I was seeing a therapist about some mild depression (cured later by divorce) and at one of the sessions he gave me a homework assignment: he said, "Write a fairy tale." I asked about particulars, but he wouldn't give any. "Just a fairy tale. You know, 'Once upon a time . . . ' "
I misunderstood the deadline for it, and was getting distracted with trying to think something up, and all at once, this story just kind of popped into my head, pretty much just as you see it. I take it as an allegory about self-discovery. The secondary theme is the issue of misunderstanding by the other people the character tried to explain his situation to.
That's about it.
