Fairy Road Repair
Created | Updated May 26, 2019
Fairy Road Repair
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Whenever the fairies began tearing up the road prior to repaving, crowds would gather. There was something awe-inspiring about seeing tiny flying creatures holding up their wands and sprinkling pixie dust on frost heaves, followed by levitation of the thick, black, crusty tarmac. The fairies would fly away from the road, and the broken tarmac would follow them. The actual repaving was even more amazing. The citizens of our fair town were used to seeing big, burly guys spreading steaming asphalt that came out of big trucks. The fairies made the asphalt levitate until it was over the road, then lowered their wands to let it fall. There was one fairy, however, that had to drive a spreader over the asphalt to make it level. There were some things that wands and pixie dust could not accomplish. Some of the more bitter townsfolk resented losing their jobs to magic beings, though. Somehow, being on unemployment left them with nothing to do but imagine bizarre conspiracy theories. Those fairies had to be not just foreigners, but aliens from a hostile planet. Who was going to stop them when they decided that fixing roads wasn't enough? They would beam everyone's children up to their planet and enslave them! Things came to a head one day when Joe Splencziao rushed at a fairy work crew with a shotgun. What happened next was even more bizarre than what the townsfolk had already seen, though. A door opened in the sky and two very large beings walked out, their footsteps sending out shock waves as they approached. "I am Caleb, the king of the fairies," thundered the largest of them. He picked Joe up and held him in his hand. The shotgun fell to the ground and lay there. 'I thought all you fairies were small and delicate,' Joe stammered. The King thundered with laughter. 'You have no idea! Queen Mabel and I haven't flown since the 17th Century. Mostly we sit around trying to make ends meet.' 'And we eat,' Queen Mabel added. 'The more we worry, the more we eat. We're just like you humans, except that we get bigger skeletons and muscles rather than fat. Anyway, lighten up, Joe! It's just a silly contract for road work,' she said. 'Maybe next year we'll be trying some other project elsewhere. What you don't know is that wands and pixie dust aren't cheap. Pixietech has sharply raised prices for them this year, and we needed extra cash so we could stay in the magic business. Take away our wands and pixie dust, and we would never be able to hold our heads high in the fairy world.' This was a sobering thought. Joe apologized for his ignorant outburst, and invited the two fairy royals to join him for a few beers at the local quarry. The other fairies came along as well. They had never discovered alcohol before, and were curious about it. Soon they all were drunk. Turns out drunken fairies are just as silly as drunken humans. Ah, but you don't want to have all your illusions about fairies dashed, do you? We will leave it that they got drunk... |
