Mixed Up: A Short Story Anthology

What's Your Poison?

(An absurd, plotless crossover between the original Snow White and The Big Lebowski, in which Snow White stays asleep until the year 1998. Just have fun with it.)

Snow White didn't trust the woman in front of her. Dressed in brown rags and standing with her spine as curved as the cane she held, she looked utterly harmless. The blood-red apple cupped in her hands shone as though it were made of wax, as did the others in her weathered basket. Grey hair hung in pathetic wisps from her head, and when she spoke, it was with many a rasp and a squeak.

Still, there was something terribly disconcerting in her face. Maybe it was the way her smile pulled her cracked lips too far over her crooked teeth, or the almost desperate glint in her eyes as she watched Snow White weigh her decision.

"I'm not meant to accept anything from strangers," Snow White said slowly, remembering the last few times she'd accepted a gift from a peasant woman.

"What are you afraid of? Poison?" the woman laughed. "Here, I'll eat some, too, to prove to you that there is no poison in my apples." She split the apple into two halves and handed the red piece to Snow White. The white half she took for herself and bit into with a smile.

Snow White relaxed a bit and raised the apple to her lips. It crunched as she bit into it, and in that moment, a cackle escaped the old woman's throat. She straightened her back and stood towering over Snow White, staring at her with a look of pure hatred.

The young girl stared up in horror as the woman before her suddenly became recognizable as the envious Queen. Snow White gasped for air and fell to the ground, dead.

The Queen laughed again, clapping her hands together and feeling very pleased with herself. Without a second glance, she left the tiny house and set out back to her castle.

That night, when the seven dwarves—Tyrion, Cheerio, Mini-Me, Gimli, Patrick, Munchkin, and Napoleon—returned home, they found Snow White lying on the floor.

"Poor child!" cried Gimli.

Tyrion picked up the apple on the floor. "This is the work of the Queen," he declared.

"What a wicked woman!" lamented Munchkin. "To do such a thing to her own stepdaughter..."

The dwarves could not bear to bury Snow White underground. They hated the idea of her fair face hidden beneath six feet of dirt and forever hidden from the warmth of the sun, so they built her a coffin of glass and laid her in a meadow. For a long, long time, she remained there—never moving, never fading in her beauty.

One day, a prince happened upon Snow White.

"Who is this beauty?" he asked Napoleon, who had been tasked with guarding the girl for the day.

Napoleon only cocked his brow at the prince.

"She is so fair!" exclaimed the prince. "I must have her as my princess! Please, I can pay you handsomely for her."

"Have her?" Napoleon said gruffly. "You may not have her. She is no object, Prince."

"I can make you lords, knights—anything you wish! I shall treat her fairly," he begged. "I should never dream of harming such a beautiful girl!"

Napoleon shook his head. "We would not dare entrust our precious friend into the hands of a stranger. Besides, while there is life yet in her cheeks and her face, there is none in her heart. She has been poisoned, and lies here in eternal rest. Surely you do not want a dead princess?"

"Alas!" cried the prince. He accepted the dwarf's refusal and returned home, reluctantly leaving Snow White in the meadow.

So it was there that she remained, guarded vigilantly by her seven dwarf friends until their deaths. The prince became king, and married a girl named Aurora (whom he'd had much more success in waking from a deathlike slumber). The Earth spun around the Sun, forests burned, cities rose and fell, babies were born, revolutions raged, and lives were lived.