AA: Episode Two
by Martin Smith
‘The two of us scuttled back to Woodland, our home in the forest, where we had a hell of a time putting ourselves back together. First, we tried duct tape, then staples, and then superglue. But that was a disaster as we got high on the fumes and ended up with our half-arses stuck together. Once the acetone worked its wonders, we tried Velcro, but we wasted an entire day having fun ripping each other apart. We ended up going with an industrial-strength coil zip, and we became I.
‘Next day, I received a letter with the royal seal. I ripped it open, thinking there’d been a change of heart at the palace and shared custody agreed to, but—blow me down—the bastards had sent me a bill for twenty pieces of gold for repairs to the palace floor. I went to stomp my foot, but caution got the better of me, so I took a calming breath, shoved a handful of straw in the self-addressed stamped envelope provided and wrote: Spin your own shit, arseholes!
‘Then the palace upped the PR. The next thing I knew, I was Public Bad Guy Number One. The media fed the masses all this bullshit the Palace simply made up, and they, the insatiable hordes, lapped it up. But not once did the press come and ask me how I felt about the whole debacle, about how I was coping, about how I was trying to put the pieces back together again. But that’s the problem with being an antagonist. All we get in the end is oblivion. No one ever wants to hear about our sad-ever-afters. We’re just thrown on the scrap heap until the next generation comes along to boo and hiss at us, all because they’re brainwashed into thinking antagonists are unworthy of empathy. And boy, do those snowflakes, those protagonists, play the victim card for all its worth. And you know what? It gives me the utter shits. Ever noticed how protagonists are always beautiful or ruggedly handsome, and how they always end up filthy rich or marrying into royal blood or preaching some smug moral espousing some hoity-toity platitude themed along the lines that “all antagonists are bastards (or bitches)!”. You never see us antagonists get kissed, hoping we metamorphose from amphibian to Adonis (or Aphrodite). Nope, we’re just wish fulfilment facilitators, aiding and abetting the fairy-tale ending but never getting our hands on the ultimate prize. And God help you if you’re a step-relative. Be you stepmother or stepsister, you’re doomed to archetypal agony. And where are all the short, pale and ugly Prince Repulsives? Sure, the occasional subversive gets to give a protagonist their comeuppance; you know, shed a little protagonist blood or banish them back to their former miserable lives, but, hey, no one’s a winner in the end. Besides, who the hell wants a sad ending? Lives are sad enough without having to read about the demise of someone who’s had a whole heap of emotional empathy stacked upon them along the journey.
‘I spent the next month in bed. And I tell you, those were dark times. Black times. I became obsessive-compulsive and lay there for hours and played with my zip. I’d start with a full unzip, then a half zip, then a quarter unzip, then a one-eighth zip, then a one-sixteenth unzip, and finish with a final, flourishing twenty-two thirty-seconds of a zip that would leave me back where I started. Then I’d start all over again. Same sequence, same result. And amidst this zipperthon, I, on more than one occasion, thought about ending it all. But just when I’d convinced myself to do the dirty deed, a voice deep within my psyche whispered, “Don’t. Don’t do it. You don’t want to die as an antagonist. Seek help and rid yourself of this stigma.”
‘And help I sought.
‘I booked in to see this shrink. A Doctor Humperdinck somebody. I can’t recall his surname: Dumpster or maybe Dumpling or something like that. No, wait, that’s right. It was Dumptee. Doctor Humperdinck Dumptee. Anyway, after a meet and greet with the Doc, he had me lie down on this real comfy couch, and he hopped up on this wall, set this egg timer next to him and told me he charged by the four-and-a-half minutes. And then the Doc got me talking, and he kept egging me on, and I tell you, it just spilled out.
‘The Doc said, “Tell me about your parents.” And I told him I never really knew my parents as I was not born of the flesh but of oral tradition. As he wrote in his notebook, he said, “Ah! Yes, abandonment issues.”
‘Then the Doc said, “How do you see yourself in the world?” And I told him I’d always looked up to people. As he scrawled in his notebook, he said, “Hmm. Yes, Short Stature Syndrome.”
‘The Doc said, “And tell me more about this spinning straw-into-gold business.” And I told him it was a gift from the Creator, a little something—that and my name—to differentiate me from all those other fairy-tale characters in the Canon, but, despite that, I’d still worked my arse off for the soon-to-be queen. I told the Doc that people might think it’s easy to spin straw into gold, but it’s actually bloody hard work. And even worse when working to a deadline. As he scribbled in his notebook, he said, “Yes. Yes. Delusions of victimhood.”
‘The Doc scratched his bald head, placed his hand under where his chin would have been if he had one and gave me a long, hard look. Then he said, “Close your eyes and tell me what it is that you fear the most.”
‘So I closed my eyes and said, “What I fear the most is … is … is being an antagonist for the rest of my life.”
‘The Doc said, “Hmm, yes, I thought so. Yours is a most interesting case. Indeed, a classic textbook case.”
‘I said, “Oh God, Doc, what is it? Is it bad? Chronic? Incurable? Am I doomed to be an antagonist for the rest of my life?”
‘But the Doc assured me I had a common ailment. Too much idle time on my hands, he called it, and he prescribed I get myself a first name, then either change career or get a hobby or volunteer to help those less fortunate than me. He wrote me a script, and I stood and thanked him as he passed it down to me.
‘The Doc gave me a compassionate look and said, “Come back for another session if things don’t work out.”
‘I said, “Will do.”
‘And the Doc smiled and said, “And chin up. Things may look grim now, but I’m sure you’ll be a protagonist one day. Look at me. In my younger days, I was a bit player, a stunt character, subjected to scrambling, poaching, frying and even the occasional boiling. And I can’t tell you how frightful it was to be laid by a golden goose every day. Then, one day, I found myself a protagonist, starring in my very own nursery rhyme. And now no one remembers all those bit roles. When the world thinks of eggs, they think of moi, old Humpty Dumptee. So don’t lose faith in your quest. I find the day is much more bearable if you try looking at things sunny side up.” And the Doc burst out laughing at his own yolk joke and toppled off the wall and ended up a cracked mess on the floor.
‘I fell to my knees and said, “Oh God, Doc! Are you OK? Is there anything I can do to help you?”
‘He grimaced and said, “I’ll be all right. Happens all the time. If you could just ask my receptionist to pop in on your way out.”
‘I’ll admit I left the session feeling upbeat. I figured if the Doc could put all the pieces together again, then anyone could.
