Strange Little Stories
Story Number 1
There was once a young boy who always got everything he wanted, and nothing he needed. He knew exactly the way he should gripe and complain to manipulate his very rich parents into giving him the things he felt it was important for him to own. Because he was never denied the things he asked for, he had begun to ask for bigger and bigger treasures, which were more and more difficult for his parents to supply.
“I want a horse,” he would say. And his mother would say, “You’re not big enough for a horse,” and he would say, “It is true that I am not tall enough but I am conscientious enough to know that in our fast paced society full of cars and business schedules, it is important that we go back to watch nature and let it teach us about how to be quiet and still. I think the presence of a horse would be good for me as I am growing up in this age.” So his mother would go and buy him a horse.
Then perhaps he would say “I want a car,” and not just any car. He would say “I want that big, red convertible that was up on a pedestal at the showcase last week. To which his father would say “You’re not old enough for a car,” and he would say, “yes I am too young, but it is important for me to grow accustomed to having my car around so that when I am old enough to drive it, the excitement of a new car won’t force me to drive to quickly or recklessly and cause an accident.” So his father would take him out to the auto-dealer and buy him the car he wanted.
“And then perhaps he would say “I’m thinking of investing in art,” to which his mother would say “do you know anything about art dear,” and the boy would say, “no, but my father and you have been so very bad at representing our family as cultured members of society that I have been bullied at school and ostracized as being the son of greedy parents.” And then his mother would take him to an auction, and he would bid whatever amount of money on whatever he thought was good.
And then later he would say, “father I would like a big and brand new chain saw,” and his father would say “why do you want such a thing as that?” and he would say, “I have learned that some of the art I have purchased isn’t very good and I would like to recreate it.”
And so life went on in this way for the boy for a very long time. Each time he found some way to make his parents believe that the things he wanted were for his own good, and he enjoyed them until he saw something else he wanted. Because nothing was ever denied him, his demands became more and more ridiculous, and it became more and more difficult for his parents to use money to bring these gifts into their son’s possession.
One day, when the selfish boy had become a very selfish young man, who was too old to be the friendless miser that he had become, he was struck by the realization that no one in the world really loved him, and even his parents little understood love more than seeing it as a way people manipulate each other to get the things they want. He became angry at his parents for establishing such poor relationships in his life, and he drove his car – but not the red one he had convinced his father to buy, because it was, by this time too old to use, and the son had convinced the father it could be dangerous – into the city to look for love.
He stumbled into a shopping mall and looked around him until, at a record store; he saw a girl who he thought was very pretty and a worthwhile person to make him feel like miserly and lonely. He drove his car home and told his parents what he wanted. His parents told him it was very difficult for him to buy things like people – especially when one wanted them to really show love – and that they didn’t think it could be done. To which the son replied. “Mother, father, you have ruined me. You have shown me all my life that money was the best and easiest solution to all of my problems. I have become a two-dimensional personality, who sees this as his only means of finding the things that are good in life. If you cannot get this for me by money now, I am sure that you will have destroyed any chance of happiness in my life by giving me a means of getting what I want that doesn’t actually find me happiness.” This worried his mother and father very much and they kissed his rings and told him they would work very hard to show that they had not made him into a bad person.
So they went to the record store and they enquired after the name of the girl from the manager, who provided all of her personal information for a very small fee. The parents of the rich boy then went to the parents of the girl who turned out to be quite poor, and offered them a great deal of money if their daughter would go out for a night and entertain their son. The parents of the girl refused and refused until a very great sum of money was offered to them. Then they went to the girl and told her that the young man that she was seeing already was terrible and that she would support her family better than she had done by working at the record store, by going to spend time with this miserable, rich young man.
Of course, the girl disagreed and cried very much over this, but finally her parents impressed upon her how much it was a matter of duty that she do this, and she went to see the boy in his big house in the country where he had no friends. At first the boy thought she was very interesting, and he gave her rings and showed her all of the things that he owned which he had almost forgotten, and she hated him very quietly for his selfishness and manipulation. And he also grew tired of her, as he grew tired of most of the things he owned. But he was not used to having the things he no longer wanted not want him either, and that encouraged him to force the girl to remain close to him, even if he didn’t enjoy her company very much. His parents continued to pay very large sums of money to the parents of the girl, who were soon becoming much less poor than they were, and had even promised to buy their daughter a new car if she only brought in enough money, hoping this would bring her around to their point of view.
Finally, the young man, finding very little else that would please him, and seeing a very good opportunity to control the girl he had forced to be his friend, said, “I think we should get married.” The girl believed this was an absolutely terrible idea and told him so. The young man disagreed, saying “I think you see how important it is for your parents that we get married. You would be a continuous source of income for your family, who need the money so desperately. I think you cannot be so selfish and think only of yourself in this situation.” He pushed this point further and further, and still she managed to disagree with him, though he unsettled her very much and she disagreed with him through many tears. So the young man, never seeing his manipulation serve him so poorly before, struck the girl to show her how important this was for him. She turned and ran out of his big house, got into her old car and drove away. She wanted to go home, but the young man had been so persuasive in making her believe she was doing wrong to her parents in not wanting to marry him that she felt she couldn’t go home, so she stopped her car on the side of the road and ran into the old woods that grew between the houses of the rich families and the people in the city.
She ran deeper and deeper into the woods until she had lost her way, and had nothing to do but sit down and lament the shape her life was in. It was here that she was approached by some of the people that live in the woods. A very young fairy child had walked off from her home and found the girl crying.
“What is the matter?” she asked.
The girl who was not a fairy looked up from her tears and told her that she was lost.
“Well I don’t know the way to where you want to go, but my mother might be able to help you. I live just around a corner here.”
So following the fairy child, the girl was led to a place that people normally do not find – a village of wooden huts built for the fairies. The fairy child’s mother was about to scold her for bringing a person to the village, but she saw how pitiable and unhappy the girl was, and instead asked her what was the matter. Beyond being lost, the girl shared her entire story with the fairy child and her mother, who both thought the story, was very sad, and the young boy was very evil. The fairy mother promised not only that she would help the girl leave the forest, but that she would help her take care of the selfish young man.
The next day, the girl returned to the home of the young man and told him that she had to refuse his offer again. But this time she told him something that his mind could better understand. She said that it was because another young man had made her a similar offer of marriage, and had given her something better than the boy ever could to win her affections. She produced a small chest, about half a metre long. It was made of a strange and rich red wood, and was embossed with gold and a strange kind of shimmering green. She said that this other young man, of whom the rich boy had previously heard nothing, had given her this chest which would, when opened, provide a person with all the deepest desires of their heart. As a test, she had the boy’s mother and father open the chest, and sure enough, because they were rich and shallow, a great deal of money spilled out of the chest when it was opened. She took the chest and left the boy in a rage.
He went to his mother and father and said “I think I must have that chest,” and the parents said “it is the only one we have ever seen.” But the boy insisted again, so his parents were forced to pay a thief to steal it for him. The boy’s parents were quite taken aback, having done many strange and illegal things through their business; they had never enjoyed doing anything that was so obviously and bluntly against the law. They spent a great deal of money finding an internationally acclaimed theif to carry out their son’s wishes. The thief, who had flown in from Austria, was actually quite surprised to find the girl’s window open and the box sitting neatly on the window sill for him to take away. He considered the job far too easy, but still charged his regular price.
Having it in his possession, the boy opened it greedily, hoping to find gold and diamonds and all sorts of things he desired. But he found no such thing. For the deepest desires of the boys heart were for no object or person. Years of wanting and demanding so many things without any reason had taken away any real love for the gifts he had been given. The only thing left in his heart was a black need to consume everything he saw, to take everything he could. So when he opened up the box, out of it came many evil serpents and wolves and terrible monsters, which quickly jumped out from the box, tore the boy to pieces and devoured him completely.
Story Number 2
There is a certain age that young people reach when they are, each and every one, blessed to come to a period in their lives where they are strongest, fittest, and most beautiful. It is at this time that they go out to seek other beautiful people and spend their days in the company only of those who appeal to their lofty standards. Of course, when this beauty fades, and people who are no longer so young are not admitted into the company of the beautiful people, they become filled with a terrible fear and anger, and go to whatever lengths they can to remain beautiful. They rub dung on their faces, or eat bugs, or wear clothing that pinches and pushes parts of their bodies into places where people can’t see them.
When a good man of some small wealth lost his wife – a very good lady who operated a community kitchen and facilitated a shelter for the homeless – he became devastated. He tried very hard to show affection to his only daughter, but found that his melancholy was obvious even to her. He also was sure that she was having a very difficult time dealing with her pain and that is why, sooner than he might have, he sought to marry again, to ease both his own grief and his daughter’s, and give her a companion.
Now this man, who was only old enough to be a little grey, but still felt far too old to go to the typical places looking to meet people, had a great deal of trouble finding the woman who would help him take care of his daughter. Late one night he was walking forlornly through the streets of the city when he saw a woman looking distressed and frightened. He asked her if he could help her at all. She wept and said that she had lost everything that was most dear to her, and was now alone and confused. The gentleman thought this story resonated quite well with his own situation. Had he known the woman at all, he would have known that she was exactly the type of woman who tries far too hard to stay beautiful, that what she meant when she said she had lost everything dear to her was that she was no longer so young and naturally pretty as she used to be, and when she said she was lost, she was complaining because she had just been thrown out of a bar two blocks away for breaking a bottle over another customer’s head.
Nevertheless, the kind father invited this woman out for dinner. At first she found him a tad old for her tastes, but when he suggested a very nice restaurant, she guessed that he must have had a great deal of money, and accepted his offer. Very soon they were engaged to be married, and soon afterwards, a small wedding was held to bring them together.
As soon as she was married, the lady began to spend as much money as she believed the kind man could afford. She became extravagant, buying dresses that didn’t fit her and all kinds of make-ups and creams to stop her aging. The man was hopeful that his daughter and her stepmother would become quick friends, and arranged for them to spend time together. But the older woman who was no longer as beautiful as she used to be was very angry with the daughter, for she just seemed to be coming towards that age where she might be beautiful (though she was still very young) and she was doing nothing to alter her appearance in the way the older woman valued. So on their first day out together, the woman took her stepdaughter to a salon, and paid a great deal of money for both of them to have their hair coloured and curled, and have their nails painted and their faces prodded and their noses plucked and their eyes pulled until the stepmother thought that they both looked like very striking young women, and the young girl thought she looked like a dog dressed up as a clown. When she went home, she quickly did everything to reverse her stepmother’s “anti-aging” process, saying she was quite happy to grow up as she pleased.
But the stepmother still needed to spend a great deal of time with her new daughter, seeing it as the best way to get an unlimited amount of money from her new husband. So she continued to try and bring the girl around to her view. She took her shopping to buy extravagant clothes and shoes and coats and hairpins and necklaces and rings and whatever else she wanted. She was always buying them expensive kinds of skin-cream and eye liner and perfume, and she was always very angry and cruel with the daughter when she did not want to participate in these activities. She told her that she was becoming uglier already, and began cutting the girl up for being unattractive if ever she refused one the stepmother’s gifts. Soon the girl became rather hurt and began to ask herself if she really was ugly. She hated this all the more because she had never had to ask herself the question until her stepmother arrived.
One day, when the stepmother was being particularly cruel – pinching the girls sides and telling her she needed to go on a diet with her, (this is because the stepmother had spent what she believed to be five painful days eating nothing but vinegar, chicken bones and brown avocados as a part of a new miracle diet) the girl slammed the door and went looking for somewhere to go that reminded her of her birth mother. She quickly went to the community kitchen, where her mother had often taken her to spend time with the guests. It was a very busy day, but the girl still found one or two people she knew, who were very welcoming when they saw her. In the corner was a very haggard looking man wearing a long brown coat and a toque that, from age and dirt, now stood up perfectly straight as a sort of pointed hat. He also wore a tattered red scarf, big winter boots, and an old hockey jersey. His name was Lewis and the young girl liked him well enough – though she was often drawn to the people that she believed were the most friendless. Lewis was glad for her company, and soon she was telling him the entire story of her new stepmother. Lewis assured the girl that she would one day probably be very pretty, but it really wasn’t worth thinking about at her age. He also told her that he believed he had something that might do the trick for the unhappy aging lady who wanted so much to be beautiful.
He asked the girl if she would come walking with him. He raised himself slowly from his chair and hobbled out into the street with the girl going behind him. They went out into a park, where Lewis said he lived. It was a very large park, and Lewis lived in an obscure corner of it that was mostly forest. There in a clearing of trees he had built a little home out of sticks and mud. Looking inside, the young girl thought he owned a lot of strange things, especially for a man who had no money. There were strange bottles full of coloured liquids, large mixing pots, one large caldron and a host of strange natural and unnatural ingredients – rats tails and birds wings and aging kinds of cheese – lying about the tables and shelves and on the floor. She didn’t know that Lewis was an alchemist – someone trying to make gold. He had obviously not done so yet, having no fortune to his name, but as was the way with most alchemists, he had, in his experiments, come across many other exciting and interesting things which he may have even been able to use to his advantage if he were not so obsessed with finding gold.
Lewis rummaged about in his little home and came out with a small vial of yellow cream. He told the girl to replace one of the creams on her stepmother’s counter with this, and see what might happen. He assured the girl that this would make her stepmother beautiful and the girl believed that if her stepmother could only be as beautiful as she wanted, she might be able to move on and think about other things, and maybe not be so very tormenting. So she agreed to take the vial.
Coming home, the girl looked for her stepmother’s most expensive cream; the one she used most often. There were probably about 300 of them altogether, but one was set up on a special stand, and this one seemed to be right. It also looked enough like the new cream in the bottle for the girl to believe that her stepmother would be fooled.
The next morning, the stepmother applied the cream to her face without a second thought. She used too many creams each morning to notice that one might not be exactly the same colour and texture as It once was. That night she went out alone to the bar where the girl’s father had first found her. The man did not like that she went, but she insisted upon it, because she wanted to show all of her old friends how pretty she had become. Most of them were completely disinterested; she had broken bottles over the heads of more than one patron there, but people knew that if she had her ego stroked, she would sometimes buy everyone around her a drink, and people saw this as enough of a reason to invite her back as often as possible.
On the way to the bar, the woman became quite angry. For some reason she could not understand, no taxi or bus would stop to pick her up, and she had to walk all the way to the bar in her ridiculously high heels, which for some reason were giving her more trouble than usual. She began feeling heavy and tired, and her head hung low. When she finally arrived at the bar, she swung open the door and prepared to step in dramatically, but when she tried to get into the door, she could not fit, and fell onto the ground in a heap. Everyone who saw her looked shocked and frightened. The woman stood up angrily, and was about to make a second attempt at the door when she saw her reflection in a window. She looked mostly the same as she ever did, except for a large pair of antlers that had grown out of her head. She quickly ran home, stumbling under the weight of her heavy new headwear. Going into the garage, she picked up a large electric saw and quite dangerously shaved the antlers off her head, leaving her only with stubs of bone coming out of her temple, like cattle that have had their horns shaved. The next day she ferociously rubbed as many creams and ointments and concoctions all over her body as she could, in hopes of somehow compensating for this new ugliness. She stayed at home all day, afraid to go out, and much to her dismay, found before long that she was growing a long, rich, furry, golden tail. She shrieked and pulled on it and twisted it and turned it, but it was as real as any other part of her.
The next week, the woman remained inside, still trying to look beautiful, still hoping that all of her expensive clothes and make up would cover up her new found ugliness. But the more she applied her new skin cream, the more it worked its strange power. One day she woke up with a large pair of wings. The next day, her hands had changed into paws. Soon a thick fur, patterned with all sorts of interesting stripes and spots, began to grow all over her body. Obviously, the girl’s father was shocked, but he promised that he would take care of her, and do everything he could to reverse the effects, no matter how much it cost. The wicked stepmother screamed at him and told him that if she looked as ridiculous as this she might as well die. But soon her screaming could no longer be heard. Her mouth was replaced by a long furry muzzle, bearded like a goat’s. Now there was no part of her that looked human at all. In fear and rage, the strange stepmother creature ran out of the house, breaking down the door, and charged off. The girl’s father never saw her again, and decided after a while that there really were worse things for his daughter than to be raised by him alone, as long as he was careful to be attentive to her needs, and tell her that she was wonderful and beautiful no matter what anybody else thought of her.
The girl also did not see her stepmother for a very long time, until she went to thank Lewis for the gift he had given her. She found him at his home but, to her surprise, she also found her stepmother. The antlers had grown back in and now she looked like a complete creature of the wild – wings, paws, tail, horns, fur, muzzle and all.
“She must be very sad in there” said the girl, “she tried so hard to be beautiful.”
“She is beautiful now,” said Lewis. “Look at this animal – its wings and antlers and patterned fur. Why this is one of the most beautiful animals anyone has ever seen. That was your stepmother’s problem. She was so concerned with one small kind of beauty, and made it so much more important than anything else, that she forgot how many different kinds of beauty there really are in the world. Why I would insist, and I think you might agree, that she looks more beautiful now than she ever has in her life.”
After some time the girl agreed, and left Lewis with his new companion, though she often came back to feed her stepmother, pet her, and tell her that she looked very beautiful.
