"So what happens in your version?"
"Wellllllll...I marry the prince."
"That sounds nice."
"After he kills the evil octopus witch."
"Ooohhh."
"And I get to be a human forever!"
"Wow."
"What about you? How does your story end?"
"Um, well, the Prince meets this dark-haired woman--"
"Oh! Is it the evil octopus witch in disguise?"
"Um, no, she's just...a woman."
"Oh."
"And he falls in love with her because he thinks she's the one who saved him."
"And then you tell him that you're the one that saved him?"
"No, because I can't talk."
"Couldn't you write it down?"
"I don't know how to write."
"What about miming it or--"
"That sort of seemed--"
"I mean, I guess I could have done the same thing but it just--"
"--seemed like cheating. Yeah, I know. So he ended up marrying her."
"Oh my goodness!"
"Yeah."
"And what about you?"
"Well, I was invited to go on the honeymoon."
"What a prick!"
"Yeah. And then my sisters showed up, and I guess they cut off their hair and used it to help turn me back into a mermaid again."
"Ohhh like Fantine."
"What?"
"In Les Miz."
"I don't, uh--"
"Never mind, never mind. So you went back to the sea?"
"Well, no, you see--first I had to take this knife--"
"And cut off your own hair?"
"No, um, I was supposed to..."
"Supposed to...?"
"Stab the prince."
"WHAT?"
"And his wife."
"JESUS!"
"To death."
"Oh my GOD! What is WRONG with you?"
"Well I didn't DO it!"
"Oh my--well I should HOPE not! Oh my God!"
"I--"
"JESUS."
"I know."
"I'm sorry, but I did NOT see that coming."
"Yeah, neither did I."
"What did your crab say about this?"
"My what?"
"Your crab. Your talking crab that sings."
"I don't have a talking crab."
"A flounder?"
"No."
"A seagull?"
"No."
"You don't have any talking animal friends?"
"No, I'm not insane."
"I never--wait."
"I just refused to kill the two of them and then I..."
"What?"
"Died."
"You DIED?"
"It was them or me."
"So why didn't you kill them?"
"You freaked out just from having me mention it!"
"I didn't know it was them or you! Why should they live? Some moronic prince who marries girls just because they give him mouth-to-mouth and some dark-haired bimbo who says she saved him when she totally knows she didn't. She's a liar. Liars get stabbed sometimes. Nothing wrong with that."
"That's awful!"
"More awful than a poor defenseless little mermaid dying just because she fell in love with a jerk?"
"Oh, like the prince in your version is so much better!"
"He's way better!"
"He made you leave your home! You never went back to the sea either! Don't you care that you're never going to see your father again?"
"I can see him! I just have to wait until somebody invents Scuba-diving!"
"And what about your singing crabs?"
"I will not be lectured by someone with no sense of self-preservation! You could have slipped right back into the water after completing one menial task and you didn't do it."
"You're talking about DOUBLE HOMICIDE!"
"So instead, you die. I should have known. You're a Hans Christian Andersen creation. Nobody makes it out of those stories alive. That poor little matchstick girl left to die in the gutter like a common whore..."
"And what about you? Setting the feminist movement back a thousand years and singing about trash you found near the coral reefs like it's charming?"
"MY ALUMINUM CAN COLLECTION IS NOT TRASH!"
. . . . .
"You know, ultimately, different people appreciate different versions of different...stories."
"You're right. Children seem to like mine and people who suffer from manic depression seem to prefer yours."
"Then there's the musical."
"Wait...they made a musical?"
"Mhmm."
"Well...that's just disturbing."
No comments:
Post a Comment