Hansel and Gretel

Once upon a time there was a couple of hideous bourgeois children by the names of Hansel and Gretel. They were very fat. Their parents, who were hip German architects, said- "Hansel und Gretel! If you don't get in line with the minimalist aesthetics of our houses, we will kick you into the forest!", so they only have five slices of salami for breakfast, as opposed to 10, and so on. 

But they had a servant (all families in fairy tales have servants, who barely ever get acknowledged- let me tell you, fairy tales are essentially a slave trade. Who cleans the glass slippers? Not le Cinderella, anyway), who gave them extra slices of salami under their door. So the children got very fat and their Helmut Lang suits popped and Helmut Newton, when he saw them, put his fingers over his eyes and shuddered. So the parents said: "Look! You are too fat! You do not go with the Miles van der Rohe chair! You are bending it!"

"But Mama, Papa!" they said. "Are we not your children? Do you not love us like so?", to which the parents said:"No- we're afraid not. We had our art dealer do a valuation on you two, and well- I mean- you're just not that it anymore. And if you don't want Damien to put you in formaldehyde- well."

So the children were sent to the forest, where they ambled up the path like rocking eggs. Hansel said: "why don't we put some bread crumbs on the path to find our way back?", but they didn't have any bread crumbs- they only had pieces of formaldehyde Damien Hirst gave them, as in incentive to be placed in a giant tank titled "The Impossibility Of Living With Children In A World Of Magazine Architecture." So they scattered pieces of formaldehyde everywhere, which cute little Disney-esque creatures ate and subsequently died from. Oh ho ho, it is  hard to be Disney-esque in death, unless you are a Helpless Princess who Needs A Man To Save Her! And nobody wants to save the animals, except for the horrible PETA people- who frankly make my job easier. I considered making a coat out of the squirrels and birds, but I recalled my mother doing the same thing, one cold winter, and thought better of it.

Anyway- the children continued walking, until they got to a little cottage made out of candy. Inside, there was an old witch who wanted to eat them. "Come in, little children!" said the old witch. "You can eat some of my house!" But the children said: "Your house is terribly ugly! How can we eat ugliness?", and the witch said: "well, if you eat it, there will be no ugliness!" "however-" the children said, "we could be consuming ugliness, which could make us ugly in turn!", and the witch looked very troubled for a second.

"Look- I just want to eat you," she said. "I'll level with you. That's all I want to do- the candy is give or take. All I really want to do is put you in a cage and gobble you up. I will cook you in a fire first."

The children looked at each other, and said "no, thank you. We don't wish to participate in cannibalism" and the witch said "okay, fair enough. Like that song: you caaaan't always get what you waaaant", you know the one? The children knew the one.

"But sometimes you can get what you want", I said. "Sometimes you have to steal it. You could steal these children, but they are in front of me, and heard me- in any case, I suppose you've read my web-log, and know about the dangers of consuming people? Calories, my dear woman."

The old woman looked very indecisive, as did the children. Then they all turned into cats named Fluffy, and Herr Schrödinger came and took them back to his house. I ascended to the skies once more, with Mahler playing in the background.