Happy Ever After - a fairy story for adults

After all she’d done for them, she deserved a little more respect. If she had any magic left, she’d curse the lot of them. Then again, if she had any magic powers at all, she’d be transporting herself to the all you can eat buffet on one of those Disney cruises like Maleficent. Bibbety Bobbety Boo and she’d be at the bar, dripping in diamonds with a cocktail in her hand. Instead, here she was, using her wand as a walking stick. The star which had once sparkled with magic was now clogged up with carpet fluff and cat hairs. It wasn’t even useful for gripping onto moorland these days because the furthest she got was the garden and that was only on a Sunday if any of her surrogate children bothered to visit which they rarely did.

She shuffled into the living room, trying not to look at the awful arch-support slippers that Cinderella had sent her for Christmas. Cow! Sometmes she regretted wasting valuble sorcery on those glass slippers. Well, Princess Ella would regret them too before long. Old age came to everyone and she wouldn’t be able to totter around in those shoes for much longer, not the way she was piling on the pounds.

The gingerbread man was hogging the fire again. It didn’t matter how much he was warned, he seemed to have this irresistible urge to return to the oven. Were they all the same? Wanting to go back to the womb? One day he was going to burn to a crisp. That was if the old witch didn’t push him first. She might be losing her marbles but the impulse to shove people into the fire was still raging, along with the urge to eat the furniture. ‘Now then Mabel,’ the care assistants would say, ‘the sofas here are not made of marshmallow.’ Only yesterday they’d found her sitting on the loo, trying to lick the wallpaper, God help her.

‘Snow?’ The old dear was flat out on the sofa again, arms crossed over her thick-knit cardigan, zimmer frame by her side. You had to feel sorry for her really. They were all guity of harking back to the good old days and for Snow White, that meant playing dead and waiting for a prince. It was the happiest she’d ever been, poor cow. Still, it was a bit much in a place where any one of them could keel over at any moment. ‘Talk about crying wolf,’ she said to herself as she manoevred herself towards her favourite chair.

‘You called?’ said a voice from across the living room. Oh God. He’d obviously been at it again, rummaging through the ladies’ wardbrobes. If she wasn’t much mistaken, that was Aurora’s pink nightgown and bed jacket he was stretching over his hairy shoulders. And he had Gepetto’s reading glasses on the end of his snout. He saw her looking, ‘All the better to see you with, my dear.’ he said with a sneer. He was such a creep.

‘Happy Ever Afters, my arse,’ thought the fairy godmother as she settled herself into her chair. Which joker had named this place? ‘The Last Page’ would be more like it, or ‘The Bitter End.’ She closed her eyes and tried to block out Pinocchio’s voice. He was sitting by the fire muttering ‘I’m a real boy,' to himself, over and over. That’s what they were all doing really wasn’t it? Reassuring themselves that it hadn’t all just been a story. That it had been real.

At least with her eyes closed, she could still transport herself back to those days when hers was the most desirable service in town. Yes, she could still dream. There was magic in the old girl yet.