Hansel and Gretel — A True Story
One day, a woodsman called Steve was talking with his wife.
‘I don’t care, Steve, the little bastards have got to go. They’re eating us out of house and home. The girl keeps nicking my fags and the boy smells like sweaty wanks’.
Steve sagged, resigned. This conversation had been coming for a long time. The kids and his new wife had never gotten along, ever since she had walked in on the boy watching one of those early morning step aerobic programmes on the telly. The ones where all the girls wears lycra, and bend in a way designed to corrupt the young and lonely.
It still seemed a bit harsh to abandon his children in the deep, dark forest, where they would inevitably be ripped apart by wolves and bears, but anything for a quiet life.
On the other side of the kitchen wall, Hansel and Gretal had heard everything. Hansel looked down at the ground to his sister’s disgusted, accusatory stare and together, they plotted their escape.
The next day, Steve led his children out into the blackest depths of the forest. He felt shame ensnaring his gut, like a predatory octopus around a hermit crab. His face was a bright guilty red, changing colour like a cuttlefish trying to impress a mate. He had several other emotions, but none of them were like cephalopods.
