Ross

16

The sun rose and everything fell. Alex thought the sound was coming from some type of storm outside of his bedroom: “THUD, THUD, THUD….” To an outsider, it sounded as if God had eaten a whole heap of Indian food and barely made it to the can because that mystery storm came down with divine force.

In a sleep-deprived daze, Alex stumbled out of bed and looked out of his window. He saw nothing. There was no storm. “Then what could’ve made that sound,” he muttered to himself. He began to look around his room. He opened his toy chest and peered in. Nothing. He timidly gazed under his bed to see if he had an unwanted visitor. Nothing. But he still heard that overpowering “THUD, THUD, THUD….” “What could that be,” he muttered to himself.

And then he heard the screaming, “Aaaah, Aaaah, Aaaah,” coming out in short bursts. Frustrated and terrified, Alex decided to bust his door open. He looked to one end of the hall, then the other: no one was stomping and no one was screaming. He closed his door and back-stepped into his room. He pivoted around and stopped immediately. In front of him was a man in his mid-forties, sporting a scruffy beard, a pair of wings, and a hot pink, sparkly leotard. Jumping up and down, Alex screams, “You must be the Tooth Fairy! The ‘THUD’ sound must have been you looking for my room. But why were you screaming? Oh, you must have gone to Billy’s house before coming here! His teeth are brown and disgusting. But wait, I didn’t lose any teeth?”

“Relax, kid. You’re going to have an aneurysm! I’m not the Tooth Fairy,” he responded, “I am the Truth Fairy.”

Puzzled, Alex asks, “The truth about what?”

“Aha, the truth about the ‘THUDs’ and the ‘Aaaahs.’ See, I’m going to put this bluntly: those sounds, the ones that sounded like a holy Hershey squirt, weren’t coming from the heavens, but from a place much closer.”

“Did they come from my heart?”

“Well, no. They came from your parents’ bedroom.”

“Are mommy and daddy getting hurted?” He began to sob: “What’s happening to mommy and daddy?”

“Well, you see, mommy and daddy are going at it like a couple of raccoons fighting over the stem of a two-week-old banana peel.”

“Mommy and daddy are fighting?” The sobbing began to intensify: “But why?”

“Oh Ally-Al, your parents aren’t fighting, they’re fornicating.”

“What’s forkliftating?”

“Why fornicating is what led to me, and you, and poo-teeth Billy too!”

“But what is it?”

“Sorry kid, ask your parents. You seriously expect a middle-aged magical being to give you ‘the talk’? I only came here to tell the truth, not traumatize you for the rest of your life. I bring joy to the children. I don’t rob their innocence! I must leave now! May the truth set you free!”

“Wait, before you go, can I forbolate?”

“I’m out of here!” With that, the Truth Fairy snapped his fingers and disappeared, leaving a cloud of…well there was no cloud. But nonetheless, Alex needed to find out what the hell this so-called “fornaltutation” was. So, with a curious grin, he swung open his bedroom door and skipped down the hallway towards his parents’ room. He arrived at his parents’ door only to hear the ‘THUDs’ and ‘Aaaahs’ reaching record volume. Alex stared at the door handle and slowly turned the knob.