FTF 7

Hansal and Gretzsobeck!

Times were hard. Pappa Johann's Schnizelhaus was closing down, and the layoffs were brutalizing the local economy in the quaint village of Bierminghamm, Germany. Hansel and Gretzobeck's Pa was given a bag of breadsticks and told he could keep his uniform, and then he was sent home. Uf!

That night, Ma told him that they could no longer afford to keep their children, and convinced Pa to lead them out into the woods to fend for themselves or die. “But those woods are crawling with Morlocks!” said Pa. “My poor children.” For he was too weak-willed and effeminate to do anything more than bemoan her tragic request. "The Morlocks will spare their pasty hides," said Ma. "They are not black enough." This made sense, because it had been a long day and was later than usual when this fairy tale was written and so some corners of logic were sacrified in the name of progressing the story along.

So Pa crept into his childrens' bedroom, and smiled over their slumbering, sluglike bodies for a moment. He brushed their golden hair from their brows, and dabbed away the drooly mayonnaise from their pudgy chins, and gently woke them.

"Hansel, Gretzobeck" he said, "There is an all-night potato salad bar in the woods! Are you hungry?" And the little meatballs were off like a shot, into the darkness, with Pa following close behind them.

Gretzobeck was not quite as stupid as she appeared at first and second glances, however, and a psychic vision came to her. On her way out of the cottage, she took from behind the door a bag of baby dicks, and not quite understanding why, she left a trail of them behind as she raced off chasing the dream of a bottomless bowl of potato salad under the bright German stars.

They walked for a long time, and just as they ran out of baby dicks, Pa did the unthinkable. He whacked them over the head with a sock full of quarters! Thunk! He covered their doughy little bodies with a purple tarp, and sadly walked home.

Hours later, the children woke up, and feeling pangs of hunger from the unfulfilled promise of potato salad, they followed the mysterious aroma of shish kebobs which was wafting through the thick forest. They came upon a strange house, shaped like a pyramid of gold, and engraved with images of dusky Gods and pharoahs chowing down on bowls of Easy Mac, potted meat and Pasta-Roni with Noodles.

Propped up against the door was a mummy! who held in his outstretched arms a platter of hams. Hansel and Gretzobeck were overjoyed. They raced to the pyramid, and mushed their little pink faces into the pile of hams, snarfing away at the fleshy pink meat.

They did not notice the door creaking open, and a tall, mysterious figure looming over them. It was Mister Cairo! "Hello, children" he said, and lifted them up by the backs of their necks. They squealed and squeaked and kicked their stumpy limbs, but Mister Cairo had the strength of ten men and the head of a dog, and he hurled them into his weird triangular living room. And while the children quaked in fear, he opened his dog snout and began to tell them all about his day at work, and the ineptitude of his managers, and his plans for the weekend, and his favorite radio shows, and his tales were such that even the impossibly stupid Gretzobeck knew that if she did not escape soon, she would surely be bored to death.

So when Mister Cairo came up for air, she said, "My brother here, Hansel, is very interested in what you are saying. He was just telling me yesterday that how curious he is about what the life of a phone company technician, or whatever the hell it is you say you are."

Mister Cairo's eyes widened, and he began to regale Hansel with stories of what he did on his lunch break, and how the shifts were scheduled and whatever the fuck, and while this was going on, Gretzobeck ate her way through the pyramid wall and ran home by following the path of baby dicks that littered the forest floor.

Eventually she came back to her parents' house, and burst through the door. "Jesus fucking Christ," she screamed. "What the hell were you thinking, leaving me and the poor extra character Hansel out there alone in the woods to get put to sleep by the endless droning of that god damned Mister Cairo? I swear you two must be the worst fucking parents in the history of Bierminghamm, which is really saying something, since isn't this where that mother that ate her kid's brain came from? Unless I am very much mistaken?"

And her parents, gaunt and hungry (for they had finished off the breadsticks), looked up at her, standing there in the doorway, plump and juicy, the fragrance of ham still clinging to her soft, pliable cheeks, her skin shining like crackling, everything down to her ten little oinky toes just wiggling with the ripeness of youthful health, and they opened their arms to her and said, "Welcome home, Gretzobeck. You're just in time for dinner!"