A ridiculous story

For those who don’t know me, I’m Fluffy. That’s my name. Yes, I’m a dog. Speaking of names, my former owner had a most unusual one. He swore me to secrecy, which was puzzling. Whom was I going to tell? And how? It was a mouthful, so I called him Bob. He had magic powers. He could have done so much more with those powers, but he didn’t because he was content with a simple life. He wasn’t all that intelligent, he had no ambition, and he wasn’t greedy. Not that it mattered. My needs were all met. We dogs don’t need much anyway to enjoy life.

Bob’s lack of intelligence was no match for the monumental stupidity of the inhabitants of the village near our forest home. The miller, for instance. As you know, millers are useful fellows in the village. They grind grain to produce flour, which everyone needs to make bread. This particular miller was no exception.

When the king came to the village, Bob and I went along to have a look. We were invisible of course, courtesy of Bob’s magic powers. The king made a point of calling on the miller to thank him for his services. And that should have been that. But the miller, in all his wisdom (did I really say wisdom?), decided to further impress the king by claiming that his daughter was able to spin straw into gold. I gasped at the miller’s stupidity. If his daughter had those powers, why was he still a miller? Funny how no one else seemed to grasp that obvious point.

Not even the king. In his case, like all kings, utter the word gold and he is physically, emotionally, morally and spiritually unable to think of anything else. He surprised no one when he ordered his bodyguards to take the girl away and lock her up in a room full of straw and a spinning wheel in one corner. Before they hauled her off, he warned her the executioner would be sharpening his axe in case no gold turned up next morning.

We returned to the forest, Bob deep in thought. I implored him to leave that silly miller and his daughter well alone. But his magic powers did not extend to interpreting canine eye language. Around midnight he disappeared.

He returned in the morning sporting a necklace, pleased as Punch. He told me he found the room in which the miller’s daughter, surrounded by bales of straw, cursed her father and made no bones about her unhappiness at losing her head in the morning. 

Yes, Bob’s supreme magic power was his ability to turn anything into gold. I admired Bob’s aversion to personal wealth, but I could never understand his attraction to cheap trinkets like the necklace he now wore with pride, a grateful gift from the miller’s daughter.

Bob might have suspected the king would not be satisfied with one roomful of gold. Because in the evening he checked in on the miller’s daughter and found her in a bigger room full of straw, and the same threats hanging over her head. Literally. So he said anyway when he returned in the morning with another trinket, this time a cheap ring. He pointed his finger this way and that for the piece of pretend gemstone to catch the sunlight.

Bob was confident the king would be satisfied now, but that night he found out to the contrary. He returned the next morning empty handed. The miller’s daughter had run out of trinkets, but Bob was not the sort to grant favours purely out of the kindness of his heart. He’d want something in return. He wasn’t a dog after all. We have pure altruism sewn up. We sit at the top of that tree. I waited for him to tell me, but he was strangely silent.

Also strangely, the king was satisfied, only for the time being I imagined. As I expected though, there was no way he was going to let the miller’s daughter go back to her father. Who would, come to think of it, given what she had achieved three nights running. He married her. I felt sorry for her, hitched to someone as likely to despatch her to the executioner as declare undying love for her.

Nine months later, joy and celebration saturated the village air. The queen had given birth to a son and heir. Bob broke out in a dance. Come along he said, let’s go and see the queen. And that’s when I learned what she had promised him. And that was also when I learned about Bob’s desire to be a parent.

I’ve come to collect the baby, he said.

The queen put on a show in the grandest traditions of operatic tragedy. Bob was adamant. A promise is a promise, he said, refusing to be swayed by her operatic threats, which soon turned into operatic pleas that became so loud, the chandeliers began to shimmer and tinkle in protest.

Ok, ok, he said, a smidgeon of kind-heartedness suddenly poking through, or maybe fear of deafness. Tell you what, I’ll give you three days to guess my name. If you fail, the baby is mine. With that we vanished. For two days I witnessed the heart-rending spectacle of the queen coming up with ridiculous names like Murgatroyd and Archibald, then more commonplace ones like Craig and Darren and Jason.

On the final evening Bob was beside himself with joy. He danced and he sang. I had no problem with his dancing. Or the song for that matter. Until the last line. I don’t know why he had to screech it out at the top of his voice, Rumpelstiltskin is my name. The forest has ears, I tried to tell him in the only way I could.

The following morning we turned up at the palace. Bob, I mean Rumpel…whatever, pushed a pram. The queen’s calm demeanour was a little troubling.

She started. Is your name Tom? He shook his head. Harry? Nope.

She took a deep breath. Then she placed a finger on her chin and asked, Can your name be Rumpelstiltskin?

He became so enraged, he stomped on the floor hard enough to create a hole that penetrated the earth’s crust, and he disappeared into it.

The queen took a shine to me and named me Fluffy. Maybe she thought I too had magic powers. I found out I didn’t in unfortunate circumstances. Having served her second most important purpose in producing an heir, the king pointed to a room full of straw and ordered her to spin away. She looked hopefully at me. I must say I tried. I exhausted my entire lexicon of barks and growls and howls and grunts and whines and coughs and sneezes. I chased my tail clockwise, then anticlockwise. But the straw remained straw. And the next morning? You guessed it. The queen’s head parted from the rest of her.

I woke up. What a dream. My owners laughed at me. They wondered aloud what sort of dreams dogs have. If only I could tell them. The only part I didn’t much care for was when the queen named me Fluffy. I’m a rottweiler, for heaven’s sake.