Sweet delight

#ReedsyHoliday

It was a beautiful evening right before Christmas. The streets were bustling with activity, shopkeepers shouting or inviting people in, food stalls popping up out of nowhere, and tons of creatures walking around, looking for something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Or perhaps just something to waste their time on.

Andy was watching the goblins inhale deep mouthfuls of heavenly cinnamon, while the fairies were feasting on the saffron buns like Hannibal the cannibal. It was quite fascinating, actually, to see the fairies. He would’ve never known they were so ferocious if he hadn’t seen it up close. They were tearing into the saffron buns as if it was delicious meat. Their teeth seemed quite sharp, and Andy took a step backwards as he realized that he had gotten a little bit too close to feel secure. He was quite sure they weren’t really dangerous, were they? But they were omnivores, and as such, one could never be too careful.

After watching both the fairies and the goblins, who now seemed high as a kite, Andy felt the need to eat something himself. The hole in his stomach needed to be filled, like right now, or he would be a bit cranky. It was really hard to find enough food to fill the hole up. Like, really hard. The hole was the size of a football, and he didn’t like the airy feeling of the wind blowing through his stomach. It was freezing outside, for Christ sake! 

Something tugged at his sleeve, and he looked down to find one of the stoned goblins reaching for his hand. There was a snicker of evil laughter behind him, and he realized that he, once again, was about to be pranked by someone as big as a medium sized kindergarten motherfucker. He had just about had enough.

“Can I, can I, can I ask you a question?” the goblin asked. He was so cross-eyed he could see the back of his own skull. A bit disturbing, but Andy had seen worse. He sighed.

“Sure, what do you want?”

The goblin seemed to have some trouble articulating his next phrase, as he tried, and failed, to look back at his friends behind Andy. They were of no support to the poor bastard. They were lying on the ground, laughing and rolling in the cat weed, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they had tricked one of their own to ask some silly question to a hungry ghost. 

The goblin in front of him seemed to have gotten stuck. He just stood there, and Andy took the chance, and started disappearing into thin air. Sometimes it could be handy to be a ghost. If those around weren't paying attention, he could just sneak away, and they would never know where he went. 

On the other hand, it was sometimes hard as well, like right now, when he got caught mid shift by a stray cat looking at him. It was a nice cat, but he couldn’t really understand why the cat was wearing a lampshade around its neck. It was glowing. Was it battery powered? Or powered by magic? Andy bent down, reaching for the cat, when he heard a noise behind him. He closed his eyes and sighed again. Those damn goblins. He didn’t have the patience today, he was too hungry, too tired, too fed up to deal with them. 

“Here, kitty kitty kitty, come here, sweet little precious one.” What in the oblivion? What was that? He heard the screechy voice again. Rude. Sounding like a failed car alarm. 

It. 

Was. 

Horrible. 

Please don’t ever say anything ever again, please, he begged. If he would’ve been religious he would’ve believed in his own prayers, but he wasn’t. Nope. Instead he was surrounded by low intelligence, stoned goblins, flesh eating fairies and crazy cat ladies who put lamp shades around their cats. It really was a crazy world. He didn’t like it.

The awful lady voice continued, and the cat looked desperately at him. It was like it was begging him to kill it. Just kill it and be over with it.

“I hear you, dude,” Andy said to the cat. “I would be thinking the same thing if I was stuck with that daughter of a bitch. She seems a little woo woo, if you know what I mean.” 

The cat was nodding in agreement. It was one of the smart creatures here. The crazy cat lady… not so much. She still hadn’t figured out that Andy was blocking the view, and was trying to find the cat behind a garbage bin. She wasn’t very successful. But she did succeed in finding half a carrot. She seemed to enjoy it. It wasn’t too shabby, he supposed, as he could see her eating it with great pleasure. 

“Is she stalking you?” Andy realized. He was maybe a little bit shocked. Luckily, it wasn’t every day he saw crazy cat ladies out on the streets. They could easily rank as the most dangerous creatures here, as they had no sense of neither personal space nor personal hygiene. It was nasty, really. Like they had their own aura filled with sauerkraut and flies.

He made his decision in a split second. His dinner could wait, the desperate cat could not. He scooped it up, and carefully put it in his stomach hole. 

“Well, you fit perfectly. If I didn’t know any better, I would have presumed we were meant to meet today.” The cat met his eyes gleefully. “Yeah, I don’t think so either, but it sounded nice.”

As Andy straightened, the cat lady found her focus and directed it at him as soon as she saw the cat in the hole. She screamed, took one of her shoes off, and started swinging it like a mad woman. 

Andy wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t stay just to get beaten by a smelly old lady, so he cast the teleportation spell, imploded with an inaudible pff

• reached out to the nearest connection point - 
• fell through and -

was immediately hit with something hard and sticky. He looked down. There was a piece of candy on his left shoulder. Why was there candy? And who threw it?

“Aha!” a shout snapped his attention in place, and Andy saw a magician sitting by a fireplace. The logs were burning bright, quite near the magician’s shoe, but he didn’t seem to notice. Andy couldn’t, at first, understand what the magician was doing. He smelled something, then licked it. Smelled it again, frowned, and then threw it. 

“What in the what?!” Andy was dumbstruck. “Why did you throw - is this candy? Why are you throwing candy at me? Ouch! And why in the world are you - are you licking it?? That is just…disgusting. Ouch! Stop it!”

The magician had a really good throw, god dammit. The candy hit Andy like crazy, and he tried to avoid it, but didn’t succeed. The cat fell out of the stomach hole, wheezing. 

“My god, are you okay? Ouch! Stop! Would you mind? I’m - ouch! Fuck it! Stop throwing things at - never mind, never mind, it’s cool. Are you okay, cat?”

Andy was a bit concerned. Had the teleportation and the candy throwing been too much for the poor cat? It lay on its side on the ground, sounding like it had trouble breathing, and was shaking uncontrollable. He looked closer and realized.

“Are you laughing?” Yes, the cat was. It was laughing so hard it was barely able to breath. “You motherfucker. Here I try to save you from old smelly melly, and you just laugh at me while some weird magician is throwing licked candy at me? It’s licked! And it’s sticky! Stop laughing and - god damn it! Stop throwing your nasty candy at me!” Andy shot a furious glance at the magician, when he was interrupted by a witch in front of him. No. Nononono, this was just bad luck. Not a witch. They had the habit of dragging their long noses in other peoples’ business, and they weren’t that fond of ghosts. One might say that they had some sort of beef towards each other. Maybe because they liked old haunted houses, but without the haunting. Or maybe they were just mean, nosy bastards. Who could tell?

“Eat this,” the witch demanded with a stern voice. Andy looked at the witch’s hand. The nails were long, but at least they were clean. And they smelled of soap. So, nice, he guessed. Better than the weird, candylicking magician or the crazy unhygienic cat lady. Between two of the nails a piece of candy dangled. He looked at the witch again, hesitantly, but she was adamant.

“Eat it!”

Andy did, in fact, eat it. He knew what would happen otherwise. No more haunting for him, and he kind of liked the haunting part of being a ghost. It was always nice to scare the shit of some bratty teenager. 

The candy was a disappointment. It actually didn’t taste anything at all, but he didn’t know how he would be able to tell the witch that. It could be dangerous. He frowned, but before he could make a decision, the witch gave him another piece of candy.

“Now eat this.”

My god! Andy almost fell to the ground. It was heaven! Full of flavours, juicy but not squishy, just a perfect crunch over the most perfect sweetness he had ever tasted.

“It’s amazing! What is it?” Andy tried to make sense to the witch, but he had a feeling he was just making sounds instead of actually saying something. Another sound from the cat. Damn cat, it was laughing again, so hard it couldn’t stand. Andy frowned at it, but something seemed a bit off.

“Wait, are you having a seizure?” The cat sounded awful. Andy was once again concerned, wondering if there actually was something really wrong with the cat, when it came a bit closer on stiff legs, harumphing and hurling before something fell out of its mouth. Andy was horrified.

“Did you just puke at my shoe? It’s pleather! Pleather! Do you know how hard it is to find really good pleather around here? The leprechauns are always whisking away the best pieces, and you just throw your puke at it?! That’s it, I am so done.” Andy couldn’t believe his bad luck. What had he done wrong? His favourite shoes, ruined! As he watched, the slimy hairball fell to the ground with a little splash. He flinched.

“This is just wrong. And what were you giving me?” The last thing was directed to the witch. Andy really wanted some more delicious candy. 

The witch nodded at the magician.

“Magician makes nasty candy good. Licky licky, anything gets tasty. Licks candy, candy good. Licks popsicle, popsicle good, even in cold weather.”

“So you mean I have eaten the candy from the magician?” Andy asked, frowning. The witch nodded.

“I mean, like the ones he is licking right now? Am I right?” The witch confirmed with another nod.

“You’re not much of a talker, are you? Well, that’s okay. I can always talk to myself, I wouldn’t be the craziest one here anyways,” Andy continued. He decided to just give up. The candy was too good to cancel just because of some magic tongue-licking magician. He went to the fire, sat himself down next to the magician and sighed. 

It had been one of those days, he supposed. Everything seemed to be a bit off, but actually, in the end, it was alright. He looked at the cat who was manhandled by the witch. It didn’t seem to mind, and the witch seemed happy. The magician kept licking the candy and handing it to him, and he graciously accepted.

For the first time that evening he was warm, safe, and the hole in his stomach was shrinking with every piece of candy. 

Maybe this world was a crazy world, but it was his world. Everyone was weird, but then again, so was he. Relaxed, at ease, and with the colourful fireworks above him, he came to a conclusion. It was indeed a weird world, but he was looking forward to spending Christmas with his new found friends.