Cinderella
I gave the ugly bitches the slip through the back door. They didn’t see me sweep through the parlour into the living room.
I know they’d been hiding something. A missing person, I (and a certain young man) hoped.
Servants had obviously cleaned the living room. There was nothing but furniture and a fireplace.
There were ashes in the fireplace. The arrangement was too strange to be just burnt wood. Too animal.
Too human.
The Sour Grape
Two policemen pulled him away with some difficulty into the van. He continued to rant and scream.
“You can’t blame me! Those two men were gays! Homosexuals! If we let the goddamn fairies continue they’ll take over the country!” he shouted with zeal that was all too recognisable to me. You may think it plain homophobia. I know better.
He stood at the bars of the van, it’s claustrophobic constrictive space leering over his shoulder.
“It suits you” I said. “Do you know why some people hate gays?”
I grinned.
“Fairies have wings.”
Rapunzel
“Don’t take her,” he said to me. The diner clock ticked over into a new day and I desperately needed coffee.
“You have five minutes to convince me.” I said irritably.
“I fell in love with Kate the moment I met her. But her parents were controlling. She was unapproachable.”
“She was always studying. Never spoke to anyone. I heard her old man used to lock her in her room at night. I think he beat her as well... a couple of times she’d come in with a black eye.”
“I was persistent though. People thought I was crazy but I didn’t care. I kept trying to become friends with her, kept trying to get her to come out and enjoy life. Trouble is she believed what her parents told her. Wanted to keep straight and narrow.”
“But one day... she decided to enjoy herself?”
He drinks deep from his cup and looks me straight in the eyes.
“Yeah. She let her hair down.”
Red Riding Hood
I gave the door a kick but in an instant I saw I was too late. The woman lay dead, the sheets a
sickly red and the window was open. She bore the marks of a husband in violence, 5 minutes deep.
The police rushed in, out and into the night. I sat on the bed.
“You can come out now.”
The man stepped out of the closet.
“You’re going to carry those stones in you for a long time.” I said. He didn’t respond. He bore many marks of a wife in violence, 20 years deep.
Hansel and Gretel
These kids have been abused for a long time. I said to myself as I climbed the stairs to the apartment. They might do anything-
Is that gas I smell?