Cynical Tales for Cynical Children Read online

  Death bent down by the road and showed a small and unremarkable plant “Not with this weed.

  Whenever you're called to a sick person I'll appear to you and you alone. If I'm standing at your patients head then you can give him the weed and he'll recover but if I'm standing by his feet then he's already mine and nothing in this world will save him”

  Thus, armed with the most miraculous piece of herbage in the world and also the blessing of Death himself, it wasn't surprising to anyone when the young man quickly climbed the medical ladder to become the most famous doctor in the entire world, people came to him from far and wide for his services and he became both important and wealthy7.

  One day the second in command of the royal household knocked on the doctor’s door in order to issue a proclamation. The king had become deathly ill and was quite beyond the assistance of his usual doctors, therefore the young doctor was commanded to do everything in his power to cure the royal personage. When Doctor Todd approached the royal sick bed his heart sank because his Godfather was solemnly standing at the royal feet

  Todd thought in anguish about the situation “I know I shouldn't do this and certainly my godfather is going to be angry about the whole situation but he's a good king and I know I can make him understand”

  Before Death was fully aware of exactly what was going on the royal servants were obeying the young doctors orders and turning the royal bed around which left him at the head of the king and gave Todd enough time to administer the universal cure, help the king out of bed and accept the royal gratitude with the humility so common to one in the medical profession.8

  “Suppose you tell me what you thought you were doing today” Death angrily paced in front of his godsons fireplace later that night “because I was under the impression that the rules regarding the use of the weed were amazingly clear”

  “The king is a good and wise man. If he died then the factions of the court would start vying for the throne and you know better than anyone this would mean betrayals, killings and all kinds of fun stuff.

  By saving the king I was thinking I'd be actually make less work for you”

  “Although the sentiment is appreciated you have no idea of my workload. Because you're my godson I'm going to overlook it this one time. Am I understood? Do this again and will cost you”

  It was a few weeks later when the Princess contracted the same malady as her father and after the king announced the traditional proclamation of half his kingdom and his daughters hand in marriage to whoever managed to cure her the royal court was filled with lesser doctors who al made way for the famous Doctor Todd who swaggered confidently through the royal doors to see to his latest royal patient, her hand in marriage and half the kingdom.

  There were lots of things which should have happened at this point in the story.

  Todd, for instance, should have remembered the incredibly simple warning of his Godfather. He also should have looked at the furious expression on the face of Death who was already in position at the latest set of royal feet. Ultimately he should have paused to consider the consequences of his actions.

  All these things he should have done, except he didn't and why?

  Firstly there was the princess who, even lying on her deathbed, was beautiful.

  7

  At this point we know we're dealing with a fictional story. I mean whoever heard of a wealthy doctor?

  8

  The royal gratuity was handled by the royal accountant and was, by all accounts, generous.

  Secondly there was the incredibly tempting of the reward on offer which could only ever lead one to more riches and the dizzy heights of power.

  Finally there was the thought that his application of the cure would finally cement his place as the foremost doctor in the land if not the world which wasn't bad for someone who had never gone to medical school.

  These three reasons combined to make his mind up and, once again, order the servants to spin the royal bed around in order to allow him to apply the cure and cheat the reaper.

  Todd was accepting the accolades of the collected nobility and leaning in for a grateful embrace from his patient when a furious Death materialized in front of everyone.

  “I warned you once! Now it's your turn!” Death proclaimed in a terrible tone before dragging his godson off into his realm.

  The lands of the dead were and, presumably still are, stocked with a myriad of candles in burning in well ordered rows through which Death and Todd walked while all around them candles were dying and being lit by a wide range of invisible magics.

  “Can you every properly conceive of what it is I'm showing you boy? These chambers hold the lives of everyone and everything. Large candles belong to children, small ones belong to the elderly which is the way it has to be”

  “What about that one?” Todd pointed to the tiny stub of a candle which had been placed in a particularly draughty corner and was on the verge of flickering out of existence.

  “I’ll give you one guess”

  “That’s not right Godfather, It can’t be mine. I’ve still got so much do”

  “Never heard that one before” Death muttered stoically.

  “But, but I’ve got to marry a princess and become king! What’s the point of having Death for a godfather if you can’t do something?”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know! Pull some strings, talk to people or, I don’t know, maybe just take the old candle and put it into a new one so it’ll go on burning”

  “You’ve already done that twice you know. By saving the lives of the King and Princess you’ve already ensured their candles continued burning and now you want me to do the same to you, so tell me boy, which one do I choose? Who dies so you can live a little longer because, make no mistake, nothing lasts forever”

  “I’m not the one who has to choose though. You’re my Godfather, which means you’re responsible for me”

  Death sighed and held a large candle close to the doctor’s flame although he stopped short of lighting it “I am responsible for far more than just you. There’s only one Doctor who gets to cheat Death”

  In the next moment the most important flame in the room went out and the doctor fell to the ground, no longer concerned with such worldly concerns of crowns, princess’s or even candles9.

  9

  To say nothing of pop culture references.

  EXCOGITATION

  •

  Why didn't Todd share the secret of the herb?

  Leaving aside all the people he saved what we have here is a doctor who had access to something which could have turned the tide of our eternal struggle against injury, disease, death and Death.

  Yet this man is so determined to become rich and famous he kept it to himself which only ensures he’ll go down in local history as something of a one trick pony who ran up against the ultimate equalizer and was ultimately found wanting.

  •

  Why didn't Death ever go and talk to William, about his godsons activities?

  Being appointed Godfather doesn't absolve the actual parents of their responsibilities and while dragging Todd off to the land of the dead might have been a touch dramatic everyone knows and fears parental retribution. We can only assume the father is dealing with his, at the time of writing, twelve other children and has no time to talk with Death about the actions of the one child who seems to have gone out and made something of his life.

  •

  What if he had become king?

  Quite aside from the fact it would have fundamentally changed the story to one in which a young man got everything he wanted and further taking into account the fact it would have done nothing to deflate an ego which was already dangerously inflated we must take into consideration the simple fact that the professions of both kings and doctors are equally time consuming and in order to function well in the role of one will, naturally, lead to less time to devote to the role of the other. All of which is a polite way of saying he probably wouldn't
have been very good at being a king.

  RATIOCINATION

  It's all to easy to say this proves you can't cheat death. Perhaps it's slightly too easy because the actions of Doctor Todd which reveal you indeed can cheat Death, they also reveal Death is a bad loser and it’s better not to try.

  Perhaps it's not about Death though. Maybe the lesson to be learned is there is no quick way to success. Thanks to a single medicinal herb the young doctor had fame, fortune and a universal panacea although once he'd fallen out of favor with his godfather none of it helped him.

  So after the surfeit of morals what is the real lesson to be learned? It's not going to be anything relating to the care and feeding of large families because the parents were thirteen children deep before they even thought about looking for outside help. So perhaps the actual lesson is

  “Don't turn away the hand offered in friendship. Oh and if God, the allfather and

  creator of everything, takes the time to actually knock on your actual door then it

  might be worth taking the time to actually consider his offer”

  GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS

  In which a lesson on crime and privilege is learned.

  Crime. A practice which has been around slightly longer than we've had laws. At the same time we forget that it's often the thrill of getting away with the actual crime which propels a certain type of person and by increasing the penalties we're only making it more exciting.

  You may well be wondering exactly what this has to do with one of the most saccharine stories we've ever come up with and I'm happy to tell you.

  For the space of these words I invite you to imagine a new reality, a reality in which a family of bears can live happily in a house, prepare hot meals and wear clothing. With practice you'll be able to imagine this reality with ease and it won't be long before we'll be able to get through this story without poking holes in what can only be described as something of a flimsy story wrapped around a lesson with all the subtlety of a brick through a window.

  here was once a village situated by an extensive forest. On the outskirts of the forests lived the Teddy Bear family.1 There was the father who was best described as large, the mother who was only slightly smaller and the baby who would have been the only one Twho could be described as a teddy bear although only by someone who had never seen a teddy bear before.

  The house of the Teddy Bears was tidy and well organized at all times, given the difference in the relative sizes of the family members this was an exercise in practicality. Father Bears thing’s were built to accommodate his large frame, Mother Bears thing’s were rather daintier while Baby Bears possessions, rather predictably, were the smallest of all.

  For the Bears, life in the forest was good. People raised their hats when Father Bear walked by and he always took the time to return their greetings even if he was busy. Mother Bear had many friends and visited them over the course of many afternoons to discuss jams and other preserves2.

  The only real fly in the ointment was Baby Bear who had only a few friends who rarely came round to play. This was largely because the other children of the neighborhood considered him to be a bully who insisted that he had to win any game which was played because otherwise what was the point?

  One day Mother Bear made a nice pudding. One of her friends had given her the recipe and it had turned out perfectly on the first attempt. “You can't eat it yet!” she playfully slapped her husbands paw away from the decorative berry motif “it'll burn your mouth. It needs at least an hour to cool properly”

  “An hour? I'm hungry now!”

  “Why don't we go and visit the Beavers down by the river? Mummy Beaver has just had her baby after all and I've been meaning to drop off a few things to her”

  “She has a name you know” Father Bear pointed out and moved off to round up his child in order to begin the ordeal of putting him into his visiting outfit3.

  1

  Nobody actually called them the Teddy Bear Family to their faces of course. Because nobody was terminally stupid.

  2

  Which was a legitimate hobby and in no way an attempt to stereotype the matriarchal figure into the dual role of housekeeper and domestic goddess.

  3

  Look. When bears live in houses, make jam and go round visiting beavers we can't have them being naked this whole time. It's just another sacrifice on the altar of narrative plausibility I'm afraid.

  Now not too farfaraway from the bears house there lived a little girl with blonde hair. Her name was Goldilocks4 and, much like Baby Bear she was used to getting her own way. As the bears left for the Beavers she was at the top of the hill picking flowers because if she picked them then there would be none left for anyone else. This tells you something about the nature of Goldilocks

  “What an ugly house the Bears have” she threw the flowers aside and opened the gate “I bet the inside is just as yucky!” She couldn't see through the curtains and because there was nobody home her knocking went unanswered.

  “Anyone at home?” she called out, already knowing the answer and peered around the side of the door which the family had forgotten to lock, her eyes lit up at the sight of the pudding which was still cooling on the kitchen table.

  Forget about the too hot and too cold nonsense that you might have heard in other, lesser, versions of this story. Goldilocks quickly armed herself with a spoon and dove in head first. It was some time before she surfaced victorious and belched hugely

  “Who says you shouldn't eat your pudding before your dinner? Now it's time for a proper explore5”

  The fireplace was explored and many messy hand prints were left on the walls before this adorable whirlwind of destruction stopped in front of the smallest chair in the house. “This one must belong to Baby Bear. He won't mind if I test it out” Goldilocks sat down onto the little chair, which promptly broke under her weight6. Upstairs there was no mistaking the Baby Bears bed since it was the smallest and had Goldilocks jumping on it.

  We break from this recounting of crimes of a young girl to note a fact pertinent to the moving of the plot. The Teddy Bear family, having concluded their visit to the Beavers, were now on their way home.

  “Was I as tiny as that when I was born?” Baby bear asked from his fathers shoulders

  “Almost” Mummy Bear smiled fondly

  “Wait a minute” Father Bear looked over at the front door which was hanging halfway off its hinges thanks to hurricane Goldilocks and carefully lowered his son to the ground “I think somebodies in our home!”

  “I knew it!” Father Bear roared as they picked their way through the debris “some greedy guts has eaten all the pudding”

  “Pudding? that's what you care about? They've left hand prints all over the walls” Mummy Bear roared

  “and oh, oh no” the two parents held each other as Baby Bear silently held up the remains of his chair.

  The one his parents had made together back in that romantic summer before the birth of their much adored child.

  “The trail leads upstairs” Father Bear declared with something of a lump in his throat “we'd better go see what the damage is”

  It didn't take long to find the culprit. Goldilocks, full from the pudding and tired from using the bed as a trampoline had curled up to take a nap. When she woke up it was to find the bears standing over her and not looking happy7.

  “Get away! I've got to get away from the Teddy Bear family” she panted as she escaped down the road and ignored the strange looks from the other passers by as she passed them by. She wasn't quite out of earshot when she stopped to catch her breath and generally regret eating all the pudding when Baby bear came jogging over the hill.

  “Don't run away! Come back! We forgive you, now stay and play with me!”

  4

  Who felt she should have gotten a bigger part in this story. Sadly her agent wasn't good enough and she had to be satisfied with top billing.

  5

  At least she calle
d it a “proper explore” Anyone else would have called it “breaking and entering” which is only slightly less whimsical.

  6

  What the hey? This is a chair specifically built to take the weight of a young bear and it falls to bits when a girl sits on it? Have I missed something or is Goldilocks secretly an elephant in disguise?

  7

  Then they ate her. The end.

  This is how it all ended. The unpleasant Goldilocks took pains to be much nicer than she had been, she made friends with Baby Bear and they visited each others houses all the time which, after she had apologized, helped to clean up her mess and repaired the broken furniture, wasn’t awkward at all.

  EXCOGITATION

  •

  Why didn't the bears phone the police?

  We see them living in a house with all the modern conveniences so presumably they'll have a telephone of some kind and even if we're prepared to accept this story takes place in a narrow window of pre-telephone/post-pudding is it so difficult for one of them to run down to the village and come back with the local constable?

  If the police won’t come because it's a family of bears rather than a family of humans then it would be just as easy to get in touch with the local media at which point the story becomes less about Goldilocks and more about the three bears and the subsequent three ring media circus.

  •

  How do you justify entering the house in the first place?

  Based on the way Goldilocks runs off at the end she knows she’ll be in a considerable amount of trouble and given the complete lack of guilt she had about breaking everything in the house it wouldn’t really come as a surprise to discover the contents of Mummy Bears jewelry box were just right or Father Bears wallet wasn’t suddenly too empty.

  In some versions she doesn't know the bear family at all and is just skipping down the road in joyful expression of youthful delight when she stumbles across the house one day. Even if this whole thing starts out as a social call then surely the correct thing to do is simply to have her say