I often like revisiting fairy tales. The Disney versions are so tame and pretty compared to the traditional tales, variations of which have been dark and macabre. I think my favourite adaptation of the Little Red Riding Hood narrative is Roald Dahl's poem. Check it out if you delight in cold, hard justice.
Anyway, I was homeschooling my little sister (she's going to turn 12 in a few days, peeps! Wish her a happy birthday!) the other day, and we were discussing the many variations of Little Red Riding Hood. We were talking about the many times the fictional tale asked us to suspend our disbelief, such as that the Big Bad Wolf would have simply swallowed Grandma up without first ripping her to shreds, and that Grandma would be able to survive in the Wolf's stomach long enough to pop out none for the worse when the huntsman cut them out, when it dawned on me...
Wouldn't it be fun -- no, HILARIOUS -- to imagine what the conversation between Grandma and Little Red was like inside the Wolf's stomach?
My mind took a turn for the absurd and weird, and this was birthed...
Aww, crud. It stinks in here.
She wrinkled her nose and tried to open her eyes. It had all happened so fast. One minute, she was telling Little Red to unlatch the door and come in; the next, some big grey... thing... had launched itself through the door, ripped off her clothes (oh, gosh, did it have no decency!?), and gobbled her up. Her instinct had been to cram her eyes shut, so she hadn't seen anything along the way down this whateveryoucallit's gullet. Now that she had stopped, sinking into what she expected was the bottom of its stomach, the shock was wearing off, and the panic setting in.
Let me out of here, you gawd awful monster! She would have shouted, but her mouth would not open. It felt glued shut, as did her eyes, as if she was stuck in a horrible nightmare, where everything but her escalating thoughts was out of her control.
She struggled, but she was wrapped up like chicken in the supermarket, bound tightly by the sticky, slimy walls of a being she had not managed to see the repugnant face of. Oh, how she raged at the unfairness of this situation. She wrestled with invisible forces, attempting to bang the walls of his stomach and force him to vomit her back up.
And to think she had just been about to put on The Bachelorette. The Australian series, of course.
This really stinks.
Tiring out, she stopped twisting, only to be hit by the utter lethargy of being stuck in the same position for too long. This is like having a butt cramp on the bus, she grumbled, I'm way too old for this.
It was at this point that she began to realize the holistic (that is the trend that's going on these days, right?) nourishing effect the stomach walls were having on her 87-year-old skin. Well, if I'm stuck in here, I might as well pretend I'm in a spa. Ooooh, the rather lukewarm exfoliation of the troubled skin... Urgh, if only this monster would stop moving around. It's giving me a migraine.
Just then, she heard the soft echo of a knock. "Unlcgh teh dooh and cuohn nin." The garbled noises of a deep growl rumbled through the stomach walls, jiggling her around. She was a little kid bouncing on a trampoline -- but one of the really sullen ones whose parents seemed to have more fun at those shindigs than their age-appropriate offspring.
There was silence for a moment, and then rumbling, like distant thunder on the horizon. "Why Grahma, wat bug urs you haf!"
I don't have big ears, you twit! Pause. Gawddamn, is that monster wearing my clothes!
The deep voice came again, sounding like the ominous tongue of Satan. "Ahl the butter to hyuh you wif, my dear."
Her blood curdled.
"Why Grahma, wat big ihhs you haf!"
Hey, missy, I know they look pretty owl-like behind my silver rims, but they ain't the peepers of Satan.
"Ahl the butter to cee you wif, my dear." She could practically hear the evil chuckle and see the coyly tapping fingers behind that smug voice.
The thunder came closer, lightly roaring a few houses down the road. "Why Grahma, wat bug hans you haf!"
I didn't raise you to be such a daft sandwich!
"Ahl the butter to hog you wif, my dear." The creature moved, overturning Grandma in its stomach. Something pressed tightly against the wall, smothering her even further, and she could hear her granddaughter's voice as if it was just down the hallway, a disembodied sound in the towering, doomed mansion.
"Why Grahma, wat bug teef you haf!"
You little dumb shit! If those monstrous teeth were my damn dentures, I'd be suing my dentist.
"Ahl the butter to EAT you wif!" A shriek, and then a terrible sound, like a drawbridge slinking shut. Grandma could imagine the path her silly granddaughter was taking, clunking down the slimy passage of death, getting bug guts, squirrel bones and bird feathers all tangled up in her red hood and mane. A few seconds later, Little Red slid in, dropping from the chute like days-old laundry. She landed with a resounding OOF! on her Grandma's head.
It was at this point that tired, irritated, grumpy, grieving Grandma Red managed to wrench her mouth open --
"You had to go and get yourself eaten too, eh?"
And:
"Don't you dare fart, little lady."
TBC.