Floyd Kelly

The golden flash faded, leaving the Aerostar parked in a vast, silent, and chilly cavern deep in subterranean rock. The headlights lighting a familiar scene. The air was still, carrying the scent of ancient stone. About thirty feet ahead, the entrance. The front door to an apartment, the sturdy-looking aluminum storm door looking a bit used. The main door had a door viewer and above that a horizontal window, but the view was obscured by a black shade pinned tightly against the glass from the inside. Lighting the footsteps, a single, incandescent bulb hung from a long cord, its filament a soft yellow, a welcoming pool of light on three stone steps.

Rumpelstiltskin killed the engine. The headlights died, plunging the cavern into darkness, but the single bulb above the entrance. The only sound was the soft, happy panting of Beebers in the passenger seat.

“Home sweet home, buddy,” Rumpelstiltskin whispered, giving Beebers some neck rubs.

He opened his door, the click of the latch unnaturally loud in the immense space. He and Beebers got out, entering the pool of light in front of the door. He opened the storm door.

Rumpelstiltskin reached into his blazer, but he didn’t pull out a key. He grabbed the Mesmerizing LED Fidget Spinner. He clicked the three buttons in a certain sequence, and the spinner came to life and changed with each press, its soft plastic glowing with LED flashing red, blue, and green lights, a code of one, two or three clicks for each plastic translucent button. He prepared the fidget spinner with the correct clicks and held it up to the door viewer in the center of the main door and, with a practiced flick of his thumb, gave it a fast, hard spin.

A vortex of bright, mesmerizing light streamed from the spinner, pouring directly into the viewer. The cavern was filled with a whirring sound and twinkling lights for a few seconds, and then, with a quiet, satisfying CLICK, the lock disengaged. The door creaked open an inch.

Rumpelstiltskin and Beebers were home.

He pushed the door open, and the chill of the cavern was instantly replaced by the warmth of his lived-in space. He sniffed the air, “Ooh, smells like dog.” and giggled. Before doing anything else, he checked the black shade on the door’s window, making sure it was secure. He glanced back through the open doorway at his van, a dark shape in the vast, silent cavern.

“See, Beebers? We’re home.” he said with a big smile, who was sniffing around his feet. “Gotta be careful.” He let out a soft chuckle, his rise of short paranoia seeming to melt away now that he was inside. “Then again, I’m probably worried for nothing. Unwelcome guests can’t exactly stumble upon this place.” He gave Beebers a reassuring scratch behind the ears. “We’re not really anywhere, you know? This little spot? It’s tucked in the fold of the cosmos. It’s out of space and time from what people and dogs call reality. So, you’re safe and sound.”

Beebers just sighed and rolled over on his back to get a rub.

“Feeling better?” he asked, “Alright, let’s get some light in here,” and flipped the switch by the door. Warm lamplight filled the cozy and sparsely decorated living room. He moved from room to room, flipping the switches, taking a look around, Beebers following along. He lit a small, clean kitchen, a simple bedroom, and a bathroom.

As if he’d been there only yesterday, Beebers wagged his tail and sauntered about. He headed directly to his water bowl in the kitchen. Rumpelstiltskin filled the bowl with crystal clear water from the tap, and Beebers began to lap very noisily. “Geez!” Rumpelstiltskin smiled, walked to the large living room window, unlatched it, and pushed it open.

A gentle, cool breeze drifted in, carrying the sweet, pleasant scent of jasmine. The sound of a gentle wind rustling through leaves replaced the cavern’s dead silence. Outside the window wasn’t a dark, rocky wall, but a perfect, beautiful afternoon.

“Alright, buddy, business before pleasure,” Rumpelstiltskin said after a while. “Just one thing to do and we’ll go get you some food. Good boy.”, with some warm rubs behind the ears. He opened the back door in the kitchen, which led out into a lush, green and flowery garden with a canopy from very tall maple trees in just the right places for a mix of sun and shade. A cobblestone path wound through hollyhocks, lilies and rows of vegetables and fruit trees. “Remember this place, Beebers?”

He led Beebers along the path. Beebers happily sniffing everything in sight as if on a sniffari. A short distance on the path, set beside a patch of vibrant cosmos, tulips and wildflowers, was the ancient, cobalt blue and gold adorned pedestal, on top, a square slab of polished black stone. He took the gold nugget from his blazer and placed it in the center of the slab and stepped back.

A soft, white light pulsed from mid-air above the gold nugget, then a laser scanned back and forth. The rim of the slab lit with a soft neon blue and echoed a soft ding. A moment later, from far off in the horizon, four orbs, gold plated robotic drones, with seams of small beveled gold bolts, arrived and descended silently. They hovered over the platform. One, with its multi-jointed golden arms extending to gently secure the nugget. With the prize held firmly, they travelled away with a soft bouncy nature away as if riding the wind to the horizon, the City of Gold.

Rumpelstiltskin and Beebers take a few more steps along the path to reveal a vast landscape of pure gold.  A monstrosity of glistening, beaming and a sight no other being has seen before. About 5 gigatons of gold!

Rumpelstiltskin knows the scenes from his previous flight in the golden taxi. He pictures one of the drone’s optical sensors, the view is breathtaking. It flew over the vast, party landscape of the golden city. Below, golden skyscrapers twisted toward the sky, nobody in them, their peaks shimmering in the artificial sun. Golden pyramids sat in silent plazas, and labyrinthine streets of gold wound between them like frozen rivers. Tall statues of funny people in happy poses, frozen in time. Art pieces Rumplestiltskin likes to work on. The drone flew toward a massive, ziggurat-like structure on the edge of the city. A section of the ziggurat slid open, revealing a warm glowing interior. The drone deposited the nugget into a shimmering energy field before silently returning to its business somewhere away.

“Oh, this is the best time of the day Beebers. Remember?” They stood on the hillside and watched in relaxation over the next 30 minutes as the sun went away and the sky was replaced with a brilliant starscape, a luminescent blue and purple nebula swept the range of view. The beautiful colors reflecting on the gold megastructure. The pale blue moon, just a perfect touch of color. After taking in the awesome view, they walked back.

Back in the garden, Rumpelstiltskin’s stomach rumbled. “Well, buddy, that’s that.” He looked at Beebers, who was now staring intently at the back door. “I’m getting hungry. You hungry? Yeah, I thought so. We’re out of dog food.”

They walked through the apartment. He turned out the lights, room by room, plunging the apartment back into cozy darkness. He walked out the front door, pulling it shut behind him. No lock was needed. They casually strolled back to the van.

He hopped in the driver’s seat, and Beebers jumped into the passenger side. Rumpelstiltskin started the engine, the headlights once again illuminating the familiar front door.

“Alright, so where to Beebers?”, who just tilted his head. “We could do Steaks R Green on Telos Three… nah, too heavy. … There’s The Cuckoo Dumpling House in Shalaan Delta? … Mmm, not feeling it.” A grin spread across his face. “Oh, I know. The perfect place.”

He reached into the burlap sack and pulled out the Sphere of Precise Magic. Holding it up, he focused his intent and spoke the destination aloud, his voice clear and confident: “Shop Til You Drop in Whimsey Heights, Galore!”

A brilliant, silent flash bleached the world white. The cavern, the front door, the chilly air—it all vanished. The van settled with a soft bounce, the squeak of its tires on wet asphalt. They were now in a parking lot, but it wasn’t the bright, shopping mall of the future he pictured. It was early evening, the sky a burnt orange, and the air smelled of a mix of rain and refineries nearby. The store in front of them wasn’t called “Shop Til You Drop.” The sign read “Weingarten.”

A slow, amused grin spread across Rumpelstiltskin’s face. He looked at the big, boat-like sedans and clunky station wagons parked around them. “Well now, buddy,” he said to Beebers, “this is that same flavor of oops … I made a mistake.”

He got out of the van, stretching his arms in the humid air. The temperature is quite warm and he thought of changing out his blazer, but he couldn’t due to its unique positive vibes gathering and scattering utility. He pulled out his phone, looked at the blank, dead screen, and shrugged, tossing it back onto the dashboard. He laughed and said out loud to himself, “OK, I have been before, there’s no wifi or internet. What the heck am I doing checking my phone?”. He spotted a row of metal newspaper vending machines near the store’s entrance. He sauntered over, Beebers on leash and trotting along happily at his side.

He peered through the little plastic window of the first machine. The paper was the Deer Park Progress. He squinted at the date printed just below the masthead: Sunday, July 22, 1973.

Rumpelstiltskin let out a soft chuckle. He looked down at Beebers and grinned. “Deer Park, Texas. 1973, pal. Looks like we overshot by just a bit.” He patted Beeber’s side. “Come on. Let’s go get some kibble. This should be fun!”

Nonchalantly walking around, whistling an indiscernible tune, he walked into Weingarten with Beebers on a leash. He stopped whistling, gave a wink and muttered “Here we go again.” He already knows it is a major grocery store. The cashiers were using their clunky mechanical registers making all kinds of noise. Several families, and many children.

Listening to the store music in the background, he managed to pick out Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn. He went to the dog food section, and picked a 5 lb bag of dog chow and did a little jig heading to the register. He asked the cashier for one of the display lighters and the cashier, sweet thing, asked for his I.D. He smiled really big. He pulled his wallet out of his jeans, showed her his I.D. and on it it read “Rumpelstiltskin” and his signature, no last name, just “Rumpelstiltskin”. His photo with a big wild hair mess smiling really big.

The cashier looks at him, then looks back at his I.D. A grin starts to form on her face as she holds the I.D. closer, then looks at him again. She looks at the I.D. and suddenly breaks out into an exclaiming celebratory pose like a cheerleader, “It’s Rumpelstiltskin!”, her shout was heard throughout the store, then again, “Oh my gawd, oh my gawd … It’s Rumpelstiltskin!” and she started jumping up and down, knocking over a candy display. Suddenly, the other cashiers stopped what they were doing with cheers yelling his name as if he’s a big celebrity, customers then start realizing who is in the store and become wild with enthusiasm, jumping up and down, cheering “Rumplestiltskin!” Several families ushered their kids out to the station wagons.

The cashier asked, “Umm… can I ask you a question?”

“Sure! Fire away!” he replied with a smile.

“Did you really have five gigatons of gold?” she asked with blinking eyes.

The small crowd that had gathered leaned in, eager for the answer. Rumpelstiltskin just grinned. “A carefully guarded secret, I’m afraid. Besides, I am simply here to happily procure some canine food products!” The crowd let out a collective, good-natured laugh. He paid for the dog food and the lighter. As the cashier handed him his change, she also gave him a long strip of perforated green stamps. He looked down at them, a puzzled expression on his face. He’d not paid much attention to them before.

“What are these for?” he asked, genuinely curious.

The cashier’s eyes lit up, happy to explain something so normal to someone so … you. “Oh, those are S&H Green Stamps! You get them when you buy things, and you paste them in these little books,” she said, pointing to a stack of empty booklets by the register. “When you fill up a book, you can trade it in for all kinds of stuff from their catalog! Toasters, lamps, you name it!”

Rumpelstiltskin stared at the little green stamps, a slow, magnificent grin spreading across his face. A whole secondary economy based on sticky paper and a catalog of dreams. The seventies are always fun.

He took the stamps and the book with him as headed for the exit as if he was dancing to disco music even though Walkin’ After Midnight by Patsy Cline was on the store’s speaker. On the way out he saw one of the families that scurried away and noticed they had sheet after sheet of green stamps and seemed to be using them to buy food. The children seemed thin.

He got a motel room nearby for a few weeks. Before exiting his motel room he would go invisible. Using the sphere, he stood before exiting his room, he held the sphere to his chin and whispered gently “Disappearing Universe!”, the incantation that, if misspoken, could leave him visible while he believed he was not. He danced his way back and forth between his room and Weingarten over several days, invisible, to simply hang out and watch. On a few occasions he saw families pay for groceries with both cash and green stamps. One day, for a split second, he missed his incantation. Someone at the store said, “Was that Rumpelstiltskin?” 

Within days, the experience broke his heart. He realized there are people here who are struggling and they need some help.

The next morning, Rumpelstiltskin visibly danced and did some hopscotch from his motel to the Weingarten entrance, a new plan buzzing in his calculating mind. He stood outside the entrance to the store near the humming soda machine. He pulled the Worn-Out Sponge of Wealth from his burlap sack, along with a small bottle of Elmer’s glue and a single S&H Green Stamp. He placed his hat on the ground, knelt down, and squeezed a perfect drop of glue onto the sponge’s center. He then carefully placed the stamp on top of the drop of glue. He held the sponge over the open hat and gave it a mighty wring. He stood up and used the blue lottery coin, palming in it his hand and rubbed it in a circle three times and whispered to the coin, “Green Stamps, Green Stamps, Box after Box, Copy Yourself and Bring People to the Parking Lot.”

There was no flash, no bang. Just a soft, papery thump. And then another. And another. Cardboard boxes began appearing out of thin air, stacking themselves next to Rumpelstiltskin with a slight, hurried imperfection. It went on. Each box was filled with thousands of S&H Green Stamp sheets, all of them already completely filled. In minutes, a wobbly tower of them stood beside him, then one by one, one towering stack and another, and another. There were so many boxes, the storefront was the next place, box after box after box appeared, so many boxes they hid the windows of the storefront.

Suddenly, people within a one-mile radius had forgotten what they were doing and only wanted a box of green stamps.  Up the street, the fast food cook left his station to get to a box of green stamps as quickly as possible, tearing out of there like it was an emergency.  One after another, people simply became fixated, a man in the middle of drinking a beer, threw it on the ground and wanted a box of green stamps, a dentist, a patient, the bank tellers abandoned open money at their registers.  There was a traffic fender-bender and an old tree fell over during the stampede of people running through the city park to get a box of greens.

He made a large handwritten sign and held it up and stood nearby with a drawn big arrow and “YOU HAUL”. At first, people were hesitant. But when one woman opened a box and saw it was real, her eyes went wide with shock, the floodgates opened. A crowd formed, then swarms of people pulled into the parking lot, flocking from their cars, their faces a mixture of surprise and desperate hope. They picked them up one by one while he stood there and watched.  For a full hour boxes and boxes appeared, people and still, more people showed up hauling away boxes of green stamps. Some people began to freak out that they would not get a box. Screams and yells of pure joy and laughter could be heard throughout the store parking lot.

The commotion soon attracted the wrong kind of attention. The glass doors of Weingarten slid open and a stern-looking woman in a manager’s vest, her name tag reading “Mrs. Durrett,” marched out. She pointed a trembling finger at Rumpelstiltskin.

“You! Thief!” she shrieked, her voice cutting through the happy chatter. “That’s store property! You can’t just give that away!”

Rumpelstiltskin dropped the sign immediately, held up his hands in a gesture of pure, innocent confusion. “Give anything away? Ma’am, I haven’t given anyone a single thing. These boxes just appeared, and these good people started taking them. What can I say?”

“Mr. Johnson, call the police!” she yelled back into the store. She launched into a full-blown hissy tantrum, stomping her feet, a sudden pause and then a loud scratchy screech. Then she went on accusing him of being a hooligan and a crook, her face turning a shade of angry red.

It was time. Suddenly, Rumpelstiltskin clutched his chest, and with the tragic grace of a dying swan, Rumpelstiltskin collapsed to the cement. He curled into a ball, his fuzzy blazer getting all dirty, and began to tremble.

“Woe is me! Woe is me!” he exclaimed, his voice exuding fake anguish. “Help me! Help me! The vortex of S&H Green Stamps! The taste of the glue… it’s intoxicating! I can’t stop licking! The perforations… They mock me! Oh, the humanity! Save me from the catalog of affordable housewares!” He began to flail in slow motion, his arms and legs swimming through the air as if he were falling. “Help me! Help me! Somebody save me!”

Mrs. Durrett stared down at him, her tantrum momentarily forgotten, replaced by finality. “Oh, get up, you big faker!” she commanded, grabbing his arm.

He propped himself to his knees, looking up and pleading with his arms open, his eyes wide, acting as if he was out of breath. “Oh! Mrs. Durrett! You saved me! You saved me!” he cried, his voice full of over-the-top gratitude. “The vortex of redeemable goods… the siren song of a free toaster… it was horrifying! It was pulling me in! Thank you! Thank you for saving me from a life of thrifty couponing! You sweet thing.”

He stood up slowly, dusted off his blazer, beamed a dazzling smile. The crowd, which had been watching the whole spectacle with focused attention, absolutely erupted in cheers and applause. As the sound of a distant siren grew closer, Rumpelstiltskin gave the crowd a final, charming wave, a bow, then nonchalantly began his hopscotch routine, skipping away down the sidewalk as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

As he left, the crowd became even more crazed as people with boxes of stamps flooded the store, grabbing carts and emptying shelves, people lining up to pay for their groceries with boxes of green stamps. And then a scream from the store manager in the distance, “Rumplestiltskin!”

He returned to his motel room just as the police car flew past. He looked at Beebers, who was waiting patiently by the door. “Well, buddy,” he said, grabbing the burlap sack, “I think our work here is done. Time to get along.” He gathered everything for a road trip. Before leaving, he walked past the mirror and stopped, looking at himself as if checking for cleanliness, his awesome hair and presentation.  He stops, says out loud “I need a new blazer, this one … well … oof … I wonder if Valentino has any blazers.”

They hopped into the van and drove to the quiet, sprawling San Jacinto Park, parking behind a thick grove of oak and pecan trees. He reached for the Sphere of Precise Magic one more time. “Okay, let’s try this again, you ready Beebers?”, focusing on his intent. “Winkelman, Arizona. 2025.”