A GROWNUP FAIRYTALE II
The Screwed-Up Fairy
by
Bob Flicker
3/4/15
Zelpa screwed up again. It was one day before the end of the month and she had five wishes left over. She was the only fairy from her section to have wishes left over at the end of any month. She had just 24 hours to grant these five wishes to wish-worthy people or end up with a lowly desk job at the Fairy Wish Dispensary, dispensing wishes to field-fairies like herself.
Zelpa’s problem was she was just too fussy about whom she would grant wishes too. She wasn’t like those other field-fairies who would grant wishes to almost any human being who they felt were barely deserving. She had a suspicion that a few of them were getting kickbacks on their granted wishes, “under the table.” Not that she could prove it.
Zelpa, like all field-fairies, was limited to the three-wish rule. No more than three wishes could be granted to any one person unless they were extremely deserving, and then it could be five wishes. If only she could find an extremely deserving person in the next twenty-four hours and grant her last five wishes she would keep her field-fairy job.
Mortimmer Midsweep stood admiring his lighthouse before getting into his rowboat and rowing out to the small, rocky island upon which it stood. The lighthouse had been built by his great-great-great grandfather, Zachariah Midsweep, two hundred years ago. Zachariah had acquired a considerable fortune from his ship salvage business which was directly connected to his owning the lighthouse.
Now, you might be asking what this has to do with Zelpa, the screwed-up fairy and her five leftover wishes? Please, just bear with me bit longer and your question will be answered.
The reason Zachariah Midsweep had such a profitable ship salvage business was quite simple and ingenious. Whenever a severe storm would come up and a sailing ship was in sight of the rocks, Zachariah would simply turn off the lighthouse light and wait for the ship to smash into the rocks. He would always be the first one on the scene to claim the salvage.
Mortimer Midsweep inherited the lighthouse and all its contents. He was very rich and completely unaware how and where all the treasure that filled the lighthouse came from. He was never told by his father or grandfather nor did he care. All he cared about was his painting. He painted in oils and watercolors hour after hour. He never sold any of his paintings due to the fact he was a lousy painter but he didn’t care. It was the joy of it.
He did fall in love with the storekeepers daughter, Hicklacia Stockfiddle, despite the fact that she was six feet, six inches tall and weighed 300 pounds. She was the first female, outside of his mother who passed away when he was ten years old, that he had ever seen. He might well have married her except for the fact that while taking her out to see the lighthouse in his small rowboat it sank and she drowned.
It happened while he was painting his two hundred and sixty third painting of the lighthouse that Zelpa, the screwed-up fairy appeared. Well, she didn’t exactly appear. She collided with the lighthouse while flying toward the mainland after a disastrous session with a ship’s captain who turned out to be not worth of any of her five wishes. Zelpa was so angry she sank his ship. She was quite upset having done so, knowing full well she had to learn to curb her temper.
Mortimer Midsweep might not have noticed Zelpa crashing into his lighthouse except for her landing on top of his unfinished, 263rd impressionistic painting of the lighthouse. All of his paintings were of the unintentional impressionistic school whose members were painters who should have been plumbers, ditch diggers or B-movie actors.
“What time is it?” asked Zelpa, picking herself up.
Mortimer Midsweep looked at his bare wrist. “I don’t have a watch.”
“How do you tell time?” asked Zelpa, magically removing smeared paint from her hands and pants.
“I don’t.” replied Mortimer Midsweep. “I really don’t have any need to.”
“I do! I need to know how much time is left in this day.”
“Why?”
“I’ve got five wishes I have to get rid of. How would you like to have five wishes?”
“ No thanks.” replied Mortimer Midsweep, running his eyes over Zelpa from head to toe. “Hey, you’re a girl!”
“I’m a fairy.”
“You look like a girl.”
‘Fairies look like girls.”
“I almost married one.”
“A girl?”
“I think so,” replied Mortimer Midsweep. “ She said she was a girl. How about you and I getting married? I’m 26 years old and I should get married.”
“I’m a fairy,” replied Zelpa. “ I’m 232 years old.”
“Don’t fairies get married?”
“Yes. They marry wizards.” Zelpa answered. “Are you a wizard?”
“No but I could learn.”
Zelpa smiled. “Besides, I’m too old for you.”
“There is only a 206 year difference in our ages and you look very young.”
“If I married you I would no longer be a fairy. I would become human like you and be 32 years old.”
Zelpa stopped to think a very serious thought. Why was she rushing around trying to give five wishes to some undeserving human? She sank a ship because of it. She was faced with serious choices. If she couldn’t give away five wishes before days end she would find herself working in the Fairy Wish Dispensary forever.
“Why not marry me and become human? Then you would only be six years older than me,” said Mortimer Midsweep, interrupting Zelpa’s thoughts.
“I will do it!” exclaimed the screw-up fairy.
“Do what?”
“Marry you and become human!” exclaimed Zelpa. “Now I know what I will do with those five wishes I will take them and put them in a bottle and throw it into the sea. One day, some lonely person will discover the bottle washed up on a sandy beach and those five wishes will bring that person the same happiness we have.”
And so Zelpa, who was no longer the screwed-up fairy, and Mortimer Midsweep married in a small lighthouse wedding and lived happily ever after.
The End
Post Script:
Many years later, the bottle with the five wishes washed up on a desert island and was found by a shipwrecked sailor. Finding it to be empty, since wishes are invisible, he threw it back into the sea where it sank to the bottom where it still may be to this day.