Cabbages and Kings, Chapter 1

Once upon a time, there was an author named Günter Godric. He specialized in writing speculative fiction, but took special enjoyment in reinterpreting fairy tales through a science fiction lense. His most recent tale took the concept of Diamonds and Toads, and added a space element to it.

Diamonds and Toads in one of its many forms, tells the story of three young sisters, two of them vain and wicked, the third pure and noble, and their evil stepmother. The older sisters took advantage of all opportunities that would come their way, while the youngest sister was long-suffering, humble, and took her lot in life with grace and humility, taking no more than her share.

Günter, on the particular evening in which we join him, sat on a stool in a bar. In his hand was an imported beer, and at his side was a ragged old man who was much less partial about his drink. Günter’s face was flush, and his speech slurred. Though the bar was mostly empty, he still spoke to the old man beside him as if he were a crowd of fans at a book signing. As he spoke, he fiddled with a small device that sat in his ear.

“And when I posted it to my blog,” he said to the old man, “everybody loved it! Everone. I’m not kidding.” He took a sip and cleared his throat. Setting his bottle down, he reached out and grabbed the old man’s shoulder. “It was like a fairy tale,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper, “only set,” this time he paused to cough. He took a moment to take a drag from a vaporizer pen. When he exhaled the steam, the smell of menthol and elderberries filled the space between him and the old man. Renewing his grip on the man’s shoulder, he continued, “in space!”

The man’s eyes widened with interest, or so Günter surmised. He took this as his cue to continue. Though his faculties were impaired, and his thoughts scattered, he managed to piece together the plot for the benefit of the old man. To help illustrate his point, he drew on the back of a coaster. The old man smiled and nodded, paying attention to Günter’s story as he worked through it.

Onc day, the youngest, loveliest, and meekest of the three daughters chanced to find herself lost in the Forbidden Zone while returning from a supply run at the nearest trading post. Her ship’s navicomputer malfunctioning, she is relieved to discover a small outpost on a nearby asteroid. Landing there, she is greeted by a haggard old woman. This old woman takes her in. She can stay there and fix her ship, but in return, she must work for the old woman, doing the work that needs to be done, fixing meals, cleaning the outpost, anything that struck the old woman’s fancy.

So, every day, the young woman would work until the point of exhaustion. And every night, she would work to fix her ship. The old woman was a slave-driver, demanding spotless cleaning and perfect food preparation. The poor sister was driven to the edge of sanity each day, and took solace in the fact that once she fixed her ship, she would be free of the old woman’s tyranny.

“And Gill, (that was her name, by the way, spelled like the fish lung, but pronounced like Jack’s pail friend.), worked until she could work no more.” He leaned towards the old man, as if to tell him a great secret.

Finally, when it was time for the young woman to leave, the old woman approached her, and leaning towards her, as if to tell her a great secret, she whispered into Gill’s ear. The words she said were not in a language familiar to Gill, and she wondered if maybe the old woman were just clearing her throat. When the old woman finished her speech, Gill felt as if something cold and slimy had crawled down her ear. She made to thank the woman for her hospitality, but as she spoke, instead of words, jewels began to fall from her mouth.

“And I couldn’t get a publisher to carry it, so I just left it on my blog. Can you believe it? Solid gold, right?”

When Gill returned home, her condition was readily discovered by her stepmother and sisters. The jewels helped get them out of their destitute state, but her family wanted more. The next day, the stepmother sent the middle daughter into the Forbidden Zone with instructions to come back just like her sister, only preferably a bit more talkative.

However, the middle sister never made it to the outpost. She encountered space pirates and was never seen again by her family.

“It is said,” Günter said, “that Captain St✮rsbeard takes no prisoners.” Günter began to laugh at this, as if it were a joke he found particularly amusing.

After waiting the requisite time and seeing no return of the middle sister, the stepmother sent the oldest with the same instructions. The oldest sister found the outpost and was able to land there. The old woman greeted her, and as before, let her stay there for as long as it took to fix her ship, provided she do all the old woman asked.

The older sister laughed at this. She called up a ship repair company and had them fix the ship for her, and while she waited, she completely ignored the old woman’s requests. Though the old woman would ask her to clean the outpost, the sister refused, watching with smug satisfaction as the old woman cleaned the entire outpost herself. The same with meals, the sister ignored requests to cook, but was still treated to meals cooked by the old woman whenever she was hungry.

Soon, the mechanic fixed the ship. The oldest sister slipped him some of the jewels. This the old woman saw, realizing the sister’s connection to her previous ward.

“And when she was going to leave, the old woman whispered in her ear that weird way. And the sister was thinking to herself, ‘Oh, yes, I am going to be like my sister, only not such a passive pushover. I’ll never stop talking, and I’ll be rich, rich, rich!’ Before she left, she went to tell the old woman something about how miserable she was while waiting there, but instead of words, or even jewels, filth and foul creatures began to emerge. You know, bats, frogs, spiders, the like.”

When the oldest sister returned home, her stepmother waited for her to speak. Yet the sister refused to say a word. Fed up with the sister’s impudence, the stepmother struck her. When the sister went to say something, though, a snake slithered from her mouth. The stepmother watched in terror as the serpent snaked its way across the floor. It wrapped itself around the stepmother’s ankle before striking at her hell. The snakebite killed the stepmother. In shame and fear, the oldest sister fled, never to be seen by her sister again.

Gill, however, found a handsome prince who did not mind quite so much that she never spoke, and instead spat out a jewel every time she opened her mouth. And the two lived…

“Happily Ever After!” Günter said, brandishing his bottle. “What do you think?”

The old man smacked his lips a few times as he considered the story. “I think I may know why it did not get published,” he said at last.

Günter’s face went ashen. “Why is that?” he said. He leaned in to hear what the old man had to say.
“Well,” the old man began. He considered his words with a modicum of care. “You got it backwards.”

“Backwards?” the old man had Günter’s complete attention.

“Yeah,” said the old man. “Normally, the princess give their girls jewels to get them to shut up, not the other way around.”

The woman who had been sitting beside Günter longer than he remembered began to chuckle. With that, the man got up from his seat. He tossed some money on the counter before making his way into the streets.

Günter finished his drink, sliding the empty bottle towards the bartender. The woman was still chuckling, He turned to face her.

“Was it really that funny?” he asked. He met her eyes. Günter noticed that she was wearing contact lenses to make her pupils look like slits. Other than this strange quirk, he noticed that she was lovely, and decidedly out of place at a bar like this. He scratched his forearm, rolling his sleeve as he did so. The head of a green tattoo snake peeked out from his sleeve. It’s partner, a brown one, lay upon his other forearm. The woman looked down to see the exposed one, possibly thinking that man before him was otherwise handsome aside from a quirk or two.

She nodded, “Hilarious.”

“My name’s Günter,” he said, offering his hand to the woman. She took it and shook.

“Felicia,” she replied.

“Does that explain the eyes?”

“That explains me.” She said.

Günter lifted his vaporizer pen to his mouth before taking another suck. He held it out to Felicia. She declined. He looked somewhere past her, his voice growing quiet. “That was the last story I ever wrote.”.

“Oh?”

“Have you ever wondered, though, what makes a story yours? Have you?” He looked at her once more.

“Not really,” she said. “I suppose being the first person to write it would count for something, though.”

“Yes, but what if you and I took a trip somewhere, say, to the moon, and did a bunch of stuff together, and then went home and wrote about it, whose story would the moon trip be?”

“Both of ours, I guess. It’s a different perspective.”

“So stories written from different perspectives are different stories?”

“About the same thing.”

“What if I offered you a trip to the moon, to do a bunch of stuff with me, and then go home to write about it? You decline, and I go on the trip, do a bunch of stuff, and then go home and write about it in two different perspectives. What then?”

Felicia considered this.  “I would say you just wrote two stories: fact and fiction.”

“But they are different stories?”

“Using my definition of a story, I suppose they are.”

“But what if I tried to publish them as different stories? They have the same plot, the same characters, and the same beginning, middle and end. The only difference is the point of view of the main character.”

“Stories do not have to be interesting to be stories.” she said. “I could tell you about the time I waited in line for a very long time, and what I did every minute or every second, but it would not necessarily be interesting. It would be a story though.”

Günter paused and tapped his vaporizer pen on his leg. “What if I told you that I was that guy who was in the taxicab with Abraham White?” Her eyebrows raised at this. “You know the story? The guy gets in the cab after winning some cash at a casino. Abraham White gets in the cab to share a ride, and tells the driver to go to Hill Valley, only the guy next to him thinks he says ‘Kill Alley.’ They guy tries in vain to open the door, because it is locked, because the cab is moving. Abraham White looks over at him and smiles. ‘Looks like you are stuck with me,’ he says. The man vomits, and then faints, smacking his head against the door in the cab. The next day, he wakes up in the hospital and there is a note from Abraham White saying, ‘Sorry for the misunderstanding. Here is a check for a thousand bucks, and I paid the medical expenses.’ What if I told you that was me?”

Felicia scrunched her eyebrows. “I would say you are writing fiction now. Any time someone tells that story, it is always their cousin, and their cousin is always female, and last time I heard it, it was not Abraham White, but Giles Jefferson.”

“What makes a story mine?”

“Good point.”

The bartender declared last call. Felicia picked up her jacket. “I had better go. I have work in the morning.”

Günter  looked up at her. “You work on the weekend?”

“Everybody does.”

“I guess that rules out any chance of us meeting up tomorrow?”

She shook her head. “Nope.”

Günter made to say something.

“I’m not really looking for anybody right now,” she said. “Besides, dating someone would be difficult for me now. I live in a dump.”

“Oh, me too. Maybe we are neighbors.”

She smiled. “I doubt it. Besides, who knows if I’ve been spayed. That’s all the rage with cats these days.”

Günter chuckled.  “Well, if you find yourself near the Tenemats, look me up. I’m in the haunted room.”

“I’ll be sure to.” She nodded. They left the bar and walked down the street together.

“It seems to be getting colder out these days,” Günter mused.

“Yes. I think that is because of all the pollution.”

“Do not we blame pollution for global warming, though?”

“It gets the bum rap all around.”

“Poor pollution.”

They had a moment of silence for pollution. Their breath fogged up the night air. Günter watched as Felicia wrapped her pea coat tightly around her body.

“I think I’ll fish out the scarf for tomorrow,” she said, puffing steam into the air.

“I think I’ll fish out the thermal bodysuit,” Günter joked.

Felicia slowed down. “Günter, I need to go now. It was fun. Really.”

Günter turned to say goodbye, but Felicia was gone. She disappeared without a trace. Günter leaned to look down an alley. Not seeing her, he took another suck on his vaporizer pen before continuing on his merry way.

The Tenemats rose from the distance to meet him as he walked. At the door, he slid his keycard. He stepped out of the cold, into the relative warmth of the lobby. The night porter raised his eyes to Günter.

“Good evening, Mr. Godric,” he said.

“Nice to see you, Porter.”

The night porter rolled his eyes. “I do have a name, you know,” he said..

“I do,” Günter said. “Everybody does.” He pressed the elevator call button.

The night porter muttered something about the indecency of some people. Günter barely heard them through the closing door of the elevator. The elevator lifted into the air until it stopped at Günter’s floor with a ding! Günter stepped into the hallway and walked towards his apartment.

“I wonder what surprise awaits me tonight,” he said, sliding his card through the reader. The door slid open. The doorway was mostly blocked by the bottom of his couch. He could see the ceiling through the door, where the alternate wall should be. He sighed. The door had crept to the floor.

He got down on the floor, where there was a gap between the bottom of the couch and the bottom of the door. He pulled himself through, sitting on the floor. He dangled his legs through the door, making it look to any passers-by that his legs were parallel with the hallway floor. Finally, he pulled them inside. Detecting no obstructions, the door slid shut.

Tired from the exertion, he plopped down on the couch. As he rested, he watched to door slide across the floor. Once it got to the corner, it bent in half as it crept up the wall. All the doors, windows, peepholes, pictures, posters, and even rat holes did this, crawling across the ceiling, walls, and floor to suit some unknowable agenda.

“At least it’s rent controlled,” he said. He went to take another suck on his vaporizer pen.A green hand reached out and snatched it from his teeth.

“Ah, Ah, Ah,” scorned the hollow voice owned by the same individual in charge of the hand. “Smoking will kill you.”

The figure of a man sat on the couch next to Günter. The green man, though relatively solid, was also somewhat translucent. He had a thick, dark green moustache, complemented by a goatee of the same make. The handle of a mountain climbing axe stuck out of his head.

“Is there something that is bothering you, Günter?”

Günter did not respond. He breathed deeply and tried not to notice the dead man sitting beside him.

“Ignoring us doesn,t work, you know.”

Günter ignored this, hoping that it would.

“Face it; the price was too good to be true.”

Günter gritted his teeth.

 “We can be very nice company, if only you’d give us the chance.”

Günter clenched his fists.

“You know,” said the green man, “you should visit Timmy tomorrow.”

Günter sighed. “All right.”