Once upon a sidewalk, there lay a talking piece of wood.
"Hello?" said the wood.
No answer. The street was empty.
"Hello? Anyone there?"
Still no answer. The night passed in silence, and the morning arrived.
"I'm a piece of wood, and it's morning," the wood sighed. "If I didn't have supreme taste, I'd make a dirty joke now."
Still no answer.
Finally, a poor toymaker came along the way, whistling a merry tune. Why exactly he was whistling a merry tune, he did not know—his bills were long past due, the roof of his little house was leaking, and nobody wanted to buy silly wooden toys anymore—but whistling merrily is what toymakers do. It is like princes kissing awake princesses, or wicked stepmothers buying every latest designer mirror.
"Hey, you!"
Stopping in his tracks, the poor toymaker glanced around. Had someone spoken to him?
"Yes, I'm talking to you, goofball! Finally someone came this way! You have no idea how long I've been lying around here. I feel quite stiff."
"Um...pardon?" The toymaker looked around again, took a step forward—and stumbled.
"Down here, blockhead!"
Supporting himself against the wall of the closest house, the toymaker glanced down.
"Err...am I talking to a piece of wood?"
"Finally, he got it! Give the boy a prize!"
"I am talking to a piece of wood. I am talking to a piece of wood."
"Not just any wood, either! None of that cheap pine stuff. Oh no, I am premium oak."
"Hello, Premium Oak."
"That's not my name! It's just what I am."
"Oh. Well, what is your name, then?"
"I don't have one yet, stupid. I'm a piece of wood."
"Ah...yes. Of course."
"But I think I should have a name," the piece of wood mused. "I should be something better than just a piece of wood. After all, we should all work to improve ourselves. And I think I could really make something of myself."
"You could?"
"Yes, of course. With your help."
"Me?"
"Well you don't expect me to carve myself, now, don't you?"
"N-no, of course not."
"Well then, that's settled. Take me to your workshop immediately and make something interesting of me. I was thinking the hilt of a magical sword, or a club for a homicidal giant, or—"
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"—a puppet?"
"Yes!" The poor toymaker beamed. "I have no children, you see. This way I can teach you all you need to know about the world and toy-making and people and toy-making, and you can go to school and make friends and maybe, if you are good and kind and well-behaved, you might even become a real boy one day."
The puppet covered its face with its freshly-carved hands.
"Please, someone shoot me now!"
"I could," the toymaker offered, "but I'm afraid it won't do any good. You don't have a heart. The bullet would just pass through and only leave a hole for me to fix."
"I hate it when other people have a point."
"Cheer up!" With a dull thud, the toymaker clapped the puppet on the shoulder. "Things could be worse!"
"How?"
"Well, you could have a nose that magically grows longer every time you tell a lie."
"Glad you reminded me," said the fairy from behind them, and the poor toymaker nearly became a poor deceased toymaker who died from heart failure.
"Gah!"
"No," the fairy corrected. "My name isn't Gah, it's Glitterdingle." Then she turned to the puppet. He gazed up at the fairy in wonder. She was a beautiful lady with golden hair, her dress shining in colors of gold and royal blue. Never in his thirty-seven-minute-long life had he seen anything as beautiful as her. Had she come to rescue him from the dull life of a puppet and turn him into a sword hilt or an ogre's club?
"Hello, my little darling." The fairy smiled a sickly-sweet smile. "I am the fairy Glitterdingle. It is I who gave you the ability to speak and put you in the toymaker's path, so he would make you into a puppet."
The puppet's eyes narrowed into slits.
"You did, did you?"
"Oh yes. And you are probably really, really grateful, aren't you? Would you like to thank me for my magnificent magical gift?"
"Go stick your wand where the sun doesn't shine, you old hag!"
That was not exactly the kind of thanks the fairy was used to.
"Careful, now." She forced another smile onto her face. "If you continue to talk like that, I might get the impression that you don't like being a puppet."
The puppet raised its chin. "I definitely don't like having my strings pulled by anyone!"
The fairy's eyes glittered dangerously. "Do you at least want to learn how to be good and kind and well-behaved so you can one day become a real boy? Wouldn't that be wonderful?"
She raised her wand threateningly.
"Yikes! Of course not." The puppet backed away. "I come from a venerable old oak that stands in a magic forest which is several thousand years old. Why would I want to spend time around snot-nosed little human brats who don't think about anything except sweets, games, and putting frogs in their teachers' desk drawers? Piss off, and take your fairy dust with you!"
The fairy took a step closer. "I'm a good fairy you know. I help people make something of their miserable little lives. I was going to offer you the chance of becoming a real live person. But now I think I'm just going to curse you instead."
The puppet straightened to its full height of three feet six inches. "Do your worst!"
The fairy lifted her wand high, high up into the air. "From this moment forward, you shall be known as Pinocchio!"
"Ouch! That's a pretty bad curse."
"I haven't even started cursing you! That's just your name."
"Oh. Sorry. Do go on."
"You shall be known as Pinocchio, and whenever you tell an untruth, no matter how slight it might be, people shall see it right in your face."
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
"What? That's all? I'll be an intense blusher?"
The fairy smirked. "It'll be a little more noticeable than that."
Pinocchio narrowed his eyes. "Let's see... You are a kind, wonderful and good fairy."
Instantly, he felt an itching on the tip of his nose, and a moment later, the tip leapt forward, shooting across the room like a spear thrown by a ballista. The fairy yelped and managed to jump out of the way just in time to not get perforated. From a safe distance, she glared at Pinocchio.
"That wasn't nice!"
"Ditto, glitterface."
"You...you...!"
"Yes?" he inquired while picking up a saw from the nearest worktable and starting to saw his nose off at an appropriate length.
"You are never going to be a real boy!"
"Really? Argh! The agony. I can hardly bear it." With a snap, the overlong nose gave way and tumbled to the floor. Pinocchio regarded it with interest. "Hm. I must say, I find your curse quite interesting. Do you think you could do the same thing for another part of me, you know, a little lower...?"
"Get stuffed, you little pervert," said the fairy and vanished in a puff of fairy dust.
Sighing, Pinocchio slipped off the worktable. "Quite unreasonable, those fairies." He knocked on top of the table under which the poor toymaker was hiding. "You can come out now."
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Pinocchio adjusted quickly to life as a puppet. As it turned out, having two feet and two hands was quite interesting, and as soon as he had cut his puppet strings, he felt quite comfortable in his new form. Soon, he started taking stock of his environment and planning for the future. It didn't take him long to discover that the poor toymaker at whose house he lived was not a very sound businessman.
"So let me reiterate," he said slowly, just in case he hadn't understood correctly. "You buy wood, which is an expensive raw material because people use it for all kinds of things, and then you take this wood, and with a lot of work turn it into cheap wooden toys which practically nobody wants to buy anymore."
"Yes, exactly!" The poor toymaker beamed. "That's it."
"All right, let me just ask one thing—why?"
"Why what?"
"Why do you do it?"
"Well, because I'm a poor toymaker. That's what poor toymakers do. We make toys nobody wants to buy. Isn't that wonderful?"
"Welll..." Pinocchio cleared his throat, which was quite impressive considering his throat was a solid block of wood. "It might be even more wonderful if you could make a profit."
"But then I wouldn't be a poor toymaker anymore!" The old man sounded almost horrified. "I'd be wealthy or, God forbid, rich!"
"My friend?"
"Yes?"
"I think you need a new business strategy."
And so, Pinocchio created a new business plan for his friend the toymaker. He was busy all night. The next morning, when the first passers-by walked past the house, the sign that proclaimed "The Poor Toymaker's Toyshop—Stupid Toys for Little Money" had disappeared, and in its place hung a shiny new sign proclaiming "Pinocchio & Co—Quality Timber of All Kinds."
Shortly later, a man came walking into the shop.
"Hello, I—"
He stopped when he saw who was sitting behind the counter.
"Yes?" Pinocchio inquired.
"Um...I'd like to buy some...some..."
"Yes?"
"Um...pardon me, but are you a wooden puppet?"
"Yes."
"Oh."
"You were saying, Sir?"
"Oh. Right. Well, I'd like to buy some quality oak. I'm a carpenter, and one of my wealthier customers wants a walking stick made."
"Certainly, Sir. If you would be so kind as to wait a moment..."
Turning sideways, Pinocchio placed his nose onto a small workbench.
"Cinderella is a blood-sucking, bisexual vampire vixen," he yelled loud enough to shake the rafters.
Instantly, his nose shot forward about thirty-five inches.
"How long would you like your walking-stick to be, Sir?" Pinocchio inquired.
"Err...forty inches, please."
"Cinderella is a blood-sucking, bisexual vampire-werewolf hybrid with two heads," Pinocchio proclaimed cheerfully, and his nose extended another five inches.
"Ready!" he called.
The poor toymaker bustled in from the back room, carrying a handsaw. Quickly, he started sawing, and only moments later, Pinocchio righted himself and handed the severed nose to the carpenter. "Here you go, Sir. That's $9.99. Anything else?"
"Well, err...another one, for a spare?"
"Certainly." Again, Pinocchio placed his nose on the workbench. Tapping his chin, he considered for a moment. "Hm... Mermaids are allergic to water and love to sunbathe in the Dragonfire Desert!"
Instantly, his nose shot forward thirty inches.
"And the seaweed in their hair is very attractive."
Another ten inches.
"Saw, please!"
The poor toymaker was already at it, and a few moments later, the second length of wood landed on the counter in front of the dazed carpenter.
"Did you want anything else?"
"I, um...err...I need a bigger piece...mahogany, for a cupboard. But I suppose you can't..."
"Oh, we certainly can, Sir. The customer is king, and my nose is versatile. Just wait a moment, please."
Tearing of the remnant of nose still sticking to his face, Pinocchio lifted up a huge conk of mahogany and screed it in place.
"Now, stand back, please..." He took a deep breath. "Glass slippers are comfortable, fashionable footwear."
Instantly, the nose exploded, growing so fast it nearly rammed into the carpenter's skull. Stumbling back, the man managed to duck just in time before it sailed over his head, still expanding."
"Is that enough?" came Pinocchio's rather nasal voice from somewhere beyond the counter.
"Oh yes! Yes, thank you so much!"
There was the crack of breaking wood, and a clatter, as if from a puppet falling from a rather high place.
"Ouch! Well, as I said, the customer is king. We are so happy to have been of service. That would be $49.99, please. Do visit us again if you have any further needs."
The carpenter grabbed his wood and fled the shop.
"That went rather well, don't you think?" Pinocchio asked the toymaker.
In spite of its unusual business practices, business at Pinocchio & Co was soon booming. No one was able to provide wood of such good quality and quantity so fast. Soon, Pinocchio began experimenting with various kind of lies, and by modifying their intensity from low—"The sky is green and the grass is blue."—to incredibly high—"I am an honest businessman and always pay my taxes."—he was able to vary the width, height, and depth of the timber he and his nose produced. He even managed, by careful variation of the liar-paradox, to produce more complex shapes.
"This sentence is a lie!" he proclaimed, grinning broadly.
Immediately, his nose curved upward, tied itself into a knot and shuddered, before coming to a stop.
"All puppets are liars," he added cheerfully.
The nose shuddered, groaned, and then slowly started to twist itself into the form of a little puppet.
"How..." the poor toymaker whispered.
"Easy. If I'm speaking the truth when saying that all puppets are liars, that means that I am a liar, and thus I must be lying when I say all puppets are liars. Unable to bear the paradox, the universe attempts to form a new puppet to account for the impossibility."
"Huh?"
"Don't worry." Pinocchio patted the poor toymaker on the head. "I didn't understand it either until I read up on philosophy. Look up Epimenides of Knossos, if I may make a suggestion. He has some quite interesting thoughts on the subject."
"Err...can I just stay in charge of sawing off your nose instead?"
"Certainly, if you prefer."
Tearing the puppet off the end of his nose, Pinocchio regarded it thoughtfully. "With a little work, we should be able to start producing chairs, tables and other household items. We could start our own furniture line. What do you think?"
"I think I need to lie down and drink a hot cup of tea."
"You do that. I'll continue experimenting."
And thus, Pinocchio's business flourished. Soon, he had put every other lumber company in the enchanted kingdom out of business, and even started exporting into other parts of Fairyland. He started screwing additional noses to his head to keep up with demand, and his business expanded further, until he was the undisputed lumber king of the enchanted kingdom. He was just relaxing at the pool of his private mansion, sipping a cool drink and calculating how many billions he would make this year, when a cricket landed in his ear.
"Hello," it chirped. "I'm your conscience, and—"
"Oh, shut up, will you?" he said and flicked the cricket away with a finger, sending it flying into the nearest trash can.
And he lived happily and richly ever after.
And the moral of the story is that there is no moral. But the fact that the moral of the story is that there is no moral means that there is, after all, a moral, which means that the moral of the story is that there is a moral which is that there is no moral that can moralistically moralize morality in order to...
Okay.
Short version: Paradoxes are bloody complex!
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My dear Lords, Ladies, and Blocks of Wood,
As most of you will probably have guessed, this tale is based on The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. What some of you might not know is that my story is actually quite a bit closer to the original in some respects than the well-known Disney version. The fact that Pinocchio started out as a talking piece of wood, for instance, is taken from the original. The story actually starts with the words "Once upon a time there was a piece of wood." Also, the talking cricket isn't treated very gently. Although it isn't flicked into a trash can, like in my story, Pinocchio does kill the little know-it-all in chapter four (of thirty-six chapters).
But there's definitely an element of the story that is quite a bit different from Collodi's original version: the end. For while in my story, "Pinocchio & Co", our little wooden friend obtains his well-deserved happily-&-richly-ever-after, in Collodi's original tale, poor old Pinocchio ends up being killed off for the terrible crime of being a naughty little puppet. And not merely killed in some random way, but in fact hanged by the neck - a somewhat odd method of execution for a wooden puppet, whose neck probably would also be wooden and thus somewhat difficult to break. In any case, my point is that in the original version, Pinocchio was most definitely not magically transformed into a human boy in order to to live happily ever after along with the poor old toymaker, as was the case in the famous Disney movie. Instead, the ending of the story is barely recognizable compared to the famous movie version. In the original draft of Collodi's book, "Pinocchio" was most likely meant to be a moral tale to teach little boys "This is what happens if you're naughty! You will end up as a wooden puppet and will be hanged by the neck until you are very, very dead." The author only altered this decidedly grim ending into a more happy one after his publisher asked for it, most likely believing it would sell better that way, or at least scar fewer children for life ;-)
Yours Truly
Sir Rob
Manufacturer of high-quality wood items