Goldilocks and the three Bears
Her parents didn’t believe in schooling, proper schooling, because they knew that all those teachers and priests were rapist sodomites and when they read and reread those passages in Ezekiel they got so angry and started yelling at their eight year old child about how they wanted to put their penis in her asshole she got scared and cried and so during the day they told her to go out and live, and learn from the world, from nature and they let her run off and they went back into their field and toiled to make vegetables and feed cattle to slaughter.
She ran through the forest, testing what hurts her skin or tastes bad, poking sticks into dead poisoned fox carcasses and shitting into holes and wiping her ass with leaves and running along and drinking from creeks. This day she ran over a large hill and down into a valley and saw a house she’d never seen before and approached it like a curious dog, circling this way and that to see if anything was moving before inching closer, the learning her parents wanted taking hold, the natural curiosity and fear of anyone other than her parents.
She eventually made it to the window and looked in, no one inside, just a small house sitting there so still and empty. She tried the door but it was locked, she tried a window but it was locked and in her rampant enthusiasm took a rock and smashed in a window pane, opened the latch and climbed in. The house was empty except for a large chest of drawers, a dining table and a few wooden chairs arranged in a semi circle around a large metal pot. She smelt burnt hair and burnt wood, and looked around but saw nothing but for a pot sitting on the ground behind the chairs. She walked over, quietly, and peered into the pot, seeing a thick grey mash in there. She dipped her finger in and tasted the mixture, a warm if not too hot porridge that tasted like sugar and grain, the kind she has for breakfast but with a strong acidic aftertaste. She thought it was wonderful but needed to wait until it cooled a bit so she looked in the drawers first, thinking because of the hot food that whoever lives there must have just left and won’t be back for a while.
In the first drawer were a load of papers and candles, nothing in order just stacked in there, so she opened the second drawer and it was full of knives and tools and bits of rubber and leather and stuff like that. The third drawer had baby clothes and bonnets and little containers of powder and soaps and she stuffed some soap into her pocket and closed the drawer, not wanting to open the fourth one. She walked around the house, getting used to the dead smell of hair and wood and opened the door connected to these living areas to see a room with three single beds in it. She jumped onto the first one but it was as though it’s just a blanket covering wood panels and then the second one was like a pile of feathers lumped under a thin sheet but the last bed felt like her own so she ran back into the main room, piled a load of the grey meal into a bowl and took it back into the bedroom with her, eating it with her fingers and letting her body relax on the bed, trying to imagine what the people who live here look like or if she has seen them before in town and remembering how strange all the people in town look and how strange it would be to know any of them at all and the thoughts like this and eating the thick porridge and praying to god to bless her mother and father and keep her safe in his arms like she’s been taught sent her to sleep.
She woke to the sound of a door slamming shut, remembering where she was and that she was alone in someone’s house. She sat straight up in the bed and pulled the blankets up, panicking.
“Someone’s smashed in the window!” Mr Bear yells out.
“Someone’s had their gut full from the lunch pot” cries Mrs Bear.
“Someone gone and got in our house Pa” says kid Bear, going over his chest and flinging it open to see what’s missing. “They ain’t taken any of my stuff Pa!”
“Ma! Go check the bedroom will ya. I’m gonna get me rifle, go on now”
Goldilocks hears them moving about, hears what they say and hides herself under the bed, seeing there’s no windows in the room and the only way out is the door she came in. The door to the bedroom swings open and she hears the feet coming across the room.
“Pa! Someone’s been messin’ with Junior’s bed, look” and the Bears all pile into the room, walking over to the bed she was sleeping in. Pa Bear puts his hand on the mattress and feels it’s warm.
“Go damn there’s been someone in this bed” and his face appears under the bed, looking Goldilocks straight in the face.
“Well well, look at what we have here” and she squirms away but Ma Bear is on her, pulling her out from under the bed by her thin wrist and dragging her over into the corner of the room.
“What you doin’ in here little girl?” asks Pa Bear
“Nothing, I..I…I was just, exploring, ’cause, my mumma says, to…to, go out and…”
“You exploring in our house cutie pie?” says Ma Bear.
“I saw, that…no one was in her so I”
“You busted by damn wind-a that’s what” says Pa bear, resting the rifle on his hip.
“She’s pretty” says Junior, walking over to her.
“Now. Don’t you go touching her son, that there’s a devil woman” says Pa Bear, holding his son by the arm “see, we gotta get that devil outta her”
“Oh no Pa, nah we ain’t. She just a little thing with, look at her Pa, that golden hair, like, like an angel”
“Ain’t no angel son, you’ll see. Ma, pick her up”
And Ma Bear picks the girl up and places her on the bed, Pa Bear takes his pants off and moves over to her, Goldilocks stares at the man, stares at the boy and waits, terrified.
“See son, she just a lil rabbit, ain’t cha?” and Pa moves closer, gets to her, pulls her shorts down and opens her legs. Goldilocks, crying, thrashing, Ma holding her wrists down, Junior tugging at his father undershirt to let her go, crying too but Pa heaves into her and Ma laughs revealing her teeth and Pa grunting like a bear; “urgh urgh urgh eee-urgh” and Junior crying now and Goldilocks screaming out but soon Junior comes and puts his hand over Goldilocks’ mouth saying “sssshhhhh” and trying to get her to relax, soothing back her hair and she locks her eyes onto his and he says softly “it’s ok…it’s ok” and they stay like that her moving in that jolting way as Junior looks into her eyes and keeps saying “it’s okay it’s okay” and when it’s done they put her dress back on and she is crying and running into the forest hearing their laughter getting softer and softer.
