Floyd Kelly

A look of pure dread spread across Rumpelstiltskin’s face, which he immediately replaced with a slight, charming smirk. He performed his usual routine again. “Woe is me! Woe is me! Help me! Save me!” That face on the screen. The Raevin. Or, as Rumpelstiltskin preferred to call him, “Big Eyes.”

“What is this … woe is me?” the alien chirped, its translator buzzing with the flat tone with faked inflections. “You a freak?”, a burst of static, “You have chocolate chip cookies?”

Rumpelstiltskin sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the table with a sigh of impatience. “Look, pal, I’m kind of in the middle of something. Got a dog to rescue. So, if we could just skip the reunion and you could drop me off in, say, oh, I don’t know … Louisiana perhaps, that’d be great! We can do lunch later.”

“What is this … dog you speak?” Big Eyes continued, its massive, black eyes unblinking on the screen. Suddenly, an outburst, “You took my cookie!”

“Yeah, it was a great cookie too,” Rumpelstiltskin said, looking around the room as if searching for the exit. “The best recipe? The secret is a lot of nothing and a lot of baking soda and vinegar. You should try it sometime.”

“What is this … vin … vinegar?” Another alien appeared in the background of the dark screen and seemed to whisper something to Big Eyes.

The image on the screen emitted a faint glow. “You have been here before. … We know. … What did you do?”

Rumpelstiltskin looked at the screen, his arms extended, his face a mask of pure exasperation. “So, hey, can I go to my van? Tell ya what. I think I have one cookie left over. It’s under the seat.”

A new sense of urgency entered the alien’s voice. “Ooh … Give me cookie. … Go … van.”

Rumpelstiltskin grinned. “You got it, boss.” with a pointing finger and a wink.

A large, seamless door slid open to reveal his Aerostar in an adjacent, brilliantly white room. He casually walked, then broke into a whistle and a tune and danced like he’s John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, opening the door with a dramatic flourish. He gave Big Eyes a big smile before he ducked inside, grabbed the old burlap sack, and then whistled and danced his way back to the blue-tiled room.

“Okay,” he said, placing the sack on the floor. “Prepare to be amazed!”

He reached into the sack, his fingers bypassing the lottery coin and the sponge. He pulled out the Jar of Frozen Moments. Before Big Eyes could process what was happening, Rumpelstiltskin popped the lid.

“Eyes be seen, eyes be closed,” he whispered.

The hum of the viewing screen stopped. The faint silhouettes behind the glass froze mid-movement. Time, for everyone and everything but him, was on pause.

Rumpelstiltskin stood up, stretched, did a bit of yawning, and began to whistle Deja Vu while doing some knee bends, some leg stretches. He strolled out of the room oh so casually, acting as if nothing is out of the ordinary, and into the silent corridors of the ship. He’d been here before. He passed a row of long, vertical canisters, their contents frozen in time: a giant sea turtle, a confused-looking cow, a Chia Pet in full bloom, and a massive, shimmering bar of pure gold. He patted the glass on the glassy canister. “One day, you’ll be mine.” he confidently stated. “One day.”

He kept walking, dancing down the corridors, seeing the bizarre, mundane reality of alien life. In one room, a green alien was frozen mid-motion, scattering feed for a flock of perfectly normal-looking chickens. In another, a different alien was carefully adding a single chocolate chip cookie to what looked like a mountain-sized stash of them in a giant, clear vault.

He found what he was looking for: a small, unassuming terminal on the wall. He pressed a few of the radiating glyphs, navigating a menu that was now starting to become second nature to him. A small compartment slid open with a hiss, revealing a single, perfect chocolate chip cookie, sealed in a plastic baggie. He grabbed it.

He then took his sweet ol’ time. He wasn’t in any hurry whatsoever.  He walked into rooms that were just strange.  One room had a pool of purple goo and it was being sprayed onto another Big Eyes. Five levels! Up and down he went, travelling with the transport tube.  With a sense of arbitrariness, he would just punch glyphs on terminals just to see what happens, causing a siren over here, a buzzer over there and some kind of twinkle lights!  He pressed one glyph and a door slid open, inside what appeared to be a sitting room with some objects that looked like photos on simple tables and countertops. He approached, “Awww…”, he saw one that looked like a family party, another photo like a graduation maybe, another one walking a cow on a leash and then “Aah!”, snotting himself.  His face changed to disbelief and then he looked away, with a shudder and a hand palm. “I don’t even wanna know.”

He returned to his van. Took his sweet ol’ time cleaning it out, putting everything back together.  Leaving all his garbage and junk unwanted on the galactic curb. He starts the engine. He sealed the Jar of Frozen Moments, and the universe lurched back into motion with a soundless thump.

He used the Sphere of Precise Magic, with confidence, he said “Jefferson Parish, Louisiana”, and with a luminescent flash and a whopper of a universal snap, he was now in a field.  

Freedom! Yelling in the van, “I’m on my way Beebers!” The air had never smelled so good, even if it was just the dusty scent of a rural Kansas road. Another mistake. He shook his head. After the sterile, recycled atmosphere of the alien ship, the simple, honest smell of Earth felt enriching and invigorating. Rumpelstiltskin drove for hours, the stolen chocolate chip cookie in his sack of relics, Roar on the radio. He was back on track. The mission to rescue Beebers was a go! “Woohoo!” He rubbed the familiar gold button on his blazer.

After a while, the familiar, mundane pressure began to build. He pulled the Aerostar over to the side of the empty road, the engine ticking in the vast silence. He got out, leaving the door partially open for a bit of privacy, and went to take a whiz while admiring the endless, flat landscape.

That’s when he felt it. A low, deep rumble, not from a passing truck, but from the ground itself. He zipped up. “Oh no. What now? … I just got here! … Dangit!”, rolling his eyes. 

Tiny bits of dirt and small rocks began to bounce on the asphalt. The rumble grew, and he watched in dawning horror as the landscape ahead of him began to… change.

The flat plains seemed to cave in on themselves, the earth buckling in on itself. In the far distance, the low hills looked to crumble, dissolving into dust. The sky, a moment ago a perfect, pale blue, began to billow with cumulus clouds into shades of dark red, streaked with veins of dark, puffs of oily smoke.

He hurried back into the van, his heart running wildly. This wasn’t a prank. This wasn’t his magic. This was something else. Something bigger.

The world outside the windshield dissolved. The ground, the sky, the horizon—it all collapsed into a giant, swirling vortex of smoke, ash, and billowing, angry clouds. The van was no longer on a road; it was falling, tumbling end over end through the walls of the storm. He was weightless, thankful for the seatbelt, but still tossed about in his seat, the burlap sack and the bobbleheads flying around the cabin in a chaotic dance. Thank goodness the windows were closed.

Then, through the swirling chaos, a face began to form. It was massive, the size of a mountain range, made entirely of the roiling clouds. It was a gnarled, ancient face, with horns that swept back into the smoke and eyes that burned like distant, fiery stars. It was a living storm, and it turned its gaze directly on his tumbling van.

Just as suddenly as the fall began, it ended. The van landed with a bone-jarring thump on a surface of black, cracked rock. Moments past. Regained his composure. He then realized he was in a vast, desolate landscape, lit by the fires burning on the horizon and the glow of the terrible, cloudy face before him afar. Terrified, he stayed in the van, his hands gripping the steering wheel.

The face in the sky continued to stare at him, its cloudy features shifting, its expression unreadable. Then, the ground began to vibrate, and a low, impossibly deep voice echoed from the clouds, a sound that was both heard and felt in his bones.

“Rumpelstiltskin?”

“Aah!” Rumpelstiltskin screamed!

Moments went by, nothing happened. Then, again, the face said “Rumplestiltskin?”.

Rumplestiltskin slowly and nervously rolled down the window a bit and yelled “Yeah. … Who are you?”

A few seconds later the face said “I am Rumpelstiltskin you moron.”

“No, you’re not!” Rumpelstiltskin yelled back. 

“Yes, I am,” the voice boomed. 

“No, you’re not!” 

“YES, I AM!” the voice roared, the clouds churning with frustration.

“Aah! … Woe is me! Woe is me!” he whisper-yelled, immediately throwing open the van door and collapsing to the cracked, black rock. He curled into a tight ball, his fuzzy blazer bunching around him, and began to tremble violently, then he extended his arms, flailing about in slow motion, like he is constantly falling. “Help! Help me! It’s the extended warranty! It’s expiring! Help! Help! The robocalls… they’re 24/7! Save me! Save me!”

For a full minute, he continued his plea. The giant, cloudy face just stared, its expression unchanging.

Then, the deep, booming voice echoed again, this time laced with a profound, cosmic weariness.

“Oh, stop it, you big faker.”

Rumpelstiltskin immediately stopped trembling. He uncurled, dusted off his blazer, and hauled himself to his feet as if out of breath. He beamed a dazzling, tear-streaked face of awe at the face in the clouds. “Oh, thank you! Thank you!” he yelled, his voice full of fake gratitude. “You saved me! The vortex of predatory telemarketing… It was horrifying! Oh, bless your heart.”

The cloudy face did not seem amused. “What did you do?” the voice boomed.

Rumpelstiltskin just shrugged, his charming smirk returning. “What do you mean?”

“You are trapped!”, the face declared, the clouds swirling with a note of finality. “You have nowhere to go.”

“Hey buddy,” Rumpelstiltskin called back, his voice full of confidence. “In my line of work, there’s always a way out.”

The cloudy eyes seemed to widen. “You have been here before.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s smirk widened into a genuine grin. “Ooh, you’re quick.”

He walked to the edge of a cliff near the van, overlooking a vast moonscape of fire and smoke, the sounds of distant volcanos echoing on the hot wind. The face swirled before him, the dust and ash almost too much to bear.

“You have a gold nugget,” the face boomed. “I want it.”

“Okay,” Rumpelstiltskin said with a casual, no-biggie shrug.

“Give me the gold nugget,” the face commanded, “and I will open the portal and you may go wherever you wish.”

“Deal,” Rumpelstiltskin agreed instantly. He reached into his blazer pocket, but he didn’t pull out the nugget. He pulled out the Cotton Swab Tip of Altered Words. As the face began to speak its final command, Rumpelstiltskin held the cotton swab up into the wind as if to command the impossible, with a flick and a cast, he said, “Perplexity!”, the incantation to change words.

The face boomed, intending to say, “Now give me the gold nugget, you fool, and go to your final doom!” But the words twisted in the air, shimmering and rearranging themselves before they reached Rumpelstiltskin’s ears.

What came out was: “You look so handsome today, dude. Go, get out of here, go get a shower.” The face leaning in, “You smell funky. Maybe lay off the cookies, get a haircut?”

A shimmering portal, crackling with golden energy, tore open in the space near the van. Rumpelstiltskin didn’t hesitate. He gave the giant, confused-looking cloud-face a pleasant wave, sprinted back to his van, and peeled out, driving straight through the portal. Just as his van was about to enter the portal, he leaned out the window and yelled, “I’m on my way Beebers!”, with a few giggles, “Haha! So long! … You big loser!

The face then came to roaring life with “WHAT DID YOU DO!?”, an outburst of anger followed by a huge deep roar as the portal closed behind him.