MicroHorror

As the only grownup in the house, she could make them do whatever she wanted. Just because she said so. And so they were forced to use spoons. For everything. She’d gotten rid of every knife and fork. Chocolate cakes could no longer be cut but only scooped up clump by clump like soil. Apple pies could only ooze into shapeless servings that exposed ugly blobs of fruit still clinging to bruised skin. She just smothered the evidence in ice cream, and it got eaten.

She had her reasons. Once the children were tucked in for the night, there wasn’t much to do in that isolated house but read herself a quick bedtime story. She wasn’t a big reader, but she had a favorite website full of nicely horrifying little tales. It hadn’t taken her long to notice that a lot of the stories were about children. Scary children. Scary children with knives. She had kept reading, happily horrified. But then she’d started having nightmares. About her children. And her knives.

So spoons it was. You could trust babies with them, and prison inmates. At first she fed them soup, porridge and cornmeal mush, but she soon added desserts. She mashed vegetables. She spent hours tenderizing meat with the flat of a tablespoon. She stuffed them with food so they wouldn’t try to stuff themselves with God knows what–lead paint chips, maybe. If they got hungry enough for solid food, even the orangey-brown walls might begin to look good enough to eat. Afraid that they might be enticed by toxic mushrooms in the woods, she kept them close to home.

The witch is holding us prisoner, they whispered. It was part of the game they liked to play under the kitchen table while she baked. The witch is going to eat us.

Who’s ready for pear cobbler?

But first she has to fatten us up. Yeah, that’s why she’s always baking. It’s why she makes us eat so much pudding and custard and sugary cereal. It’s why we can’t stay outside and get some exercise. We have to get her. Before she gets us.

Come and get it!

They were so cute, armed only with spoons. For the sake of their game she pretended to be afraid. For a while. One thing about spoons is that they take a long time to start doing real damage.

Another thing about spoons is that it takes such a long time for them to stop having real damage to do.