The Tooth Fairy Affair

Drug addiction and alcoholism among fairy tale characters is rampant and the tooth fairies, themselves ex-addicts, devise a Master Plan to save them from destruction.

PROLOGUE

The Archduke Franz Ferdinand was a religious man.  He was also stubborn and often temperamental.  His faith and his single-mindedness made him unwilling to listen to reason.  He couldn’t imagine that anyone should wish him harm and so, refused to cancel his plans.

A certain Royal party fairy with years of experience enjoyed the privileges of seniority which afforded her assignments of her choosing.  Lately, she spent her days protecting royal children, grandchildren and their noble relatives from harm.  It was an easy task since most of these blue blooded offspring had very vigilant nannies and senior Royal party fairy’s presence was, more often than not, superfluous.  She was, nonetheless, in attendance whenever there was any kind of activity, just in case.  Though children’s parties, christenings, arts and crafts, pony rides were all very dull and unexciting, she found that, at her age, they were just her speed.  Besides if, once in a great while, she found herself longing for a change of pace, she could always find some party to go to, one filled with adults, music, dancing and, of course, liquor.

It was on this particular, balmy June evening in 1914, that senior Royal party fairy decided to leave the royal court and attend a gathering at an apartment in the old Innen Stadt of Vienna, at Berggasse 28, apartment 2.  It promised to be a lively evening with at least fifty people invited.  Soon, the guests were in a festive mood with alcohol flowing freely and in abundance.  The lady of the house, Lilly, was busy making sure that everyone had a splendid time.  Her reputation was at stake.  She was known for throwing superb parties and this one was going to be no exception.  As the hostess, she had to keep her wits about her so she confined her drinking to a particularly pleasing, (not too alcoholic) sweet sherry.  She could sip it all evening long without becoming too intoxicated.  Her guests put no such restrictions on themselves and, as the evening progressed, became increasingly unsteady on their feet.

Senior Royal party fairy had a taste or two of the liquid refreshments and she felt pleasantly tipsy.  Nothing too extreme " these days she had to be more careful and could not afford to be inebriated to the extent she had permitted herself when she was younger " no, now she was satisfied with a slight buzz in her head and the warm glow she felt all over.

Sometime in the early morning hours the party finally began to wind down and senior Royal party fairy was getting ready to leave.  She needed as much rest as possible.  An important assignment awaited her.  In one week, on June 28, she was to accompany her longtime charge, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie on their journey from the Ilidža Spa to the Town Hall in the center of Sarajevo.  The couple was to view military maneuvers taking place in the mountains nearby, and it was her responsibility to make sure that the entire day went off without a problem.  Apparently, there was some trepidation regarding safety at this event and, because of her experience and reliability, senior Royal party fairy was entrusted the important duty of seeing to it that nothing, but nothing, went wrong.

She was about to fly out the window and head home. One of the departing guests made a pass at Lilly in the most inappropriate manner, and lost his footing in the process.  To keep her guest from kissing her straight on the lips (the affront)! Lilly sidestepped out of the way.  As the man stumbled forward, she instinctively reached out with her left hand and gave him support to prevent him from ending up on the floor.  She held her glass of sweet sherry in her right hand; it was still quite full with the sweet, sticky liquid.  Lilly was tired and irritable, so much so, that as the offender was somewhat upright again, she ‘accidentally’ splashed her sherry in his face. It happened so quickly, she didn’t have time to stop herself and was, at once, shocked by her behavior.  Quickly apologizing, she blamed her actions on loss of her own balance.  The man reassured Lilly that no harm was done, that the sherry was quite to his taste, really.  Lilly, assuaged, was now secretly pleased with herself for not letting this man’s offensive conduct go without at least some small form of retribution. 

Senior Royal party fairy was just then hovering nearby and was caught in the sherry downpour.  A single tiny drop was more than enough to drench her from head to foot and she immediately began to lose altitude as the sherry weighed her down and made her wings stick together.  She managed to get to the safety of a nearby shelf.  She could not leave now.  Not only did she have to dry herself off, she had to sober up.  Fairy skin, like their wings, is diaphanous and much more porous than that of humans, so the sherry was instantly absorbed into her system.   Senior Royal party fairy was now quite drunk.  Though it didn’t take long for her body to dry off, sobering up did but, finally, she was ready to leave.  Her wings no longer stuck together and her vision returned to normal.

Senior Royal party fairy flew to the open window and looked outside to get her bearings and begin her journey home.  The evening air was pleasantly warm but she sensed that it would soon rain as the humidity was very high.  She began her flight which quickly turned arduous.  Her wings became tacky again and she knew in an instant, that she would have to wash the sugary layer off her body and wings if she was to have any chance of flying the distance.  She saw another open window a few doors down at Berggasse number 19, and flew in.  She found herself in a cozy study, full of books on floor to ceiling shelves.  The only illumination in the substantial room came from a lamp on a capacious desk in the corner.  It appeared that, whoever lived in this apartment, must have just been working there as it was littered with notes, written pages, numerous pens, two inkwells and several open reference books.

Senior Royal party fairy would now have to find her way to a kitchen or bathroom where she could get some water to take a bath.  This could prove to be difficult as her flying abilities were very much diminished.  She had no choice.  In the gloom she spotted a door which most likely led to the rest of the apartment and just as she was about to aim for it, she saw a pool of what looked like water, glistening right there on the desk.  “What luck” she thought, “I won’t have to fly anywhere far, I can wash myself off right here.”  The spoon which contained the liquid the senior Royal party fairy saw was not big but, to a microscopic fairy, it looked like an enormous bathtub.  She stepped into it cautiously and then immersed herself completely.  The sherry began to rinse off quite effectively.  Suddenly, senior Royal party fairy’s heart began pounding uncontrollably.  She could not breathe.  She didn’t know what was happening to her but before she had a chance to think about it, she suffered massive respiratory failure.  Unconscious now, she slipped under the surface of the liquid and drowned.

Just then, the resident of the apartment came back into the room.  He sat down in his comfortable armchair by the desk, picked up the syringe which was lying next to the spoon full of liquid, and drew all the fluid in.  Finding a vein in the crook of his arm, he injected the contents of the syringe into his system, unaware that along with the prepared cocaine solution in the spoon, he was also injecting himself with the lifeless body of senior Royal party fairy.

On June 28, 1914, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie arrived in Sarajevo.  As the motorcade passed on its way to the Town Hall, an assassin threw a bomb at the Archduke’s car.  Since Franz Ferdinand had been in the care of Senior Royal party fairy, residue fairy dust on his clothes protected him adequately enough that the bomb bounced off his car and exploded, instead, under the vehicle behind his.  The assassins, undaunted and determined to complete their mission, tried again.  Senior Royal party fairy was not there to sprinkle additional fairy dust which would surely have shielded the royal couple sufficiently.  Without it, tragedy could not be avoided a second time; the assassin’s bullets reached their targets unimpeded.  The first shot struck Sophie in the abdomen; she and her unborn child died instantly.  The second shot hit Franz Ferdinand near his heart and he too expired on the spot.  The rest is history.

Sometimes small actions have far reaching and very big consequences; this was just such a case in point.  Clearly, had Lilly not retaliated against the drunken bore and had Dr. Sigmund Freud not had a cocaine addiction, World War I might never have taken place.  

Dr. Freud lived on to become known as the one of the leading figures in the field of modern psychology.  As for Lilly, she left Vienna the day following her party, to visit a good friend who lived in Belgrade.  A few short weeks later, both women were blown up when the house they were living in, scored a direct hit from the Austro-Hungarian artillery.  It was July 29, 1914.  Poor Lilly died, the victim of ‘friendly fire’.

INTRODUCTION

Many children’s stories are called ‘fairy tales‘ but this is a misnomer.  The name implies that they chronicle the life and times of fairies when, in reality, the main characters of fairy tales are people and fairies are only mentioned when they appear, usually all too briefly, to either assist in or hinder the proceedings.  Their roles are often minor and always just supporting.  The ‘once upon a time’ and ‘lived happily ever after’ refers to what happened to humans, not to the fairies.

In some stories, fairies are not mentioned at all even though they should be.  An example is ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ in which the huntsman is credited with saving grandma and Red by cutting the wolf open, thereby allowing the two to emerge unscathed.  To say that he alone saved them is complete nonsense.  It is a well known fact that anybody going through the entire digestive tract of any animal, wolf or otherwise, would not survive the trip without the aid of fairy dust to keep them alive through the ordeal.  Though this fact is crucial in facilitating a happy ending, it is, nonetheless, entirely omitted.  Credit is not always given where credit is due.

Never has a true fairy tale been told.  Till now.  Though what follows is but a small glimpse into fairy history, it does elucidate two episodes which, to this day, are considered as highly significant to the understanding of what fairy life is really like.  The details of what came to be known as “The Tooth Fairy Affair” will be divulged.   Though most fairy tales usually end with a moral, this one will not.  As this is a story meant for adults, it is assumed that clichés need not be used to underscore the obvious. 

LEAD PARTY FAIRY

Once upon a time the Tooth Fairy was not the Tooth Fairy.  Being a Tooth Fairy is not very glamorous.  It is an exceptionally boring and rather ghoulish occupation involving collecting detached canines and leaving good money in their stead.  No, the Tooth Fairy wasn’t always the Tooth Fairy.  She began her existence as a Party Fairy.  There were four types of party fairies.  Social party fairies covered, as the name implies, social gatherings to ensure their success.  Corporate party fairies attended major company meetings to encourage fruitful business negotiations, Political party fairies guided politicians at top level summits toward finding solutions for their differences without resolving to battle and bloodshed and Royal party fairies oversaw all coronations, royal marriages and births and generally looked after anyone with any title to speak of.   

Despite liberal sprinklings of fairy dust, not all party fairies did well every time.  One need look no further than the history books to find evidence of events going spectacularly wrong.  The failures were not due to inadequate efforts by the fairies.  They had more to do with the human’s inexhaustible capacity to create circumstances leading directly to disaster, as well as to the limitations of the strict guidelines party fairies had to follow; guidelines which effectively put a cap on the amount of influence fairies could exert.  Statistically speaking though, they did well more often than not.

When it came to the social affairs of the day, they could be huge events on one end of the spectrum, to small gatherings on the other.  Regardless of size, all social occasions had one ingredient in common " they all provided stimulants in one form or another for those attending.  There were liquids to drink and opiates to smoke, snort, swallow or inject, depending on the era when the party took place, the kind of social diversion it was, the type of guests invited, and the generosity of the party throwers.  Whatever way you chose to leave sobriety, you could find some assemblage providing the means for your departure.

Lead Party Fairy oversaw the activities of all fairies and would periodically gather intelligence from them.  She very quickly realized that even those parties and events which none of the party fairies attended (due to scheduling conflicts) could, nonetheless, be very successful.  It became clear that fairy dust was not always necessary for a good time to be had as long as alcohol was present.  Parties and events usually did well if booze was on offer.

Be that as it may, Social party fairies had much to do.  Corporate, Royal and Political party fairies also had a considerable amount of work, but were not swamped the way the Socials were.  The reason was that, as humans continued to multiply, so too did the number of entertainment occasions.  The effects of alcohol on human common sense (severely diminished) and on human sex drive (much enhanced) was an increasingly recurring combination which only further added to population numbers.

The work was piling up. Lead Party Fairy became so busy, she no longer had time to supervise her workforce.  She assumed all was going well and it never crossed her mind that trouble was afoot.

PARTY FAIRIES

The personalities of party fairies varied somewhat from those of the forest fairies.  They existed exclusively to help humans (which the others didn’t).  They were very extraverted and gregarious (more so than the others) and liked to enjoy life and have a good time (which the others also did).  No so deleterious, they were good-natured, easy-going, open, honest and, unfortunately for them, (as it turned out) quite naive.

Party fairies were all female.  They numbered in the thousands.  They were invisible to humans, ethereal and delicate.  Small in stature with gossamer wings, their bodies functioned very much like those of humans.  The major difference was that they possessed a system which, if injured or damaged, didn’t repair itself in the conventional sense but rather, the healing process reverted their body back to its original state.  There were no permanent effects or scars.  Indeed, one would be hard pressed to find any signs that they had ever come to harm at all.  Lastly, party fairy skin was much more permeable than that of humans (a condition which could be detrimental, or, as with senior Royal party fairy, lethal).  Party fairies lived much, much longer than humans.  They could travel from one dimension to another, adjusting to each as they saw fit, their size ranging from minuscule as a speck of dust to a maximum of six inches tall.  They had fairy dust at their disposal to assist in the completion of any task at hand but could never be used for personal gain, nor for harm (unless in self-defense).

ALCOHOL IS ALL THE RAGE

As time went on, Social party fairies were becoming overworked, tired and beginning to suffer constant stress.  They were ill-equipped to deal with all the responsibilities that their assignments foisted on them.  Life was not enjoyable anymore.  They wanted to remedy their unhappiness.  To that end, many Socials turned to the various substances humans served up and, after several taste tests and trials, they found their alcoholic drink of choice.  (In the early days, most parties revolved around liquor.  Drugs were present in some places, of course, but they were still a rarity and alcohol dominated the party scene.)  It took very little for a tiny fairy to get tipsy.

Initially, (before they learned what the right amount was) fairies got rolling drunk and usually fell asleep in some quiet corner, completely neglecting all their duties.  Some parties often turned ugly when, lacking fairy dust, many drinkers, instead of remaining happy, turned hostile and sometimes even violent.  The inebriated Social party fairies would frequently wake up to the sounds of brawling, vociferous arguments and sometimes even gunshots.  This was unacceptable.  Social party fairies made every attempt to control their alcoholic intake to what they thought was a manageable level.  Some regrettably still failed and well, their parties were more likely to end badly.

Corporate, Political and Royal party fairies were not so susceptible to the drink.  It could be that they were assigned to gatherings which tended to be more formal in nature and alcoholic consumption (for all present) was more controlled.  Whatever the reason, the sober member of the party fairy population began to notice that some fairies in their midst had some sort of problem.

For a time Social party fairies were able to minimize their stress with liquid help while still completing all their work.  What they did not realize was that this daily intake of alcohol became less and less of a choice.  It became a necessity.  In a word, the Social party fairies were turning into alcoholics.  While still in the functioning stage, they were skillful at covering up their addiction (or so they thought).  Soon however, they started to show the ravages of alcoholism.  Their skin turned sallow, their eyes were bloodshot, they lost weight and they had an overall run-down appearance.  In their naïveté about such matters, they assumed that these symptoms were the result of all the physical exertion of flying from one place to another, the late hours, inhaling the smoke-filled air, and exposure to fairy dust residue which could make anybody’s skin look pallid and irritate eyes to redness.  They blamed it all on their work environment and continued with their (now alcoholic) rounds.

Lead Party Fairy did not fare any better.  Like many others, she was a steady drinker and similarly to the others, had a continuous and high blood alcohol level.  It is difficult to say what constitutes a high blood alcohol count for a fairy but, regardless, it was exceedingly detrimental to their health.  All Social party fairies were deteriorating.

Author's Note

Does the story hold interest? Is it amusing? Are there parts which drag?

Reviews

[Sam]

The story is indeed interesting, its an intriguing take on fairies and their interaction with and adaptation of destructive human behaviors. The Royal party fairy piece flowed nicely except for one part:

"Though it didn’t take long for her body to dry off, sobering up did but, finally, she was ready to leave. Her wings no longer stuck together and her vision returned to normal."

there seemed to be an abrupt transition from needing to sobering up to her being ready to leave, it was the only part in the story where I found myself re-reading a line to be sure I hadn't missed something.

Also the tooth fairy reference seems somewhat arbitrary in the context of what you've presented, except to act as a lead in to the history of the party fairies, this could be because the "Tooth Fairy Affair" has yet to be divulged? If so then just ignore this comment...:)

Really liked the imagery with Freud and the way that fairy dust was used, it immediately added to gravity to imagery that is most commonly considered somewhat juvenile.

My favorite portion of this work was the introduction, it was clever and brisk and compelled me to continue reading, nicely done.