Little Red Riding Hood

Once there was a grandma and she performed in amateur theatre productions in the nearby village. She kept a variety of costumes in a painted chest, even a convincing wolf costume that could be sealed with a zip fastener. And so she played all the big parts in the theatre’s performances. In fact the grandmother was a cannibal, and a loner, but she didn’t let anybody know. When a child was lost anywhere some wolf was always blamed and then there was a theatrical performance about it, with the grandmother disguised as a wolf in the main role.
After the grandmother had eaten all the tender cooked meat in the vicinity she was gnashing her teeth in hunger but she didn’t stay idle. She got sewing, making a red hood. With the help of a forester she knew she sent it to her granddaughter. And although the hood kept falling over the girl’s eyes and prevented her from even seeing herself in the mirror, the adults made it clear that family is family and a gift from a grandmother is a gift from a grandmother.
The victim of this hastily made hat soon began to be called little red riding hood. Then her family gave her a basket filled with sweets and, on the forester’s advice, they also added some bottles of alcohol.
Little red riding hood ran to the little villa in the forest to respect her family wishes and thank her grandmother for the nice gift. Because of the hood though, her pace was slowed by her impaired vision. And so her grandmother, who was eager to see her, gained some time. She disguised herself as a wolf and lay under the feather duvet and there she answered little red riding hood’s questions – why she has such big ears, nose and mouth - with the typical cynicism of old people. Now little red riding hood was not a very clever girl but her results at school were quite good so she was not totally stupid either. From this intellectual conundrum in her brain a question emerged, twisting in the wind – is this a grandmother or a wolf, is this a wolf or a grandmother? It was only after she linked these two contradictory questions that it occurred to her she was going as mad as one of her uncles on her mother’s side. That’s why she put the basket down and began to worry about potential insanity. She wanted to run away but the old woman opened her mouth wide and swallowed little red riding hood as she was – raw. Then she wrapped herself up again in the feather duvet. She was sated and content but not for long. The forester entered quietly and when he spotted the bottles he had recommended really were in the basket he disgracefully scooped them up. He reckoned the girl was playing in the forest among the violets and the grandmother was sleeping: he was terribly wrong. The grandmother had very good ears and she could hear the bottles being opened, one after the other. And so she carefully monitored the forester’s activity. While he was finishing off the second bottle – the digestif bitters - the grandmother decided to strike him dead. It wasn’t that she was angry but Little Red Riding Hood, uncooked and ungarnished, felt heavy in her stomach. So it would be really good if she could have the bitters to improve things. She also noticed that the forester had young skin and he would not be bad, prepared like venison, if she let his body rest for some time.
This plan was linked to another important decision: to vomit up little red riding hood now and later, when there would be a suitable moment, roast her in butter with marjoram and garlic. This is what that grandmother always did and it was her favourite dish. And so the old woman spat out little red riding hood’s carcass, which by now was mangled, gnawed and sweaty. She pressed it against her own body inside the wolf skin and then shook off the duvet. She howled.
As soon as the forester saw the wolf on the bed he turned aggressive like a typical drunk. The grandmother hoped she might finish him off or at least knock him out: he was so young. In his belligerent state he threw himself on the wolf and slashed it open with his knife. The grandmother leapt out of the wolf’s costume and, faking enormous gratitude, thanked the forester for liberating her. Yet all the time she was edging slowly towards the stove where she had hidden an axe. The forester, on the contrary, had just one goal - to reach the basket in the shortest possible time. He rushed into the forest with such speed that he even didn’t hear the sound of the axe whirring through the air and burying itself in the trunk of a fir tree. He was struggling to keep on his feet in this difficult terrain and driven by animal instinct to protect the bottles he has pinched. The grandmother was really crushed by her failure and she went into a frenzy when, at a glance, she realised the drunk forester had cut off, with his knife, the three upper buttons and the bottom one on the wolf costume.
Even though she was a cannibal the grandmother didn’t know how to sew so she was swearing blind and howling and shouting. All that cursing woke poor Little Red Riding Hood. Before that, she was just lying dead as a log on the floor of the cottage that was dirty from the forester’s shoes. Now, though, she immediately took advantage of her grandmother’s state of psychological crisis. She tore off the frightful hood and ran away from the little villa in the forest. Ever since then she has suffered from tremors and a repeated dream that she is baking two geese for her husband and does not know which of them is her grandmother and which is the wolf.
She wants to marry into a very remote village as soon as she is thirteen.
Poor girl!