Sprite

I don’t know who’s reading this. You may be too late. If so, try not to go insane over the perplex situation of my corpse. The tiny bite marks and miniature hand prints around the throat area would be unsettling if not mystifying to most. But really, if I were you, I wouldn’t sweat it. These things happen. You just never read about it. I imagine this is because the media shies away from stories involving Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster or in my case, fairies.

Just two hours ago, I wasn’t a believer either. In fact, I was the worst sort of skeptic and annoying debunker. I recall my nephew telling me how rainbows were God’s miracles. I broke it to him, they were an optical phenomenon only visible to human eyes by a mere accident of evolutionary development. He cried like a baby to his mother and I haven’t seen him since.

But, really, about the fairies. I stumbled on them in a peculiar way. You know how litterers throw cans and other trash out their windows? I had grown really tired of it, myself and decided to take action. Luckily, there was leftover celo-tape and paper in my desk drawer. Both are great for lifting fingerprints. The police would finally have the evidence they needed, I thought bagging evidence. What I didn’t count on, however, was a single can of soda. It was like most others; shiny, aluminum, etc. Yet, it was entirely unopened.

Why would someone in their right mind throw a whole can of Sprite away? I know some people prefer Coca-Cola or Pepsi, but really. A whole can!? It’s delicious and refreshing. That’s why I wiped it off and decided to drink. It was not my proudest moment but I popped the tab. I expected bubbly delight and sugary ambrosia. The contents proved to be more disappointing as a hundred fairies flew out at my face. The can of Sprite was full of sprites.

I called them gnats, I called them ladybugs, but neither insect screamed in childish delight. Nor did they have glittery, pink wings. Perhaps it was a hologram, I contemplated as I ran for dear life. Holograms are just projections, however, and in most cases decline to eat your face. My hands protected from the worst of it. But fairies were getting through the gaps, clawing mere inches from my eyelids.

That’s when I spotted the tool shed. I never kept tools in it, I just preferred the quaint look. Also, it made me seem handy and was therefore important to my dating prospects. Yet, quaintness and potential girlfriends were far from my mind as the need to have a face superseded. The shed was a haven. Fairies weren’t termites. They couldn’t chew through wood.

For a minute I felt safe in my accomplishment. I even gave fairies raspberries through the window. It proved to be a bad mistake. Fairies have hands and the shed had a doorknob. They turned it before I found anything to block their entrance.

Suffice to say, I was cornered and out of options. I tried explaining I wasn’t the one at the bottling plant who canned them. I even proclaimed my love of mischievous creatures in Shakespeare’s a Midsummer Night’s Dream. They didn’t listen and my eyeballs were far too tasty to ignore. I imagine they had the consistency of those round pears from the Chinese buffet, but can’t be sure. All I do know is it doesn’t pay to be a skeptic. You may think it does before a goblin attack or a unicorn stampede, but you’ll be wrong.