“What I am,” the leopard growled, “is busy! I’m stalking! Now, begone before you chase my prey away with your jabbering!”
The devil nodded, an ingratiating, hopeful smile on his face. “Yes, busy, of course, I can see that. I won’t take up much of your valuable time. I was just wondering, with you being so exhausted and all from all the hunting and killing and tearing to pieces, whether you would be interested in a bit of sloth.”
Another cautious step forward. The leopard was so close to the gazelle now he could almost smell his prey—if it hadn’t been for the sulphurous stench coming from the annoying little horned creature floating beside him!
“A bit of what?” he snapped.
The gazelle’s ears twitched. Damn! He had to be more careful.
“Sloth,” the Devil repeated cheerfully. “Also known as laziness, or absence of activity. It’s one of the seven deadly sins, you know. I made them all myself, and am justly proud of it, too. Originally, I thought I would only manage to make six. It’s so hard to create variety in products, you know. But then that clever little woman in paradise ate that apple and—wham!—soon she and her man were busy behind the bush, and we had seven deadly sins. Ah, those were the days! People back then really respected me, you know? They really knew quality craftsmanship when they saw it!”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” the leopard hissed. He was nearly close enough now! Nearly close enough to start running!
“Well,” the Devil sighed. “We must go with the times. Which brings me back to why I am here. How about it, my friend? Wouldn’t you like to laze around in the sun for a bit? Just be a really, really idle, lazy, good-for-nothing layabout for an afternoon or two! You’ll see how much fun it is! And we haven’t even talked about the long-term benefits yo—“
The leopard sprang!
Giving a startled jerk of her head, the gazelle whirled around and galloped away, across the grassy plains. Frantically, she looked around for somewhere to hide, but there was nothing. Not even a scrap of underbrush. Speeding up, dashing across the plains with blinding speed, the leopard smiled.
That is, he smiled until a red figure appeared floating beside him.
“Oops. Lost you there for a moment. You were suddenly moving a lot faster than I.”
“Go…away…!” the leopard managed between hungry pants.
“No need to be worried on my account, my friend. I can keep up with you, no problem. Now, as I was saying, the benefits of sloth are simply wonderful! Do you know the kind of stress that a modern hunting environment in the African steppe can cause? All those tourists on safari, and the planes flying overhead, and the waterholes full of elephant dung? Well, sloth takes care of all of that! We offer a complete, full-time eternity relaxation program, guaranteed to take care of any stress-related problems whatsoever! You can sleep all day long if you want, only get up to eat and drink occasionally, of course in copious amounts.”
“You…are distracting…me! Begone!”
“And that’s not all, my friend! Oh no, I haven’t gotten to the best part yet. Because, when you die, that’s when the real fun begins. You’ll be put in our best limousine and driven over the road paved with good intentions straight to the gates of our great spa and hotel, where we entertain our guests for eternity. You know what it’s called? You might have guessed, me being the Devil and all, but just in case you didn’t know, I’ll tell you. It’s H—“
“Shut the hell up!”
“Yes, Hell! That’s it, exactly. How did you know?”
The leopard’s legs were beginning to hurt. Making a final, desperate lunge for the gazelle, he snapped his jaws shut—on empty air.
Panting, he slumped to the ground. The gazelle, meanwhile, ran off into the African sunset, to live happily ever after.
“So, how about it?” the Devil asked heartily. “Do you want to try some sloth?”
“No! No, no, no, and a thousand times sharp-clawed, teeth-biting no!”
“All right, all right! You don’t need to become so upset about it.” The Devil thought for a moment. “Well, if you aren’t interested in sloth, how about vanity? That’s another deadly sin, and an excellent one it is! I could give your leopard skin a more interesting pattern. A bit of gold here, some imperial purple there, and soon, you would be prettier than any peacock that ever preened his feathers.”
Slowly, glowering, the huge wildcat rose from the dusty ground of the steppe. “The leopard does not change his spots!” he growled. “Now, get out of here before I bite your ass off!”
*********
“Hello there, my dear! How are you?”
The snake looked up and narrowed her eyes—a thing very difficult for a reptile to do. “Oh no! Not you again!”
“I hope that’s snake dialect for ‘I’m so glad to see you again’!” the Devil said, smiling cheerfully down at the reptile.
“No, it isn’t! Why did you have to come and bother me again so soon?”
“Soon? We haven’t seen each other for six thousand three hundred and nineteen years, my dear.”
“Exactly! You came at least ten thousand years too early!”
The Devil was a very emotional person, and very sensitive to the feelings of others. His well-developed sensitivity was slowly beginning to tell him that the snake might, for some strange reason, not be glad to see him.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, old friend, but you seem a trifle…frosty.”
“Gee.” The snake gave him a black reptile glare. “I wonder why that is.”
“Oh, that.” The devil cleared his throat hurriedly. “Well, all that was a long time ago, wasn’t it? I would say let bygones be bygones! Water under the bridge! Forgiven and forgotten!”
“You would, would you?”
“Yes. Listen here, old friend. I’ve got a little problem. I can’t find anyone who wants to commit my wonderful sins! You know how I hate my beautiful art going to waste, so I thought that you, perhaps, might be interested in—“
“Oh no! No, no, no!” The snake shook her head, and her tail-end, too, for emphasis. Rattling noises filled the little, grassy clearing. “I won’t fall for that trick again! I remember all too well what happened last time I let you sweet-talk me, you rogue!”
The Devil opened his mouth to protest, but the snake was on a roll.
“Just wriggle yourself up that tree, he says!” she hissed. “Just whisper in that girl’s ear a little, he says! Just tell her: Ye shall not surely die if thou eateth of the tree. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil! Just tell her that, he said! I’ll take you on a nice trip for the weekend on my flaming chariot, he says. And what do I say, young fool that I was? Yes, Mr. Lucifer, I really look forward to it, Mr. Lucifer! And I slither up that tree like a good little snake and whisper into the girl’s ear and get her to eat the apple. And what happens next?”
“Well, my dear…maybe your memory is slightly overexagger—“
“Do I get a nice ride on a flaming chariot? Oh no, not I! When I show up for our date, Mr. Lucifer stands me up! And next thing I know—wham!—old graybeard appears, looking like a bunch of sour grapes, and tells me: Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life! And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel!”
The Devil cleared his throat delicately. “He always was a little grumpy. But on that day, he really must have gotten up on the wrong side of the cloud.”
Carefully stroking her tail-end over her flattened head, the snake glared up at him. “Well, let me tell you, my head got bruised! A lot! And the having-no-legs thing? Yeah, that isn’t so great either! So thank you, Mister, but no thank you! I’m not falling for your flashy smile and your great big flaming chariot again! I’m going steady with a python fr
om the zoological gardens!”
And, with that, the snake turned around and slithered away.
*********
The snake had been his very last hope. After that had failed, the Devil became very depressed for a while. He even contemplated suicide, only there was that pesky problem of immortality! Maybe he could ask old graybeard to do something about that, but the old man probably wouldn’t, just out of spite.
So the Devil roamed the world, looking high and low, left and right for a creature that might be seduced into sin. He looked on top of Mount Everest and in the deepest depths of the sea. He looked behind the sun and inside the moon. He looked behind garden sheds and inside moldy old cheese, hoping he’d find a few bacteria inclined towards sin.
Nothing. He found absolutely nothing.
One day, he was sitting in a café in a big city, listlessly watching the bustling crowd and drinking a sulphur-arsenic cocktail, when, behind him, he suddenly heard a voice say:
“You know, I’d sell my soul to the Devil if I could get that deal!”
The Devil’s head jerked around one hundred eighty degrees. It probably broke his neck—but what the hell! He could always get another one.
All he could think of were the two men sitting right in front of him. They were sleek-looking, smartly dressed men in fine suits that looked very important. Both had suitcases with them, and all sorts of technical gadgets that kept beeping and spitting out numbers.
“Me, too,” said the other man. “A deal like that is worth burning in hell for!”
Tears of joy entered the Devil’s eyes. He smiled. Maybe all hope was not yet lost!
“Excuse me?” Rising, he stepped towards the two men. “I must confess I overheard you talking. What you said…let’s just say, it sounds interesting. May I ask what you gentlemen do for a living?”
The two men jumped to their feet, taken aback. “We’re bankers,” said one of them. “Why?”
“Bankers!” The Devil sighed with relish. Humanity was not all lost to him! God be praised! Or…rather not, if he thought about it.
Laying an arm around one of the men’s shoulders, he maneuvered him into a corner of the room. “I think we need to have a little talk.”
And the moral of the story is: in banking, a splendid career awaits you!
Or, alternatively: don’t go around giving girls apples to eat, or you might end up with no legs.
The Enchanted Prince and the Enchanting Girl
Once upon a time, there lived a merchant with a beautiful daughter. When he passed through the woods one day, he came upon a lion who had just killed an elephant.
“What the heck is an elephant doing here?” the man exclaimed. “We don’t have any elephants in this country!”
“I am a magic lion,” the lion told him. “So I can hunt and eat anything I want, anywhere I want—including you!”
And he sprang forward, ready to devour the merchant.
“Mercy!” the merchant cried. “If you will spare my life, I will give you anything you want!”
“I will let you live,” the lion said, “but only if you give me your beautiful daughter.”
“My daughter? My beautiful, beloved child? Never! Never, ever! I could never make such a terrible sacrifice! Well…unless you were to throw in the tusks of that elephant. Ivory catches good prices on today’s market.”
“Done!” the lion said.
The merchant gave a sigh of utter bliss. “Wonder of wonders! I’ve been waiting for a way to get rid of that annoying brat, and now I’ll be rid of her and make a profit into the bargain!” Walking over to the elephant tusks, he examined the costly ivory.
“Are you going to eat her?” he inquired, just out of curiosity.
“I might just decide to eat you,” the lion growled, “if you don’t get out of here quickly!”
The merchant took his advice, packed up the ivory, and ran.
Not long after, he returned home, carrying the precious elephant tusks.
“Father!” The daughter exclaimed when he came into the house, laden with treasure. “Where did you find that beautiful ivory?”
“That doesn’t matter,” he said, beaming. “I’ve got much bigger news. Guess what? I’ve found a husband for you!”
“Really?”
“Yes! A really impressive male specimen! He’s waiting for you out in the forest.”
“Is he handsome?” the daughter asked hopefully.
“He’s beyond words. Trust me, when you see him, you’ll be floored.”
So the daughter ran out into the forest to meet her new husband. When a lion stepped out from behind a bush and faced her, she stopped in her tracks, going white as a sheet.
“Don’t be afraid,” the lion said. “I’m your new husband.”
Slowly, the daughter looked back over her shoulder, where the trees concealed the distant house of her father.
“That bastard!” she murmured. “I’m going to kill him!”
“Climb onto my back!” the lion commanded. “I’ll bring you to our new home.”
And, on the lion’s back, the beautiful girl rode off into the forest. It wasn’t long before they came into a vast clearing, and in the clearing stood the most beautiful castle anyone had ever seen, with towers high as mountains, sparkling stained glass windows, and golden doorknobs.
“What’s a bedside rug like you doing in a place like this?” the girl demanded to know.
“All shall be revealed when the sun sets,” the lion said. “And don’t call me a bedside rug.”
The inside of the castle was as magnificent as the outside. There were uncounted halls with mirrors on the walls, dress chambers with the most beautiful gowns imaginable, libraries with thousands upon thousands of books, and servants who provided the girl with everything she might desire. The girl began to feel that being married to a lion might not be as bad as she had imagined. Still, she waited impatiently for sunset.
Just before the sun touched the horizon, the lion entered the great bedchamber, where the girl was standing at the window.
“Look at me,” he told her.
She looked, and, as the light of the sun vanished from the window behind her and the moon rose to shine on the world, the lion was suddenly changed into a handsome prince with dark hair and a seductive smile.
“Holy cow!” she exclaimed.
“No, no.” The prince shook his head. “I was a lion before, and now I’m a prince, but I was never a cow.”
“How is this possible?”
“It’s simple. You just don’t grow hooves and two horns on your head.”
“The lion thing, you idiot!”
“Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Well, you see, this old witch came by the castle, and she thought it might be a good idea to enchant me so I would turn into a lion every day and back into a human at night, only to be turned back into a lion the next day. Don’t ask me why she did it. Maybe she thought it would be a character-building experience.”
The girl nodded, thinking this over. “Ah. Thanks for explaining.”
“So you see, my bride,” the prince said sadly, “we cannot spend our time together during the day, as normal people do. We must stay awake at night when I am human and you must go to bed in the morning, when I am a lion and go hunting in the forest.”
“I have a better idea,” the bride said. “Why don’t we go to bed and stay awake during the night when you’re human? There’s plenty to do under the covers, after all.”
And, having said this, she grabbed the handsome prince by the collar, dragged him into bed, and did wild, wicked things with him that can’t be discussed here because this is a fairy tale for all ages. The following evening, just after sunset, a happy bride and a slightly dazed and exhausted prince were married in the castle chapel.
Sometime later, the witch who had enchanted the prince so he turned into a lion every morning came by to see how he was doing, and the young wife welcomed her heartily.
“Thank you! To you so muc
h, I owe the eternal happiness of my marriage,” she exclaimed, embracing the witch. “Thanks to you, my husband doesn’t sit around complaining all day, hasn’t touched a drop of drink in his entire life, scares off any women who want to make a move on him, and eats all the annoying neighbors!”
The witch, touched by the young wife’s gratitude, gave her as a present a silver leash for the lion and moved into the tower chamber of the castle, serving as a vet for the prince. And if they haven’t died, they still live there happily today.
And the moral of the story is: forget about the marriage counsellor! Get yourselves a wicked witch, and have your husband enchanted![3]
Coal Black and the Seven Dwarves
Once upon a time or two, in a faraway kingdom, there lived an evil queen. You could tell that she was an evil queen because, at the age of thirteen, she had the words “Evil Queen” tattooed on her right arm (the one she used for flogging people). By the time she was twenty-seven and had ascended to the throne, she hadn’t changed much, except for growing considerably meaner.
After an affair with a passing Casanova, the Queen became pregnant, and, at this, she grew very angry.
“Why the hell do I have to live in Fairyland?” Snatching up a priceless vase, she hurled it at her chancellor, who managed to duck just in time. Behind him, the vase shattered against a wall. “Why can’t I live in a decent, real country where they have contraception, and abortion, and vicious, child-murdering bastards willing to do anything for a few pieces of gold?”
The chancellor cleared his throat. “Actually, we do have those here as well, My Queen.”
“What?” The Queen whirled around. “You’ve invented abortion? Why didn’t you say so?”
“No, My Queen. I don’t know how to get you an abortion. But I do know how to get you a vicious, child-murdering bastard willing to do anything for a few pieces of gold. The castle huntsman would be just the man you are looking for.”
“Really? Hm.” The Queen tapped her foot thoughtfully. “It’s not as good as abortion, of course. I would have to go through all that messy business of giving birth before killing the brat. Oh, well, it can’t be helped, I suppose.”