Trumpelstiltskin: A Grim, Mysterious Fairy Tale

Once upon a time there was a poor stockbroker named Jack Hammer. He was poor because he was a terrible predictor of stock futures. Verging on bankruptcy, he decided to employ his most valuable asset: his beautiful and intelligent daughter. 

One day at a brokers' meeting, he bragged to everyone that his daughter’s investment predictions were amazingly accurate.
Most of the brokers laughed and ignored him, given his record of stock predictions. But one man there did not: the Chairman of the Brokers’ Association. He came over and grabbed Hammer by the lapels of his jacket. 

“I would like to put your daughter's ability to the test. Bring her to my mansion tomorrow." He winked. "I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to such a nice girl. Don't worry, I'll protect her whether she likes it or not.”

Hammer hurried home, cursing himself. His daughter was smart and had marvellous boobs, but knew nothing about predicting stock futures. 

She was horrified at his news. “This is insane! What am I going to do?" she asked, polishing her nails. "I don't know anything about this stuff.” 

Her father tried to calm her. “Just do your best. The worst thing the Chairman will do is fire you. He loves firing people.” Hammer feared something worse but decided to keep that to himself.

When the girl arrived at the Chairman’s gilded mansion, a servant led her to a room. It contained a bed and a desk. Behind the desk sat the leering Chairman, a porky man with a weird orange cast to his face, as if he had washed in Cheetos. He sported a red tie that hung well below his waist.

He pointed to a pile of papers on the desk. “Rank these 10 stock prospectuses from first to worst. You have until tomorrow morning. If you get it right, I'll keep you on. If you get it wrong, you'll be fired.” 

Relieved, the girl replied, “I know. My Dad told me that.” The Chairman laughed. “I guess he didn’t tell you that here fired means fried, barbecued, ha, ha.”

He went out and locked her in the room. She looked around the room. Another door led to a bathroom with a golden toilet. Returning to the desk, she picked up the first prospectus. It was written in a language only brokers and investment lawyers would understand, the better to fleece the sheeple. 

She threw it down and began to cry. Just then, the door opened, and a little man entered. He looked like a Keebler Elf, but much less cute and far more chubby. In fact, he looked like a Mini-Me of the Chairman, from his strange orange glow to his tiny hands. The small man doffed his red cap, and bowed. “Good evening, my pretty young lady. Why do you weep so?”

She stifled a sob, pointing to the pile of reports. “I’ve got to rank these prospectuses from worst to first, or the Chairman will roast me. And I don’t know anything about stocks.” 

“No worries, my dear. I can help you. I know more than anybody about everything. But what will you give me if I succeed in saving you from the Chairman’s barbecue?”

“I will let you kiss me,” the girl said with modest reluctance. The little man looked downcast. “Only first base? OK, it’s a start.” He went over to the pile of prospectuses and began looking through them. Within minutes he had arranged them in what he said was the correct order. He bowed and grinned. “I’ll be back for my reward tomorrow,” he said, and left.

The next morning at the crack of dawn, as the girl slept, the Chairman entered the room. He grabbed up the prospectuses wordlessly and left. About half an hour later, he returned, and woke the girl. He was rubbing his tiny hands together and his eyes had a weird glint. “My dear, you’re a genius, almost as smart as me.”

“Can I go home now?” the girl asked. 

“Home? Not yet, my pretty. I have another test for you.” He led her into another room, filled with piles of prospectuses.  “Rank these in the correct order by morning. Only 100. Piece of cake for you, I bet.”

The Chairman left. The girl began to cry, and cry, and cry. Her tears had almost soaked the prospectuses when she felt a tug on her sleeve. The little man in the red cap dried her tears and kissed her. 

“Now, my precious, would you like some help with this task?”  She nodded. “What will be my reward?” “Second base,” she said, drying her tears. The little man finished the task in no time at all and left.

The next morning the result was the same. The Chairman praised her brilliance, but said he had another test for her. “A mere 1000 this time, my precious.” That night the little man came again, and collected his reward. The girl begged for his help and promised him third base.

All went well again, but as you can guess, the greedy Chairman insisted on another test: 10,000 prospectuses. If she succeeded, he said, he would make her his wife. 

“But you’re already married to Melanoma,” she said. He laughed. “No problem. I get rid of wives regularly. A few million for a divorce settlement will do the job. And I'll deduct the money from my income taxes.”

Before the girl could reply, the Chairman left. She began to cry again, a veritable flood. The little man soon appeared and collected his third base reward. "I'll help you one last time," he said, "but only in return for a home run." The girl began to cry again. 

The little man stamped his foot impatiently. "OK," he said, "I’ll do this task for you. After that you’ll have three chances to guess my name. If you fail, you must reward me.” The girl hesitated, thought about roasting on the Chairman’s grill, and agreed.

When the Chairman checked the girl’s results the next morning, he repeated his usual praise. “I’m off to file the divorce papers now," he said, and pecked her on the cheek. 

That night the little man returned as promised. He put his tiny hands on his rather broad hips. “Well, what is my name?” The girl went through every name she could think of, from Aaron to Zachariah. “Not my name,” the little man said each time, and left.

The next day the girl begged the Chairman’s permission to go out shopping, for lingerie. “Of course, my sweet, but you must come back, or I’ll roast your father." She headed straight for a local bookshop to get a book of names. The kind prospective parents get.

While she was perusing one of these books, a handsome young clerk sauntered up and asked if he could help her. She could tell immediately that he was the empathetic type, because the next thing he said was, “I have a degree in the humanities.” 

She explained her difficulty. His face clouded in outrage. “Don’t worry. I have a cunning plan,” he said. He explained it to the girl, who smiled and nodded. When the little man returned that night, she read out every name in the book. “Not my name” he said to each and left.

The third night, the little man appeared again, wearing a triumphant, lusty grin. “This is your last chance. What’s my name?” The girl replied, “Barrington?” The little man laughed. “Not my name.” The girl smiled. “Well, how about Trumpelstiltskin?” 

The little man's orange face turned red with anger. He stomped up and down. “You cheated, you harlot. How did you find out? The devil must have told you, or Nancy Pelosi.” At this point, a closet door opened with a loud creak.

The handsome young man stepped into the room, holding a gun. “I’ve been on to you for some time, you disgusting piece of slime. I may work at the bookstore, but that’s a clever disguise. I’m actually Dick Spacy, a private dick. I was hired by some of your previous victims. When this young lady told me her story, I knew I had you. One of my assistants followed you yesterday. He heard you singing that silly song about baking and brewing, and rejoicing that no one knew your name. But you made a fatal mistake. You foolishly revealed your name at the end of the song. By the way, that song won’t make the Top 40.”

While the young man expounded on his brilliance, he failed to notice that Trumpelstiltskin had moved closer to the young girl. With a lightning movement, Mr. T grabbed her left arm and pulled her in front of him, so that her posterior faced the young man. An astute move. It left Dick staring helplessly at that dazzling part of her anatomy. 

But the little fellow forgot about her other arm. The girl raised it above his head. It was holding a hammer. With amazing force, she brought it down on his skull. It cracked open like a knockoff Faberge egg. He dropped into a pool of blood.

As Dick and the girl checked to see that Trumpelstiltskin was down for good, the room door opened, revealing the portly orange frame of the Chairman. He looked at the body on the floor. “Villains! You have killed the second greatest genius in human history! Second to me, of course.”

“But he was using you to get his way with this girl,” Dick said.  

“Balderdash! We were working together on this caper. We arranged this whole thing. I didn’t give a junk bond about her predictive skill, which was non-existent. I was after something else." He pointed to the corpse. "So was he. Poor fellow. He should’ve stuck to call girls."

“And you dare call us villains!” Dick said. He stepped forward to grab the Chairman by the throat. But he slipped on the bloody floor and stumbled to his knees. The Chairman grabbed a poker from the fireplace and raised it to hit Dick. As he did so, a hammer whistled through the air, followed by a loud crack. The Chairman fell forward, noiselessly, landing on the dead Trumpelstiltskin with a loud splat.

 
Dick got up, fixed his hair, and hugged the girl. “Mission accomplished. I saved you from these villains, as I promised.” He pointed toward the bed. “Now it’s time for my reward.” As he moved toward the bed, the hammer came up and down again. Dick crumpled and fell to the floor.

The girl surveyed the bloody scene with more satisfaction than the circumstances called for. She turned towards the audience.* “I know you’ve been dying to know my name. I'm not called Armanda Hammer for nothing."    

*NB. I forgot to mention that this was a play. 

  







 

The Orange Piper of Shamelin: A True Fairy Tale

Shamelin was the richest, most powerful, most envied country on the planet Zed. Yet, somehow many of the Shamelians were discontented. The grossly rich, because they never felt rich enough. The poor, because they were poor. For some odd reason, many of the poor did not blame the grossly rich. They blamed immigrants, foreigners, "libruls," "lefties," "commies," and other rats. 

"We are temporarily embarrassed millionaires, and we are patriots," they said with pride. "We just need to get rid of the infestation of rats in this country, and all will be well."

"We need new leadership," the malcontents said, urged on by Uncle Rush,  Aunt Laura, and Fux News. "Someone who will make Shamelin great again. The last Leader wasn't a true Shamelian. He sure didn't look like one of us." 

The cry went up from the voices of millions of Shamelians "Make Us Great Again! MUGA! MUGA! MUGA!" They had hardly ejaculated this chant when a voice boomed out to them from the sky, or so it seemed. It actually came from their TVs. 

"I am a famous TV star. You know me as The Boss. I'm also the world's greatest real estate developer. I'm so good at what I do I've gone bankrupt scores of times. How many people can say that?" 

"I will save Shamelin from its enemies within and without. I will get rid of the rats plaguing this country. Make it great again. There will be bigly changes. The best bigly changes. I will build a wall! A bigly wall. The best wall. To keep out the bad people. Bad people. Rapists, drug dealers, killers. Sad. The best things will happen to the economy. It will be so bigly you can dress in dollars."

The Shamelians cheered. They felt a sudden surge of pride in his words, even though his face had a weird orange glow. No one had spoken to them with such brilliance in decades, if ever. The Boss is our man, they thought, and we have made him possible. Because we love our country. They cried out as one: "How can we help you, Boss?"

"Vote for me in the next election for The Leader. The Dumbocrats think they have it locked up. But I have a secret weapon. Friends in very high places. Bigly places. The bigliest places." 

"Who are those friends?" asked one slightly skeptical Shamelian. The people around him grabbed and beat him, and told him to shut up.

"I can't tell you that. It's a secret. But they love you and want to help you defeat the Dumbocrats. Now, if you want me to save you, you must love me. I can't stand to be unloved. Sad! See you at the polls! vote for me and you will never have to vote again!"

Voting day came, and the results were close. The Dumbocrat candidate for Leader got more votes. But Shamelin had an odd clause in its constitution, which allowed the loser to win. Forgive me for not explaining it. Only three people have ever understood it. One is dead, the second went mad. I'm the third, and I forgot. 

This is how The Boss became The Leader, along with help from the people in high places. He started off his Leadership by engaging in his favorite task: firing people. Not only people from previous Leaders' administrations. He even fired his own people after a while, people he said were the best people when he hired them. He said they did not love him enough, did not appreciate his genius. He hired replacements who, he said, were also the best people, but even better. 

He soon made it clear who was Boss on Zed. He told other countries that Shamelin was number one and should get all the best stuff. Other countries had some good points, if they were trying to be like Shamelin, but they were sad places compared to number one. A lot of them, he said, were shithole countries. His supporters cheered these statesmanlike words.

He insulted Shamelin's allies and refused to cooperate with them to protect the Zedian environment. To show who was Boss, he got rid of environmental protections. "We have lots of bottled water for sale. And a little polluted water won't hurt you," he said. "And smoke is good for the lungs. Makes you tough, like me." 

He told the leaders of certain countries that he would destroy them if they didn't do exactly what he said. When they didn't do as he said, he said he loved them and wanted to be best pals.

His supporters loved everything he said, because he said it. He could say one thing one day and the opposite the next. They would cheer it all. They would deny he ever lied or contradicted himself. He was the most honest Leader Shamelin had ever had. And he knew more than anybody, on any subject. He was, as he so often said, a stable genius. 

He was so brilliant, so perfect in every way, that some of his most enthusiastic supporters claimed he had been sent by God to save Shamelin, God's favorite country. The Boss agreed and began to do something new: he prayed, or made others pray for him. One day he proclaimed that he had done more for the true faith than God himself. he sold Bibles.

Things went along swimmingly like this for about three years. About that time, Orientia, a very large country in the Far East, reported the outbreak of a new epidemic disease. It was killing many people, mostly old. The major symptom was laughing, which ranged from a mild Ha! Ha! to a ceaseless, hysterical guffawing. When a patient cried out, "I'm going to die laughing," the doctors knew it was all over.

The Boss' medical advisors told him about the new disease. "It's so far away. It'll never get here." They told him it was caused by a virus. "What's a virus?" he asked. When they told him, he laughed. "Nothing that small could hurt a person, unless they were small, too. Like the Orientans. Nothing to worry about."

Unfortunately, the virus did not heed the Boss's words. It spread to many countries on Zed. Within a few weeks, it had arrived in Shamelin. The Boss laughed it off. "It's a hoax. Just a common garden variety bug. We might have a handful of cases, all mild, and then poof, it will be gone. It might kill a few old, useless persons, but nobody will miss them. Leeches. Sad! I know more about this virus than anyone. The doctors are amazed by my knowledge."

Once again, the brainless virus outwitted the genius. The number of cases mounted, slowly at first, then more rapidly. They included people of all ages, not only the old. The Boss blamed his political opponents. He blamed other countries, especially the Orientans. He blamed the media. "Bad reporters," he said. He blamed his medical advisors. "They're Chicken Littles. Always crying about the sky falling."

Things got worse. "No one warned me about this," he said. "It caught me by surprise." He said the whole virus thing was an underground plot to make him look bad. "They want to spoil my chances to get reelected and become Leader for Life."

As the virus spread, Shamelin's lack of preparation quickly became obvious. Those fighting the epidemic lacked the protective equipment, the testing kits, and the technology to do their job. The Leader insisted that these things could be had in plenty if health care workers weren't stealing them.

When the governors of Shamelin's hardest hit provinces asked The Leader for help, he told them they didn't love him enough to deserve it. They needed to applaud his genius. He told them to help themselves. "I have absolute authority. But the responsibility is yours."  

One day, The Leader told an astounded country, "This virus is really dangerous. It could kill a lot of people. If we can keep the number of dead under 200 million that would be a victory. And that victory will be my doing!" 

Hearing this, the Shamelians -- well, about half of them -- cheered wildly. The rest put their hands to their faces in disbelief, even though they knew that could spread the virus.

Things, as you can imagine, got worse. Shamelin had more deaths than any other country on Zed. 

Then evidence began to mount that the Boss had been fiddling and diddling with little kids.... 

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