Drops of light began to appear beside the slippers on the floor. Nedimus fixed his blank gaze upon the bead curtain. It seemed to shiver in the wind, so lightly, so gently… It was only last week that this same bead curtain was fluttering in the wind, as though it was in some wild dance. The winds had not changed since then; only the curtains had. The beads barely swung in the wind. They glistened in the rising sun’s pouring rays. One of the strings could no longer withstand the weight of the beads, and the bottom of the string snapped, letting a bead spiral down a chain of beads, making a sharp metallic sound as it fell towards the Nedimus’s chest. Nedimus winced at the impact of the heavy bead, but he remained silent and still as a corpse on the floor. King Midas had touched this bead curtain sometime within that last two days, Nedimus thought to himself. He imagined the sounds of hooves of his fastest horse, Marius Letnug, racing Nedimus across the south valley, away from this cursed kingdom. Gideup gideup, gideup gideup, gideup… The imagined sounds of hooves slowly became the sound of distant royal guards dashing across the north palace hallways.

“They shall not find me,” Nedimus quietly reasoned, trying to give himself consolation. Nedimus realized that he could not avoid capture for more than another hour within the palace perimeter. Slowly, he moved his head above the marble fountain rim, cautiously gazing at the guard facing away from his direction. It would be a quick burst past him and through the bushes, past the forest, and down the rocky slope into the south valley where Marius was grazing. Three...two…

“INTRUDER! SEIZE HIM!” Nedimus panicked, starting his sprint twisting his ankle over the fountain rim into the water, where he made a noisy splash. When Nedimus raised his head above the water, seven guards were closing in on him.

Nedimus made a desperate limp towards the bushes and into the dark forest.

* * *
It may have been an hour, maybe two… Nedimus collapsed onto a boulder at the edge of a swamp. He glanced around at the trees. Strange trees, he noticed. They were nothing like what he grew in his own garden. Purple leafed hybrids of conifers and evergreens grew beside the swamp. Blooming morning glories grew on the forest floor. It difficult not to accidentally step on one, yet it was strange that a forest floor shrouded from sunlight by the blanket-like cover of the treetop foliage could yield such a magnificent and healthy sea of flowers. Even the swamp itself held a strange silvery light blue color, which glistened even in the absence of sufficient sunlight. Such an abundance of colors had not been witnessed at the kingdom since the start of King Midas’s obsession with the golden touch. Nedimus winced at the memories of the past decade. Not only had all colors disappeared from the kingdom, but the value of gold had plummeted since the start of the decade, and so did the aggregate wealth of the kingdom. Nedimus had grown up a youth who feared the forbidden word, the name of the curse of the kingdom. “Gold,” Nedimus murmured.

Nedimus leaned his back upon the boulder and began to adjust himself into a resting position. But suddenly, he froze upon the notice of a distraction.

“My reflection!” he exclaimed. “It has a life of its own!” Nedimus fell to his knees, trembling with trepidation. “This swamp is possessed! My reflection is walking towards a door.” He bent over the swamp to gain a better view of his reflection. His reflection extended an arm towards a man with a large build, but Nedimus could not make out who the other man was. Nedimus began to take a step closer to the edge of the swamp when suddenly the slope upon which he stood disintegrated and sunk into swamp. At that moment, Nedimus realized that he had fallen into the syrupy contents of the swamp and was neck deep. “This is a rather thick substance,” he noticed as he struggled to escape. “I have never seen quicksand like this during my travels. What is this material?”

Nedimus sensed movement with his peripheral vision. Cold shivers ran down his spine while the blood seemed to rush out towards his head. Nedimus tensed with heightened apprehension. He swung his head around. “DON’T!” he cried.

It was a squirrel.

“Whew.”

“You’re going to die,” said the squirrel, seemingly unconcerned and calm about the matter.

“Why, you’re a talking squirrel!”

“Why, you’re an overweight Greek male!”

“You know who I am?”

“I highly doubt that fleeing from your problems will help Midas and his kingdom. But I suppose exile is preferable over capture and torture.” The squirrel scratched its nose, realizing that the action served no purpose to the overall plot of the story.

“You must be…comic relief! Just like in those fairy tales we read at night!”

“I’m going to start throwing acorns at your head for my personal amusement. I sure hope you don’t mind.”

“Talking squirrels are naturally scary vermin anyway. Ow! Oo! Ah!” Thus, Nedimus sank slowly into the metallic blue liquid whilst being hit by acorns.

[Narrator One’s morning shift is over. As the transition from Narrator One to Narrator Two takes place, somewhat soothing elevator music is played in the background.]

* * *

Long, long ago, in a dense evergreen forest under the shadow of a nearby plateau…

…seven white bunnies hopped towards the western part of the lake at the waterfall.

SLAM!, went Nedimus.

Five white bunnies hopped away from the western part of the lake at the waterfall.

“Ouch,” said Nedimus. The view of the area astounded him. Magnificent evergreens densely populated the area, and beams of sunlight penetrated here and there through the mass of treetops. He looked back to see where he had fallen from. A waterfall was what he had fallen from. Nedimus stared bewilderedly at the ground where he had crash landed moments ago. He then stared back at the waterfall where he had fallen from.

“I must get up way too early in the morning. It’s not everyday that I sink through swamps and slide out of a waterfall onto dry ground.” Nedimus spotted a girl in a red velvet hooded coat passing by on the dirt trail.

“Excuse me, Miss,” he queried. No answer. “Oy! You there! Which way back to Greece?” He looked around at the magnificent forest. “Or reality, rather.” There was still no answer. “Wait, I know you.”

The girl stopped in her tracks and slowly spun around, surprised. “I don’t speak to strangers, with the exception of suspicious, ravenous rabid wolves.” Nedimus gave a blank stare at her.

“Well, you’ve just spoken to a stranger, have you not?”

“Well, I – ”. The girl thought to herself for a moment. After a few moments of stupefied silence, she sighed and removed her red hood. “I am headed towards my grandmother’s cottage. I have never heard of this Greece that you speak of.” With that stated, the girl continued along the trail while carrying her basket of goodies.

“You’re Little Red Riding Hood!” Nedimus called. She stopped, still facing away from him.

“My name is Claire, thank you very much,” she called without turning her head. “Little Red Riding Hood,” she muttered disapprovingly as she turned around. “How demeaning! How would you like if I called you…” She observed his apparel. “…Enormous Gray Dress-and-Shoes…”

“It’s a toga!” he argued. Both stormed away from each other.

Nedimus decided to head in the opposite direction. After two minutes, he was lost.

“Ah...damn it. Everything looks the same in these fairy tale environments. And Little Red Riding Hood sure isn’t as nice as depicted in the storybooks.”

[Audience: How does a man from ancient Greece know of Little Red Riding Hood in central Europe? Narrator: Hey, who’s narrating here, huh?]

Nedimus arrived back at the waterfall, or at least what was left of it. A dry rock formation beside a dry lake bed remained, and grass had already begun to sprout on the former lake bed. Nedimus scratched his head, not out of confusion, but to ease the itchiness.

[Audience: *Blink* *Blink* ]

So Nedimus, frustrated over the disappearance of a possible exit from the Red Riding Hood fairy tale, stormed back in the direction in which he had met Little Red Riding Hood. Suddenly, a gray wolf with unkempt fur and foam at the mouth approached Nedimus. Nedimus froze and stared at the wolf.

“Which way to Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother’s cottage, please?” it asked.

“That way,” Nedimus said, pointing.

“Thank you.” And off the wolf went.

“Wait a minute…,” Nedimus realized. Although the wolf was out of sight, Nedimus had a sense of which direction the cottage lay. In that direction he headed. As Nedimus approached a pale blue cottage with a pale yellow rooftop, he began to think about how he would stop the wolf from devouring Little Red Riding Hood. Realizing that he was short of time at the sight of an open door, he sighted an axe among a pile of small logs and grabbed it.

Meanwhile, in the cottage…

“My, what a large nose you have, Grandma…”

“Oh no, oh no!” Nedimus worried as he dashed through the front door and towards the bedroom door.

“The better to smell you with.”

“My, what large eyes you have, Grandma. …and freaky looking, I must add.”

“The better to see you with,” answered the wolf disguised as the grandmother.

“Well, just acquire a pair of spectacles if you want to achieve that,” Little Red Riding Hood muttered under her breath.

“Help is on the way!” yelled Nedimus, who evidently wasn’t heard by the girl, the wolf, or the poor old lady within the wolf. Still, they were in the next room – the bedroom.

“My, Grandma, what large, hideous teeth you have. You know, you really should use this knew baking soda solution I created – ”

“The better to eat you with, my dear! Mwa ha ha ha ha ha!” Slam! The door slammed open, hence the preceding onomatopoeia word, “slam!”. Both the wolf, still disguised as a female senior citizen, as well as Little Red Riding Hood, stared directly, motionless, at the large Greek royal advisor at the door.

Oh shoot, Nedimus thought, So which one is the wolf? All three creatures in the grandmother’s bedroom remained still. A rabid wolf in a pink nightgown, a psychologically unbalanced Claire with an uncreative nickname, and a Greek royal advisor with a huge axe faced each other. Meanwhile, the grandmother floated around in the innards of the wolf, but she was supposedly still alive…somehow. It must be the one in red! Nedimus swung at the girl.

“No!” cried Little Red Riding Hood, a.k.a. Claire. The axe missed the girl entirely and hit a chain that held a golden birdcage stupidly hanging over the grandmother’s bed.

“No!” screamed the wolf (who was, yes, still dressed in that lovely silk nightgown). The moment the chain snapped, the golden birdcage began to plummet towards the wolf’s chest. Somehow, this whole scene seemed striking familiar and symbolic to Nedimus.

As the wolf lifted its head to get up, the heavy golden birdcage trapped the wolf’s head entirely within the cage while his neck was stuck in a narrow opening at the base of the birdcage.

“Argh! I’m stuck!” the wolf moaned. Little Red Riding Hood slowly approached Nedimus.

“I…I’m sorry if I acted hostile towards you earlier today. However, I see that you have saved my life. You have a heart of gold.”

“Please don’t say that,” winced Nedimus, thinking of that dreadful metal that nearly drove him into insanity.

“But really, I truly appreciate your good deed. I will reward you with my magical red hood. Hopefully, I can finally shed this ridiculous ‘Red Riding Hood’ name while we’re at it. Is there anything that I can do for you?” Without hesitation, Nedimus replied.

“Yes, my king, Midas, has too been granted a magical reward as a result of a good deed. However, his greed for gold has destroyed the well-being of our kingdom. All who attempt to oppose him are captured by his royal guards and turned into solid gold while posing in forced silly positions, and then they are placed as public statues for ridicule. This needs to be stopped.”

“The touch of gold, you say?” Little Red Riding Hood responded. “He must not have been laid for quite a long time.”

Nedimus blinked while managing a blank stare, if that’s even possible.

“Moving on,” continued Little Red Riding Hood. “My grandmother is going to magically come out of the wolf and appear within the next minute or so. When that bit of magic happens, I want you to touch both the wolf and the grandmother to initialize the potion process in your body. What I mean when I say “potion” is a substance comprised of several rare, magical objects that need to be acquired in different times and places at just the right moments.”

“Yikes,” he commented.

“I know. It sounds nearly impossible, but with my instructions, you should be able to accomplish these tasks. You have already completed the first phase, which is to wear my red hood. You need to wear it until all three phases have been completed.”

“All right.”

“Here it comes.” At the moment the grandmother began to appear, Nedimus performed the task necessary for the initializing of the potion process.

“So what does it do?” asked Nedimus.

“Do you mean the potion? Once you have gained the power of all three objects, you will need to touch King Midas to rid him of his power,” responded Little Red Riding Hood.

“You’re not like most other fairy tale characters I’ve met.”

“Thanks, but I’m seeing someone.” Nedimus mouthed, “Okay…” while looking slightly away from her.

“But how do I go the next fairy tale?” Nedimus questioned.

“What’s a fairy tale?”

“Never mind then.”

“There’s a water-well outside Grandmother’s cottage. To warp into another realm –”

“Do I have to tap my shoes three times,” interrupted Nedimus impatiently as he rolled his eyes.

“I don’t know where you get all these strange ideas from. Jump into the well the instant that you remember the last thing you ate. Farewell, oh great doer of good.” Little Red Riding Hood vanished into the house and locked the door.

“She must be trying to torture me. Did I eat bread last? Maybe it was the salmon? Argh!” Nedimus stood in deep thought beside the well. “Oh well, here goes nothing. Alfalfa, apricot, asparagus…”

Approximately 14509.4317 seconds later…

“Zucchini! It was zucchini! Now I remember!” Nedimus leapt into the well, wondering why he hadn’t begun with the Z words first.

* * *
Five gray bunnies hopped towards the base of an oak tree.

SLAM!

“Ow,” whimpered Nedimus.

Three gray bunnies hopped away from the base of the oak tree.

Nedimus glanced around at his environment once he got out of the I-have-just-fallen-onto-hard-ground position. A savannah, Nedimus told himself. Wait a second. I have never even seen the plains. How would I know? Nedimus’s delightful conversation with himself was abruptly terminated at the sound of a moo.

Mooooooooooooooooooooooo…

[Audience: Thank you for enlightening us. We had no idea how a ‘moo’ sounded.]

Nedimus twirled around immediately and saw an adolescent boy in patched overalls of a fading midnight color. The Holstein cow behind was being led by him. Both the boy and the cow halted at the sight of Nedimus. The boy loosened the collar on the cow and attached the rope temporarily to the nearest oak tree. He whispered the cow, revealing a look on his face that suggested grief. The boy faced Nedimus, letting out his hand.

“Good day, sir. I am Jack, and I come to offer you this fine farm animal to fit all your farm needs – everything from milk, butter and cheese, to the assistance of plowing fields. She also makes a good companion –”

“I’m dreadfully sorry, child,” Nedimus interrupted. “It is not the bovine animal that I seek in this fertile land.” Jack gawked at Nedimus.

“Sir, you must not be from around these parts. Our land is barren. Bessie here is the only valuable possession we still have, and Mother desperately wants to sell her to make ends meet.” Jack looked back sorrowfully at Bessie by the tree. “I suppose I shall search for another buyer.” Jack headed towards the tree to untie Bessie. Nedimus sighed. He began feeling sick at the realization of his heartlessness.

“Jacob…” Nedimus began.

“Jack,” Jack corrected.

“Yes, James, I think I have something to offer you,” he lied. Nedimus scrambled through his belongings to find something to offer in exchange. Nedimus froze. Were these always in here? he wondered. Carefully forming a cup with his left hand, Nedimus funneled seven shiny beans from the red hood into his palm.

“Magic beans!” Nedimus and Jack whispered in surprised unison. The beans glittered under the sunlight. The beans seemed to have a golden tint under the sun.

These magical beans must have JUST appeared in the hood, thought Nedimus. Well, I guess I ought to sell these then. “I will sell you these magical beans, Jack.”

“Give them to me for free! I saw them first!” cried Jack.

“Not in my lifetime, you ingrate,” exclaimed Nedimus. “I was going to offer you such a good deal too! All these beans for just half of the cow.” Bessie glared at Nedimus, munching on grass very slowly.

“All right,” said a more remorseful Jack. “Friends?” he asked, extending his hand towards Nedimus.

“Sure, I suppose,” answered Nedimus. The moment Nedimus shook Jack’s hand, Jack kneed him in the stomach and hurled him over his shoulder with his arms and knee. Jack ran off with the beans, entirely forgetting Bessie.

“Ouch.”

“Moo.”

“Useless cow,” Nedimus mumbled.

“Unemployed reject,” said the cow tersely.

“Another talking creature! Well, I’ll be!” spoke Nedimus in surprise. “Are you going to throw acorns at me too?”

“I’m infatuated with you, darling!” told the cow. “Love me! Hold me!” Nedimus dashed behind the tree, banging his ankle on a boulder.

“Look, let’s slow things down a bit. I’m not ready for that such that level of a relationship. Can’t we just be friends?” The cow began to howl, (if that’s possible for a bovine creature to accomplish).

“For a moment there, I truly believed that you were the one!” she sobbed. Nedimus furtively began backing away, looking for a method of escape. He spotted a seemingly deep muddy puddle. Yes! An escape method! Nedimis thought to himself. Bursting into the air, Nedimus dove into the puddle, landing flat on the ground, becoming muddier and accomplishing nothing. Bessie the cow began to snort while pawing the ground violently.

“Ooo, that’s not good,” Nedimus commented. He grabbed the three magic beans he had remaining from the ground, twirled around, and started a sprint towards an undetermined location. Moments later, Nedimus made that undetermined location determined when he saw his water reflection dancing along the surface of a water hole. “Eww... this is going to be mildly disgusting.” Nedimus hopped into the waterhole, and all went dark.

“Moo.”

* * *
“Ahhhhhhhh……………” Nedimus screamed as he plummeted through the air.

Three black bunnies hopped from the outskirts of a dense forest onto the palace steps of Le Chateau. A quickly growing shadow appeared in the immediate area.

SLAM! Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk…

One black bunny scurried down the steps back into the forest.

I am going to be very sore by the end of this story, Nedimus realized, lying at the bottom of the stairs. Seeing that the evening darkness was settling in, he slid into the more lighted area at the top of the stairs. The moment he reached the top of the stairs by the grand back doors of the palace…

SLAM!

…one of the doors slammed open.

Ow, oh, so much pain… Nedimus cried in his mind from behind the door while grasping his nose.

“Wait!” a distant strong male voice called from within the palace. Light, quick footsteps rushed by, whose sound was beginning to fade. Nedimus pushed the door to shut it and to take a peek at who was making the run down the stairs. It was a young lady in a magnificent dress and…

One glass slipper? Nedimus questioned in confusion. Upon asking himself this question, he instantly saw a second glass slipper on the stairs. Nedimus began to reach for it to return it.

SLAM!

Mom-my-eeee! Pain! Paaaa-iiinn! Nedimus screamed in his head while trembling in pain behind the door and holding his knee and ankle. Nedimus saw a man in a beige royal uniform with an excess of shiny golden buttons all over it.

“Cinderella!” the man yelled. “Wait! Somebody, stop the carriage!” he shouted, running after the carriage. Nedimus wobbled as he hoisted himself up, and he grabbed the stairway handrails. When Nedimus had finally gotten on his feet, he turned to his right and saw a beautiful golden bell. His eyes followed the structure up to the top, where there was a magnificent silver clock with hands coated with diamonds and numbers spelled out with rubies.

“Hmm, it’s almost midnight,” Nedimus noticed.

DO-OO-ONG!!!

“Ahhhh!” Nedimus cried, grabbing his ears.

DO-OO-ONG!!!

Nedimus, dazed by the deafening sound of the clock bell, tripped over the second highest step and…

THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK SLAM!

Zero bunnies hopped away from the scene.

“I probably need to chase that pumpkin carriage that Cinderella escaped in,” understood Nedimus. Placing the beans in his palm into one of the red hood pockets, Nedimus staggered in the direction of the runaway carriage.

The man, who Nedimus realized was a prince, was entering through an open carriage door opening to chase Cinderella.

Oh, no you don’t, Nedimus angrily thought. Nedimus limped towards the carriage and slammed the door on the prince’s head. He finished the guard off with the other side of the carriage door.

Nedimus skipped unsteadily but happily after the pumpkin carriage.

* * *
“Oh no! What am I going to do?” Cinderella cried, standing over a smashed pumpkin carriage and four mice. She removed her glass slipper and pocketed in her rags clothing. “I’ll have to walk seven miles home with one bare feet and a stupid slipper.”

The mice squeaked.

“Oh, and some mice,” added Cinderella. The mice hissed tiny mice hisses, which were entirely inaudible to Cinderella and thus pointless to the overall plot of the story.

“Excuse me, Mademoiselle,” Nedimus said, arriving on a horse that he found on the way. “I can help you get home quickly.”

“Why won’t anyone help me?!?” Cinderella cried to herself, drying her tears with her rags.

“I can give you my horse.”

“I am so lonely, so lost… Nobody’s here to help or care.”

“Um, hello, I exist.”

Cinderella began running and sobbing the seven miles home.

“All right then,” Nedimus said, shrugging. “So much for pleasant conversations.” He bent over and examined the remains of the pumpkin carriage. The silver lust on the colored surface of the pumpkin began to fade towards an orange-brownish color. Nedimus saw that the pumpkin bits formed a shape – an arrow.

[Audience: An arrow is a shape?]
[Narrator: I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.]

His eyes traced the base of the arrow and searched for the tip. It pointed towards a thick tree with an abundance of blooming golden flowers. Nedimus rolled his eyes.

“Okay! Enough with the somewhat subtle gold objects already! I’m honestly not going to work with this narrator ever again.”

[Audience: Um…what subtle images? We must have missed those.]
[Narrator: Moving on…]

For approximately 954.869234990 seconds, Nedimus made a futile attempt to pry the trunk of the tree open to enter the warp tunnel.

“Argh! Why does this not work? Nedimus sat on the largest remaining piece of the pumpkin. Suddenly, an imaginary light bulb switched on above his head, not that he knew what a light bulb was anyway, but that’s beside the point. “I forgot the third thing!” Nedimus grabbed a handful of pumpkin bits and ran into the tree, hoping that the tree would open now that he had all three parts of the potion.

SLAM!

[Audience: If somebody paid me a quarter every time he went SLAM!, I’d have…well, a quarter.]

Nedimus swore and swore and swore…

[Audience: Feeling better?]

“Quite, yes.” answered Nedimus. Feeling the need to rest while recovering from the painful collision with the tree trunk, he leaned on a branch.

CLICK.

“Huh?”

Right away, the branch clicked, rotated slowly, and then immediately swiveled ninety degrees, causing the mini-branches on the branch to hit Nedimus in the back.

“I feel so abused today.” Nedimus waited anxiously, facing the tree trunk and preparing to jump into the expected tree trunk opening.

Suddenly, a trap door opened.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!” screamed Nedimus as he spiraled into a vacuum…with fog, which technically destroys that vacuum’s status as a vacuum…

“Well,” Nedimus began. “At least I didn’t encounter a talking animal.” Suddenly – “No irony right now, please, thank you very much,” Nedimus added.

* * *
“Your highness, shall I lock the doors tonight?”

“Yes, guard. Be gone,” answered Midas, tucking himself into bed. The doors slammed. Midas raised his voice frequency significantly and held up his teddy bear using protective gold-touch-proof pads. “Poochie no likey Mr. Guard, huh? No-ey, no, mmm… Cutey wutey poo. Biggy King gonna put Poochie on nice nightstand, yes? Sleep tighty whitey!”

“Ahhhhhhhhh…”

SLAM! Crash!

[Audience: Ooo! We get a quarter!]

“Whaa?” Midas asked in confusion. Nedimus stood up from the flattened Poochie and nightstand, brushed himself, and glanced around at Midas’s golden bedroom. Midas examined Nedimus. Nedimus did the same – he also examined Nedimus (himself). I’m beautiful, thought Nedimus. Then Nedimus examined Midas.

“And I thought I had a problem with narcissism,” said the king.

[Audience: You’re telepathic???]

The king continued. “I can tell by the look on your face, Advisor Nedimus.”

[Audience: Oh.]

“King Midas,” started Nedimus. “You need to be stopped! Your evil golden touch is destroying our kingdom’s morale and overall health. Gold and the way you punish people with it has become a dreaded thing, and now I’ve lost my train of thought. I shall stop you now.”

“You know,” King Midas noted. “You could just ask me politely to stop.” Nedimus blankly stared.

“All right then,” answered Nedimus. “Will you?”

“No.”

“Okay then, now I shall stop you!” Nedimus took out his three items – the red hood, the magic beans, and the pumpkin bits. His eyes widened as it dawned upon him that he had no created a counter-potion from the items yet. “Eh…Midas? Would you mind waiting about one minute while I figure out a way to create a potion to rid you of your abominable gift of gold touch?”

“Uh…yes, I would mind.”

“Damn it.”

“Guards!” shouted Midas. At that moment, the walls of the room vibrated and echoed Midas’s plea.

…Guards…guards…guards…guards…

At that moment, for the sheer joy of it, Nedimus shouted, “Shin!”

…Shin Guards…shin guards…shin guards…shin guards…

“Gold!” cried Midas in frustration, realizing that his thick golden walls had insulated the sound from the outside, preventing guards from hearing the plea for help.

…Gold Shin Guards…gold shin guards…gold shin guards…

After the echoes had stopped, King Midas looked up at Nedimus. By then, Nedimus had figured out how to create the potion.

“Okay,” Nedimus told himself. “I wouldn’t mind eating some beans and pumpkin bits, but I honestly don’t know if I can force myself to eat an entire coat.”

King Midas grabbed a thick golden dagger and charged at Nedimus while desperately trying to maintain a grip on the heavy, solid-gold dagger.

“Here goes nothing,” Nedimus said, shrugging. Nedimus stuffed the beans and pumpkin bits down his throat first.

King Midas was hauling the burdensome dagger with him closing in on Nedimus at twenty feet, or 6.096 meters shall I say.

“Ah! This is disgusting!” Nedimus said as he tore section after section of the red hooded coat to eat. “Tastes like eating quilts!”

[Audience: Yeah, we all know what quilts taste like.]

King Midas was two feet, or 0.6096 meters, away from Nedimus. Meanwhile, Nedimus was swallowing the last piece of coat.

The moment Nedimus had gulped down the last strand of the coat, Nedimus leapt into the air simultaneously with Midas’s leap into the air.

[Slow motion momentarily with random pigeons flying here and there]

Nedimus and King Midas slammed into each other.

SLAM!

[Audience: We’re getting rich!]

Green sparks and a bright golden flash instantly took place at the point of collision, and both Nedimus and King Midas fell to the floor. Nedimus pushed himself up with his hands. King Midas, at the same time, pushed himself up and looked at his kingdom through the window. A sea of colors was flowing outward in all directions from the palace, and everything and everyone touched by the cursed golden touch was being restored. Midas sighed. Still facing outward while pressing his hands upon the window sill, Midas spoke to Nedimus.

“Nedimus, thank you. I nearly forgot how beautiful my kingdom was before. I’ve hurt a lot of people.” The king lifted his hands from the window sill, grabbed his royal marble staff and placed both hands on the head of the staff. He turned and faced Nedimus. “I apologize. Thank you.”

“So what’s the moral of this story?” asked Nedimus.

“Watch out for nemeses falling from the sky.”

“Uh, right.”

And King Midas and his kingdom lived happily ever after. Oh, right, and Nedimus too.