Salmonelli Stroganoff

Salmonelli Stroganoff, some young prince of about eighteen years who lived his life in the comforts of his Swiss highland frontier.

Salmonelli Stroganoff enjoyed some couple of roles in society...or at least he tried to earn attention or respect in what he did.

Salmonelli was a good son, one who did study his lessons well for in his heart, time will come for payback and much needed love. Owes to a country he must pay, responsibility he soon must embrace.

Salmonelli was a good student, or at least pretended to be, well-regarded by his peers as well as his superiors in the University of Geneva for not only being a spirited and provocative speaker, but also, a humble and kind-hearted soul.

Salmonelli was a rich bachelor, he went back and forth Geneva up to his Alpine fortress and down again, attending to the enterprise of his parents in the strawberry business in as much as he would attend secret meetings with the ministers of war.

Salmonelli was a philanthrophist as well, and was excellent in doing his good works in silence and smiles. He erected several foundations named after their headmasters for such young man could not dare give himself much due credit. His parents, out of same virtue also did not take much interest in having institutions named after them. To the Stroganoffs, it was inappropriate and contradictory to the spirit of giving.

Salmonelli was a statesman in the works, mastering the arts of war with his politics, history, philosophy and as much as he could, his sciences. His acclaim was widespread, his trophies line his room, and his name was eyed on by no less than monarchs of great Europe.

Salmonelli was also the busiest trendsetter of his time, he fashioned expensive clothing formally suit for kings, he was an adventurous jetsetter of sorts, traveling where his feet took him during summer breaks and winter weekends and so he would have tea with the tsar of Russia, have a debate with the king of France, have Sunday mass with the Italian princes, have a horse race with the Arab riders, have trade with the Chinese mystics, have an animal display with the Indian raja, and still found enough vacation time to have lavish balls with well-rounded ladies both from the commoners and the nobility.

Salmonelli had the world at his feet...power, wealth, fame, women, whims. And yet, behind his smile that bedazzled the wonders of the world, he was frail, so unsure of himself, and weak.

His professors did not know he would stutter as he whispered his thoughts before he said it...out of fear, out of distrust.

The headmasters of his institutions did not know that he would sob in the comfort of their bathrooms after having seen the poverty that has so plagued the children of old Zurich.

His bodyguards did not know of his distaste for violence, his weariness to go to war, his desire to leave his duty as prince...what they saw was a promising leader of a great kingdom.

The royalty he spoke with knew nothing of his hatred of their ways, and how idealistic he was, only that he was a cunning conversationalist, a great debater, a compelling speaker.

Even his parents knew not of his sacrifice, of his longing to be free, of his desire to marry the woman of his dreams who happened to be a classmate in the university. They knew not that she was not of aristocracy, or that she had thick hair and sparkling eyes hidden in her thick glasses or perhaps a handkerchief she has for her allergy to pollen. All they knew was that she was an academic sparring partner, one who thought like their son and one who was better in more ways than one.

They also did not know she had already dismissed the idea that their son would stand a chance should he give her the world and all enduring love in courtship.

And so they could not understand why Salmonelli would keep his head low at times, then looking outside into the wintery chill of the Swiss Alps. Salmonelli wanted to be there in the peak of the mountains to proclaim his love, his dreams, his intentions. But Salmonelli already had himself kept in his frozen abyss. He managed to pull off the most amazing trick in history---and that is to fool the world that he was on top of his game, while in truth he knew he wasn't all that.

Salmonelli was a heartbroken man, in a heartbreaking world.

So many women flock to his heart's door but he could not open it for them. He had much to offer, but he downed himself to a prick.

He did not know what to say to his university crush, not know what to do to make it up for the wrongs he had made, though apparently honesty was his only crime.

He did not know how to stop daydreaming of the world outside and the woman he fancies, to open his heart to those who had been waiting for him all their lives...

So many women who happened to be his friends were there all along to comfort him and
perhaps even carry him through his exhaustion, slight confusion, and frustrations.

There was the strawberry farmer girl gone rich who travelled the country over with her parents denying men access to her heart for she had other things more important to do; the princess of Germania who was oh so wonderful once she could not contain herself from telling stories, the merchant's daughter who was so perky, so exquisite once she uttered foreign words, so intriguing and yet so full of life. There also was the other university girls who were so smart, yet so hard to reach, so beyond their prime and yet so far from him at times though they laughed at each other for most of the time.

And then there were his pals in sports, in the political party, the church, the local community, the institutions (not to mention the children), everyone basically. There were his badminton friends, his confadants when he was again depressed, his butlers, his drivers...the whole town!

Salmonelli could have driven himself to collapse, but thanks to the mountains and some quiet time to reflect, he caught up with himself. Indeed, long live summer breaks!

So Salmonelli, king of rhetoric could no longer utter a word when he came to his senses.

So Salmonelli, king of his secretive world, could not measure what he has to gain as compared to the measly amount of what he occupied himself with.

So Salmonelli, king of humanity, could no longer explain how God touched his life.

So Salmonelli, king of ideal men personified, could no longer see the riches of the world as against the essence of it

He gazed far, realizing all these things, into the icy Alps. He noticed that the ice melted away to the summer's heat, to give way for another planting season.

Ice melted, it watered the soil. When his icy cage melted, he would warm so many people in his life. Salmonelli broke down to cry...and with his tears came crashing the chills of his self---his ego, his self-pity, his difficulty to be what he wanted to be.

Salmonelli released what he could not have released...perhaps because he was so sick and tired of being slave to the demands of the world and his own dreams.

Salmonelli was lost, but was found. For the meantime, summer solstice ruled his heart. For the meantime, he found meaning to what he did and loved his ideals all the more. For the meantime, he became more open to all these people, and faced the challenge of a kingship waiting for him. For the meantime, he found God....and what was after the meantime? Something far better.