Liverwurst: A fairy tale

Or, actually, Liverwurst: something that happens when Lovecraft and bad humor meet. A translation of a tale I wrote in Finnish a longish while ago. Bon appetit.

* * *

A man can be stupid, or then just unlucky.

I don’t quite know which I am. Maybe both.

A few weeks ago I ran into a Good Fairy Godmother while shopping, and she promised me a Promise, one that would come true, within reasonable limits.

I guess the Godmother knew I didn’t much like the colors of the night sky.

Thus I had to wish for something a bit smaller. Briefly I entertained a fantasy of a hole in my boss’s forehead, one that would air his stuffy thoughts and rotten demands a bit, but I didn’t wish for that. If I get a Wish, I will use that Wish on me.

Then I considered things I didn’t have. My personality is, of course, flawless, I’ve got enough money, my car has a pair of fuzzy dice and my wall’s adorned by a girly calendar. What more can a man want?

And then I remembered that in this particular city it is difficult, shockingly difficult, to find a decent piece of liverwurst, the jiggly, bland sausage of kings and queens. Thus I said: “Oh Fairy Godmother: This I wish — give me an endless piece of liverwurst, a piece that won’t ever, ever end.”

The Fairy looked miffed for a while — apparently she was expecting some glass boots and pumpkin wagons stuff — and then waved her magic wand, crying: “Your fridge has it, waiting for you. You get what you ask for, boy.”

And, having said this, the Fairy Godmother disappeared behind the kiosk.

A skeptical reader might wonder how I knew she was a genuine Fairy Godmother and not, for example, a mental institution escapee. My answer is as follows:

If she was a Fairy, one naturally should wish.

If she was a debile person, wishing wouldn’t hurt, while loud cries of “Yeah, right!” might, since debile people don’t know that when fights occur, I am supposed to win.

So, I walked to my apartment, not quite knowing if I would find anything in my fridge.

I opened the fridge, looked in, and saw no liverwurst.

Consequently I felt depressed.

Then I reached in and grasped a can of beer, and noted — behind it — a freshly-opened package of liverwurst, with the legend “A fine liverwurst of infinite length”.

Consequently I felt elated, even joyous, and refreshed myself with several cans of beer, and copious amounts of utterly delicious and fresh liverwurst.

Do you happen to know that liverwurst is exceedingly healthy?

I did the same the next day: liverwurst, only this time on thin slices of rye bread. Yummy. And every night the liverwurst package, the thin plastic skin covering an unwholesomely dick-shaped bar of the delicious yum-stuff, every night the package was miraculously refilled, as if the liverwurst thrust into it from some arcane dimension of unspeakable deliciosity.

Such a thought! An endless river of liverwurst, astrally flowing into my fridge!

About a week later I noticed there was a slight bad spot on the wurst. I cut the spot away, chuckling. Who cares, for this bar of liverwurst is endless!

About a week after that the package contained more smelly, bad liverwurst than the real, good stuff. Eventually, one day, I had to throw the package away; it smelled too bad. Even liverwurst spoils.

The next night the package reappeared in my fridge, a freshly opened, full package of smelly, spoiled, sickly green liverwurst.

When, come morning, I opened the fridge, I nearly fainted. Holding back my breath, and the contents of my stomach, I replaced the package in the trashcan.

And come next night it, by some dark magic, again reappeared in my fridge, still bad-smelling, and looking worse.

I tried running the package through a garbage disposal system.

I tried burning it.

I tried mailing it to my brother in Helsinki.

Whatever I did, didn’t matter. All this exertion and destruction was in vain: every night the wurst-package came back, always full, always freshly opened, and each time more and more full of putrid, noisome corruption — a horror of green, black and white splotches and whorls, a flowering nightmare of rotting insanity.

Finally, filled with dread and despair, I donated my fridge to my unspeakably foul boss, hoping he’d thus inherit the curse of the liverwurst.

It was a mistake. The next night the horror of corruption, the evil package, appeared on my nightstand. I woke in the middle of the night, screaming.

I don’t sleep anymore.

Every night, when my attention wanders for even the slightest moment, it is again there — here — reeking, almost bubbling, blooming and stretching with red, black and white protrusions and piles — overwhelming my senses, clouding my mind, extinguishing all hope — and, so I fear, it shall not ever depart from my side, for it indeed is an endless piece of liverwurst, a piece that won’t ever, ever end.