Elias Zapple’s retelling of Charles Dickens’ Christmas fable tells the story of Elias Zapple, a man with a wealth of cabbages to match the coldness of his heart. On a mystical Christmas Eve, he’s visited by three ghost slugs forcing Zapple to make a choice: change, or become worm food.
Not accepting any more offers to translate. Thank you.
One
Steve the Slug’s Ghost
Steve the Slug was dead. There was no doubt about that. I, Elias Zapple, had signed his death certificate and had made Larry the Handyslug bury Steve the Slug just beyond my cabbage patch. (I couldn’t very well bury him within the cabbage patch – nobody likes cabbage with a hint of dead slug). I had been the sole mourner at his funeral, except for my moustache Mr Snazzy who did protest but was forced to come as he resides upon my upper lip, and a few slugs that also attended after I threatened to add them to the stew for that night’s dinner. Steve the Slug was as dead as the dried slugs I had eaten for my cereal that very morning.
How could I be certain that Steve the Slug was dead? For one thing I was the one that had been up all night drinking way too much of my patented Noggin Rocker™ and who then, quite inexplicably, had decided to mow the lawn whilst Steve was doing his early morning security checks in case my neighbour Dieter tried to break in again. It was a painful sight removing Steve the Slug’s mangled, bloodied body and then, with him in the palm of my hand, having to listen to Steve the Slug’s last words about how careless I was and would I please throw out the lettuce from the larder in the kitchen as it was beginning to breed new life-forms.
