fiction - brigits_flame - Bag of Root Vegetables

[hwango]

Once, long ago, there lived a young boy and his mother whose only means of support was an old dairy cow. Eventually, however, there came a time that the cow no longer gave milk, and so they had no recourse but to sell the poor animal.

“Take the cow into town,” the woman told her son, “and be sure to get a good price for her.”

“I will, Momma,” said the boy.

“If you encounter a strange man in the road along the way, however, see if you can trade the cow to him for a handful of magic beans instead,” the boy’s mother said.

The boy nodded in understanding. Down the road lived a woman and her young son, Jack. Jack had traded his cow for some magic beans that had sprouted into a wondrous, gigantic beanstalk that stretched all the way into the sky. Just the other day, he had climbed the beanstalk and returned with a magical goose that laid golden eggs. News had spread quickly, and all manner of people had come to their home hoping to climb the beanstalk and search for their own treasures. Consequently, Jack’s mother spent much of her time sitting on the porch with a shotgun, guarding the beanstalk. If the boy and his mother could grow their own magic beanstalk, however, they would have their own access to that treasure-filled place in the sky.

So the young boy, whose name was Fred, led the cow down the road towards the market. Along the way, he encountered a strange old man.

“What a lovely cow you have there!” said the man.

“Thank you,” said Fred. “I’m actually on my way to town to sell her...unless you’re interested in purchasing her yourself. I suppose I could let her go for...oh, say...six magic beans?”

The man shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid I’m all out of magic beans at the moment. I do, however, have this sack of eldritch potatoes.” The old man stepped to one side and with a theatrical flourish pointed to a large sack that seemed to have appeared from nowhere. Fred could hear an eerie rustling noise coming from the sack.

“Eldritch potatoes you say?” he said, nodding sagely. In truth, however, he was filled with uncertainty. His mother had said nothing about potatoes. Perhaps he should just take the cow into town and sell it after all. “I’m not sure that’s really the sort of enchanted vegetable I’m looking for at the moment.”

“Tell you what,” said the old man. “I’ll also throw in this zucchini to sweeten the deal.”

“Is the zucchini magical?” Fred asked. The man considered this for a moment.

“Possibly,” he said at last.

Well, that seemed like too good a deal to refuse, so Fred handed over the cow and greedily took possession of the sack and its strangely shifting contents, as well as the zucchini of dubious provenance. He ran all the way back home, so eager was he to tell his mother the good news. He burst through the front door of their tiny cottage with a mad grin on his face and shouted “good news!”

His mother, seeing the large sack, excitedly sprang to her feet. “Is that entire sack full of magic beans?” she asked, her words dripping with both avarice and astonishment.

“Even better,” Fred said, “It’s full of eldritch potatoes! And look!” he added, waving the zucchini. “I’ve also got this zucchini!”

Fred’s mother found herself unsure how to react to this unexpected development.

“Well,” she said. “I don’t know if potato plants can grow high enough to reach the clouds...though I suppose they’re magical, so anything is possible. So...that’s great? I guess?”

Fred opened the sack and reached in for a potato. He found the interior of the bag surprisingly warm, and grabbing hold of one of the potatoes disconcertingly difficult. At last he managed to catch one, and he held it out so his mother could see it. It certainly looked like an ordinary potato, but Fred could feel it shifting unpleasantly in his hand, rather as if it had a pulse.

“I suppose we should bury one and see what happens,” Fred’s mother said uncertainly. Fred nodded eagerly. The sooner they buried it, the sooner he would no longer be holding the vile thing. The two of them went out behind the cottage and buried the potato, then stood there watching expectantly for some time.

“I think I remember hearing that the beanstalk appeared overnight,” Fred said after a while, and his mother nodded in agreement. Still, they stood and stared at the dirt for another few minutes before finally giving up and going back inside. The rest of the day passed in unbearable tedium, since they were both too excited to be able to focus on mundane chores, and they no longer had the cow to tend to. Eventually, they retired to nervous, fitful sleep – both of them getting up several times during the night to see if anything had happened. Invariably, nothing had.

At last, morning came. Fred leapt out of bed and ran to the window, but no towering green stalk awaited him. Disappointed and angry, he looked down to see if anything at all had happened, and was amazed and slightly terrified to see that a huge chasm had appeared in the back yard. A spooky green glow emanated from deep within, casting strange shadows on the ground around the opening.

Fred wasn’t sure what to do. He could wake his mother and show her that the potato had definitely done something, but he wasn’t entirely certain that what it had done was something desirable. Perhaps it would be better to investigate the hole and see if there were any fabulous treasures to be found within. So Fred nervously made his way down to the hole and peered over the edge. It was definitely a tunnel, and it must lead somewhere. He climbed inside.

It wasn’t long before he discovered that the eerie green light came from enormous, luminescent mushrooms that grew all along the sides of the cavern. The earthen walls quickly gave way to stone, and soon he found himself wandering through a fantastic landscape of bizarre rock formations. Tiny underground waterfalls trickled into pools of astonishing color, their sides painted with centuries of mineral deposits. Veins of crystal in the walls reflected in the mushroom light in dazzling patterns on the floor.

“Where the heck is the gold?” Fred complained, totally unmoved by these natural wonders.

Some time later, Fred paused at a strange sound. He realized that it was the echoes of some kind of commotion back on the surface...people running around and shouting, including one huge, deep voice. Now another sound...chopping, perhaps? A long, drawn out creaking, soon drowned out by a roaring voice filled with anger and alarm...and then finally a thunderous crash. The whole cavern shook. Loose bits of stone and earth rained down from the ceiling, and Fred panicked and ran back towards the entrance of the tunnel. The stone cavern, however, had fared much better than the loose earth nearer the surface. The opening was gone.

* * *
High above, Jack dropped his ax and let out an enormous sigh of relief. He thought he was doomed for sure when the giant had started chasing him, but the terrible monster seemed to have fallen to its death once Jack had managed to cut down the beanstalk. However, Jack’s relief turned to horror when he realized that the giant had fallen on a house up the street. Jack frantically ran to the scene, where confused and terrified neighbors were already gathering. Many were poking at the giant’s corpse, while others were investing a strange depression in the back yard that looked to be a collapsed tunnel of some sort. Still others were picking through the splintered wreckage of the cottage, possibly searching for survivors, but probably for valuables. After all, most of the building was lying crushed under one of the giant’s enormous boots.

Jack tried to console himself with the knowledge that it had all been a terrible accident. And who knows what damage the giant would have done if it had survived the climb to the bottom of the beanstalk? Maybe he would have trampled many houses in his rampage? At least this way the rest of the town was safe.

These thoughts were interrupted when Jack felt something bump against his foot. He looked down to find a large zucchini which seemed to have miraculously survived the destruction and rolled away from the ruins of the cottage. He shrugged and picked it up. It didn’t seem Fred and his mother had any use for it anymore. Jack headed back home, unable to bear looking at the devastation any longer.

“Hey look,” someone shouted behind him, “I found a sack of potatoes!”

Comments

[bluegerl.livejournal.com]

The icon is Sean Bean being modest about magic Beans!!! He's my hero fandom man.. Richard Sharpe, and Boromir in LOTR... so this icon might go some way to help. Beans for ever, magic they are, on film, in fairy stories or hot on the plate with butter!!!

[hwango.livejournal.com]

Ah, that one is much more recognizably Sean Bean to me. Okay, I get it now. = )