WARNING! Fairy Tales

  “Come, and harken unto my words, sisters!” she cried suddenly. “For I have found our salvation!”

  “What did she say?” Witch Number Two wanted to know.

  “I said get your butts out here! I know how to get children into our oven!”

  Upon hearing this, the other two witches rushed outside, for their stomachs were growling most gruesomely.

  “What is it?”

  “Where are the children? Where?”

  “Here.” Stretching up her arm, the youngest witch pointed at their house. “Just look at this.”

  The two witches looked up at the house.

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t see any children!”

  “No, no, there are no children,” the youngest one said impatiently. “Not yet, anyway. Look at the house, you two, and tell me what’s wrong with it!”

  The two older witches looked again.

  “Wrong?” asked Number One. “What’s supposed to be wrong with it? A gingerbread roof with a licorice chimney and saccharin windows.”

  “A perfectly normal house,” Number Two agreed. “Though I still say we should have gone with real sugar instead of saccharin for the windows. To heck with your diabetes!”

  Witch Number One was just about to make a heated reply to that when the youngest witch shook her head. “No, no! You two don’t understand! The house is supposed to attract children, right? But who in this day and age still eats gingerbread, except perhaps at Christmas?”

  The two other witches gave this due consideration.

  “You want us to renovate?” one finally asked.

  “Maybe put in real sugar windows?” the other added, hopefully.

  “No! Even if we renovate, there won’t be any children to attract. Children don’t come into the woods anymore, nowadays. They spend the day in front of the TV or their video games or similar horrors of the modern age that cause hunger and despair for witches around the globe!”

  “So what shall we do?” the other two asked eagerly.

  The youngest witch raised her chin, proudly. “That’s easy: move to town!”

  *********

  Thus it came to pass that three wicked, hungry witches rose on their broomsticks above the dank, dark forest and journeyed through the air towards the nearest big city, where they thought they might find the most children to gobble up.

  “What shall we do, now that we are in the city?” asked the oldest one.

  “We must find a house to live in that is not made out of gingerbread and hide our broomsticks, so people don’t recognize us as witches,” the youngest suggested.

  Having agreed on this wise plan, they went in search of a house. They were easily able to find and purchase a very luxurious one, for they were very rich witches, having years ago sold their souls to the devil and having been smart enough to ask a lot more than $3.99.

  Life in the big city proved to be all they had dreamed of: during their very first night out, they came across a couple of scrumptious homeless children, and, for dessert, they treated themselves to a teenage drug addict. The first witch had the legs, the second the arms and intestines, and the youngest and smartest one cooked herself a nice pot full of brain soup.

  “Aaah!” sighed the oldest witch. “I haven’t eaten this good in centuries! His toes! Simply delicious!”

  “And that prefrontal cortex!” The youngest witch smacked her lips. “Deliciously underdeveloped.”

  “I believe we shall be very happy here,” summed up the second witch, and the other two nodded their agreement.

  Every night from then on, the three witches ventured into the city to snatch children. The teenage drug addicts were their favorite food. Because of all of the interesting stuff they drank and snuffed, they had an especially fruity flavor.

  Some of the children the witches gobbled up were reported missing, but, for some reason, nobody considered the possibility that they had been eaten by wicked witches. The bounty in the city was so plentiful that, soon, the three witches started inviting old friends from Salem, Oz, and Transylvania over for dinner. It wasn’t long before the youngest and most enterprising of the witches hit on another brilliant idea.

  “You know,” she said, twisting off a child’s head and taking a healthy bite, “it’s really a shame that we only do this for ourselves and our friends.”

  “What do you mean?” the second witch said.

  “Well,” the youngest said, “I’m sure other witches around the world are suffering, hiding away in their dank, dark forest huts, just like we were. We should do something to help them.”

  “True,” said the old witch, pulling an ear off their latest delicacy and taking an experimental bite. “We are on this world to help people and do good, after all.”

  “Exactly! And well, you know, I had this idea. I mean, we could…” Leaning closer to the other two witches, the youngest began to whisper, and the eyes of the other two widened.

  “Are you sure this is going to work?” the oldest witch asked.

  The youngest shrugged. “We can only try and see.”

  *********

  Two work-filled weeks later, the three witches stood in front of their new business. It was a large, low building in modern style, painted in brilliantly witchy colors of green, purple, and orange. Over the entrance, next to a grinning skull with glowing eye sockets, gleamed the logo CrunchyBrats®.

  “What do you think?” the youngest witch asked.

  “Magnificent!” exclaimed Number One.

  “Wonderful!” agreed Number Two.

  Five minutes later, the counter towards the street was wide open, and the youngest witch was beaming, a pan in one hand and a megaphone in the other.

  “CrunchyBrats®! The latest and best place for fast food ever! Get your meals healthy, cheap, and plentiful! First meal for free! Taste our delicious Crunchy Fingers, the marvelous tongue in wine sauce, and the incomparable foundling fillet!”

  A mother with two small children stopped at the counter and studied the price list next to the counter.

  “That sounds interesting,” she remarked. “Do you have a children’s menu?”

  The youngest witch beamed. “Most certainly, ma’am!”

  It wasn’t long before witches from all around Fairyland heard of the incredible new culinary possibilities offered in the big city. No longer would they have to sit in their dank, dark forests, hoping for their gingerbread houses to draw the occasional child to them! No longer would they have to suffer needlessly! Finally, civilization and modernization had entered the magical world! Soon, dozens of witches were flocking to the city to dine at CrunchyBrats®. The three witches’ business started to boom. After only a few months, they had to open branches in two neighboring cities to keep up with the rapidly rising demand.

  They started hiring staff, expanded into other areas, such as takeaway noses and kindergarten party service. Most kindergarten teachers were very obliging about providing their students chopped up and deep-fried in time for the party. After a year, CrunchyBrats® went public, and the shares soared. Another year, and the three witches were heading the largest fast-food chain in the enchanted kingdom.

  “Now we can retire and buy a nice house in the country with real sugar windows,” sighed witch number two.

  “Saccharin windows,” corrected the oldest witch.

  And, if they haven’t killed off all the children in the world, they lived happily ever after.[2]

  And the moral of the story is: always serve children with plenty of ketchup.

  Or, alternatively: use chili sauce.

  Tails of Sins

  Once upon a time, the Devil grew depressed and went to his psychiatrist.

  “There’s nothing left for me to do!” he complained miserably, lying on a soft leather couch, eyes closed, and fanning himself with the bushy end of his tail. “Humanity is already so utterly depraved, evil, and rotten to the core that they don’t need my help with committing sins! Not even the tiniest little bit!” r />
  The doctor made a note on his scratchpad. “How sad.”

  “The other day, I appeared to a bank robber and offered to help him crack Fort Knox in exchange for his immortal soul. And do you know what he said?”

  “No. What did he say?”

  “No thanks, buddy, I’ve got it covered! That’s what he said! Got it covered! Ha! I hope they catch him and he’s thrown into a high security prison with deviant inmates!”

  “What about the younger generation?” the doctor asked, making another note on his scratchpad. “That used to be a real talent of yours, Mr. Lucifer—enticing the young, leading them off the path of righteousness…”

  “Off it?” The Devil snorted. “That would require them ever having been on it in the first place! But nowadays, with all that crap TV they’re watching all the time, with serial killers and witches and bloodsucking, mass-murdering vampires as role models, it’s hardly a wonder they learn how to be nasty before they learn how to say ‘Mama’!”

  “True. So true.”

  “Have you ever been in a kindergarten playground, doctor?”

  “I don’t think so, Mr. Lucifer, no.”

  “Well, don’t try! I went there the other day, just for a harmless little visit, trying to entice some children into blasphemy and apostasy—and do you know what they did?”

  “No, Mr. Lucifer.”

  “They jumped on me and tried to misuse me as a horse! Several of them pulled on my tail! And when I threatened them with the eternal fires of hell, they threatened to drag me to the nearest police station and report me for child abuse if I didn’t start to whinny!”

  “Shocking!”

  “The next day,” the Devil continued, apparently on a roll, “I approached a young maiden. What people nowadays would call a ‘teenager.’ Blonde, blue-eyed, pure as the driven snow! She was gazing at a shirtless boy washing a car on the other side of the street. Taking the form of a whispering wind, I slipped into her ear and whispered, ‘He could be yours! Just leave the path of righteousness, and he will fulfill your most wicked dreams and deepest desires!’ And do you know what she said?”

  “No, Mr. Lucifer. What?”

  “She said, I know. But I’m out of condoms right now!”

  “Deplorable.”

  “A hundred years ago, I would have had to delicately seduce her into evil! Damn hard work it would have been, but at least I would have had something to do! Nowadays, half of the time I want to run away from children; the little buggers are so scary!”

  The psychiatrist looked over at a picture of his three little nieces on the wall. He swallowed, hard. “Indeed they are,” he said. “I feel your pain.”

  Lifting his head a few inches off the couch, the Devil looked over at the doctor, his eyes bloodshot. “And do you know what’s worst of all?”

  “No. What?”

  A three-clawed fist slammed down on the couch. Sulphurous smoke drifted up, filling the room with the smell of rotten eggs. “The people who say I don’t exist! The people who drag my name through the mud and attribute all my past accomplishments to humanity!”

  The psychiatrist nodded. “I heard about that. I tried to speak up for you—“

  “Really?” The Devil’s eyes shone with fiery red gratitude. “You don’t know how much I appreciate that, doctor! You are an ange—um, I mean of course you are a devil. A devious demon.”

  “Thank you for the compliment. It was my pleasure. Those modern history books get enough wrong already.”

  “Exactly! King Herod, Hitler, Stalin, Vlad the Impaler, Mao Zedong—all those lovely dictators and devil worshipers in whose ears I whispered and whom I led to unbelievable and glorious evil—now everyone is saying they did it all by themselves! Bah!” The Devil spat on the ground next to the couch, and the spittle burned a small hole in the floor, falling through and infecting the people in the room below with the black plague. “As if puny humans could ever be able to be that evil by themselves!”

  The psychiatrist nodded. “People should be able to recognize a true master at work.”

  “Exactly, doctor! Thank you so much for understanding! It’s all the historians’ fault! Those infernal historians who are trying to say that the humans did it all on their own and I had nothing to do with it! Oh, I tell you, I’ll have a special corner of hell reserved for historians! With extra hot fire and freshly sharpened pitchforks! I’ll be personally standing ready with the whip for when they arrive!”

  “Very wise. It is always a good idea to work off stress through harmless leisure activities.”

  “I know, I know. Still…” The Devil sighed. “It doesn’t really help me. It’s a terrible thing to not be appreciated, doctor!”

  “True.” Thoughtfully, the doctor tapped his lower lip with the end of his pencil. “You know…I might have an idea.”

  The Devil perked up. “How I can get humans to pay attention to me again?”

  “No, not that. I was thinking more along the lines of seeking a new field of activity. Why concentrate on humans so much? After all, there are plenty of other beings with souls: dormice, whales, bacteria…. Why not try to entice some of them into sin?”

  The Devil stared at the doctor for a moment. Then, he suddenly jumped up, flames shooting from his ears. “That’s a fantastic idea! Thank you, doctor! Thank you!”

  Rushing forward, he grabbed the doctor by the hand and shook it. The doctor winced as the poisonous claws dug into his skin, but controlled himself.

  “You’re very welcome, Mr. Lucifer.”

  “I must go! I’ve got work to do!” Snatching his hat from the hatstand, the Devil jumped out of the window onto a waiting thundercloud and flew off, his mind already racing with fresh ideas for evil.

  *********

  “Excuse me?”

  The slug looked up to see a grinning, horned face hover over him.

  “Yes? What do you want?” he asked.

  “I was wondering, could I perhaps interest you in some sloth?”

  “Some what?”

  “Sloth. High-quality, concentrated laziness. It’s a sin. One of the seven deadly sins, to be exact. One of my finest creations, if I do say so myself.”

  “And you are…?”

  The Devil slapped his forehead, and little puffs of smoke erupted from his ears. “Oh, please forgive me! I completely forgot to introduce myself. It’s just that, with humans, I am rather well-known, so I sometimes forget that other creatures are not quite as familiar with me. Lucifer is the name, Lucifer. Some call me the Morning Star, some the Lord of the Flies. People who know me really well call me the Accursed Origin of All Evil and the Destroyer of Mankind. But Lucifer will be fine, for now.”

  “Nice to meet you,” said the slug. “I’m Bill.”

  “So glad to make your acquaintance, Bill!” The Devil extended his claw and shook the slug’s antenna. “Well, how about it? Can I interest you in some fine old sloth?”

  “What is it all about?” the slug asked. “This sloth-thing, I mean. What does it involve?”

  “It’s really simple!” The Devil beamed. He was really proud of the simple ingenuity of his invention. This was a most diverse product with which everyone could do something—or nothing, actually. “You just lean back, relax, and do nothing.”

  Bill the slug twitched his antennas—which is what slugs do instead of blinking in surprise. “Just…do nothing?”

  “Yep, that’s it. Genius, isn’t it?”

  “And the point of it is…?”

  “To sin, of course!” the Devil crowed. “And, ultimately, to land in hell where you can enjoy the special treatment of my experienced staff for eternity!”

  “Hmm…” Bill said, thoughtfully scratching a slimy patch on his back.

  “I thought you would be an ideal candidate for sloth,” added the Devil excitedly. “I mean, a slug, being lazy—it’s practically a done deal! You would hardly have to change a bit to become the most ardent sinner the world has ever seen!”

  The m
oment the words left his lips he knew he should have kept his mouth closed.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” The slug’s eyes flared with anger.

  “Well…um…” The Devil coughed delicately. “I mean, slugs in general…they’re rather lazy already, aren’t they? They hardly move around, and don’t do much except ooze slime, so I thought…”

  “I’ll have you know that only yesterday I broke my own personal speed record,” Bill huffed. “From the compost heap to the cabbage patch in only five hours and twenty-seven minutes!”

  “Well, that’s really impressive. To get back to the subject of sloth…”

  The slug crossed his antennas in rage. “So just because I am a slug, you thought I was lazy! That’s speciesism, you know! You are walking a fine line here, Mister!”

  “No, please! I didn’t mean to offend you! I just…”

  “Get lost! I have lettuce to devour!”

  “Please, just listen…”

  “I am a very busy slug! If you don’t get out of here right now, I’ll smear slime all over you!”

  Reluctantly, the Devil evaporated into a puff of smoke.

  *********

  “Good morning! How are you doing on this fine day?”

  The leopard, crouching in the grass of the plains just a few dozen yards away from a juicy gazelle, moved his eyes about one millimeter to the right. First he saw the horns, then the scaly red skin, then the eyes burning like fire.

  “What do you want?” he growled, keeping his voice as low as possible. The gazelle kept grazing, unaware of the danger.

  “Let me introduce myself. Lucifer is the name, Lucifer. Some call me the Morning Star, some the Lord of the Flies. People who know me really well call me the Accursed Origin of All Evil and the Destroyer of Mankind. But Lucifer will be fine, for now.”

  “I said,” the leopard hissed, taking a cautious step towards the gazelle, “what do you want?”

  “Well, it’s like this, my friend. You’re a leopard, right? Fastest land animal of the earth. Or is that the cheetah? I always get those mixed up, I’m afraid. But anyway, I was thinking, considering all the running you do, you have to be pretty tired. Exhausted, as a matter of fact.”