The Servant's Dream

The Servant's Dream

By Mickala Jauregui

I had known Abrha my entire life. He lived in the palace and was a third generation servant of the Maharahjah, who is my father. Abrha was always very quiet, never really looked at anyone in the eyes, he was raised by servants of a different time so he acted very old fashioned. My father would occasionally invite him to dinner and would always give time off and presents around special holidays. Abrha never took any time off or any of the gifts. He did not wish to be disrespectful he simply did not have a use for anything my father ever gave him, until this past year.

For 39 years my father had been watching Abrha, he watched him grow up and learn to clean and serve dinner and tend to the animals and there was only one thing that stuck in his mind. Abrha never wore shoes. The servants were allowed time and money to make their own clothes, shoes they could buy with the money given to them, but Abrha never bought any. I had also noticed this, but was too shy to ask him about it, of all the servants, Abrha was the one that scared me. There was something so mysterious about him that I could not tell if he was good or bad.

On his fortieth birthday my father gave Abrha a pair of shoes. They were not any shoes that my family would wear, just as plain and simple as shoes could ever be. I will never forget the look on Abrha’s face when he opened the box.

“Now Abrha, I know you will just return them to me, but before you do, will you do me a favor and wear them for just one day?” My father gently pleaded to him. Abrha raised his head and looked my father directly in the face, and spoke in a voice that sounded as tiny as a mouse looks.

“Of course your majesty”. There was great excitement in his eyes and I knew that Abrha was in love, not with me, nor with my father but with those shoes.

Later that night I snuck down from my room to peek in on Abrha, I wanted to see if he was sleeping in the shoes. He was not sleeping at all. He was down on his knees in front of his bed, with his shoes sitting facing him on his bed. It looked as if he was praying, to the shoes. I was so confused, why would anyone be silly enough to pray to a pair of simple shoes?

For one week I crept down to Abrha’s room and every single time he was doing the same thing, on the sixth night of my doing this I tripped on the stairs and landed with a big thud. I ignored the stabbing pain in my knee and tried to lie as still as possible , but it was too late. I could hear Abrha gasp and heard clinking and clunking before he finally peaked his head around the corner.

“Minki, what are you doing here?” He said in his mouse like voice, as threatening as he could make that voice sound even while using a nickname of mine.

“Nothi..I..Just… wait. No, how dare you ask me, what are YOU doing? Why are you praying to a shoe, you could be exiled for that you know?” my courage escaped me so fast my voice was lowering before I could even finish the sentence.

“Minki…” Abrha’s voice became a soft combination of pleading with me and quiet desperation. “Little Minki, those shoes your father has given me, they are the first gift I have ever received that I cannot return.” He lowered his head as if in great shame.

“Abrha that’s a good thing! My father WANTS you to keep the gifts, why else would he want to give you something every year?” I move towards him slowly, he has become the child, and I the adult.

“It’s not my place to accept a gift from such a man. I am his servant, there is a line, my Grandmother told me….”

I interrupt him by taking his hand, his entire body flinches, but I grab tight so he cannot pull away. “Abrha, times are different, yes you work for us, but you are family. Abrha, we assume you work here because you want to, you can leave whenever you want to. My father says that all the time.”

“I have seen other people leave, but before today I never knew where I would go or what I would do.”

“Before today?” I position myself in front of him so he is practically forced to look at me while he talks.

“Those shoes, Minki, I just, they’re beautiful. I have always admired the shoes you and your family wear but they were always so fancy. I never knew you could make something simple and yet make it beautiful. I want to do that.”

“You want to be a shoemaker?” I am completely perplexed, being a shoemaker does not sound like much to aspire to.

“Minki, my life has always been dictated to me, I just followed the paths that my family had set before me. This is the first thing I have thought of on my own, the first thing I have wanted for myself that no one else has done before me. But it’s silly, I am too old to start something like that.

Before I can even think I spring up and run back up the stairs leaving Abrha on the stairs bewildered. I fly through the palace letting the loud slaps of my feet echo through the sleeping rooms. I zip past the guards that always stand by my father’s door and throw myself onto his bed. “Papa, Papa!!!!, wake up!” I toss him as if he were a fish out of water.

“What Minkisha is everything okay?” My father sits up with a bolt of alertness.

“Yes, papa but listen, LISTEN!”

“Okay, okay. What?” My father rubs his eyes, as he gets out of bed. “Lets go out in the hall, so we don’t wake your mother.”

As we approach the door we see the guards peeking in, in disbelief, scowling at me for totally disregarding their roles as guards. My father smirks at them as we walk past, not helping the matter for me any.

“Now, Minkisha, what is wrong?”

“Papa, I was talking to Abrha tonight and…”

“How many times have I told you not to bother the servants if you cannot sleep. You are not their problem Minkisha.”

“Papa, I know! But, Papa listen!!! I was talking to Abrha, and he loves the shoes you gave him, in fact he does not want to return them to you.”

“Well that’s a good thing, Min… is this why you woke me up in the middle of the night?”

“Papa, Abrha was very distressed. He wants to be a shoemaker and he does not think he can. He thinks he is too old and does not have the resources to do so.” I gasp for breath, I am talking so fast I just barely hope he can understand me.

“Minkisha, where is this going?”

“Papa, I want to help him and I want to help him now. Papa you can do something can’t you?”

My father stared at me for a long time, I began to melt under his gaze. I couldn’t tell for the life of me if he was angry, confused, flustered or just tired. I started to think up ways to talk myself out of everything I had just done when he let out a defeated and contented sigh that rustled the hair by my neck. He patted me on the head and turned me towards the door of my room. He had walked me straight to my bedroom without me even realizing it.

I was fuming that night when I went to bed, why should a nine year old not be listened to? I was just trying to help someone who was important to my family. How could that be wrong?

------------------------------------

It turns out I wasn’t wrong, it turns out that that stunt would shape not only Abrha’s life but mine as well. I remember this story as I sit here in “Abrha Kadabrha” in the middle of our town. I am grown up now and a full grown Princess to boot. Sure it turns heads to come to this part of the streets to get my shoes custom made, but Abrha is the best and besides, when you’re a Princess and everything is so lavish and over the top, it is nice to have something as simply beautiful as Abrha’s hand crafted shoes. Abrha keeps me in check, if I ever get too full of myself or caught up in my life style, I just go to Abrha’s shop. He’ll let me watch him as he makes my shoes and it puts everything into perspective. A dream is neither too big nor too petty, if it is what you truly dream then there should be nothing that stops you from trying to achieve it. I helped Abrha realize a dream he had not even fully developed and by doing that it showed me at a very young age, that anything is possible.