Politically Correct Bedtime Stories

by James Finn Garner

  Over the railing and onto the bridge leaped a troll—hairy, dirt-accomplished, and odourenhanced. ‘Yaaarrrgh!!’ intoned the troll. ‘I am the keeper of this bridge, and while goats may have the right to cross it, I’ll eat any that try!’

  ‘But why, Mr Troll?’ bleated the goat.

  ‘Because I’m a troll, and proud of it. I have a troll’s needs, and those needs include eating goats, so you better respect them or else.’

  The goat was frightened. ‘Certainly, sir,’ he stammered. ‘If eating me would help you become a more complete troll, nothing would please me more. But I really can’t commit to that course of action without first consulting my siblings. Will you excuse me?’ And the goat ran back to the valley.

  Next, the middle sibling goat came up to the bridge. This goat was more chronologically advanced than the first goat and so enjoyed an advantage in size (although this did not make him a better or more deserving goat). He was about to cross the bridge when the troll stopped him.

  ‘Nature has made me a troll,’ he said, ‘and I embrace my trollhood. Would you deny me my right to live the life of a troll as fully and effectively as I can?’

  ‘Me? Never!’ exclaimed the goat proudly.

  ‘Then stand still there while I come over and eat you up. And don’t try to run away; I would take that as a personal affront.’ He began to invade the goat’s caprinal space.

  ‘However,’ blurted the goat, ‘I have a very close family, and it would be selfish of me to allow myself to be eaten without asking their opinion. I have respect for their feelings, too. I would hate to think that my absence would cause them any emotional stress, if I hadn’t first …’

  ‘Go then!’ screamed the troll.

  ‘I’ll rush back here as soon as we reach a consensus,’ the goat said, ‘for it’s not fair to keep you in suspense.’

  ‘You’re too kind,’ sighed the troll, and the goat ran back to the valley. As his hunger grew, the troll began to feel a real grievance towards the goats. If he didn’t get to eat at least one of them, he was determined to go to the authorities.

  When the third goat came to the bridge, the troll discovered that he was nearly twice the troll’s size, with large, sharp horns and hard, heavy hooves. The troll felt his physical-intimidation prerogative fading fast. As fear turned his insides into jelly, the troll sank to his knees and pleaded, ‘Oh, please, please forgive me! I was using you and your goat siblings for my own selfish ends. I don’t know what drove me to it, but I’ve seen the error of my ways.’

  The goat, too, got down on what passed for knees in goats and said, ‘Now, now, you can’t take all the blame for yourself. Our presence and supreme edibility put you in this situation. My siblings and I all feel terrible. Please, you must forgive us.’

  The troll began to sob. ‘No, no, it’s all my fault. I threatened and bullied you all, just for the sake of my own survival. How selfish I was!’

  But the goat would have none of this. ‘We were the selfish ones. We only wanted to save our own skins, and we totally neglected your needs. Please, eat me now!’

  ‘No,’ the troll said, ‘you must butt me off this bridge for my insensitivity and selfishness.’

  ‘I’ll do no such thing,’ said the goat, ‘since we all tempted you in the first place. Here, have a chomp. Go ahead.’

  ‘I’m telling you,’ the troll insisted, standing up, ‘I’m the guilty one here. Now, knock me off this bridge and be quick about it!’

  ‘Look,’ said the goat, rearing to his full height, ‘no one is going to take away my blame for this, not even you, so eat me before I pop you in the nose.’

  ‘Don’t play guiltier-than-thou with me, Hornhead!’

  ‘“Hornhead”? You smelly hairball! I’ll show you guilt!’ And with that, they wrestled and bit and punched and kicked as each sought to don the mantle of blame.

  The other two goats bounded up to the bridge and sized up the fight. Feeling guilty at not accepting enough of the blame, they joined the others in a whirling ball of hair, hooves, horns, and teeth. But the little bridge was not built to carry such weight. It shook and swayed and finally buckled, hurling the troll and the three codependent goats Gruff into the chasm. On their way down, they each felt relieved that they would finally get what they deserved, plus, as a bonus, a little extra guilt for the fate of the others.

  RAPUNZEL

  here once lived an economically disadvantaged tinker and his wife. His lack of material accomplishment is not meant to imply that all tinkers are economically marginalized, or that if they are, they deserve to be so. While the archetype of the tinker is generally the whipping person in classic bedtime stories, this particular individual was a tinker by trade and just happened to be economically disadvantaged.

  The tinker and his wife lived in a little hovel next to the modest estate of a local witch. From their window, they could see the witch’s meticulously kept garden, a nauseating attempt to impose human notions of order onto Nature.

  The wife of the tinker was pregnant, and as she gazed at the witch’s garden, she began to crave some of the lettuce she saw growing there. She begged the tinker to jump the fence and get some for her. The tinker finally submitted, and at night he jumped the wall and liberated some of the lettuce. But before he could get back, the witch caught him.

  Now, this witch was very kindness-impaired. (This is not meant to imply that all, or even some, witches are that way, nor to deny this particular witch her right to express whatever disposition came naturally to her. Far from it, her disposition was without doubt due to many factors of her upbringing and socialization, which, unfortunately, must be omitted here in the interest of brevity.)

  As mentioned earlier, the witch was kindness-impaired, and the tinker was extremely frightened. She held him by the scruff of the neck and asked, ‘Where are you going with my lettuce?’

  The tinker might have argued with her over the concept of ownership and stated that the lettuce rightfully ‘belonged’ to anyone who was hungry and had nerve enough to take it. Instead, in a degrading spectacle, he pleaded for mercy. ‘It was my wife’s fault,’ he cried in a characteristically male manner. ‘She is pregnant and has a craving for some of your lovely lettuce. Please spare me. Although a single-parent household is certainly acceptable, please don’t kill me and deprive my child of a stable, two-parent family structure.’

  The witch thought for a moment, then let go of the tinker’s neck and disappeared without a word. The tinker gratefully went home with the lettuce. A few months later, and after agonizing pain that a man will never really be able to appreciate, the tinker’s wife gave birth to a beautiful, healthy prewommon. They named the baby Rapunzel, after a type of lettuce.

  Not long after this, the witch appeared at their door, demanding that they give her the child in return for the witch’s having spared the tinker’s life in the garden. What could they do? Their powerless station in life had always left them open to exploitation, and this time they felt they had no alternative. They gave Rapunzel to the witch, who sped away.

  The witch took the child deep into the woods and imprisoned her in a tall tower, the symbolism of which should be obvious. There Rapunzel grew to wommonhood. The tower had no door or stairs, but it did boast a single window at the top. The only way for anyone to get to the window was for Rapunzel to let down her long, luxurious hair and climb it to the top, the symbolism of which should also be obvious.

  The witch was Rapunzel’s only companion. She would stand at the foot of the tower and shout,

  ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,

  ‘That I might climb your golden stair.’

  Rapunzel obediently did as she was told. Thus for years she let her body be exploited for the transportational needs of another. The witch loved music and taught Rapunzel to sing. They passed many long hours singing together in the tower.

  One day a young prince rode near the tower and heard Rapunzel singing. But as he rode closer to find the source of the
lovely sound, he spied the witch and hid himself and his equine companion in the trees. He watched as the witch called out to Rapunzel, the hair fell down, and the witch climbed up. Again, he heard the beautiful singing. Later, when the witch finally left the tower and disappeared in the other direction, the prince came out of the woods and called up:

  ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,

  ‘That I might climb your golden stair.’

  The hair cascaded from the window, and he climbed up.

  When the prince saw Rapunzel, her greater-than-average physical attractiveness and her long, luxurious hair led him to think, in a typically lookist way, that her personality would also be beautiful. (This is not to imply that all princes judge people solely on their appearance, nor to deny this particular prince his right to make such assumptions. Please see the disclaimers in the paragraphs above.)

  The prince said, ‘Oh, beautiful damsel, I heard you singing as I rode by on my horse. Please sing for me again.’

  Rapunzel didn’t know what to make of this person, since she had never seen a man up close before. He seemed a strange creature—large, hairy in the face, and possessing a strong, musky odour. For reasons she could not explain, Rapunzel found this combination somewhat attractive and opened her mouth to sing.

  ‘Stop right there!’ screamed a voice from the window. The witch had returned!

  ‘How … how did you get up here?’ Rapunzel asked.

  ‘I had an extra set of hair made, in case of emergency,’ said the witch matter-of-factly. ‘And this certainly looks like one. Listen to me, Prince! I built this tower to keep Rapunzel away from men like you. I taught her to sing, training her voice for years. She’ll stay here and sing for no one but me, because I am the only one who truly loves her.’

  ‘We can talk about your codependency problems later,’ said the prince. ‘But first let me hear … Rapunzel, is it? … let me hear Rapunzel sing.’

  ‘NO!’ screamed the witch. ‘I’m going to throw you from the tower into the thorn-of-colour bushes below so that your eyes will be gouged out and you’ll wander the countryside cursing your bad luck for the rest of your life!’

  ‘You may want to reconsider that,’ said the prince. ‘I have some friends in the recording industry, you see, who would be very interested in … Rapunzel, wasn’t it? Different, kind of catchy, I suppose …’

  ‘I knew it! You want to take her from me!’

  ‘No, no, I want you to continue to train her, to nurture her … as her manager,’ said the prince. ‘Then, when the time is right, say a week or two, you can unleash her talent on the world and we can all rake in the cash.’

  The witch paused for a second to think about this, and her demeanour visibly softened. She and the prince began to discuss record contracts and video deals, as well as possible marketing ideas, including life-like Rapunzel™ dolls with their very own miniature stereo Tune-Towers™.

  As Rapunzel watched, her suspicions turned into revulsion. For years, her hair had been exploited for the transportational needs of others. Now they wanted to exploit her voice as well. ‘So, rapaciousness does not depend solely on gender,’ she realized with a sigh.

  Rapunzel edged her way to the window without being seen. She stepped out and climbed down the second set of hair to the prince’s waiting horse. She dislodged the hair and took it with her as she rode off, leaving the witch and the prince to argue about royalties and percentages in their phallus-shaped tower.

  Rapunzel rode to the city and rented a room in a building that had real stairs. She later established the non-profit Foundation for the Free Proliferation of Music and cut off her hair for a fund-raising auction. She sang for free in coffee houses and art galleries for the rest of her days, always refusing to exploit for money other people’s desires to hear her sing.

  CINDERELLA

  here once lived a young wommon named Cinderella, whose natural birth-mother had died when Cinderella was but a child. A few years after, her father married a widow with two older daughters. Cinderella’s mother-of-step treated her very cruelly, and her sisters-of-step made her work very hard, as if she were their own personal unpaid labourer.

  One day an invitation arrived at their house. The prince was celebrating his exploitation of the dispossessed and marginalized peasantry by throwing a fancy dress ball. Cinderella’s sisters-of-step were very excited to be invited to the palace. They began to plan the expensive clothes they would use to alter and enslave their natural body images to emulate an unrealistic standard of feminine beauty. (It was especially unrealistic in their case, as they were differently visaged enough to stop a clock.) Her mother-of-step also planned to go to the ball, so Cinderella was working harder than a dog (an appropriate if unfortunately speciesist metaphor).

  When the day of the ball arrived, Cinderella helped her mother- and sisters-of-step into their ball gowns. A formidable task: It was like trying to force ten pounds of processed nonhuman animal carcasses into a five-pound skin. Next came immense cosmetic augmentation, which it would be best not to describe at all. As evening fell, her mother- and sisters-of-step left Cinderella at home to finish her housework. Cinderella was sad, but she contented herself with her Holly Near records.

  Suddenly there was a flash of light, and in front of Cinderella stood a man dressed in loose-fitting, all-cotton clothes and wearing a wide-brimmed hat. At first Cinderella thought he was a Southern lawyer or a bandleader, but he soon put her straight.

  ‘Hello, Cinderella, I am your fairy godperson, or individual diety proxy, if you prefer. So, you want to go to the ball, eh? And bind yourself into the male concept of beauty? Squeeze into some tight-fitting dress that will cut off your circulation? Jam your feet into high-heeled shoes that will ruin your bone structure? Paint your face with chemicals and make-up that have been tested on nonhuman animals?’

  ‘Oh yes, definitely,’ she said in an instant. Her fairy godperson heaved a great sigh and decided to put off her political education till another day. With his magic, he enveloped her in a beautiful, bright light and whisked her away to the palace.

  Many, many carriages were lined up outside the palace that night; apparently, no one had ever thought of car-sharing. Soon, in a heavy, gilded carriage painfully pulled by a team of horse-slaves, Cinderella arrived. She was dressed in a clinging gown woven of silk stolen from unsuspecting silkworms. Her hair was festooned with pearls plundered from hard-working, defenceless oysters. And on her feet, dangerous though it may seem, she wore slippers made of finely cut crystal.

  Every head in the ballroom turned as Cinderella entered. The men stared at and lusted after this wommon who had captured perfectly their Barbie-doll ideas of feminine desirability. The womyn, trained at an early age to despise their own bodies, looked at Cinderella with envy and spite. Cinderella’s own mother- and sisters-of-step, consumed with jealousy, failed to recognize her.

  Cinderella soon caught the roving eye of the prince, who was busy discussing jousting and bear-baiting with his cronies. Upon seeing her, the prince was struck with a fit of not being able to speak as well as the majority of the population. ‘Here,’ he thought, ‘is a wommon that I could make my princess and impregnate with the progeny of our perfect genes, and thus make myself the envy of every other prince for miles around. And she’s blonde, too!’

  The prince began to cross the ballroom towards his intended prey. His cronies also began to walk towards Cinderella. So did every other male in the ballroom who was younger than 70 and not serving drinks.

  Cinderella was proud of the commotion she was causing. She walked with head high and carried herself like a wommon of eminent social standing. But soon it became clear that the commotion was turning into something ugly, or at least socially dysfunctional.

  The prince had made it clear to his friends that he was intent on ‘possessing’ the young wommon. But the prince’s resoluteness angered his pals, for they too lusted after her and wanted to own her. The men began to shout and push each other
. The prince’s best friend, who was a large if cerebrally constrained duke, stopped him halfway across the dance floor and insisted that he was going to have Cinderella. The prince’s response was a swift kick to the groin, which left the duke temporarily inactive. But the prince was quickly seized by other sex-crazed males, and he disappeared into a pile of human animals.

  The womyn were appalled by this vicious display of testosterone, but try as they might, they were unable to separate the combatants. To the other womyn, it seemed that Cinderella was the cause of all the trouble, so they encircled her and began to display very unsisterly hostility. She tried to escape, but her impractical glass slippers made it nearly impossible. Fortunately for her, none of the other womyn were shod any better.

  The noise grew so loud that no one heard the clock in the tower chime midnight. When the bell rang the twelfth time, Cinderella’s beautiful gown and slippers disappeared, and she was dressed once again in her peasant’s rags. Her mother- and sisters-of-step recognized her now, but kept quiet to avoid embarrassment.

  The womyn grew silent at this magical transformation. Freed from the confinements of her gown and slippers, Cinderella sighed and stretched and scratched her ribs. She smiled, closed her eyes and said, ‘Kill me now if you want, sisters, but at least I’ll die in comfort.’

  The womyn around her again grew envious, but this time they took a different approach: Instead of exacting vengeance on her, they stripped off their bodices, corsets, shoes, and every other confining garment. They danced and jumped and screeched in sheer joy, comfortable at last in their shifts and bare feet.

  Had the men looked up from their macho dance of destruction, they would have seen many desirable womyn dressed as if for the boudoir. But they never ceased pounding, punching, kicking, and clawing each other until, to the last man, they were dead.