Andrew Buckley - Stiltskin

He grabbed the inside edge of the door with one hand and hauled himself up. His feet dangled for a second as he pulled himself through. The light glow from within flashed once and the door closed up, leaving no indication that there ever was any door or any deranged evil Dwarf anywhere in the vicinity.

Travelling through a door felt like someone sticking a large hand up the traveller’s rear end and tickling the intestines. It was awkward and uncomfortable. Climbing into a doorway was easy. Coming out on the other end was always difficult as the traveller could never tell where it came out or where the door was positioned at that exact moment. In the case of the door that Rumpelstiltskin exited, it was placed perfectly over the top of an antique bathtub located in the apartment of Robert Darkly in London’s West End. Rumpelstiltskin fell unceremoniously out of the doorway and splashed into a very full and warm bathtub. He gripped his knife and seethed quietly at his misfortune and waited patiently for the annoying tingling sensation in his stomach to subside.

Several seconds later, a naked man came through the bathroom door and froze, looking surprised and slightly scared to see a Dwarf sitting in his bathtub.

Rumpelstiltskin looked into the man’s eyes and recognized exactly who the man was.

“You must be Robert Darkly,” said Rumpelstiltskin.

Robert Darkly promptly screamed like a girl and slammed the door.

Rumpelstiltskin snickered and hauled himself out of the bathtub.

In the Northern Territories of Thiside, in the quiet countryside just East of the Beast’s Castle, as the sun crested the mountain peaks and the shadows fled for cover, a world-shaking occurrence suddenly occurred.

The tiny dirt road that everyone knew as Drury Lane had been in existence since before the Castle was built, before the Beast took residency, or even before the Northern Territories had been named. The lane had always played host to one small cottage, and well before the sun decided it was time to rise, a small plume of smoke could be seen billowing from its chimney. The Muffin Man awoke at 3:00 a.m. every day to begin his work. He shaved, showered, dressed, kissed his sleeping wife, and fired up the ovens. It had been this way for over three hundred years and wasn’t likely to change anytime soon. The Muffin Man provided baked goods all over the Northern Territories. People would travel from as far as the City of Oz to sample his vanilla iced bread fingers.

Today was no different from yesterday and yesterday struck a startling resemblance to the day before that. At 7:00 a.m., the Muffin Man pulled out his last batch of dinner rolls and left them to cool. The sunlight now streamed in through an open window and a light breeze rustled the leaves on the oak tree in the garden. He looked at the old clock on the wall; another half hour would bring his delivery men and women to pick up the bundles of baked goods that would be taken away over the hills and far, far away.

The Muffin Man looked out over the landscape and felt thankful for the life he was leading; a simple baker without a care in the world. It was at that exact moment that reality turned itself inside out. Everything happened in a split second, which was much like a regular second, only shorter: the mountains that could be seen through the Muffin Man’s window volcanically erupted one by one, spraying molten lava high into the sky; clouds appeared from nothingness high in the sky; and the worst ever unrecorded snowstorm in history flashed into existence, blowing sleet and rain through the cottage’s open window. The Muffin Man shielded himself with a cookie tray. The snowstorm froze the molten lava in mid-eruption, the result of which formed giant statues of ducks performing ballet at the peak of each mountaintop. The sun spontaneously fell out of the sky, throwing the world into immediate darkness.

It was moments like these that the normal human reaction was to run for cover. The Muffin Man couldn’t help but watch from his now snow-covered kitchen. The moon flew up from behind the mountains and exploded in a shower of sparks that threw fluorescent light, much like the annoying kind found in hospitals, across the landscape and briefly silhouetted a perfectly-normal-yet-not-at-all creature off in the distance. The Muffin Man squinted at the creature but was instantly distracted as the mountains with the duck statues flipped themselves upside down while the snow-covered trees sprouted legs and ran around in circles, the Earth shook, and fire shot across the sky. A nine-thousand-pound rhinoceros blinked into existence and raced across the landscape, unaware of his real purpose in life but running felt good so he figured that was a start. Lightning cracked across the ground and it began to rain upward; gravity realigned itself and the Muffin Man found himself stuck to his ceiling. His head felt like it was about to split open as the pressure of the universe centered itself across the valley he called home, and with a small squeak, it all stopped.

The Muffin Man fell to the floor as gravity returned to its normal state; the sun reappeared exactly where it was supposed to be. The duck statues were gone, the mountains were the right way up, the snow had vanished, the trees were rooted once again, and even his kitchen was exactly as it had been. The only telltale sign of the last few moments was the nine-thousand-pound rhino that was happily charging up the valley away from the Muffin Man’s house.

The simple baker knew the silhouette of the creature he’d seen momentarily during the cataclysm. He also knew of only one creature in existence that could have caused what just happened but it was impossible. Everyone in Thiside knew that the Cat was dead.

Fairies came in all shapes and sizes. Well, not really sizes; they were all basically the same size, around about six inches in height. In Thiside, Fairies fell into three different classes: the Good, the Bad, and the Simplistics. The Simplistic ones lived in the Northern Territory Forests and kept to themselves. They stuck to simple life principles, which included eating, sleeping, and sex. It should be noted that Fairy sex was not like regular sex but involved a lot of wing flapping, humming, and high kicking. It was actually quite disturbing to witness, so much so that a self-help group was formed in the Eastern quarter of the City of Oz to help explain just what witnesses of such an event had actually seen.

The Simplistics spent most of their lives living out the three prime principles and stayed hidden away in the forests because it was safer. When any Simplistics ventured into the cities, they often died, not because of any murderess intentions against Fairies but rather from the simple fact that they lacked the brainpower to avoid glass windows and many ended up flying into especially clean windows and breaking their neck. Hence the rarely used phrase, “As dumb as a Simplistic Fairy in a city.”

The Bad Fairies lived in the Grimm Mountains in the East and spent their days fighting with each other, forming small gangs, and stealing from anyone who dared follow the mountain paths.

The Good Fairies lived in the Southeast quarter of the City of Oz and worked with the Wizards of Oz to herd magic in the right direction.

Veszico was an outcast Fairy. She was the result of a very unusual meeting between a member of the Good Fairies and a member of the Bad Fairies. It should probably be pointed out at this time that Fairies lacked gender in much the same way that a brick lacks a sense of humour. They were either male or female, but tended to be both or neither. The different sects of Fairies never socialized but back in the days before the Agents, before the Tower was built, and when only one wizard occupied Oz, a meeting referred to as a Sumthin was held every year in the Emerald City. The purpose of the meeting was to find out how everyone was getting on with their lives, an update on the situation with the doors, to ask questions like is the Beast still angry? and what happened to the dragons? or where the hell do all the Gnomes keep vanishing to? The meeting consisted of various races ranging from Fairies, Humanimals, and Goblins, to Giants, talking animals, Dwarves, and, of course, humans. It was at this meeting that a Good Fairy who had partaken in one too many thimblefuls of beer fell victim to the libido of a Bad Fairy.