Sublime Surprise

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Mixed Metaphors

Cinderella wept. Her one chance for justice in her miserable life under her stepmother had just been swept away. A dress she had found in her attic, resplendid with beautiful laces and fabulous sparkling trinkets, had been ripped to shreds by her two despicable sisters to secure their spots at the ball where the prince of their realm would find his new bride in a manner all too befitting of a Fox reality TV show. She fell to floor as resignation and fatalism overcame her in a way she had never felt before. She had often almost given up hope before, but now this was too far for even her.

Suddenly, a gleaming light appeared before her eyes a motherly looking woman, dressed in a conservative blue gown appeared before her. "Oh child," the Chernobyl-esque glowing woman said, "do not lose hope in justice! For I am your fairy godmother, and I am here to make your dreams come true and allow you to take your rightful place in this world following years of torment." Cinderella didn't know what to do. She quickly did a check in her mind to make sure she hadn't eaten those mushrooms again, then decided that this supernatural woman must be real. "My fairy godmother?"

"Yes, fairy godmother. Note the Scillian accent and the tiny inefficient wings."

"Oh, right."

"Cinderella, the Powers-That-Be have seen your suffering and injust treatment," the fairy said quite soothingly. "They have bestowed upon me the right to give you anything you need to go to the ball tonight and win over those harlot sisters of yours to become the reigning oppresive absolutist monarch of this realm." Cinderella gasped. Finally, the dream that every little girl in the world has ever had was about to come true. She was going to become a princess based on looks and dancing abilities alone with a little supernatural help. Suddenly, through a dramatic plot device that allows us to skip over several superfluous paragraphs, Cinderella has a gown, tiara, carriage, horses, carriage driver, Gucci bag, earings, and the famous glass slippers. Finally, the godmother handed over one very special relic to the very excited girl.

"Cinderella, this disguise will disappear at midnight. To ensure that you can keep up with the time, I will give you this clock." She handed Cinderella a clock, just a tad bit too small to be a wall clock and too large to be a wristwatch. On it was the Roman numeral XII, and nothing else.

"What is this?" Cinderella inquired.

"A clock, my dense debutante." The godmother snorted.

"No, no, no. What kind of clock is it? I've never seen anything like it before, and why is only the twelth hour marked on it?"

"Errrrrr, about that. I was supposed to give you a very important clock for you to keep up with your time. This is the clock of The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. See, when it reaches midnight not only does your dress return to tatters and whatnot, but the world experiences a nuclear holocaust. Sorry, about that, it was all I could get on such short notice."

"Oh."

"Yeah, no biggie. Just get home early is all. Or else all humanity perishes at your irresponsible hands and such."

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The ball was going remarkably well. Cinderella had caught the prince's eye from the very second she had entered the grand chambers, and had danced the night away. They had laughed. Giggled. Drank. Joked. Talked. Smoked out. Debated. Argued. Flirted. The night had flown by, and when Cinderella checked the Doomsday Clock, she saw with a quickly-rising pulse rate and a turn of her stomach that it was not more than 5 minutes from midnight. Hurridely, she bolted from the room and fled to the carriage to try and get home on time. As she fled, one of her spectacular glass slippers fell off and she ran down the obscenely long procession of stairs that led to the magnificently disgustingly-detailed porte to the palace. The prince, running after her like she was his fathers milkmaid, saw it and bent to reach for it right as a light brighter than a thousand suns, a heat hotter that a million ironsmiths, and a wind a five times greater than Ann Coulter's flap hit him and disintigrated him and everyone else in the world.

And the godmother cracked open another cold one and cackled, giving Walt Disney a high five in hell.