GOLDILOCKS (The True Story)
by KC
Goldilocks was laying on the couch in her living room, and was she bored! She’d watched TV for hours, played all her albums, leafed thru several magazines and books, but to no avail. Nothing would satisfy her. Suddenly a voice in her head began talking. “To the woods, Goldilocks, go out into the woods! Who knows what’s out there? It might be fun!”
Tho Goldilocks had never heard a voice in her head before, she didn’t get excited about it. That’s how bored she was. But the idea of going to the woods did sound vaguely interesting, so she decided to make the effort.
She stood up and went to the refrigerator to get something to eat, so she wouldn’t get hungry while in the woods. She’d spent all her money three days earlier at a sale downtown, and now only had 23¢ until she got paid on Friday.
When she opened the refrigerator door, all she found was a half bottle of Pepsi that had gone flat, and the remains of the spaghetti that she’d made the night before. Since that was all there was, Goldilocks decided it would just have to do.
As the spaghetti was reheating on the stove, she pored the flat Pepsi into her Apollo Six glass that she’d gotten free at McDonalds several years earlier.
How fondly she remembered the time. Bill Buckingham had worked behind the counter there, and Goldilocks had had a mad crush on him. The Apollo Six glasses had been quite popular, and the supply had run out quickly. But Bill had saved the last one for Goldilocks - his way of showing that he cared.
But soon after that, Bill had been promoted to manager at a McDonalds way across town. The promotion had gone to his head, and he considered his new status to be above Goldilocks, who knew too much of his past. He’d written her a goodbye letter, including five dollars worth of McDonalds gift certificates, but strongly suggested that she not use them at the McDonalds where he was now working. Of course Goldilocks had been crushed by this, but felt that deep down inside, Bill was still the Bill Buckingham who had saved the Apollo Six glass for her.
That had been over 15 years ago. Goldilocks had never seen Bill again, but refused to believe the rumors that he was now in California, in a cult that believed in staring at unused channels on TV, until enlightenment was achieved. Somehow Goldilocks couldn’t combine that with the way he had flipped hamburgers at McDonalds. There was something about the flick of the wrist that had been more conservative.
Goldilocks snapped out of her reverie about Bill Buckingham, when she realized that the spaghetti was burning on the stove. As much as she tried, there was no way to convince herself to eat the burnt spaghetti, and so she looked in the cupboard. There were some graham crackers which she decided would go well with the flat Pepsi.
After finally finishing her meal, Goldilocks got up to go to the woods. She went to her door and stepped outside.
The woods were breathtakingly beautiful. She ran thru the trees as if in a trance. Suddenly she felt herself drawn to a cottage nearby. Three bears were standing by a fire in front of the cottage. They were changing the name Goldilocks over and over. while staring at her.
Goldilocks was overcome with the feeling that she had come home at last. That she would be bored no more, and ran toward the bears with open arms.
The moment she touched them, she felt her body vibrating, and realized she was turning into a bear - her true form.
The memories of her existence as a bear came back to her. Also the memory of the shame she had brought on her family, when she had “gone human”, after she had caught a glimpse of Bill Buckingham walking thru the woods, and devoting all her energies to attaining human consciousness.
Now she had learned her lesson, and sadly thought about the years of bearhood she had given up.
That evening, as she sat at the kitchen table, after eating dinner with her bear family, she wrote a letter to the landlord of the apartment she had left earlier that day, and also one to her employer . In both letters, she made up a story about porridge, beds and bears, and said that she would not be coming back, but would be staying with the bears.
Her letters were accepted as fact by the humans, and were the subject of gossip for quite awhile. News of this got to Bill Buckingham in California. He merely resumed staring at an unused channel on TV.
the end
