Torches & Pitchforks

By Sasha Brown

We were pretty worked up when we set out to the castle with our torches and pitchforks. That old mad scientist had done us dirty one too many times. Whether he was stealing corpses or unleashing monsters or hypnotizing babies we weren’t quite sure, but whatever it was we weren’t putting up with it any longer.

Of course Jerry had brought some of his moonshine, and halfway up the mountain we were starting to get fairly cheerful about the enterprise, and it wasn’t long after that Kevin poked widow Edna with his pitchfork on accident and plucked her eyeball right out. Just like that: one minute it was in her face and the next it was spiked on the tine, bloody root dangling. Edna shrieked and jabbed Kevin back and got one of his eyes, and then everyone got to poking and hollering, and long story short by the time we got to the castle there wasn’t a pitchfork present didn’t have someone or other’s eyeball hanging from it. A sea of rusty tines and eyes, moaning and squabbling, that’s what showed up at the castle gate.

Well, that evil mad scientist man cranked open the gate and stood there in his shabby old lab coat. “You poor folks. You have had a time of it tonight! I have just the thing for all of you. Come up to my lab and I promise you’ll feel better in no time.”

We were hesitant. “Weren’t we supposed to…” said Kevin. And “Look here,” went old widow Edna.

But the truth is that the torches had all gone out some time ago, and no one was sure what the plan had even been with the pitchforks. So we looked at each other with our remaining eyes, and we shrugged, and Jerry passed the last of the moonshine around. And then we just went on in.

A cadaverous beast shuffles onto a dark stage. It wears a top hat and it carries a bone cane. The music cranks to life and the thing begins abruptly to dance, a urine-coloured spotlight illuminating its decrepit face. "Whoopsie daisy," chants the herky jerky creature. "Whoopsie daisy, come on dowwwwwwn." A muffled shriek comes from the audience, and the beast's face whips up with an expression of sudden, frenzied joy. "Whoopsie daisy, come on down. Bring the kids, it's Sasha Brown!"