Once upon a time, there lived a girl named Little Red Riding Hood. She had a sick grandmother who lived in the middle of the forest. Everyday, she would carry a basket with food and visit her.
This day was just like any other…
“Grandmother, what big eyes you have,” said Little Red Riding Hood to the sick old woman.
“Cancer of the cornea, my child.”
Little Red examines her grandmother’s eyes. “Metastatic. This looks terminal.”
“I am going to die, my child. But before I do, there’s something I’d like to tell you.”
But as Little Red leans closer to her grandmother the better to hear her, an old man silently enters the room, creeps up just behind Little Red, and knocks her out cold with a stick. Red crumples to the floor. The old man approaches the grandmother.
“At last, Gwendolyn. For the last 50 years I’ve been looking for you in every possible country. I finally found you. Now I will kill you.”
“Prince…Prince Charming…is that you?”
“Of course, Gwen, how many Prince Charmings do you know?”
“I’m glad to hear that. But before you kill me, I would like to tell you the story. The real story about what happened between Snow White and me 50 years ago.”
“All right. Go ahead, Gwen.”
“Once upon a time, there lived a girl named Snow White…”
Flashback to 50 years ago.
A fence named Humpty Dumpty sits on a wall with assorted genuine watches on one hand. Then two hip-hop hoodlums in leather jackets and shades come along from behind.
“Yo, ‘bro. I feel hungry,” says the one they call Doc.
“Yeah, me too Grump boy. Hey, see what I see?” He looks hungrily at the fence. They walk up to him. “Yo, egghead!”
“Oh, hey, hey, hi guys,” says Humpty Dumpty with a wide grin and a nervous but extremely annoying obstreperous tone. He drops a watch.
“Heard business’ doin’ good. Got any dough for us, man?” Grumpy steps on the watch.
“Hey, man, I payin’ my dues, see? Paid it all yesterday. Da watch’s yours!”
“What watch?” Grumpy crushes it under his foot. “Dat wuz yesterday, Dumby. I mean, whattabout now?”
“Ain’t got no dough, man! C’mon! Serious! Think ahm lyin'? Why should I Doc, eh, Grump? Eh? Hey! Hey!”
Grumpy and Doc beat up Humpty Dumpty, and walk away with some cash, leaving the fence squirming on the ground.
“Let’s get somethin’ t’eat.”
Meanwhile, in a room, three goons are sitting quietly around a table playing poker. The one they call Sneezy is smoking a cigar; Bashful has his foot on the table and is studying his cards; and Happy is looking at his cards and very seriously. Sleepy sits by the door sleeping. Dopey is talking into his cell phone.
After a moment of this Impressionist scene, Sneezy quietly speaks to Happy. “You’re cheating.” If looks can kill…
“WHA? ME CHEETIN? YOU CHEATIN! YOU CHEATIN! ME NOT CHEATIN!”
“Hey, cool it Happy! Cool it. We’re all brothers here, man! Brothers forever!”
Grumpy and Doc enter the room, looking very full, breaking the already broken tension. High fives and esoteric handshakes are exchanged.
“Yo bro’s!,” says Grumpy. “You ain’t gonna believe this bloke Humpty Dumb Ass. Said he got no dough. But we fixed him up real good, man, you know.”
“Yeah, real good. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put dumb ass together again, that kind of good, you know,” rejoins Doc. He walks up behind Happy, looks at his cards, and slaps him on the shoulder, with a big smile and a raucous voice. “Hey, man, you cheatin’! HA HA HA!”
“WHA? ME CHEETIN??? YOU CHEATIN! YOU CHEATIN! ME NOT CHEATIN!”
With hardly anyone noticing it, Sneezy, expressionless, with his eyes fixed on the nervous and unlooking Happy, calmly stands, puts a hand into a breast pocket. And just as he draws out a gun…
“Hello boys!” Snow White enters the room.
Everybody stops and looks at the alluring and regal matriarch of the dreaded Magical Mafia. “Good afternoon, Snow!”
“Sit down, sit down. Put that back Sneezy darling, I’ll have a job for you in a moment. Boys, I have an important announcement to make.” She shoves Bashful aside and takes his place at the center of the table. Bashful immediately gets a mirror and holds it for Snow White as she edits her make-up.
“Well, I foresee the imminent demise of our maleficent Queen Gwen, who made it a crime to sell choco-ecstasy in grade schools all over the kingdom and forced us into the bubblegum business. Worst of all, she’s threatening to take Prince Charming from me. Does she think the Prince will ever believe that I’m the boss of the Magic Mafia?”
“You ARE the boss of the Magic Mafia! Yoohooo!” exclaim the goons.
“Well, she won’t if she’s dead, would she? And that’s exactly what I’m announcing: my plan to eliminate Gwen. And here’s how it goes.
“First thing tomorrow, she gets a letter from a Mr. Adada Muhammudu asking her to deposit $10,000.00 in an overseas account so she can receive $20 million from the heirs of a Mrs. Jewel Howard Taylor. She will immediately trash the letter knowing that it’s Nigerian mail fraud. The wastebasket is by the window, which faces another window across the street. In that other window will be a naked man doing calisthenics. (I’ve paid good money for this, you know.) At the exact right moment, boys, Gwen will see the man, then call the police to report him. But the police line is tapped, and the call will reach Sneezy darling over here, who, disguised as a policeman, will go up to that floor with an antitank missile disguised as a walkie-talkie, and then fire it straight into the Queen’s window across the street, eliminating her.
“That, my boys, is the plan.”
Everybody stands up and applauds.
Then, suddenly, Sleepy by the door collapses. Before anyone could react, so does Bashful. Then one of the goons shouts, “It’s, it’s…!”
“Gwendolyn.” A hooded figure in red enters the room. She clearly is a powerful person, like a Jedi. She removes the hood. “Hello, Snow White.”
“Get her boys,” says Snow White calmly.
The goons attack. One by one or in two’s, it does not matter. She is a taekwondo expert and quickly gets rid of them all. Only Snow White is left.
“Impressive, QUEEN Gwendolyn. For your age. May I ask, dear, how did you find out?” She calmly turns her back and takes out a make-up kit and continues doing her face.
“Timing, Snow. Your window man? Was practicing. Booked him yesterday for indecent exposure. Started singing. Took 3 minutes.”
Then the two women started speaking in a language that only women understand. We shall do our best to translate it.
SNOW: "Bakit ayaw nyo pa rin sa akin kahit sosyal at maganda ako? Dahil ba mas sweet ang iba?". (I like your hair, dear. Where did you have it made ba?)
GWEN: "Pilitin mo man na alisin ako sa buhay mo, babalik at babalik ako! (Ricky did it. I like your bag; think it’ll go well with that blouse I showed you three weeks ago?)
SNOW: "Alam kong sa tingin mo, masaya ako! Pero bakit kayo ganyan?! Sa tuwing wala na kayong masabi, ako na lang ang ginagamit nyo! Pagod na pagod na ako sa pagngiti!" (Of course naman. But Ricky??? My gosh, he ruined my bangs the last time. Ruined! But you know what? I heard he’s getting married.)
GWEN: "You can cry all you want, you could always blame me. You said, itwasn't fair, that you just want life to be better. But remember, it's all your fault! You stabbed me with a knife! But, I won’t kill you, Snow. Not for Charming."
SNOW: “Let’s finish it all here, Gwen.” Snow turns around; she has a gun in one hand. She fires. Gwen is hit.
“Arggh!” Gwen drops to the floor. As she falls wounded, an apple rolls out from her dress.
Snow White picks up the apple. “You never even thank me for making you happy, Gwen, then you throw me away just like that. I hate you for using me, for making my life full of shit!" Smiling maliciously at Gwen, she takes a bite.
And chokes.
She crumples to the ground. But before the lights go out she says, “Akh! You won’t get away Gwen. You think you poisoned me? I poisoned Charming! He’s going to hunt you, chase you, make you wish you were never…Akh Akh… born. He’ll kill you, Gwen…Akh.” And with this she falls dead.
Gwen, wounded, limps her way out of the room and disappears.
Just then a dashing figure of a Prince comes in.
“SNOW!” He runs to the dead mafiosa. “Check the pulse, check the pulse,” he says to himself. “DEAD! What happened Snow, what happened??? An apple. With her lipstick. Hmmm…I’m beginning to see a pattern here…POISON! This could only be the work of…of… let me see… let me see…QUEEN GWENDOLYN! Yes! That’s it: poison! QUEEN GWENDOLYN, I SWEAR, FOR AS LONG AS I LIVE, I WILL HUNT YOU, CHASE YOU, MAKE YOU WISH YOU WERE NEVER BORN!!!”
And with this he leaves.
We’re back in the sick room, the aging Gwendolyn on the bed with corneal cancer, and the aging Prince Charming with a gun pointed limply at the old woman, who is already unconscious. He speaks, “So, if she took the apple herself, then you didn’t kill her. Therefore, if she was the bad one, then you must be the good one. I’m beginning to see a pattern here…let me see…let me see…GWENDOLYN! I’M SO SOOOOORRY!!! PLEASE FORGIVE ME! YOU’RE THE ONE I REALLY LOVE! DON’T DIE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE! P--”
Little Red Riding Hood, who had been knocked out earlier, rises to her feet, unbeknownst to Prince Charming. She pulls out a gun with a silencer, walks up behind the Prince, calmly—professionally--points the gun to his nape. The cold, inevitable steel of the weapon makes him stop in mid-sentence.
Without a look of surprise and without turning, Prince Charming raises his head, and smiles. “Ahh, yes, The Little Red Riding Hood. Gwendolyn's best student. No, don’t speak. Yes, you might think I killed your grandmother today. That’s false. I killed her 50 years ago. She got rid of her royal life, disappeared into the criminal underworld, rather than give the order to eliminate me, something she could have done so easily herself for she was the empoisonneuse par excellence and grand mistress of a sorority of assassins! She has trained you well, I see.
No, don’t speak. I shall be rather thankful if you killed me now.”
Red Riding Hood hesitates.
At this dramatic point, Bambi the Deer prances in, singing this song:
Love is a song that never ends
This day was just like any other…
“Grandmother, what big eyes you have,” said Little Red Riding Hood to the sick old woman.
“Cancer of the cornea, my child.”
Little Red examines her grandmother’s eyes. “Metastatic. This looks terminal.”
“I am going to die, my child. But before I do, there’s something I’d like to tell you.”
But as Little Red leans closer to her grandmother the better to hear her, an old man silently enters the room, creeps up just behind Little Red, and knocks her out cold with a stick. Red crumples to the floor. The old man approaches the grandmother.
“At last, Gwendolyn. For the last 50 years I’ve been looking for you in every possible country. I finally found you. Now I will kill you.”
“Prince…Prince Charming…is that you?”
“Of course, Gwen, how many Prince Charmings do you know?”
“I’m glad to hear that. But before you kill me, I would like to tell you the story. The real story about what happened between Snow White and me 50 years ago.”
“All right. Go ahead, Gwen.”
“Once upon a time, there lived a girl named Snow White…”
Flashback to 50 years ago.
A fence named Humpty Dumpty sits on a wall with assorted genuine watches on one hand. Then two hip-hop hoodlums in leather jackets and shades come along from behind.
“Yo, ‘bro. I feel hungry,” says the one they call Doc.
“Yeah, me too Grump boy. Hey, see what I see?” He looks hungrily at the fence. They walk up to him. “Yo, egghead!”
“Oh, hey, hey, hi guys,” says Humpty Dumpty with a wide grin and a nervous but extremely annoying obstreperous tone. He drops a watch.
“Heard business’ doin’ good. Got any dough for us, man?” Grumpy steps on the watch.
“Hey, man, I payin’ my dues, see? Paid it all yesterday. Da watch’s yours!”
“What watch?” Grumpy crushes it under his foot. “Dat wuz yesterday, Dumby. I mean, whattabout now?”
“Ain’t got no dough, man! C’mon! Serious! Think ahm lyin'? Why should I Doc, eh, Grump? Eh? Hey! Hey!”
Grumpy and Doc beat up Humpty Dumpty, and walk away with some cash, leaving the fence squirming on the ground.
“Let’s get somethin’ t’eat.”
Meanwhile, in a room, three goons are sitting quietly around a table playing poker. The one they call Sneezy is smoking a cigar; Bashful has his foot on the table and is studying his cards; and Happy is looking at his cards and very seriously. Sleepy sits by the door sleeping. Dopey is talking into his cell phone.
After a moment of this Impressionist scene, Sneezy quietly speaks to Happy. “You’re cheating.” If looks can kill…
“WHA? ME CHEETIN? YOU CHEATIN! YOU CHEATIN! ME NOT CHEATIN!”
“Hey, cool it Happy! Cool it. We’re all brothers here, man! Brothers forever!”
Grumpy and Doc enter the room, looking very full, breaking the already broken tension. High fives and esoteric handshakes are exchanged.
“Yo bro’s!,” says Grumpy. “You ain’t gonna believe this bloke Humpty Dumb Ass. Said he got no dough. But we fixed him up real good, man, you know.”
“Yeah, real good. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put dumb ass together again, that kind of good, you know,” rejoins Doc. He walks up behind Happy, looks at his cards, and slaps him on the shoulder, with a big smile and a raucous voice. “Hey, man, you cheatin’! HA HA HA!”
“WHA? ME CHEETIN??? YOU CHEATIN! YOU CHEATIN! ME NOT CHEATIN!”
With hardly anyone noticing it, Sneezy, expressionless, with his eyes fixed on the nervous and unlooking Happy, calmly stands, puts a hand into a breast pocket. And just as he draws out a gun…
“Hello boys!” Snow White enters the room.
Everybody stops and looks at the alluring and regal matriarch of the dreaded Magical Mafia. “Good afternoon, Snow!”
“Sit down, sit down. Put that back Sneezy darling, I’ll have a job for you in a moment. Boys, I have an important announcement to make.” She shoves Bashful aside and takes his place at the center of the table. Bashful immediately gets a mirror and holds it for Snow White as she edits her make-up.
“Well, I foresee the imminent demise of our maleficent Queen Gwen, who made it a crime to sell choco-ecstasy in grade schools all over the kingdom and forced us into the bubblegum business. Worst of all, she’s threatening to take Prince Charming from me. Does she think the Prince will ever believe that I’m the boss of the Magic Mafia?”
“You ARE the boss of the Magic Mafia! Yoohooo!” exclaim the goons.
“Well, she won’t if she’s dead, would she? And that’s exactly what I’m announcing: my plan to eliminate Gwen. And here’s how it goes.
“First thing tomorrow, she gets a letter from a Mr. Adada Muhammudu asking her to deposit $10,000.00 in an overseas account so she can receive $20 million from the heirs of a Mrs. Jewel Howard Taylor. She will immediately trash the letter knowing that it’s Nigerian mail fraud. The wastebasket is by the window, which faces another window across the street. In that other window will be a naked man doing calisthenics. (I’ve paid good money for this, you know.) At the exact right moment, boys, Gwen will see the man, then call the police to report him. But the police line is tapped, and the call will reach Sneezy darling over here, who, disguised as a policeman, will go up to that floor with an antitank missile disguised as a walkie-talkie, and then fire it straight into the Queen’s window across the street, eliminating her.
“That, my boys, is the plan.”
Everybody stands up and applauds.
Then, suddenly, Sleepy by the door collapses. Before anyone could react, so does Bashful. Then one of the goons shouts, “It’s, it’s…!”
“Gwendolyn.” A hooded figure in red enters the room. She clearly is a powerful person, like a Jedi. She removes the hood. “Hello, Snow White.”
“Get her boys,” says Snow White calmly.
The goons attack. One by one or in two’s, it does not matter. She is a taekwondo expert and quickly gets rid of them all. Only Snow White is left.
“Impressive, QUEEN Gwendolyn. For your age. May I ask, dear, how did you find out?” She calmly turns her back and takes out a make-up kit and continues doing her face.
“Timing, Snow. Your window man? Was practicing. Booked him yesterday for indecent exposure. Started singing. Took 3 minutes.”
Then the two women started speaking in a language that only women understand. We shall do our best to translate it.
SNOW: "Bakit ayaw nyo pa rin sa akin kahit sosyal at maganda ako? Dahil ba mas sweet ang iba?". (I like your hair, dear. Where did you have it made ba?)
GWEN: "Pilitin mo man na alisin ako sa buhay mo, babalik at babalik ako! (Ricky did it. I like your bag; think it’ll go well with that blouse I showed you three weeks ago?)
SNOW: "Alam kong sa tingin mo, masaya ako! Pero bakit kayo ganyan?! Sa tuwing wala na kayong masabi, ako na lang ang ginagamit nyo! Pagod na pagod na ako sa pagngiti!" (Of course naman. But Ricky??? My gosh, he ruined my bangs the last time. Ruined! But you know what? I heard he’s getting married.)
GWEN: "You can cry all you want, you could always blame me. You said, itwasn't fair, that you just want life to be better. But remember, it's all your fault! You stabbed me with a knife! But, I won’t kill you, Snow. Not for Charming."
SNOW: “Let’s finish it all here, Gwen.” Snow turns around; she has a gun in one hand. She fires. Gwen is hit.
“Arggh!” Gwen drops to the floor. As she falls wounded, an apple rolls out from her dress.
Snow White picks up the apple. “You never even thank me for making you happy, Gwen, then you throw me away just like that. I hate you for using me, for making my life full of shit!" Smiling maliciously at Gwen, she takes a bite.
And chokes.
She crumples to the ground. But before the lights go out she says, “Akh! You won’t get away Gwen. You think you poisoned me? I poisoned Charming! He’s going to hunt you, chase you, make you wish you were never…Akh Akh… born. He’ll kill you, Gwen…Akh.” And with this she falls dead.
Gwen, wounded, limps her way out of the room and disappears.
Just then a dashing figure of a Prince comes in.
“SNOW!” He runs to the dead mafiosa. “Check the pulse, check the pulse,” he says to himself. “DEAD! What happened Snow, what happened??? An apple. With her lipstick. Hmmm…I’m beginning to see a pattern here…POISON! This could only be the work of…of… let me see… let me see…QUEEN GWENDOLYN! Yes! That’s it: poison! QUEEN GWENDOLYN, I SWEAR, FOR AS LONG AS I LIVE, I WILL HUNT YOU, CHASE YOU, MAKE YOU WISH YOU WERE NEVER BORN!!!”
And with this he leaves.
We’re back in the sick room, the aging Gwendolyn on the bed with corneal cancer, and the aging Prince Charming with a gun pointed limply at the old woman, who is already unconscious. He speaks, “So, if she took the apple herself, then you didn’t kill her. Therefore, if she was the bad one, then you must be the good one. I’m beginning to see a pattern here…let me see…let me see…GWENDOLYN! I’M SO SOOOOORRY!!! PLEASE FORGIVE ME! YOU’RE THE ONE I REALLY LOVE! DON’T DIE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE! P--”
Little Red Riding Hood, who had been knocked out earlier, rises to her feet, unbeknownst to Prince Charming. She pulls out a gun with a silencer, walks up behind the Prince, calmly—professionally--points the gun to his nape. The cold, inevitable steel of the weapon makes him stop in mid-sentence.
Without a look of surprise and without turning, Prince Charming raises his head, and smiles. “Ahh, yes, The Little Red Riding Hood. Gwendolyn's best student. No, don’t speak. Yes, you might think I killed your grandmother today. That’s false. I killed her 50 years ago. She got rid of her royal life, disappeared into the criminal underworld, rather than give the order to eliminate me, something she could have done so easily herself for she was the empoisonneuse par excellence and grand mistress of a sorority of assassins! She has trained you well, I see.
No, don’t speak. I shall be rather thankful if you killed me now.”
Red Riding Hood hesitates.
At this dramatic point, Bambi the Deer prances in, singing this song:
Love is a song that never ends
Life may be swift and fleeting
Hope may die yet love's beautiful music
Comes each day like the dawn
And Red Riding Hood, the world’s greatest assassin, shoots Bambi dead.
The End.
And Red Riding Hood, the world’s greatest assassin, shoots Bambi dead.
The End.
(Thanks to the IT's: Cheks, Jazel, Jenny, Je, Matthew, Andrew, Arvin, Rowel, Jay, Sam, Chester, Iggy, Kat, and Ulrich. We all got together to write this story one afternoon, while acting it out.)
1 comment:
Hello, sir! Pam Francia here. Your story entertained me, to say the least. XD I actually thought it was a transcript from the politically correct fairy tales. I read another version of Little Red Riding Hood in one of The Sandman graphic novels by Neil Gaiman, although it involves more cannibalism and is nowhere as interesting as yours. Kudos to the writers. :P
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