Cautionary Tales for Human Consumption

8/10/2019 Cautionary Tales for Human Consumption

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CAUTIONARY TALES FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION

by zuanna woodlight


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1

The Mad Platter

There once was a girl who hated to do

dishes. For every meal she took one plate from

the clean stack and then placed it on the

dirty stack. Once her small stack of plateswas used up, this lazy girl didnt know what

to do. Then, she had a very clever idea. She

would go to the store to buy a whole new set

of dishes. So she went to the store, bought a

new set of dishes, and her life felt normal

again. She would take a new plate from the

pile, use it to eat, and then stack it on the

growing piles of dirty dishes. Well of course,

she ran out of dishes again.

Now the stacks of plates were getting

quite large and so she went to the store asecond time, and thinking that she was very

clever, indeed, the girl bought not one, but

every new set of dishes the large store had.

She smiled the whole time, even when she had

to lug them all home one by one. It felt like

Christmas. All the boxes were torn open and a

rainbow of new dishes towered in her kitchen.

For a short time the girl was very

happy. She never had to wash any dishes. And

soon, she forgot about the time that shed run

out of clean ones. But one day she went topour herself a bowl of cereal but when she

reached for her never ending stack of bowls-

she realized that she had completely run out.

Panicking, she searched for a clean

bowl, feeling her anxiety rise; she stumbled

through the kitchen, dirty dishes stacked like

walls around her. She accidentally bumped into

one of the tallest stacks lining the path out

of the kitchen. The tower swayed, tumbled, and

fell, clattering in a thousand different

languages. The dishes broke on top of oneanother and blocked the path out of the

kitchen.

The girl was trapped. She looked at all

the dishes and knew that if she cleaned them,

that she could escape. But the dishes were too

many and she felt defeated. She eventually

starved to death.

The End.


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2

Drunken Dreams

There once was a poor girl who loved to

drink milk. Each week she would buy threegallons of the cheapest milk, all for herself.

She loved to drink her milk plain, or with

flavored syrup. She loved to drink it very

cold with chips of ice floating around in the

glass and she loved to drink it hot, steaming

in a mug. She put milk in her cereal, she put

milk in her coffee, she put milk in her soup,

and she put milk in her oatmeal. One week the

girl went to the store and when she looked

where her cheap milk was, she realized the row

was empty. She peered past the plastic tag,past the two rows of more expensive milk and

she must have fainted.

When she woke, she was crammed in a

metal pen with very little room to move. She

opened her mouth to call for help but all that

came out was a low, throaty groan. She looked

around. She was amidst a sea of black and

white beasts, all making the same cry for help

as her.

At this, she became very frightened and

tried to escape her pen. But it was no use.Her muscles were weak. It was then that the

pain hit her. Her whole body was overcome with

growing pains, as if her skin and bones had

been forced to grow too quickly. It was

excruciating. The worst pain was below her,

what she realized were her udders. They were

swollen, not with milk, but with infection and

there were tubes and pumps on each of her

teats. The machines were loud and when she

finally saw the milk that was being sucked

from her sick and dying body, she realized

that it was not white, like shed expected,but a puss and blood-stained brown. She saw

her milk get carried away through tubes in

the floor and the ceiling. She smelled bleach

fumes over the horrible stench of the hundreds

of cows. Then she saw the sign Bo-Fine

Farms This is where her milk was made. She

felt nauseous and wanted to lie down but there

was not enough room in her pen.

She awoke on the grocery store floor,

cartons of milk spilled around her. People

were trying to help her. She stood up- wideeyed, and ran out of the store. She never

drank milk again.

The End.


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3

Abundance Dance

There once was a girl who came across

some bad luck and she was very poor. She had

no automobile or bicycle, only her own two

feet to get around. She was poor but veryhappy. Even though she was very hungry, her

life was full of satisfying things, like large

trees and sunrises. Sunrises made her very

happy. She walked every morning to her

favorite hill to watch them.

One very cold autumn day she had

completely run out of cash. She was walking

around the city, looking for something to eat.

It was very early in the morning and the

cobblestone streets were almost empty. Her

stomachs growls were shaking the buildingsand rattling the stones in their casing. It

had been three days since she had anything at

all to eat. She thought about stealing some

food for herself. She went into the only open

vendor, a corporate coffee shop. She wanted to

steal something but all the fresh pastries

were encased in glass. She thought about

begging for some money to buy some food, but

since she had found her bad luck recently, her

clothes were still very fine. She did not look

like a beggar, and for this reason she was tooembarrassed to ask anyone for help. Dejected,

she left the warmth of the coffee house and

stepped back into the windy street.

She walked and walked and walked until

the only sounds were that of her shoes

crunching the dead leaves and the hunger that

was eating her from inside out.

She saw a homeless person hunched in

doorway, shivering. She took off her coat and

put it on him. He was asleep and did not

notice. She walked for another hour, her armsand hands going numb in the cold. She turned

down an abandoned alley way and tripped on a

loose cobble stone and fell, scraping her left

knee open. Red blood flowed down her leg. She

looked down at the loose stone at that caused

her fall and saw something brightly colored

crammed below it. She bent down, ignoring the

throbbing pain in her knee, and tried to

loosen the stone with her fingers. It wouldnt

budge. She could only see glimpses of the

thing the stone was concealing.It was not just one color, but all

colors at once. It was a very fine hand woven

cloth that glimmered and shifted from red to

orange, purple to blue in the autumn sunlight.

And try as she might, she could not loosen the

stone enough to grab it. Frustrated, she began

to weep. Her purposelessness consumed her. As

her tears hit the cobblestone, it began to

crumble, almost melt away. She didnt notice

this until she had wept a great deal, and

drying her eyes with the palms of her hand,she realized the stone was mostly mud. She

reached down and picked up the rainbow purse,

for thats what it was, she now saw. Somehow

the mud had not tarnished it, and when she

inspected it closer she saw how it almost

glowed when the sun hit it.

She opened the purse, to look for

identification. Maybe she could return the


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purse and the owner would be so happy, he

would give her a small reward. Inside there

was no identification. It was completely empty

except for three, crisp, fifty dollar bills.

The girl looked up and down the alley but the

landscape was empty. She took her newfoundpurse and put it in her pocket. She walked

towards a diner and once she sat down she

ordered enough food for three meals. She ate

every bite.

Later that night, when she went home,

she looked inside the purse and found three

crisp, fifty dollar bills. Perhaps I counted

wrongshe thought to herself. So, she took out

the $150, set it on her bedside, opened the

purse up, and found three crisp, fifty dollar

bills.For many months the girl became selfish.

She bought in excess and only for herself. But

one day she saw a homeless man wearing her old

coat and she remembered her own misfortune.

From that day on she stopped spending

frivolously and gave as much money as she

could to help less fortunate people.

The End.

Float

There once was a boy whose parents paid

for everything. He was very intelligent and

felt like he didnt have to try to do

anything. He started using drugs for fun butgot addicted. His parents paid for everything.

The End.


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5

A Deal with a Devil

Listen,

There once was a selfish mother who did

not want her child. She gave birth to him in

hopes that she could make his father love her.But the father never loved the mother and so

the child was stuck in this world without

proper parents. The selfish woman could have

given her child up for adoption, but she

assumed it would be a long process for which

she would receive nothing but scorn. Instead,

she decided to seek out someone who would pay

her good money for the fruit of her womb.

She traveled down dark alleys and talked

with men whose faces were hidden in shadows.

She knew it was a crime to sell a human and soshe tried to keep her motives as quiet as

possible, but in order to find a buyer, she

had to speak of her business to some degree.

It just so happened that a devil was in

disguise at a bar, listening for an

opportunity to dabble in human life when he

heard her, not so subtly, trying to sell her

own child. The man she was talking to was

drunk and not listening. But the devil heard.

He approached the woman and touched her

arm. His touch made her skin hot and cold allat once. When she looked into his eyes, she

felt excitement well up inside of her, she

felt the desire to push boundaries and break

rules. The devil invited her to a nearby hotel

where he tied her with black and red ropes in

one hundred complex knots. The woman did not

complain. She wanted to do whatever the devil

asked of her. Then he took her for his own and

used her body for his pleasure

Once he was done, he did not free the

ropes. He stood over her. His voice changed.It became deeper and meaner than it had been

before. He said, You want to sell your child?

I will buy it. I will pay any price you ask.

But on this night, you have been impregnated

with mychild. And when this child is born,

you will desire to sell it. And so you will

come to me, where I will buy our child and

again, I will make you pregnant. In this way,

you will supply me with an army of mutts-

devils that can walk the earth, like I am

today and we will steal many souls.The greedy woman agreed. And the next

year, once the devils baby had been born, she

sought out the devil and again, he impregnated

her. This went on for several years; until the

woman was a hag and could no longer bear

children. Since she had met the devil no man

had wanted her and no woman had wanted to be

her friend, as it seemed a dark cloud shadowed

her. The last year she came to the devil even

though her body had offered no child.

You can give yourself, the devilbargained. Desperate for his approval, she

agreed. The devil tied her up, as he had so

many times before but this time he did not

undress. He pulled out a hunting knife and

carved her into little pieces, which he then

fed to his devil-human mutts.

The End.


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Truth

There once was a young couple. The girl

loved the boy but the boy wasnt sure he

believed in such things. He liked the way thatshe looked at him, so selfishly, he kept her

around.

Then things got bad between them. He

started drinking and slurring his words. One

day he was very drunk and got violent and he

used her body for his pleasure. He took her

even though she didnt want him to.

The next day she told. She told the

police and she told her friends. She needed to

tell because what he did wasnt right. But the

police didnt press charges and her friendsdidnt believe her. She was telling the truth

but they didnt believe her. They liked the

boy more because he played the guitar and had

a nice smile and they looked at her strangely

because she seemed desperate. So they stopped

talking to her.Her friends called her a liar.

But she couldnt stop telling because she

wasnt a liar. Six months later she killed

herself.

The End.

Freedom

There once was a young man who worked in

small carpeted cubicle in a tall sky scraper.

He hated his job even though he was paid well

for it. He spent most days looking out thewindow, wishing he had the courage to jump off

the roof to his death.

The boy hated his job and dreamed about

living on some land where he could take care

of animals. He dreamed of living sustainably,

sufficiently, and from his own hands. He

dreamed of a life without direct-deposit and

credit card offers. When he told his coworkers

they just shook their heads and looked at him

with something like fear.

His coworker, Jeff who had gotten himthe job in the small carpeted cubicle in the

sky scraper pulled the young man aside. He

warned, You cant have dreams. They will

destroy you. Youll never be able to have them

and youll end up jumping off of the roof to

your death. But the young man knew this

wasnt true. He knew that he could leave and

so he did.

He found some land to work and though

the days were long and the toil hard, he was

happy. Soon he met a young woman and they felldeeply in love. They shared their chores and

were in love with their lives.

About a year after he quit the job in

the sky scraper, he heard Jeff had jumped off

the roof to his death.

The End.


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7

Curiouser Case Study

There once was a fatherless young girl

whose mother said she was too big. The girl

wanted to please her mother and she decided to

grow smaller. She knew that if she ate lessshe would lose weight and so, one day, she

stopped eating.

She was very determined. At first it was

very hard; she was very hungry. Her hunger

made her dizzy and sick. But she really wanted

to be smaller, so she still didnt eat any

food. She hadnt lost any weight yet but she

was determined.

After a week of not eating she felt

pretty bad. She had trouble focusing and all

the noises of life seemed much too loud. So,she created a place for herself to go inside

of her head. No one could reach her there.

It took two whole weeks for the mother

to notice the girl wasnt eating. She worked

two jobs and didnt have very much time to

spend with the child. She had been very hard

on the daughter about her food choices and

wished her smaller so that people would like

her more. The mother saw her daughter

shrinking and was happy. She was happy until

she realized the daughter wasnt responsive toanything. The girls teacher had called and

complained. The girl hadnt done any homework

for over a week, was something going on? The

mother said she would take care of it. But

when she looked at girl she saw a half smile

on her young lips and no recognition in her

eyes.

The mother tried to coax the daughter

gently, cooing her voice and stroking the

girls hair but the girl did not respond. She

continued staring at nothing with a half-smile

on her lips. After a couple minutes of

kindness, the mother tried yelling. She shookher daughter and screamed in her face. The

daughter did not respond. The mother looked

around, furrowed her brow, and then slapped

the daughter hard across the face. The

daughter teetered a little but kept on with

the same look.

Concerned, the mother put the daughter

to bed. She heated up some soup and brought it

up to her bedside. When she brought the

fragrant liquid to the girls mouth, nothing

happened.Honey, open up, the mother pleaded.

The half-smile stayed put. Please, arent you

hungry? There was no response. The mother ate

the soup asking, Are you sure you dont want

any? Its very good. But there was no

response from the daughter. For two days the

girl stayed in bed. The mother called the

school and her work and told them all that her

child was sick. The girl remained

unresponsive.

On the third day, the mother took thedaughter to the hospital. They could find

nothing wrong with her other than her comatose

state. When they asked her questions she said

nothing. They ran a lot of tests. They scanned

her body and saw nothing strange, except that

she had eaten no food. They scanned her brain

and found nothing strange, except a small,

glowing center. Realizing that nothing was


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physically wrong with the girl, they sent her

to the psychiatry ward with a saline drip

dangling from her thinning arm.

In the psychiatry ward they mostly left

her alone. Her mother came to visit a couple

of times a week. Once each day a doctor wouldcome in to talk. The doctor was kind and

patient but the girl never spoke a word. When

he came in each day, she would turn in her bed

and look at him. The doctor felt that she

liked him. He didnt know why he felt this way

and he never told it to anyone. The truth was

that the girl did like the doctor. He wanted

her to talk but he never got angry when she

didnt. Day by day she continued to grow

smaller and smaller and smaller.

After two weeks at the hospital the girlhad still not eaten anything. The doctors and

nurses were alarmed at her weight loss. They

had never seen someone lose so much weight so

quickly. She was losing four to six pounds of

weight per day. The strangest thing of all was

that she wasnt just losing fat, she was

shrinking in height. They blamed early onset

osteoporosis and confirmed it with x-rays.

One day the doctor came in, much more

serious than usual. He told her that they were

going to have to put a tube down her throatand pump calories into her stomach if she

didnt eat. She looked a little afraid but

seemed to understand. The next day when the

doctor came back into the room, the girl was

gone.

It wasnt that she had run away. She

would never run away. She liked the hospital.

She liked the doctor and she liked the nurses.

Since she stopped eating she had been putting

every ounce of energy into growing smaller.

When she found out that they were going to put

a tube down her throat to make her fat again,

she decided that she would work even harder tobecome smaller. That night, she tried so hard

that she could feel herself shrinking. She

grew smaller, and smaller, and smaller until

the I.V. simply popped out of her arm. She

grew smaller, and smaller, and smaller until

she had to crawl out from under her bed sheet.

She was really quite good at growing smaller

by this point. She continued to grow smaller

still until she was so small that no human eye

could detect her. She decided that she was

perfect.No one knew where she had gone.

The End.


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A Very Sad Story

There was once a very sad girl who was

incomprehensibly sad. She was so sad that she

could not get out of bed. She was so sad that

she could not eat. She was so sad that shecould not think about many things without

crying. So she spent her days trying not to

think, staring at the white walls of her room.

Her parents saw a commercial of sad girl

in black and white who was made happy in color

with pills. So, they took her to see the

Doctor. The Doctor gave the girl a piece of

paper. When she took it to the Pharmacy, they

gave her several orange bottles with tiny

instructions written on them. They said things

like may cause drowsiness, and may causedizziness. She swallowed several pills over

several days.

She felt a little happier. She thought

maybe the pills were working. This was a

placebo effect. She believed in them and so

they worked. She did not realize this. She did

not realize the pills were doing terrible work

inside of her body and brain. Each day the

pills released venom that slowly corroded her

soul. When it was time for the girl to get off

of the pills, she clutched the orange bottlesto her chest and whispered that she wasnt

ready. She said she needed them. She said they

helped her.

They were not helping her. They were

claiming her soul through addiction. The fear

of the all-consuming-sadness frightened her

more than anything. But still, she spent most

days staring at her wall. The pills took away

the pain of the sadness, but not the sadness

itself. The pills took away reality and in its

place, put a static-filtered world in its

place. It became increasingly harder for the

girl to understand other people. The pills

slowly hollowed her out until she was just ashell.

After many years of eating several pills

a day the girl had completely lost herself.

She was bitter, angry, and anxious. She was

rude to everyone she met. She never smiled.

Her eyes were dark and deep. She spent most of

her time asleep. She couldnt focus on

anything except for specific blank spots on

her wall. She dreamed nightmares of needles

and knives, packs of blood-thirsty wolves, and

broken objects. She ate packaged breakfastpastries and nothing else.

She felt no empathy. She felt no

sympathy. She felt no love. She felt no

happiness. She felt a vague emptiness and a

deep, dark sadness. She felt like her heart

was made of a thousand branches of ice. She

felt like nothing was permanent, solid, or

real. She felt guilty for her sadness and she

continued taking the pills.

Here is an entry from her diary:

Pills, pills, pills, pills,

pills in orange bottles as

white pills shaped in ovals

or diamonds or circles. I

have sample packs, blister

pack dispense or the classic

push down and screw up and

pills I found on the floor


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from where I druggedly

dropped them and pills in

tins and pills in little

pocket containers and pills

in tiny wooden drawers and

pills in the mirroredmedicine cabinet and pills

scattered on my dresser and

pills in tiny boxes and pills

in my hand and pills in my

mouth and pills in my stomach

and pills in my blood and

pills in my pink and gray

little brain.

So what of it? Am I happy?

The next day she took all of her pills

and died. Her true self had been completely

devoured by pharmaceutical poison and the Drug

Company was sad that they lost another loyal

customer.

That day they released a new television

commercial, one that showed a small bird

flying in the endless sky. Everyone who saw it

wanted some pills and the Drug Company made

more money than ever.

The End.

Time

There once was a girl named Time. Time

caused all things to move forward. When time

was young, most people didnt notice her much.

She was lonely. Then, the people startednoticing how the sun rose and fell each day.

They noticed how their lives were started and

ended. Through the years people treated Time

differently. They built small statues to watch

per progress in the sky. They built shackles

to wind around their wrists. People became

Times slaves but she did not want that. But

there was nothing she could do but move

forward without end.

The End.


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Idolization

Once upon a time there was a mermaid who

wished to be human. She had often sifted

through the floating trash of the land people.

She refused to acknowledge the destructionthey caused and chose only to see the beauty

in the images of their advertising. She saw

long golden legs and liquid in glasses. She

saw necks without gills, adorned with diamonds

and big houses full of unusual things.

She often gazed upon the shores of

land, wishing to be what she was not. Her

sisters begged her to look around her, to see

the beauty of their world. They showed her

their powerful fins and water-breathing gills

adorned with pearls and oyster shells. Theyshowed her that they were not bound by gravity

and the many magical things that lurked in

their oceans deaths.

The mermaid ignored her sisters and grew

tired of their pestering. She decided to do

something about her predicament. She swam

towards the shore. Mermaids are very adaptable

and evolve rapidly. So, she stayed near the

shore and each day she spent as much time as

she could on the sand. It was very painful but

she knew she was changing. After about sixmonths of this daily torment her tailfin had

completely separated into two separate pieces.

She continued lying on the beach each day.

After an entire year had passed, the

girl had two distinct legs but they were

nothing like the advertisements. They were

covered in a fine hair. Upset and startled at

this unexpected transformation, she felt as

though she would never be like the pictures

she loved. Once wrapping herself in an

adequate amount of seaweed, she began to walk.

The first thing she came across was a

large cement river. She had seen rivers like

this in the advertisements for automobiles andas she was on her hands and knees inspecting

it, seeing that it wasnt a river at all, an

automobile flashed past her, frightening her

very much. The automobile was much louder than

she had anticipated.

The second thing she came across was

small town filled with small portable houses.

People were milling around but she was shocked

at how little they looked like the models on

the advertisements. They were short and fat

and none of them were smiling. Their clothingwas torn and covered in stains. They did not

have golden skin and they were not draped in

diamonds.

Perhaps the land people have suffered

some great misfortune, the girl thought. She

found herself in a park and sat down on a

bench. On the bench was a magazine and in the

magazine were the people she had come to find.

She picked up the magazine and took it to a

very grungy looking man with gray hair. He was

sitting against a tree and had a largebackpack with him. She could smell him as she

approached.

Excuse me.

What?

I want to find the people who look like

this, and the girl held up the magazine

showing a smoking woman. The man started

laughing. He laughed and laughed.


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Fairy Tale

There was once a girl who constantly

lost things. She could never find the things

that she was looking for and often became veryangry with herself. She would stomp her feet

and growl in her throat. She could not believe

that she had lost something important again.

It just so happens that she was not the

one losing things. In fact, her house was

completely infested with fairies. The fairies

laughed and laughed at the girls misfortune.

One day, the girl decided that shed had

enough with herself. She couldnt find the

left half of her favorite shoes and she had to

go to work. Normally she would yell at whatshe thought was an empty apartment about what

a stupid girl she was. Then she would cry and

be late to work. But this day was different.

Maybe it was the way the shadows played

in the corners of the room but suddenly, the

girl felt as though shed been tricked. She

could no longer be so angry at herself. So,

she let go of her attachment to the shoes.

When she did this, she had a sudden

realization that none of her things mattered.

She could wear a different pair of shoes andbe just as happy. In fact, if no one else had

cared, she wouldnt have needed to wear shoes

at all.

As soon as she let go of her attachments

to her things, it no longer mattered where

they were and if she could find them. She

decided she would get rid of all the things

that she didnt absolutely need. Fairies are

very aware of human attachment, which is why

they enjoy playing their games with our

things. When they saw the girls face, they

knew the transformation she had undergone.

Most of the fairies decided to leave but the

few who stayed now respected the girl. They

gave her small favors like glowing skin and

fresh breath in the morning, they slowed down

time when she was late, and helped her find

the things she truly needed.

The End.


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Fairy Hair

Once upon a time there was a girl who

attracted fairies. They came from miles around

and basked in her light. To them she was

irresistible. When she was little, the girltalked openly about the fairies. She could see

them and they were her friends. But she soon

realized that no one else around her could see

them, not even her twin brother. So she

stopped talking about them and kept their

presence a secret.

The fairies were quite a nuisance to her

as a young woman. They were constantly

fluttering around in her hair and whispering

happy thoughts to her. At times, she could

hardly see because there was such a thickcloud of them gathered around her. While the

happy thoughts were nice, she could hardly pay

attention to what was going on around her.

She was constantly giggling and getting in

trouble.

What is that girls problem? her

teachers asked.

What should we do about her? her

parents fretted.

But, the girl never ran into any trouble

because the fairies, while distracting, alwaysprotected her and gave her good luck.

The End.

Good Times

Once upon a time there was a little girl

who lived in a city. Being in a city most of

her outdoor playtime was spent on the

playground nearest her house. Her parents werevery unkind, selfish people. They sometimes

forgot they had a daughter at all. She never

asked for anything and still was punished. She

was a very kind girl but her life was very sad

and so she often went to the playground.

On the playground, her favorite place to

stay was a yellow tube suspended high in the

air above the gravel. It had small holes in

the side, like a submarine. The ceiling was

full of black melt marks where people had held

lighters. She loved to lie in the tunnel,running her hand along the burn marks, singing

a song she made up.

Submarine, sun machine

Yellow yellow plastic beam

Up above the gravel rocks

Where I like to think my thoughts

When she learned how to read she saw

that there was a messages inscribed in black

permanent marker on the inside of her tube.

The message said, For a good time call 555-

1234. The girl thought long and hard aboutthis message. What could a good time consist

of? She was having an okaytime by herself,

here in the playground. What would it mean to

have a goodtime? She was really, really, very

curious. She thought about having a good time

all that night before bed, then again in the

morning, and all day at school where the kids

teased her for having old clothes. She was


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thinking about it when her teacher scolded her

in front of everyone for not doing her

homework the night before. She hadnt

understood it and she would never dare to ask

her parents for help.

She was starting to suspect that theywouldnt know the answers anyway. She thought

about it on her walk home and she decided that

she would call the number to find out what it

meant. Instead of going home after school she

went straight to the playground, up the

plastic, covered ladder, and into the tube.

She pulled out a pencil and paper from her

notebook and wrote the number down. She took

her milk money that she had saved from that

day and she walked across the street where

there was a payphone. She had to jump to putthe quarters in and stand on her backpack to

type the numbers. The phone smelled strangely

and was much too large for her head. The metal

cord was heavy. She waited. She heard a click

and then a ring. Silence. Another ring.

Hello? It was a womans voice.

hello

Who is this?

Um, the girl was very nervous, what if

this wasnt what she thought? She summoned up

her courage, I am looking for a good time.Where are you?

At the playground, by the water tower.

Ill come pick you up.

Ok.

The woman hung up without saying

goodbye. The girl stepped back from the phone.

Her parents had never told her not to talk to

strangers.

She didnt exactly know that she could

be in danger. She did feel a little nervous

and unsure. Who was this woman? What would

happen when she went with her? The girl

crossed the street again and sat down on the

cement curb with her backpack in her lap. Itseemed to take a long time.

Just then, a group of birds jumped into

the sky from a nearby tree. The girl heard an

engine coming closer. She stood up as a

brightly painted truck pulled up covered with

tiny mirrors and painted images or people and

flowers. It stopped in front of her.

A woman with her hair in a giant braid

got out of the car. The braid was

multicolored, like a rainbow. She was wearing

big heavy boots and a thick, floral printdress. She walked around the car to the girl.

The girl stood up. Her mouth was gaping. She

had never seen anything like what she was

seeing now. The woman sat down on the curb so

the girl sat down again, next to her.

Whats wrong with the time youve been

having? the woman asked, looking away toward

the top of trees.

What? The little girl clutched her

backpack.

Why did you call me? The woman turnedtoward the girl, staring right into her eyes.

She waited for the girl to respond.

I the girl looked down, Its just

that no one is kind, not even my parents or my

teacher. The only thing I can do for fun is

play on this plastic playground by myself. I

dont think Im having a good time.

Well, alright. Lets go, then.


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The woman stood up and helped the girl

to her feet. They got into the truck and

started driving. They drove out of the girls

neighborhood and into the main part of the

city. They followed the main road for longer

than the girl had ever been on it. Soon therewere more abandoned buildings than inhabited

ones. The little girl began to see big patches

of grass between the buildings, and soon, they

were surrounded by fields.

Where are we going?

To my house. Were almost there.

They turned off the main road onto a

dirt road. The little girl had never been on a

dirt road before and she was nervous but she

didnt say anything. They road wound between

two rows of giant trees. After a little waysthe trees thickened until they were surrounded

by forest. The woman parked the car in a

clearing.

Were here.

Oh. Where is your house?

The woman didnt respond. She got out

and started walking. The girl scrambled out of

the truck and followed her. The woman stopped

at the base of a great tree. She started

climbing up the side of it. The girl realized

there boards nailed into the side of the tree.She put on her backpack and followed.

At the top of the ladder there was a

platform. Past the platform there was an open

door, the woman had opened it and was now

inside the tree. The girl was astonished. The

tree opened up into a great room with big

windows and hand woven rugs. Along the walls

were rope ladders, wooden ladders, and

staircases that all led up to separate nooks

and lofts. All the furniture looked like it

had been carved out of the sides of the trees.

There were tons of handmade pillows and

blankets. Outside the tree windows there were

vegetables growing in pots on balconies.The girl felt for the first time as

though she was home. She took off her shoes

and her jacket and decided to stay forever.

The End.


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Authorial Genesis

Once upon a time there was a rainbow who

wished to be real. It gave itself a soul and a

body and then wrote these fairy tales.

The End.

Space Cadet

Once upon a time there was a young girl who

decided to stop believing in gravity. She

decided to ignore centripetal force altogetherand flew off the planet as it spun. She was

flung right into space. Seconds after she

left the earths atmosphere her lungs

collapsed. Then, all the moisture in her body

spontaneously converted into vapor and her

arms and legs swelled twice their size.

She began to get very cold and felt her

muscles contracting. She felt very sorry for

ignoring gravity as the tips of her fingers

and toes began to freeze. Luckily she was

flying right by a Russian Space Station. Theypulled her in after a matter of seconds and

immediately administered pressurized oxygen.

She regained consciousness several hours

later and found herself among friends. She

lived the rest of her days with the quick-

thinking cosmonauts.

The End.


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Baby Susan

Once upon a time there was a girl who

was born in a doorway. She looked around and

realized she was mostly full grown. It was

morning and she was in a city. It just sohappened that she was born very dirty. She was

born with dirt-caked rags wrapped around her

body. The first thing she felt was hunger.

The doorway she had been born under had

a sign that said Carniceria. She did not

know what the word meant. She thought, maybe I

wasnt just born, maybe I was born before

this. But then she thought and thought and

could not remember a thing. She had the

distinct feeling of having just been born. So,

she said goodbye to her mother, the doorway,and started off into the world.

As she walked she came across a hotdog

vendor. The hotdog vendor looked genuinely

happy to see her.

Hey Baby Susan, you look as though you

were just born today.

I was.

Well, aint that something. Youlook

hungry. Heresa hot dog for you, with about a

pound of relish, just like you like.

Baby Susan wasnt sure how the hot dog

vendor knew so much about her, but there he

was, making a hot dog for her and piling

plastic spoonful after plastic spoonful of

relish on top. She accepted, and took the

first bite.

Suddenly, she remembered everything and

she began to cry.

The End.

Good People Have Nothing to Hide

Once, there happened to be a family with

see-through skin. The mother has see-through

skin and the father had see-through skin.

Other than their see-through skin they livednormal, happy lives.

When the mother became pregnant she

watched her baby grow inside of her and

because he also had see-through skin she

watched his tiny organs grow into an

independently functioning system. They were

very happy.

They were good people and nothing

terrible ever happened to them.

The End.


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The Four-Eyed Crows Gift

There was once a young girl who had been

orphaned. Both of her parents had died in a

terrible accident and she was left with

nothing except for an old, blind goat. Thegoat was too old to make milk and could bear

no more kids. Being orphaned, the girl knew

that soon the law would come to take her away

and give her to strangers who were not her

dead parents. So, taking pity on the goat and

upon herself, she packed a small backpack with

some packaged food and bottled water and ran

quickly away into the nearby forest.

She had been into the forest many times

to play. A little ways in there was a low-

lying stone wall and her parents had alwayswarned her never to cross it. The girl was

very obedient and had never disobeyed her

parents and so, when she came to the barrier,

she stood, staring at it, biting her lip. But

just then, something changed in the light and

so she turned and when she did, she saw a

sleek black car pulling up to her dead

parents house. Gathering up her courage, she

leapt across the ancient stones, pulling the

blind goat behind her.

Though it was only a very short wall,

and it was sunk low into the earth, as the

orphan was crossing it, her foot became caught

on the edge and she fell, for a very long

time. She had let go of the goats rope. The

goats blind eyes were staring at nothing. The

goat remained on the other side of the wall.

The animal remained unusually quiet. The girl

noticed that the air had become considerably

cooler. The light changed too, as if it were

coming from a different part of the sky.

Though the shift was subtle, it made the girlafraid. She tugged at the goats rope until it

put one hoof, and then the other over the

wall. The goat began to call again. The goat

pulled against the girl and the girl against

the goat. Once the goat was over the wall, it

began to run. Afraid she would lose her only

friend in the world, the girl held onto the

rope, following the goat through the thick

trees. She followed the braying goat

struggling against the tug of the rope. As

they ran, twigs hit the girls face andgrabbed at her braided hair.

Eventually, just as she thought she

couldnt go any farther, the goat stopped

abruptly. They were standing in a small meadow

at the base of a small mountain. As the girl

looked at the mountain, she noticed a cave

entrance near its base. She walked toward it,

the goat following quietly at her side. As the

girl got closer, she saw the sides of the cave

were glittered in the light of the setting

sun. She climbed up into the cave with her

goat. The walls were covered in a rainbow of

gems. Clear red stones, green stones, and what

looked like diamonds shone, as large as her

fist. As she walked into the cave, a large

shining red stone fell loosely from the wall

and rolled toward her feet. She hesitated, but

eventually continued deeper into the cave,

leaving the gleaming stone where it lay.


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As she went deeper into the cave, the

light did not diminish. Instead, it grew

brighter and the girl could hear a low hum.

The sound and the light both were coming from

the stones that were now casting light againstthe rough surfaces of the cave. Drawn in, the

girl continued, the blind goat walking

silently by her side.

The cave twisted and turned until

eventually, she reached another opening. At

first she thought it was the same opening she

had come from, as it looked very similar.

There was a small meadow and woods all around.

Then she noticed a small cottage that had not

been in the original meadow. There was no

smoke coming from the chimney and no carsparked around it. Hesitantly, she approached

it.

By this time it was very dark and the

orphan child was very tired. The door to the

cabin swung open at her knock. It was a simple

dwelling with a fireplace and small feathered

bed. She found no food in the cupboards. In

the cold fireplace she saw an empty cauldron

and many dried herbs hanging on a wall.

Exhausted, the girl tied up the goat to a

fruit tree in the back yard. She noticed a

flat, circular stone sunken into the ground

with strange markings. Too tired to think

about it, she fell into the soft bed and went

right to sleep.

In her dreams she was back in the cave.

Only this time, she picked up the ruby that

had rolled towards her feet. When she picked

up the ruby, she was struck with the deep

desire of possession. She wanted all of the

stones in the cave. She wanted them to adorn

her hair. She wanted them to hang around her

neck. She realized how lucky she was, to comeacross this cave of diamonds. She gathered as

many shiny rocks as she could but they cut

into her hands. Crying out, she dropped one

stone, and then another, trying to gather them

back into her arms.

It was then that the floor crumbled and

she fell for a very long time. She landed on a

pile of gems and it hurt her very much. She

looked around and saw fires burning in the

earth and lava seeping through its cracks.

Ahead of her, she saw a pillar and on it, afour eyed crow cocked its head at her. When it

opened its beak to caw, she awoke.

Indeed there was a crow cawing. The

light of the new day was seeping through the

small windows. The girl ran outside and saw

her beloved blind goat collapsed in the center

of the stone circle. There was a crow standing

on the goats head, cawing loudly. As she

approached, the crow reached down, plucked one

of the goats eyes out, and swallowed it

whole. The girl took a step back as the crow

opened its wings and flew toward her.

Hello the raven said to the girl.

The girl stared back with an open mouth.

I did not kill him. The Raven cocked its

head, just like the one in her dream.

I dreamed of you, the girl said, confused

that she was talking to a bird.


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Mayhaps, the raven said in a sing-song

voice.

I feel different, the girl said, shakily. It

was true, she felt changed. She could feel

energy in her hands, tingling, and she thought

maybe she knew some things she didnt knowbefore.

Yes. The raven paused and hoped from one

foot to the other. Yes, the raven repeated.

You are different.

From that day forward, the crow and the

girl became friends. He showed her how to

gather vegetables and magical herbs. He told

her what he knew of the magic of the forest.

She was obedient, and a good student. When she

had learned enough, the raven flew away, and

never returned.She continued to practice what he had

taught her. She never took more from the earth

than what she needed. And in this way, she

became a witch of the earth. As she aged, many

people searched for her, as her medicines

brought whatever they were asked to do. She

never assisted in evil and she asked only a

small price for her services, never more than

her customers could afford. But still, the

rumors surrounded her name. The people were

afraid of someone who could live such a simple

life as she did. They were afraid of her

because she did not want to possess riches.

They were afraid of her because they did not

understand her. And so, people began only

coming to her in secret, under the cover of

the night. And the children ran away screaming

when she went to town. And one day, when she

was very, very old, the orphaned witch died

alone, having helped a great many people.

The End


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U R Wt U Eat

Once upon a time there was a little boy

who loved fast food. His family also loved

fast food but no one loved it as much as the

little boy. Every day he would beg, scream,

cry, kick, and bite- whatever it took to bully

his parents into taking him to his favorite

fast food joint. He never missed a meal.

He refused to eat anything that wasnt

wrapped in waxy paper or sitting in a

cardboard container. He threw vegetables,

overturned steak, flung fish, and spit

spaghetti. No matter how hard his parents

tried to coax and force him, they were always

the coerced into giving the boy what he

wanted.

At the boys annual doctors visit the

pediatrician warned, If that boy keeps eating

French fries, hamburgers, and pies, fat will

soon be pouring out of his eyes.

Needless to say, the parents were very

concerned. He had such cute, round eyes.

That night when the kid asked when they

could leave his parents clasped hands andsaid, Were not going.

The boy began to cry and scream. He

begged them, Just once more. Just one last

time!

Needless to say, the parents gave in to

this request. He had such a cute, round face.

At the restaurant, the family sat down.

The boy asked politely to use the restroom.

The parents, surprised at his pleasant

attitude excused him.

Instead of going to the bathroom he

snuck behind the counter. He snuck behind the

distracted employees into the kitchen. He

snuck up onto the counter and started jamming

half-made hamburgers into his mouth. An

employee saw him and tried to stop him.

Kid, hey kid, you cant do that. Get

down from there.

The boy stood up and started running

along the metal countertop, slipping on

pickles and stumbling on sauces. When themanager got close to grabbing him he leapt

across the floor towards the fries. He cleared

the distance but his little fat foot slipped

on the grease and he slid across the surface

right into the deep fryer. He was cooked

before he could even scream.

Meanwhile, his parents ate French fries,

wondering what was taking so long, not

realizing that this actually was the boys

last trip to his favorite place or anywhere.

The End.


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The Pig That Wanted to End World Hunger

There once were three pigs who didnt

know if they were related or not. Nevertheless

they found themselves sharing a sty on a small

family farm.

Though they lived together, the three

pigs were very different. The first pig was

very greedy. He ate as much and as fast as he

possibly could.

The second pig was what you might call a

normal pig. He ate in moderation, with

deliberation.

The third pig was anorexic. She never

ate but a nibble here and much later, a nibblethere.

The fate of the first pig was grim. The

famer killed him and ate much of his flesh.

The rest of his body he gave to the dog.

The second pig was sold to a neighbor.

He thought himself very lucky until the

neighbor killed him and ate most of his flesh.

The rest of the second pigs body, he gave to

hisdog.

The third pig was often very dizzy andunconcerened with much beyond herself and her

own eating habits. She despised hunger and

hated herself when she felt hungry. She never

wanted to feel hungry and she never wanted

anyone in the world to feel hungry. She wished

she could end world hunger so that everyone

could be Thin and Happy.

The farmer, worried about his anorexic

pig called the local vetrinarian. When the vet

arrived the pig had just died of a heart

attack, a common result of pig anorexia.

The farmer, afraid of disease did not

eat the pigs flesh or give any parts to his

dog. Instead, he threw the pig corpse onto the

trash heap.

When it was burned it smelled like bacon

and made people hungry for miles around.

The End.


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Cautionary Tales for Human Consumption

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Transcript of Cautionary Tales for Human Consumption