Bernhard Kainerstorfer
A Fairy Tale

The air was thin but love was thick

Once upon a time there was a princess living in a small town. She was a natural beauty. Her skin smelled good, on occasion her body was wrapped in blue fur, and on other occasions her body was wrapped in bear fur. One day she went into the woods and got lost. Tears ran down her cheeks and she pulled the walkie-talkie out of her pocket.

The prince was in love with the princess. But he was somewhere else. He was wandering the cold desert in a foreign country. "As long as we have walkie-talkies", he spoke into the walkie-talkie, "there will be a light. Stay where you are, my princess, describe where you are, my princess, talk to me, and I come to you into the woods to get us out."

The prince left the desert and prepared himself for the trip into the woods. Eventually, he found the princess in the dark forest, and when he embraced her, they both felt good. But also, she felt hard things hidden inside the royal robe so that she began to wonder what was hidden (inside the robe).

"What do you hide inside the robe, my prince", she would ask, "there is more than one hard thing I felt."

There was not much light, however, enough torch light to see the prince.

"Well then, I show you what I have inside the robe", the prince would reply with a serious expression on his face.

Then he opened the robe like a wing altar. "Look at these things", he said, "these things are useful to get us out of this dark woods."

When the princess saw the things, she whispered: "Oh my God."

"God is good but now we better depend on the things I brought here to help us get out of the dark woods", the prince whispered.

"Oh my God", the princess said a second time.

"That's exactly what I said when I found these things on the royal sale", the prince said, "this pair of infrared binoculars were a pretty good trade for precious stones, and here I have a flame thrower running on 98 octane fuel, and here I have a chain saw. I can cut pretty accurate with this thing, a tree branch in 0.3 seconds. We now can cut the forest down. And look at this one, it's the new Heckler&Koch with 23 bullets in the magazine to scare away the beasts, and this one I don't need to explain, and this one is the silent pistol crossbow, and this one is an old fashioned Smith&Wesson, and this one..."

"Coooool", the princess interrupted, "make sure these things don't explode inside your royal robe."

All of a sudden there was a rift in the darkness next to the tree she leaned against. Light formation. Colour mutation. The prince & the princess startled. The prince released the safety catch of the pistol and the princess grabbed the flashlight with one hand and the crossbow with the other hand.

When the light formation cleared up in front of them a fairy appeared. The fairy shook the head and said: "Wait a minute...what is this, what do you think this is a Rambo story? Do you really need automatic weapons to get out of the forest? This is meant to be a fairy tale story not a Paramount action picture. And there is no fairy tale princess in the world who would say 'coooool', is there? And there is no prince with a flame-thrower. ...But since I like you both...for some reason, I show you the way out of the woods.

She disappeared. The prince and the princess. Left alone. Looking for a map.

All of a sudden rotor blades cut the air. There was the helicopter sound above them. The air was thin but the royal love was thick.

A rope ladder came down. And then, at the treetops' level, the bull horn voice spread over the woods: "Hey you down there...climb up the rope ladder...we get you outa here...we accept Visa, MasterCard, and Dinars Club to get you the hell outa here! "

"OK!" the royal couple shouted, "get us out."

The royal couple climbed up the ladder, and when it crawled into the cockpit of the helicopter the prince held a gun against the pilot's head and the princess held the crossbow against the pilot's neck. "Ain't got credit cards – you accept unscratched lottery tickets. However, in the woods down there, there was a fairy on our side. So here we go, and you better watch the instruments of this aircraft. Because if this is not a fairy tale we all are in jeopardy, in case the bullet hits your brain. You understand?"

KnatterKnatterKnatterKnatter... (helicopter-rotor-sound) Knatter...

(All of a sudden): end of the fairy tale.................................((cause it's late at night (in the desert))

 

Postludium:

The royal couple landed safely. The prince and the princess were not arrested. Royal people were privileged back then, despite of hijacking aircraft. They embraced each other like oak trees rooted closely next to each other. Branches in the Laurel Canyon. Embracing the tree trunk.

© Gangan Verlag / Gerald Ganglbauer and Bernhard Kainerstorfer 2000 Disclaimer