to me. From here on out, I shall marry a new bride every morning, and take her life by nightfall. Let the world take their anger out of me. They will call me monster and the devil. The people will say that I have no soul. They're right. I'm dead inside.

Day 2

I saw my new wife today. She was a pretty, youthful, and educated. Her skin was flawless, and her eyes were as large as a doe. There was something else in her eyes... Fear. Although she was beautiful, the fear in her eyes reminded me of the pain, and it angered me. Within the hour, I despised my new wife and wanted her dead. She wouldn't approach me. She was forced to have dinner with me. It was clear that she didn't want to be my wife. That wasn't a problem. By nightfall, she was beheaded.

Day 3

My bride to be today was an ignorant woman who wouldn't stop talking. She was bulbous with a mole size of Jupiter on her cheek. Her insecurities drove me insane. Am I too fat? Why don't you look at me? Tell me that you love me. She followed me everywhere. I tried hiding in the darkest corners of the palace, yet she still found me. I was glad when nightfall came. Her death was a blessing.

Day 4

I hated to see her go. My new wife today wasn't the most attractive person in the world, but she connected with me on a deeper level. She loved the same things I did. We loved cooking the same foods and reading traditional tales under the apple tree. She was sweet and gentle. What I loved about her the most was that she accepted me and her fate. She knew that was the last sunset she would ever see, and she was happy to spend it with me. We sang songs together. We laughed together. Tonight my world becomes darker as she departs it.

Day 5

All she talked about was her family, and how much she missed them. My new wife was a bit younger than I was. I could tell that she has been sheltered for some time now. She spoke of her loving mother and her wise father. Then she told her childhood stories about her brother and sisters. I was beginning to get bored of her until she accidentally mentioned her first love. I pried. Before she was taken away to be my wife, she was engage to another man who she claimed to be the love of her life. She shed a tear but immediately wiped it away and hid her face. She was in love with her fiancee, just as I was in love with my first wife. It's only fair that she suffered the same way I did.

Day 99

They're all the same. After sleeping with so many women, I've realized that they're generally the same person: a woman with a pretty face with hidden insecurities that would rather die than to spend the day with me. Well wish granted because every single one of them died. I never thought that I could feel so numb. I thought I was dead when my first wife betrayed me, but no it was just my heart that died. I feel my soul dying now. Today's wife? I don't even remember her face.

Day 100

What was it about her? I'm not quite sure. She had an exotic beauty, but her mind was different as well. She was...unique. Interesting. She had divine attributes. For starters, she actually volunteered to be my wife. That has never happened before. She cared for me. She was adventurous. The best part about her was her storytelling. She told the most fascinating stories about the world, and I couldn't help it but listen to her all night. That was the problem. Nighttime came. In fact, the morning sun rose and she was still alive. I didn't want her to go. She promised me that I could take her life once she finished her story. So I listened...

Day 352

My wife still continues her story to this day, but the best story is how she entered my life and revitalized my soul. I hope this one never ends.

Scheherazade and the sultan. Source.

Author's Note:
I decided to write about the sultan's perspective on his wife's betrayal from the Arabian Nights unit. In the story, the sultan realized that his wife has been deceiving him, so he married a new wife every day and killed her at nightfall. One woman named Scheherazade volunteered to be his wife in order to stop all the deaths. To break his "resolution," she told him stories every night which never ended. That's how she managed to save hundreds of women's lives. The changes I made in the story was that I said that his first wife was unfaithful to the sultan, but they story just said she deceived him (no specifics). When I first read the story, I couldn't believe that a man would want to marry a new wife every day. I thought about what was going through his mind as he met his new wife each morning and watch her die each night. That's why I decided to format my storytelling through journal entries. In this way, I can write about the sultan's thoughts for he wife that he married/killed. This story appealed to me because I couldn't imagine the turmoil that each father would go through for giving up his daughter to be the sultan's bride, just to be killed that night. It was quite a violent introduction into the story.

Bibliography: The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang (1898)