Better Buildings With R&D

The three Porcine brothers inhaled their lunch. It was nerves. If they killed on this presentation, business could be very sweet. Their R&D guy hadn’t shown up yet, so Arthur was sweating that. He checked his watch. “It’s time.”

A gale force wind blew the three pigs through the hall and neatly deposited them at the podium. Henry Wolf made his entrance dressed in a white lab coat. Arthur made a thumbs up sign.

The auditorium was full of chattering suits. Henry huffed them silent. “Listen, our buildings are guaranteed not to blow down.”

Arthur went to the first slide.

SweePea

She flounced up to the desk, leaned on it with her elbows out, her fingers leaved together, and in a honeyed voice said, “My bed is unacceptable.”

The clerk handed a new arrival keys and turned to her. “I’m so sorry ma’am.”

“I want a new room, not a sniveling apology.”

“Sorry about that, too. We’re full.”

A gentleman approached, “I overheard and I’d like to offer my room.”

“Mr. Prince,” said the clerk. “How kind.”

SweePea liked what she saw when she looked at Prince. “I’ll try the bed. No point moving otherwise.”

Prince offered his arm. “C’mon honey.”

What If It Was the Mattress and Not the Pea?

Scullery Maid by Edme Bouchardon is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

Cook observed that the less than princess would fail the test the Queen had set. The sous chef nodded.

The scullery maid said, “Only a corpse could sleep on those lumps.”

“You and your airs. Anyone but a true princess could.”

“Then I tell you, I’m a princess.”

Cook pinched the maid’s cheek. “You’re not meant to nap.”

“Not on that mattress pile. I’d rather sleep under a tree.”

Cook’s nose flared. “Tell the Queen. Maybe she’ll find you a husband.”

With a cheeky grin, the scullery girl said, “Or maybe if I complain enough I’ll win my prince.”

The Riding Hood Brigade

The cool air stank down the dark steps into the underground. She pushed through a turnstile, onto the platform and hopped the subway at Prospect, intending to walk through Central Park to Fifth Avenue where her grandmother lived. Her mouth watered at the thought of Grandma’s gingerbread.

He winked at her and rubbed his crotch. She pulled her red hoodie up. Her thumbs flew over the keyboard on her phone, cycling through numbers, texting the others from her friend group. He followed her off the train. Her posse was there waiting. Watching. They made certain that there were no surprises.

It Takes a Princess to be a Queen

Poor little thing, feet bare, bedraggled dress, beleaguered, and common. The prince says to me, “I’ve found a wife.”

More like a wet kit.

I could say, “She’s a sly one.” He would never listen. He has too good a heart.

So, I tell my maid, “Find her a gown. Let her sup in the kitchen. And lastly, make up the softest bed with the hardest pebbles inside as a test.” Maid’s done this many times.

The ungrateful girl eats nothing. The satin is not fine enough, the slippers too stiff. By morning, I know she’s a princess most uncommon.

A Stormy Night Atop a Pea

Edmund Dulac, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

She rushed along a lightening illuminated path. Mud sucked one satin slipper off, the other she tossed away calling it useless, like she had the cooks whose roast meat was not bloody enough, their bread not crusty enough. Torrential tears fell. Rain streamed from her hair, her clothes, and the tip of her nose.

A man and his unruly mare pulled up, clods flying.

“Fool, do you know who I am,” she asked.

Eyebrow raised, he said, “A woman in need of dry clothes.” The lord carried her to his castle, grand as her father’s.

She didn’t sleep a wink.

A Mother’s Quandary

My only daughter, a kind one her. Didn’t she bake a cake, ripe with almond scent, to bring her grandmother? To visit my mother is arduous, more than one day’s journey. Should I caution her? Could my daughter understand if I warned her about the treacherous nature of the beast we women become by the light of the moon? And as fate would have it, the moon is full tonight.

I must trust my precious girl. I tell her, “Stay on the path, avoid strangers, clean yourself in the river along the way if you must. My love to Grandma.”

The Woodsman’s Lament

Blood. It was blood everywhere. Soaked into the cracks of the wooden floor, on the old lady’s nightgown, pouring out from the dead wolf’s throat. The carving knife and the young girl’s hand what held it dripped with the stuff. I thought she were cut, too. Like the wolf tore her open some way, I thought. But when I got to her, she were fine. Dazed, a murderous light in her eye, innocent no more.

I tucks them both in bed, gets a fire going, then sits down. The girl’s asleep. I tell her Grandma, “Let’s say I did it.”

Cut Before the Chase

Photo by Maria Fernanda Fotografia on Pexels.com

Yeasty fresh rolls wrapped in rough textured linen, unpolished like the girl who carried the basket. Mist rose from woody ground to fill the heavy air. The young girl parked herself to rest under a tree.

Behind her, a rank smell rose. A wild laugh accompanied the odor’s owner, a creature of the forest who embodied all that tangled in trees and clung to rocks. “Tired? I have a shortcut for you.”

“Where am I going, then?”

“Give something, get something.”

“I’ll give you what for.” She pulled out an ax from her red riding cape and cut things short.

A Baby is More Than a Symbol

Pinky cheeks, a rooting mouth against Hester’s full breast, the newborn was greedy. Driven by her wants, she took what she needed. She was utterly satisfied.

Her twin brother squirmed in their father’s arms. “He’s strong, look at those little fists.” Eric passed him to his mother.

Eric gazed at his suckling son, then at his daughter.

Hester’s eyes teared up.

“We’re ready now,” Eric said. Thirty, not the nineteen they’d been when God had spared them and took away their sin.

The mother’s emotions were more complicated. While he had gone to war, she had made her own peace.

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