About Us
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Issue #4:
Stanely Finds a Vortex,
by Randy Tanner
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There's a Lot of Letters in Rumplestiltskin,
by Robert Neilson
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An Ingenious Adventure,
by Jason Sizemore
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A Failure of Self-Help,
by Rosalind Barden
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Stony Weather,
by T.P. Keating
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There's a Lot of Letters in Rumplestiltskin
by Robert Neilson
It was one of those straw into gold gigs. You know the type - innocent
maiden makes a promise she can't keep, gets locked up in a room full of
cereal with a spinning wheel. Yeah! I'm serious. A goddam, for-real
spinning wheel.
So I'm passing the window doing my ugly thing, you know, trolling for
dames - sorry, no more inside jokes - so anyway, there I am, minding my
own business when I hear this sobbing. Now I'm as demi-human as the next
guy - hey, there's nothing wrong with a little fey blood - and tears always
get to my hearts, right? So I hop in the window and ask her what's the
matter.
"Gold," she says.
So I look around. No gold, right?
"Straw," she says. "Spinning wheel," she says.
A little light bulb comes on over my head. I bin there before, remember?
"No way, cooze," I quote and throw my leg over the windowsill.
"Oh, please, kind... kind sir?" she wails. "No gold, no wedding." She draws a finger across her throat. "No me."
Well, I always been a sucker for a pretty face. A great set of bazooms
didn't hurt her case neither. But as I said, I bin burned before so like I'm
naturally reluctant. She flutters her eyelashes and rearranges her blouse.
"Enough already. I'll do it," I tell her. "But it's a one time gig. No
repeat performance. Got it?"
"Thank you, thank you," she says, falling to her knees and kissing my
forehead.
I did a quick calculation, wishing I was twice as tall. "Okay," I says.
"Straw into gold, check?"
"Check," she replies.
"You know the deal?" I say. "I get dibs on the first, right? No pay, no
play."
"Yeah, yeah," she says, in a hurry for me to get started. "My cousin did
the same deal."
'She didn't understand it neither,' I said to myself.
So she sacked out and I did my thing with the straw. At the end of the
night - one room full of gold as per our contract.
Well, when she saw the result of my labours the little lady jumped up and
down, squealing and giggling into her hands; her mind on the king, the ring,
the wedding gig, you know. There was nothing more for me there so I did a
quick fade. Long night, too tired to take the window, know what I mean?
So she gets the king and a diamond ring and there's still the biggest
wedding in the history of the kingdom to come. And of course, you just knew
it didn't you, she forgot all about our deal.
What could I do, I sat by the phone right up until the night before the
wedding and what do I get? Diddly. Not so much as a phone call. No choice,
right? I had to drop in unannounced to collect my fee. Right? We had a
deal.
She looks kinda surprised to see me, naturally, and I wouldn't have been
surprised if she'd pulled the, 'Sorry,
Should I know you?' schtick on
me, like she often found three foot tall demi-humans in her bedroom.
But fair play, she gathers herself together, draws her nightgown tight
about her and says, "Rumpelstiltskin, right?"
I flashed her the old ivories and bowed all the way to the floor, which
ain't that far for a guy like me. "At
your service," I says, giving her
the old knowing eyebrow wiggle.
"But I don't got no firstborn," she says lookin' kinda puzzled. "I ain't
even... you know?" She blushed hard. "Me and the king... We're not even
married yet."
"Exactly," I says. "Which is why I'm here to collect, before you do."
"I don't got no firstborn," she says again.
"Not yet," I says, hauling out the old magic wand and showing her the
tattoo.
"Jeez," she says, hustling outta that nightgown. "There's sure a lotta
letters in Rumpelstiltskin."
The End
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