A Twisted Fairy Tale - Part 1

Something a bit different today just to break up the Super Spuds.  I thought I'd share some of my short stories, starting with the first part to 'A Twisted Fairy Tale' - a dark take on the normal fairy tale...

There are two fairies that live in each and every household in the world.  The first one, the Tooth Fairy, is a peaceful and benevolent fairy who rewards children for parting with their teeth.  The second one, the Tangle Wire Fairy, is the exact opposite: it is a mischievous and wicked fairy with a very unpleasant personality.  Most people are familiar with the Tooth Fairy; she’s the one who replaces a person’s recently departed tooth, or teeth, with various amounts of money.  The exact amount of money depends on the size and quality of the tooth according to the Calcium Index.  It’s not just the size that matters, but the amount of calcium which the tooth contains.  Calcium is as precious to a Tooth Fairy as platinum or gold is to us humans.  A smaller, incisor tooth which is high in calcium may be worth more than a larger, molar tooth that is calcium-deficient.  You see, a Tooth Fairy has to eat to survive and it requires an ample supply of calcium to do this.  A single calcium-loaded molar tooth can keep a Tooth Fairy going for two years; which is just as well, because once the children in the house grow up it is slim pickings for the Tooth Fairy; until either the parents reach old age and begin losing their teeth, or the house has new occupants and they begin reproducing their own children.   

What about the other, less well-known fairy?  Like the Tooth Fairy is always female, the Tangle Wire Fairy is always male and all he wants to do is to cause pain, aggravation, and misery – or PAM, for short.  The existence of the Tooth Fairy is unquestionable – how else does a tooth magically change into money during the middle of the night?  There can be no other explanation than a fairy, whose magical touch gently lifts the pillow and performs a silent, unnoticeable switch (and only a woman’s touch could ever be that gentle).  The Tangle Wire Fairy is much craftier in his work and he thrives from producing ever more cunning and deceptive tangles, to the extent that most humans blame the mass of tangle wires on their own clumsiness.  Every tangle wire mess in your home now is because of him setting his tangle wire traps whenever someone isn’t looking.  The games controllers, the computer wires, the iPod headphone wires, shoelaces, and anything else that can be tangled and twisted into a confusing mass – including cold and leftover spaghetti – are all a result of his sinister work.  Like the Tooth Fairy needs calcium to live on, the Tangle Wire Fairy feeds not on physical food, but on the emotional distress of his victims.  His “mental” food comes from rejoicing in seeing his victims becoming irate at failing to decipher his knotting patterns.  The more emotional someone becomes because of one of his tangle wire hells, the mentally healthier and happier the Tangle Wire Fairy is.  It sounds easy, but if the Tangle Wire Fairy goes a month without causing someone PAM, he quickly becomes depressed, slips into a coma and then consequently dies within a matter of days. 

Surviving is critical for our two types of fairies for only when they reach the grand old age of 75-years are they entitled to leave their house and go to their respected fairy heavens and to live happily ever after.  The Magic Fairy Code, however, states that there always has to be these two fairies in a home, and if they happen to die before reaching 75, they simply start their 75-year time frame all over again.  It doesn’t sound too bad, dying and then coming straight back again, but the only dream of a fairy is to reach their heaven.  For the Tooth Fairy, it is the dentists – a place of unlimited calcium and an endless mix of teeth all day long.  For the Tangle Wire Fairy, it is the hospital and a chance to cause PAM all day long to the patients, doctors and nurses. If either the Tooth Fairy or the Tangle Wire Fairy is lucky enough to reach 75 and leave their house, they are simply replaced by a new fairy.   A house always has to contain two fairies – it’s the fairy law.

In a detached house on a small cul-de-sac there contains two particular fairies, Melanie the Tooth Fairy and Jack the Tangle Wire Fairy.  The house was built 74-years ago, and when the last brick was laid Melanie and Jack magically appeared in their new home.    As usual with the two types of fairies, Melanie and Jack had mutually stayed away from each other for most of the time.  Melanie had no interest in making silly knots and Jack was disgusted at the notion of eating people’s old and decaying teeth.  Melanie had made the loft her permanent area of residency; it was isolated, dark and perfect for hoarding her stockpiles of calcium.  Jack preferred to constantly move around the house and in between the walls, taking full advantage of the pipes so that he could take pleasure in watching the home’s occupants vehemently struggling with his tangle wires. 

The first 20 years of the house had been a joyous time for Melanie and Jack.  The couple who lived there had reproduced bountifully: four children, three of which were boys.  Melanie had made those children rather rich in their childhood; it was a win-win situation for her really.  The more money she gave them, the more sweets that they could buy and, through doing so, the quicker their teeth decayed and fell out.  The trouble for Melanie was that because she had been so generous, the ensuing feast of sweets that the children had eaten – along with their low calcium diet – meant that the quality of the teeth which she had amassed over the years was very poor indeed.  Despite having over 40 teeth in her collection, they were only grade E on the Calcium Index and would only provide half the calcium of grade A specimens.  Fortunately for Melanie, she still had enough teeth to see her through the final six months of her 75-year reign. 

Life had been merry for Jack in the early years as well, the three boys were mad about computer games and every night when they went to bed, Jack would criss-cross the controller wires over and over.  One day it had taken the boys 15 minutes to unravel the controllers, meaning their playing time was all but over.  This had led to an almighty argument with their parents resulting in the boys becoming grounded for a week and with no games at all.  Jack had taken so much pleasure from this he wasn’t feeling depressed again for 6 months, and, furthermore, once the boys were banned from gaming, he simply re-created his tangle wire controller hell all over again.  Once the kids grew up and left the house, Jack had to settle for winding up the two parents on a daily basis and thinking of ever new ingenious and subtle ways of creating a mess of tangle wires.  But as time went on, Jack became increasingly bored at making the same mess of television and DVD player wires and became mentally unhappier.  If Jack didn’t think of a new way to create PAM, he would slip into a coma and die, only 6 months shy of his retirement age.