The Careful Curse

The Careful Curse

In a town of the Californian Central Valley located at the base of a dense forest system, there lived a young man named Jake. Jake was a kind and honest person, but he had a curse placed upon him right before his twentieth birthday that changed his life--twice.

It so happened Jake liked to go fishing at a lake up in the forest. One day, when he was walking towards the small fishing boat he had stashed under a pile of branches, he saw an old woman gathering firewood. A donkey was tied to a tree near her, its back heaped with bound-up firewood.

“Young man, would you be good enough to carry some wood for me?” asked the old woman, who was really a witch.

Jake looked at all the firewood tied to the donkey and then at the heap the old woman had collected on the ground.

“It seems to me you have sufficient firewood already tied to your donkey,” he said. “I don’t think you need me to carry wood. What’s more, I do not agree with burning firewood. I believe in clean energy. Sorry, but no.”

The witch scowled. “You have judged me before knowing my circumstances, which might be none of your business,” she said. “Whatever happened to courtesy to the elderly? Your response is steeped in ageism. For your presumption, I curse you to say the opposite of what you mean.”

“Thank you,” said Jake, who didn’t mean to say that at all. What he meant to say was bland enough but what he was thinking in his head might have been censured in the newspapers. Being honest meant his thought were not always kind, but he tried to ensure that his words were not cruel. He frowned as he boarded his craft boat to catch all the fish he desired.

At first, Jake tried to fight the curse and pretend it hadn’t affected him. He tried to tell the truth, but it was too powerful and he couldn't control it. He would tell his homies he loved them when he was trying to jokingly insult them the way guys are expected to do. When the words that came out were, “I love you more than I can say,” his male friends began to find him overly needy and distanced themselves. Likewise, his family, to whom he tried to express gratitude and affection, began to ignore him because all he could say were mean things. As a result, he was misunderstood and avoided by everyone in the town.

He lost his job at the local pharmacy because when people asked him to help them, he politely opened his mouth to say, “Certainly,” but the words that came out were “I would rather drink gasoline.”

Shunned and hopeless, Jake decided to leave the town and set out on a journey to find a way to break the curse. He traveled through the forest, crossing rivers and climbing mountains, avoiding the police in case he said something that would get him jailed, but asking anyone else he met if they knew a way to break a curse.

Unfortunately, what he really ended up asking them was if they would place a curse on him. Most people thought he was nuts and possibly on drugs. He became a homeless derelict whom no one could abide, not even other homeless derelicts.

One day, he met a wise old wizard dressed in an army jacket waiting for a bus. This wizard listened to his story and understood that everything Jake said was backwards. “As a veteran, Dude, I have known comrades with injuries that created speech issues. I gather you mean the opposite of what you are saying.”

Jake nodded, holding back tears.

The wizard offered Jake a cigarette, and Jake took it for later.

“You gotta find the witch who placed that curse on you and make her take it back,” said the wizard.

Eyes wide, Jake cried out something vile, making another person waiting for the bus move away from him. The wizard nodded because he knew Jake meant “Why didn’t I think of that? You/re a real pal.”

“No problem,” said the wizard, stomping out his own ciggie because the bus just then pulled up.

Relieved to have a plan rather than endlessly wandering and trying to figure out the words to say the opposite of what he meant, Jake turned his hitchhiking thumb back in the direction of the forests where he had encountered the witch. He stopped occasionally at whatever ATM he could find to pull a sum to buy food from his dwindling money supply.

He tried to not ask anyone he met if they knew of a witch who lived in the forest because the words always came out wrong. People got a strange look in their eyes and backed away or laughed nervously away as soon as he opened his mouth. Nonetheless, he finally came upon a dark cave opening deep in the forest that he felt intuitively was the witch's home as it was almost completely obscured by a mountain of firewood.

Heart pounding and his mouth dry as an unused dishcloth, Jake entered the cave that was warm and cozy without any fires burning in it at all. Inside, he found the old witch dressed in warm clothes and looking as if she were waiting for him, the way she tapped her foot and drummed her fingers. Glowing magical light and warmth was under her bubbling pot and he reflected that she clearly had not used her firewood for fires. So maybe it shouldn’t be called firewood?

She cackled when she saw Jake. “You took long enough,” said the witch.

Jake just blinked without trying to talk. What was the point? He would say the opposite of what he meant and it was all her fault. She knew that already.

“You want me to lift the curse, don’t you?”

Jake nodded because his head still moved the way he wanted it to.

The witch laughed. “I can do that, but you will have to pass my test,” she said.

The witch gave him three tasks to complete, each more difficult than the last. “And I’ll throw in meals whenever you accomplish a task, just to show that I am not as ungracious as you were last time we met.”

Jake did not say thank you but he nodded, hoping she would understand that was what he meant.

The first task was to use the mountain of firewood that was heaped in front of her cave and use it to make a tall fence with a door. The second task was to catch a fish that lived in the lake Jake had heretofore fished in. This particular fish, known for its blue hue, was known to be the fastest and most elusive fish in the forest. Jake had heard of it but he had never been able to catch it because it always avoided his hook. The final task was to make his friends and family forgive him.

“That will be the hardest task,” said the witch. “Humans don’t like to forgive.”

Jake set out to complete the tasks, determined to break the curse. First he built the fence using wood from the pile in front of the cave, surprised that the witch left meals for him and even set out a blanket for him to use at night.

“You will be warmer if you sleep in the cave,” she said, which he took as an invitation.

He spent days trying to catch the fish. When his hook finally snagged its mouth, he pulled it out of the water and realized it was probably too fast to be delicious. Wouldn’t a fast blue fish be all muscle? The fish blinked and flopped furiously. Jake did his best to get the hook out and throw the fish back in without hurting the fish. Why kill a champion? It suddenly felt too mean to contemplate. He did not want to be as mean as the witch had been when she put the curse on him.  He would try to mollify her somehow. How would she know, if he brought her cooked fish, whether it was the one she specified?

As for his friends and family, Jake decided to return home and avoid talking. The day after he arrived, he got down to fixing his parents’ fence, which had loose boards and holes that their dogs continually escaped through. Many a nice dog had disappeared due to the broken fence.

Jake used a paper and pen, writing down what he wished his family to know. (He didn’t say anything about the curse because he thought no one would believe him.) After fixing his parents’ fence, he offered by written note to repair his sister’s washing machine, which had a lopsided spin cycle that bumped and grinded. Because he had built a fence, his sister allowed him to take the washing machine apart, just to see if he could fix it without her having to spend money on a new machine. He used YouTube instructions and the remainder of his money to buy supplies. He didn’t ask his sister for any payment at all.

His family was so surprised at his peacemaking efforts that they talked about it to their friends and word got out. Because he was doing nice things and had stopped talking—and getting himself into trouble—his activity around his family’s homes brought his friends ambling around in curiosity. Instead of talking, he smiled and nodded with them, even if he didn’t speak. Whenever they asked him to talk, he shook his head and pointed at his throat, as if he had a problem there. (Didn’t he?)

Once he completed all the tasks, Jake returned to the witch's cave along with his family. He carried the fish meal his mother had cooked for him, with slower fish he had caught. The fish was laid out on a bed of saffron-flavored rice sprinkled with sautéed pine nuts that Jake had collected from the forest. His sister carried a carrot cake that she made when she read his note that they needed to help an old lady who lived in the forest. Because Jake had stopped talking, the witch was satisfied with the meal, distracted by the conversation of his family, and simply assumed that the fish was the one she had specified. She lifted the curse, glad to have new friends and a new fence.

From then on, Jake became known as a man of few words but significant actions. He got a new job at another pharmacy. In his free time, he repaired toys, machines and tools that people brought to him and repaid him for his trouble with money, friendship and admiration. Jake's journey taught him that sometimes it takes a curse to appreciate what one has lost for some time. He was happy to have his good name back.