[2009]
The Freewheeling Hansel and Gretel
by Loug Conformity-is-Crucial
Leimer
Grim tales told by Hans Christian Anderson. Christian tales not told by the Grimms brothers. Hansel and Gretel meet the Grimm Reaper. Grimy landscapes from a white porch. Anderson died, Christian lived and Hans existed as a paraplegic, though his surgeon predicted that he would someday walk despite sitting in the direct line of the semi’s impact.
Hans told the story of his tragedy often to whoever he could get to listen (over time virtually everyone) using placards and grunting noises, prodding his sister, Grimmamma, until she reluctantly contributed in the telling of the story to the newcomer, or to the ones not audacious enough (given the raucous nature of the said Hans) to walk out of the room the second they recognized the persistent high-pitched calling and squealing of this wounded, gurney-bound, mobility-challenged person.
He had not the use of his arms and hands, nor the full employment of his mouth, but did of his bum. He sported the most alacritous anus. He had learned how to vigourously pinch his buttocks together to grasp a particular cue card and hold it legibly in the air by thrusting his cheeks sharply upwards before the faces of those conversing above him.
These cue cards outlined the essential facts of his accident. It was amazing to behold him sort through these, some 50 of them, in a jiffy, rifling them about expertly with one of his buttocks as if it were a digit. He would get someone there to lick the right cheek as one does one’s pinky or forefinger to wet it in order to get purchase on a dry page. Then, with aplomb, quick as a wink, he would—sometimes to the accompaniment of a small fart, or even the decisive breaking of wind—find, take, lift, and display the cue card he’d been looking for and in print carry the story further, at times with the assistance of the reluctant offices of his sibling amanuensis.
He had special trousers and drawers constructed in aid of these endeavours, with folds and apertures through which he could, at will, thrust his gifted bum, an organ luckily unaffected by his otherwise omnipresent paraplegicity. Someone had to turn him over, however, to make these tale-telling achievements possible. Frequently ignored at first when he pled to be so rotated, his entreaties would speedily crescendo in volume and insistence till they came forward so stridently, and with such certain phonic heft, that the groans of oiliphants, and the barking of huge Arctic oxen were nothing to compare.
An incipient impatience, a growing irksomeness at the sudden heightening of bothersome noise in the room, would commonly cause bystanders to respond and assist him in his entreaties. Immediately, the moment he got
turned over, and in a flash, they would be treated to another series of cue card sentences, brought to them slickly by his dumb, breathing, infrequently scrubbed, continually appearing and disappearing nether flesh. Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity! O Spectacle! O oppression!
Now, on a day when downtrodden Hans had fallen ill and died, Grimmamma at last found her future husband. Alone, willful, ill disposed to play and prancing, the newly discovered fellow sat in a nookling by a small brook and read some work or other (of which no hint will be given here). She espied of him. Drawing nearer, she soon convinced him to both board her and then woo her. Till by evening she wore his ring, one his grandmother had left in his keeping, he being oldest, till his young and lovely sister would be of age to marry. The ring fit Grimmamma poorly, but it would do for now. A preacher found and employed, they set about the production of children on the spot. After the preacher had expressed his surprise, they ate and drank and went to bed, and that was the pattern they followed for the rest of their days together. They divorced a few months later and she remained unmarried from that day fourth, did Grimmamma.
He had not the use of his arms and hands, nor the full employment of his mouth, but did of his bum. He sported the most alacritous anus. He had learned how to vigourously pinch his buttocks together to grasp a particular cue card and hold it legibly in the air by thrusting his cheeks sharply upwards before the faces of those conversing above him.
These cue cards outlined the essential facts of his accident. It was amazing to behold him sort through these, some 50 of them, in a jiffy, rifling them about expertly with one of his buttocks as if it were a digit. He would get someone there to lick the right cheek as one does one’s pinky or forefinger to wet it in order to get purchase on a dry page. Then, with aplomb, quick as a wink, he would—sometimes to the accompaniment of a small fart, or even the decisive breaking of wind—find, take, lift, and display the cue card he’d been looking for and in print carry the story further, at times with the assistance of the reluctant offices of his sibling amanuensis.
He had special trousers and drawers constructed in aid of these endeavours, with folds and apertures through which he could, at will, thrust his gifted bum, an organ luckily unaffected by his otherwise omnipresent paraplegicity. Someone had to turn him over, however, to make these tale-telling achievements possible. Frequently ignored at first when he pled to be so rotated, his entreaties would speedily crescendo in volume and insistence till they came forward so stridently, and with such certain phonic heft, that the groans of oiliphants, and the barking of huge Arctic oxen were nothing to compare.
An incipient impatience, a growing irksomeness at the sudden heightening of bothersome noise in the room, would commonly cause bystanders to respond and assist him in his entreaties. Immediately, the moment he got
turned over, and in a flash, they would be treated to another series of cue card sentences, brought to them slickly by his dumb, breathing, infrequently scrubbed, continually appearing and disappearing nether flesh. Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity! O Spectacle! O oppression!
Now, on a day when downtrodden Hans had fallen ill and died, Grimmamma at last found her future husband. Alone, willful, ill disposed to play and prancing, the newly discovered fellow sat in a nookling by a small brook and read some work or other (of which no hint will be given here). She espied of him. Drawing nearer, she soon convinced him to both board her and then woo her. Till by evening she wore his ring, one his grandmother had left in his keeping, he being oldest, till his young and lovely sister would be of age to marry. The ring fit Grimmamma poorly, but it would do for now. A preacher found and employed, they set about the production of children on the spot. After the preacher had expressed his surprise, they ate and drank and went to bed, and that was the pattern they followed for the rest of their days together. They divorced a few months later and she remained unmarried from that day fourth, did Grimmamma.
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