Old hags
Old Hags
Once upon a time, on a hill, there lived there lived a shinning castle. which was polished once a day, and when the official window cleaner finished, it was time to start polishing all over again.
In this castle lived an old hag who was so wrinkly that she was often mistaken for a slightly over-sized date, for, after all her 203 years of living, she had somewhat shrunk, so much in fact, as I mentioned before, she was little bigger than a date. This, as most people should know, is quite an often occurrence. Royalty live to a ripe old age, which, if you think about it, is quite a wrong saying, because when the royals get older, they become more like a rotten fruit, and not a ripe one.
In this shining castle, with the unripe old hag, lived 5 generations. Her daughter, not so ripe herself at 170, was more or less like her mother, perhaps a little taller, but, as most of you know, all daughter's end up like their mothers, and so, this 170 year old duck had pretty much the same bad temper as her mother towards everyone.
The next old hag, was, a 130 year old one. Like her predecessors, she resembled a old date more than a human. Her daughter, only 40 years younger, but still almost identical to her old great grandmother, was filthy in every way. She had never cleaned her teeth once in her life, and was proud of it. Her grey, greasy, nit-ridden hair, was more like a bundle of tumbleweed out on the desert.
The only one in this household, the one whom I have yet to introduce to you, and, unfortunately for him, was a male. and he, was only 17. Most would wonder how on earth a 63 year old could at all give birth to a child, and not look at all like herself. Well, the old bird managed to somehow. One may also wonder why on earth any man would want to have sex with a shriveled old prune. Well, he didn’t. This lads father was a rich man who had no wife. He was smart and handsome, according to the piece of paper that had been given to this 63 year old crone at the sperm bank.
This 13 year old lad, I shall call him Hyll, didn’t particularly like living with his mother, grandmother, great (or not so great) grandmother, and great great grandmother. Most of you would know how tedious it is to spend a few days under the eye of your grandparents, well, imagine that four times as bad. That is what our young Hyll felt like. Not to mention being named after the thing that the castle was built on, and his mother not even being able to spell it right.
Hyll actually had red hair and glasses, but he hated red hair, so he dyed it black, and he hated glasses, so he got contacts.
With no servants in the castle apart from the window cleaner, Hyll had the horrible task of looking after his mother, grand mother, great grand mother, and great great grand mother. Everyday at dawn, the boy would make them breakfast, lunch and dinner. As a result, there was hardly any time for him to do anything else, so the castle was full of dust, but had very shinny windows, so the 4 old crones could see outside from the bed they all shared. One day, which happened to be Hyll’s 18th birthday, he decided he had had enough, and walked outside and left the crones to starve. He also gave the window cleaner the day off, so the old bats couldn’t see him outside through all the bird poop.
Hyll looked around the castle for a car, but, finding none, he jumped on the nearest horse and rode off to the nearest civilization. There he found work and lived for some time, but we shall come back to him later.
Back in the castle, the 4 old bats were crying out for food. After hours of this (if anyone were in the house they would have gone insane from the sound), they finally lost their voices. Hyll’s mother, I shall call her Dyrt, swung her legs out of the bed, determined to get some food only for herself. But after 17 years in bed, her legs gave way, and she fell on the floor, unable to move at all. The other 3 crones cackled so much that they all got headaches, and the great great grand mother vomited because she had never done so much exercise in 183 years. I shall call her Spyt. After this, Dyrt stayed on the floor, and the other 3 did not move at all.
Two days later, a 16 year old girl rode up to the castle. She had been travelling for four days without rest or food, and was now in desperate need of both. She knocked on the large front door, and getting no answer, slowly opened the door and explored the castle. Coming across the kitchen, she ate as much as she could. She then found Hyll’s empty bed, and went instantly to sleep on it. When she woke up, she went to explore the castle, too exhausted to do anymore riding. It was then that she came across these 4 old ducks. The oldest of them hadn’t washed in 180 years, and the room stuck like something had been rotting in there for at least 200 years. When she opened the doors, the old crones, smelling the horrible clean air, screeched out whoever it was to get them some food. The girl, I shall call her Leaf, unable to do anything else, got them the food, and quickly ran out the door.
Leaf, who was the daughter of a king far away, who had had blonde straight hair and red lips originally, now had black hair and black lips. She despised being the ‘apple of her daddies eye’, and so did everything in her power to make him despise her, including going away on long trips to where he didn’t know.
Now, wanting to be away from the castle, silently opened the large front door and hoped on her horse. The old crones, now able to see this because the window cleaner was working again, screamed , killing several birds with shock, and Leaf, hearing the awful noise, was unable to leave, and so went back in the door, and they shut up.
After preparing a huge bowl of rice bubbles for the old hags, she took it up to them, dumped it on the bed and walked out. Having no spoons, they were forced to eat with their fingers, and Dyrt, still being on the floor, only just managed to reach up with her wrinkly, dirty hands and grab a few rice bubbles at a time. After only a few minutes, the white milk was colour a horrid brown colour from their hands, but none of the old ducks noticed (Dyrt couldn’t see what she was eating and Spyt was too blind from the wrinkles covering her eyes anyway), and continued to eat away.
While all this had been happening, she had gone up one of the many towers belonging to the castle, trying to get as far away as she could (the ducks bedroom was strategically placed in almost the dead center of the castle so they could be heard from almost anywhere) from the prunes. Having climbed many thousand steps, she found she had climbed the highest tower in the castle, and could see the surrounding country side for miles.
The castle, where it had stood for many many centuries and generations, looked over a cliff and the sea, where no explorer had ever been and returned, such was the distance to land. There were no islands to be seen, only the vast amounts of whales, dolphins and fish. No fishing boats had ever charted the area, except many kings ago when a king had survived more than one year on the throne, and had been very hungry for some fish. The old crones refused to let anyone use their waters for fishing, and had indeed made it very hard for anyone to do so anyway: they had sunk many great ships there on purpose so as to catch trespasses, and sink their ships.
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