Here’s an ‘un-fairy story’:

My first love affair ended prematurely. This was neither my partner’s fault nor my own, yet I doubt we’d even recognise each other were we to meet now. Certainly it’d be difficult to rekindle our relationship.

Still, I wouldn’t mind seeing her again. She was a beautiful creature; I knew from the moment I set eyes on her that she was the one for me. She was sitting on a lily pad, looking deliciously slimy, her skin glistening from the water. She had a murky greenish-brown complexion, the colour of muddied reeds. Her legs looked powerful, and the sight of her thighs overwhelmed me. She seemed to possess some mysterious quality the other young females at the pond all lacked. Her most attractive feature was her eyes –big, round and bulging, like ripe melons.

I watched, mesmerised, as she jumped from leaf to leaf, and tried to formulate a plan to engage her in conversation. But before I could pluck up the courage to swim across to her she bounded away. ‘Has she noticed me?’ I wondered.

I did not want to build up my hopes too much.

On the way home I met a friend and described the heavenly vision I’d just seen. I also asked if she was involved with anyone. I tried to do this nonchalantly, but must have failed to hide my purpose, for the next day everyone greeted me by asking how the object of my desire was. Nonetheless, the answer pleased me no end: ‘She keeps herself to herself,’ I was told.

Over the next week I saw her again on several occasions, and thought I saw her on many more. Every time I looked at her I seemed to notice yet another positive trait. What I’d have labelled as faults in others I either ignored in her or turned to advantages. I spent hours dreaming about her, alternately imagining how I’d win her over with my ready wit and charm, or fearing that when I finally got the chance to talk to her I’d either become tongue-tied (a complicated problem for a frog) or else blurt out a crude, smarmy remark that’d impress her not at all.

Despite my apprehension, when I eventually made her acquaintance everything was much easier than I’d expected. I’d found out where she lived, and had taken to going insect-catching not far from there. I was concentrating on this activity and, for once, not thinking about her, when I noticed someone had hopped over to a spot a few inches to my left. I glanced across. It was she.