Carthick's Unfairy Tales

by T F Carthick

  Carthick’s Unfairy tales

  A retelling of seven tales from the days of the yore. Fairy tales they may be called, but anything but fair they are. For that’s how our world is. And so must be the stories of this world.

  T. F. Carthick

  Copyright © T F Carthick 2018

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Art by Rashmi Prabhu

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  The moral right of the author and illustrator have been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photo-copying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author.

  Contents

  Of Mice and Horses

  The Frog who would be King

  No Country for Wild Beasts

  The Beans of Avarice

  A Tale of One City

  What the Hobgoblin did

  The Hunger Diaries

  About the Author

  Acknowledgement

  Of Mice and Horses

  I have always found men more fascinating than mice. So much more action, passion, drama in their lives! They have achieved so much more – the wheel, New York City, wars and so on – while all we mice have ever done is muck about in our holes and have a good time. Some of us argue that, for precisely this reason, we are better than men. But come on! Let us admit it. That’s just plain fox talk. I am sure you know the story of that fox who, not being able to get hold of those grapes he so coveted, declared them to be sour.

  I do not buy these esoteric theories of rodent superiority – or even dolphin superiority, as some have suggested, based on convoluted definitions of what actually constitutes superiority. The plain fact is that we are living in conditions of extreme penury, beset by constant threats to our very lives. We need to forage day and night for mere morsels. Danger stalks us at every turn – it is almost like a war zone. Cats patrol all the pathways. You never know when you may step on a mine, I mean, a mouse trap. And then there is chemical warfare as well – what the men call rat poison. What pitiful lives we lead and yet what illusions of grandeur we harbor! Some of our theorists even go to the extent of claiming we mice were the ones who created humans to do our bidding. This is one of the ironies in the lives of mice and men. The more pitiable our present situation, the grander our delusions of past glory.

  To give them their due however, it is these delusions that, at times, make for remarkable stories. They make even the lives of mice sound almost as interesting as those of men. This mouse whose story I shall be telling you was one such, someone who had made his delusion an art form in itself.

  * * * * *

  “Keep off, you vermin! Keep off! Don’t come near me.”

  I was rudely awakened from my contemplations by the shouting. I decided to sneak down and see what was happening. A crowd had gathered. I made my way through the crowd to see what was happening. Right in the middle stood one of our youngsters. I knew him - a harmless little fellow, or so he used to be. Now he stood stiff, glaring at us all with hatred in his eyes.

  I wondered what had gotten into him. I had always known him to be a sensible kid. He was not one of the troublemaker sorts.

  “Go away, you bloody rats. I can’t bear the sight of you, you filthy creatures.”

  What was this now? Hatred against his own kind? I wondered if he had been reading too much lately. You know how some of these youngsters seem to be coming along nicely, and then one fine day, they suddenly take a fancy to reading. They end up poring over all kinds of philosophy and stuff that completely turns their heads. Then you suddenly find them despising their own kind. We have had some of those in the past. But I had never imagined this particular one would ever go this way, even in the next ten years. He had always been a pretty solid young fellow with limited imagination or initiative. He respected his elders, did what he was told and rarely asked questions. What had come over him all of a sudden?

  “See here, sonny, what is all this ‘you bloody rats’ stuff you are mouthing? What do you think you are, if we are bloody rats?”

  “Are you blind, you stupid rat? Can’t you see I am a horse? A royal horse, at that! Belonging to the most beautiful princess of this kingdom!”

  Now this was going too far. It was normal to consider oneself above one’s fellow mice after dabbling in a bit of philosophy, but usually it never went beyond imagining oneself to be a rabbit, guinea pig or hamster.

  There was one rare case where one of the newly “enlightened” mice decided that some of our kind were actually cats who had been enchanted and enslaved by mice. So he exhorted his followers to strive to break through the illusion and discover their true nature. The cult had a strong following and it looked as if it would take the entire mouse society by storm. But then one day, the leader of the cult, who called himself “The Prophet”, happened to encounter one of his supposed kin. The rendezvous had proven not-too-fortuitous and he managed to get himself assimilated into his supposedly true tribe…or one of them at least. Not exactly in the way he had imagined, of course. With his attaining martyrdom, the cult had just fizzled out.

  But even delusions of being a cat paled before those of being a horse. What next? An elephant? You can never set limits to delusions.

  “Let us be reasonable, kid. Let us talk this out between us. Can you see that puddle in the corner? Walk with me till there!”

  “What do you think, you…you overgrown rat. Just because of your size, you can order a horse around?”

  Other than his overbearing ways, his continued insistence on calling me a rat was getting to my nerves. But I decided to swallow my indignation and play along.

  “I humbly apologize for this great error on my part, oh noble steed! Any affront to Your Lordship was unintended. Would His Highness the royal horse be kind enough to walk with this humble mouse towards the water?”

  “That’s better. Lead the way, rat!”

  Ha Ha Ha! Lead the way, rat indeed! As they say, pride goes before a fall.

  Soon we were in front of the water.

  “Would your highness be gracious enough to look in here?”

  “Yes. I had a look. What about it now? This water clearly looks dirty. Fit for rats and their ilk. But even a mere workhorse would not use this ditch water to do so much as clean its posterior. If you intend a superior horse like me to drink this, I take it as an insult of the gravest nature. You have to answer for this!”

  “No,no,your majesty. You mistake my intentions. Anyone can lead a horse to the pond, but no one can presume to make him drink from it. How would I even contemplate such blasphemy? I only wanted you to look at those reflections in the water.”

  “What about them? I see two filthy rats. As if I have not had enough of seeing you vermin in person, I need to marvel at your reflections as well?”

  “Well, my Lord, one of those mice you see is me. And the other?”

  “Must be one of your buddies. Don’t try my patience.”

  “But, great one, don’t you see that none of them are even near the water?”

  “What does that have to do with me? Call them closer to the water if you like.”

  “We are the only ones near the water. That one there is my reflection. Where is yours?”

  “Oh, no! I see where you are getting at. You are right. I don’t see my reflection. It is gone. Where is it? Have I become a vampire now? Aren’t they the only creatures that have no reflection? This is so terrible.”<
br />
  What? Vampire? I could not believe what I was hearing. I had shown him what I thought was the most irrefutable proof of reality and even that had not sufficed. I decided it was futile to try and talk him through this. If he wanted to be a horse, let him be a horse. He would eventually come around and get off his…well…high horse. For there is one who succeeds where even the best of arguments fail – hunger! When hunger assaults him, all these fancy notions will wear off on their own.

  * * * * *

  “I really was a horse last night. You must believe me. There was this princess – I drew her carriage to the palace for the ball.”

  He was still finding ways to maintain the delusion. Poor kid! Like that preacher of old who ended up as cat food, this one was going to end up trampled by horses.

  “I can remember it clearly. She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. She sat stiffly in her carriage, holding on tight to my rein with one hand and holding the whip in the other hand.”

  Trying to save face, was he? I never get it. Why can’t people just admit they were wrong and move on? Why do they always try to keep holding on and prove themselves right all the time?

  “I ran like the wind and soon we were at the palace. The king’s grooms came to stable me. Even the stables looked so magnificent. The stallions, mares and colts of all the most powerful people in the kingdom were in there.”

  “I am sure they all bowed down to you in respect?”

  “How did you know? Wait, you are just being sarcastic. You still don’t believe me, do you?”

  “Come on, sonny. You yourself have admitted that you are a mouse like all of us. Then how possibly could you have been a horse last evening? Think logically.”

  “I don’t know. But I have such strong memories of last evening. They are too vivid to have been a dream. And you folks too confirm that I was missing last evening, don’t you?”

  He did have a point. Mice generally did not go missing for entire evenings - except in those cases where they had disappeared for good.

  “Pray continue your story. I promise not to interrupt.”

  “I was led to a corner and given a wonderful meal of the choicest oats and fresh hay. The other horses spoke about their masters and mistresses. I stood in a corner and listened.”

  “You didn’t speak about your princess?”

  “That was the strange thing. However hard I tried, I could not remember anything at all about her or my life at her palace. All I could remember was this mouse hole of ours.”

  “Hm…”

  “I came to know that the prince was only son of the king of this land – the heir to the throne. He was on the lookout for a woman to be his bride. So, all the beautiful women from the richest and noblest families of the realm had come to vie for his attention.”

  This did have a ring of truth. It was so like humans. They always liked to do a big song and dance of everything. With us mice, it’s all so simple. If a male and female mouse take a fancy for each other, they go out together and have little mice. But humans? They make it all so complex as if they are inventing the wheel, building New York City, fighting wars and all that. I am not complaining, though. These humans’ ludicrous efforts to find mates and stay with them does make for interesting stories.

  “I was there for around two hours when there was the sudden sound of running feet. The princess burst into the stable, unhitched me from the stall and led me towards the carriage. Soon we were back on our way home. I remember reaching home just about the time when the town clock started striking midnight. Then it all went blank.”

  “So, you don’t remember how you got back to our hole?”

  “That I do remember. I woke up in the morning and found myself hitched to a pumpkin. I bit through the ropes to free myself and went where my instinct led me.”

  “I think I know what happened – it must have been something you ate. These humans have some strange liquids made from fermented food and stuff made from things like mushrooms that messes with one’s head. Probably they had left something of that sort lying around and you must have found it.”

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember eating any such thing.”

  He was now looking a bit confused. He was finally coming to his senses. My hunch was probably right. Must have been something he stumbled upon. Poor kid! I was now feeling relieved. The effects of substances were always easy to cure – it is the effects of ideologies that present serious difficulties. I had been so scared that he would end up the way of the cat prophet. But this was nothing – just a mere hallucination. He would be fine in no time and back to normal – sneaking around with us to raid the dustbins and foraging for crumbs.

  * * * * * *

  “My princess! My princess! I saw my princess.”

  It was he once again. So much for my hopes that he would return to normal soon.

  “Are you in love or something, kid? If you are, grin and bear it like a dignified mouse. There is no reason to run amuck like one of these lovelorn humans with poor emotional control.”

  “No. It is that princess I saw in my dream. She is here. Right outside our hole.”

  “Which dream? The one where you were a horse?”

  “Yes. The princess who rode me to the ball. She is right outside.”

  “Where? Come. Let us see.”

  It seems like insanity has no cure. No wonder shrinks ply a thriving trade in the human world. Soon we will be needing mouse shrinks as well. But as of now, I am all the mice have. So I decided to humor the kid and went along.

  “Look over there. That girl sweeping the floor.”

  I looked.

  “That’s not a princess, my boy. That’s Cinderella. She has not come from anywhere. She has always been here. It’s only that you haven’t noticed her before.”

  “But… but…she was dressed like a princess in a satin frock, shining jewels and beautiful glass slippers. Yes. I remember the glass slipper very well.”

  “That’s how dreams work, kid. When we imagine new people, we put the faces of people we have seen to them. You must have seen poor Cinderella earlier and her face must have registered in your mind.”

  “Hm…I don’t know. Maybe you are right. But who is this Cinderella? Why did you say ‘poor’ Cinderella?”

  As I had mentioned earlier, nothing like some drama from human lives to bring a dash of spice into our otherwise bland existence. I thank my stars that our lives are calmer though. We would not survive this kind of excitement in our own lives. No, sir! No! Not for anything in the world. I always prefer to sit in the stands and cheer as a detached spectator.

  “Well, apparently, Cinderella’s parents were a happy couple who lived in this cottage ages back in the times of my grandfather. Then they had Cinderella. Her mother died during childbirth. After a while, her father married again. That was the beginning of the series of unfortunate events. By the time I was born, Cinderella’s father was dead and gone too and she was left at the tender mercies of her step mother, who had two daughters of her own as well from a previous marriage. So now the mother and two daughters have taken possession of the cottage as well as its legitimate mistress. And the true heiress to her father’s humble fortunes? A domestic help! That’s what she has been reduced to. Nay! Not even a domestic help. They work her like a slave!”

  “Oh, the poor girl. I feel so sorry for her. I wish I could do something to help.”

  “Now, now, my boy – don’t start getting personal regarding the affairs of humans.”

  “But I feel a strange bond with her. See how similar our lives have been. She – a princess reduced to a mere serving girl and me – a royal horse reduced to a mere mouse.”

  “Don’t you start this all over again, my boy. You are a mouse and were always one. You were never a horse or anything.”

  “And you said she too was always a serving girl, didn’t you?”

  “All this is just your mind playing tricks with you, my boy. Now listen carefully to what I have to say. You ar
e a mouse. Do you get it? M-O-U-S-E mouse! Most creatures out there are our enemies and out to get us. If you do not want to die a most gruesome, excruciating death, keep away from dogs, cats, snakes and most of all – humans. Humans are the most dangerous of them all. A human is as dangerous as a dog, a cat and a snake put together. Do not get fooled by their looks. Take my word for it. They are dangerous. Very dangerous. Witness their internal dramas and feel empathy, sympathy whatever - but from the safety of our hole. Don’t even think of venturing anywhere close to them. Do you get it?”

  “But this girl Cinderella seems so different. She does not seem to be like the rest of them. After all she herself is a victim of the cruelty of the rest of the humans.”

  “Are you even listening to what I am saying? She may look meek and kind. But all that does not extend to us mice. Do you get it?”

  I sincerely hoped he would get the message.

  * * * * * *

  “The prince is visiting every home in the kingdom.”

  “The prince? Every home? Whatever for?”

  “To find his intended wife. It seems a mysterious princess appeared at his ball, danced with him and disappeared. The only clue he has of her identity is a slipper. He feels the princess may be living somewhere within this kingdom itself. So, he wants to line up every girl in that age group and see if the slipper fits any of them.”

  “So, mother, what if the slipper happens to fit one of us? Would the prince then…”

  “Exactly my thoughts, my dear. If only the slipper fits your sister or you, the prince will think she or you are the mystery princess and propose marriage. Who knows? Perhaps lady luck may shine upon you. Let us get our house ready and keep it spic and span to impress the prince.”

  “Cinderella! Where are you, lazy wench! Come here at once! We have work for you!”

  These humans must be real crazy. Does the idiot prince have a foot fetish or something? Can he not recognize her by face? Anyways, we mice will never understand the ways of men. We always try to find the simplest way to do something; men try to find the most complicated way of doing it, even for things like inventing the wheel, building New York City and fighting wars.