Pink

{This is NOT a children’s story}

“Momma, will you tell me a bedtime story?”

“Have you brushed your teeth and gotten ready for bed yet?” She yelled back.

“Yes,” little Kevin squealed, hopping nervously from foot to foot in anticipation of her answer.

“Alright then, I’ll be up in just a moment. Climb in bed and I’ll bring you a glass of warm milk to drink, then I’ll tell you a bedtime story.”

“What? You busy with that kid again? You know I got plans for that fine little bod of yours…”

“Hush. He’ll hear you! Besides, he always falls asleep quickly after my special milk and a story. I’ll keep it short, then you can have my fine little whatever afterward!” she mocked with a giggle as she scooted out of the way of the swat she knew would be headed for her backside.

Upstairs, little Kevin ran to his room and flung himself on the bed. After kicking off his slippers, he climbed between his Captain America sheets and waited for Momma to come tell him a bedtime tale.

Smiling as she entered the room, she headed over to the bed, and dimmed the bedside lamp. She handed Kevin the milk and joked while he drank the whole glass down in one gulp. “Hulk PJ’s tonight, huh kiddo?” She ruffled his hair.

“Yup! Gonna need ‘em,” he replied smiling a broad, milk-smeared grin.

“Oh yeah, what makes you think so?”

“It’s one of your bedtime stories, Momma, I always need my Hulk jammies when you tell a story!” His bright eyes sparkled as she sat down alongside him.

“Well, in that case, I guess we better get to it. What kind of story do you want tonight?”

“Tell me about Unicorns, Momma! The teacher read a story about Unicorns today in class, but she got it all wrong! There were Unicorns and rainbows and…”

“Unicorns and rainbows, huh? Let’s see what we can do. All snuggly?” He nodded an enthusiastic yes as she wiped his milk mustache away.

“Once upon a time,” he immediately giggled. “Stop, silly. Do you want to hear my story or not?” He nodded again with an even wider grin on his face.

“Once upon a time there was a beautiful Unicorn Princess, who lived in the big Unicorn city. The streets of Unicorn city were dark and filled with trash, but the Unicorn Princess never noticed; her daddy owned this city. And all the other Unicorns had to pay him rent for the sleazy, run down, rat infested rooms they rented from him. If you didn’t rent from the Unicorn King, you couldn’t work in Unicorn city. Those were the rules.

“Anyway, the Unicorn Princess didn’t have to worry about any of that. She had her daddy’s Unicorn knights to take her everywhere she wanted to go. They would never let her get mixed up with the pink, working class riff-raff that lived on the streets. They protected her always, and always made sure she got what she wanted. If she wanted to get a mani-pedi, they would just go in and tell the shop keeper – who worked for her daddy – to give her what she wanted. She loved being fawned over by all the pink Unicorns. They adored her, and she liked nothing more than to be adored.

“One night she heard her daddy’s loud voice arguing from his study and, being used to going where she wanted, when she wanted, she barged right in to tell that other meanie to stop talking to her daddy that way!”

Kevin giggled as he held the covers scrunched under his little chin. “What’s next, what’s next?”

“What happened next? Well, I’ll tell you. After barging in, hands on her hips, ready to tell that meanie where to go; the princess stopped dead in her tracks – speechless. She had never seen anything so big and brown and ugly before. The meanie had big splotches of white on his gross old body, and was in the middle of saying something about the dump. Both her father and the meanie looked her way. One of her father’s knights rushed in and tried to apologize, but before he could get the words out, the big brown thing shot him!

“The Unicorn Princess screamed, and at the same time, more of her daddy’s knights came rushing in. They must have been being watched, because just at that moment, other big brown things started crashing in through the windows! Glass flew everywhere, the room started to fill with smoke, and the last thing the Unicorn Princess heard was her father pleading ‘No, no please… we had a deal’ and then everything went blank. The Unicorn Princess fell to her side and was out cold.”

“Oh no, Momma, what happened? Did a meanie get her? A meanie can’t get her yet, I’m not even sleepy,” his slurred little voice said.

Smirking to herself, Kevin’s Mother began to tell her tale once more.

“When the Unicorn Princess woke up, she was laying in a gooey puddle of muck. Confused at first, she looked around and saw garbage, piles and piles of it, she was outside – all alone. Then she looked up and saw the most magnificent thing she had ever seen. Because her daddy had never bought her one, she didn’t think they were real, but right above her was a rainbow…”

“Awwh, Ma! That’s like the story the teacher told!” Kevin pouted through thick lips and drooping eyes.

“Really, she told you a story about the Unicorn Princess and her daddy – the King, and the men who tried to hurt them?”

Little Kevin barely managed to answer, “Kinda, but I meant the rainbow part, not the stuff about the bad guys…” Poor little thing, he could barely think he was so tired. “Fimish your story, Mommmma, plweease…”

“Okay you little rascal, hush up, and I’ll finish the story.”

Yawning and rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands, little Kevin nodded as his eyes drooped closer and closer to being closed. He was fighting it tonight, she could tell, but a warm glass of milk, a snuggly bed and a good story were guaranteed to knock her little guy out for the night. Taking a deep breath, she started the end of her tale.

“Looking up, the Unicorn Princess saw the most beautiful rainbow, and the best part was that it ended right over her! Forgetting all about the goo she was laying in, the Unicorn Princess was mesmerized by the colors. Brilliant blues, shimmering golds, vibrant reds, and a purple so dark it was almost black. Then she noticed it. There, just on the edge of the red, and another just about to fall from the purple. There were droplets of the rainbow falling… and they were plunking right on her pretty blonde head! Pulling herself out of the goo, she jumped up with glee and snapped at the edge of the rainbow with her teeth, but it hurt. Ouch, she thought, rainbows don’t hurt, do they? It didn’t matter, because now that she had gotten a good bite out of it, the rainbow started to gush its colors all over her.

“Laughing and dancing around the best she could in the quickly browning gunk at her feet, she saw that there were spots of blue and gold and red and purple all over her beautiful yellow fur and white mane. Then she started to notice that it itched a little bit. As a matter of fact, it itched a lotta bit, and was starting to burn! She tried to wipe it off. But her joy was short lived, for as she scratched the newly colored spots, her fur pulled out in giant clumps with icky, sticky bits of flesh stuck to it. Trying to run away from the evil rainbow, she realized that her feet had gotten stuck in the big puddle of brown goo. All she could do was scream, and scratch, and pull the itching, burning fur from her body while the rainbow continued to pour all over her.

“Sometime later, how long she didn’t know, she managed to finally drag herself out of the brown glop. By then, she had stopped screaming and had become numb and tingly all over. There was only a tuft or two of her beautiful fur left, and her skin was almost all gone – at least the outside part was. Now she just looked like one of those ugly Unicorns before they turned all pink and fleshy. What would her father say?

“Her father! She hadn’t thought about him the whole time! Free of the muck and goo, she stumbled to the edge of the dump and could see her father’s mansion on fire. Tears stung her eyes; she knew her daddy was gone. She knew she was going to have to be just another ugly pink Unicorn with no fur. She sat down, and cried; she cried harder than she ever had before! But she wasn’t crying for her daddy, or for the other Unicorns that got hurt, she was crying because all her beautiful yellow fur was gone. She was crying because her fancy bedroom with all her shiny trinkets was burned. She was crying because now there would be no one to take her for her mani-pedi appointments…”

Hearing the first of his snores, she stopped telling the story, reached over and turned off the lamp. Just as she was about to get up and leave the room, she heard her little Kevin mumbling.

“What’s that honey? Mommy didn’t understand you.”

With a giant yawn, Kevin asked her to make sure the closet door was shut before she left.

“Of course honey. Did Mommy’s story scare you?”

Turning over, still half asleep, little Kevin answered, “No Momma, I just don’t want that skanky Unicorn Princess to get blood on the carpet if she tries to get in here.”

After shutting the closet door, she leaned over and kissed her son on the head and whispered, “That’s my boy.” With a smirk on her face, she left the room and locked him in for the night.

Back down in the living room, she sat on her husband’s lap and gave him a warm, inviting kiss. “So, did you put the kid to sleep or what?” He asked.

“Yup, he’s out cold. But he did say something odd.”

“Oh yeah, what’s that?” Her husband responded disinterestedly as he began to unbutton her blouse.

“He said his teacher told them a story about a mob Kingpin, and a spoiled little bitch who was kidnapped by a bunch of lowlifes thugs who were sick of paying to illegally dump chemicals in a landfill. She really shouldn’t be telling children about that sort of thing. I don’t think the other parents would appreciate it anymore than I do, and I think I’m gonna tell her that tomorrow.”

Distracted and not caring as he fumbled to remove her bra, he said, “Is that the story you told him?”

“Me?” playfully shoving her husband away, she grabbed her clothes and his arm as she headed for the master bedroom. “Please! I just told him a little story about a flesh eating rainbow, and toxically mutated unicorns.” Her giggling could be heard as the bedroom door shut behind them.

© Copyright 2013 Nina D’Arcangela. All Rights Reserved.