Melancholia

Remnants 13 - You Can't Catch the Gingerbread Girl

Sitting in a gingerbread house, Julia screams, for she does not know if she is made of the house or if the house is made of her. To make matters worse, there was a gingerbread man sitting right next to her on the sofa.

It had been a sunny day, perfect as today was the Girl Scouts Cookie Selling Day. Each Girl Scout had to sell biscuits and cookies to earn funds for the organization. Of course, Julia was to do so too.

The girls were first split into groups, each taking a part of the neighborhood. Then, beyond that, it was up to them. Each girl had a red wagon, filled, no, piled up with snacks to sell. They were to go from door to door, knocking and asking if anyone would want to buy their cookies. Some made their own cookies, and some bought them. Julia, had a combination of both.

After visits about a dozen households, Julia's stock was running low, especially after a guy in an orange track suit bought a lot of cookies.

Soon, Julia arrived at another household, one where the front yard was planted full with tall trees, only the pavement was clear. So she rang on the door bell near the gate, and out of the door came a woman. "Yes, what do you want?"

"I would like to ask if you are interested in buying my cookies," Julia said sincerely.

"Cookies? Sure, do come in, sweetie. The gate is not locked."

Julia opened the gate and walked along the pavement. The walk was quite a long one, in a forest full of trees, or perhaps it was just an optical illusion. Either way, Julia passed by many trees in just a short distance.

"Ah, you're finally here," said the woman. "Sorry about the trees, just testing out some new innovations, like making my front yard like a forest."

"Success you have. Though, are you a witch?"

"My dearie, I am no witch!" shouted the woman angrily.

"I'm sorry for accusing you like that. Anyway, what type of cookies do you want?" Julia apologized, the witch being the second person she had offended, the first was the guy in the orange track suit, for it looked like pyjamas.

"Hazelnut, chocolate chips and gingerbread. Two packets each."

"I have hazelnuts, chocolate chips but no gingerbread. I'm all out of gingerbread. I don't sell any."

"No gingerbread!? No gingerbread!? How could you not have gingerbread!? Firstly you accuse me, then you have no gingerbread!? Come with me, young lady." She dragged Julia inside her house, leaving the wagon outside.

Inside the house it looked quite quaint, paintings from an old time before, yet the furniture were rather new. She immediately saw a black pot cooking on the stove, for the stove was just in the middle of the house.

"What's that pot?" Julia asked curiously.

"That's my pot of soup, dear."

"Where are you dragging me to?"

"Here," the woman said, letting go of Julia onto the chair. "The kitchen."

"Wow, that's a lot of cookies."

"Yes, dearie, and all I need is some gingerbread, and unfortunately, you don't have any."

"So..." Julia ventured to say.

"So I'm going to make some gingerbread cookies." The woman took a rolling pin and pointed it at Julia. With an orange beam, Julia started feeling weird, flat even.

"My fingers are merging together..."

"You'll soon be a gingerbread girl, you brat!"

"I'm... Gingerbread..." her mind was getting muddled up, her thoughts full of candy, jelly and other treats.

Her skin turned to brown, her body flattening, like she was a two dimensional character. Her clothes turned into cream on her body, looking just like her clothes, but edible.

Her hair flattened into what was able to be flattened, and the rest of it broke off, turning into tiny pieces of gingerbread cookies.

Now she was just a life sized gingerbread girl, sitting on a green chair in front of a table. Her mind was still in a trance, unable to escape.

"Let's shrink you down!" white rays cast out from the rolling pin, shrinking Julia down to a normal sized gingerbread biscuit.

Now just a cookie, the woman took a bite out of her just to be sure.

"Tasty," she remarked. And, as predicted, Julia regenerated the part of her that was bitten off. "Another success!"

So, Julia put her into a tiny gingerbread house, with a gingerbread man inside.

Now a perfect gingerbread girl in a perfect gingerbread house, the woman lifted the trance.

"Ahh! What happened to me? I blacked out for a second. I dreamt that I became a gingerbread girl!" Julia cried out.

Then she looked around her surroundings and looked at her hands. "Ahh! It was real!"

"You're a really screamy gingerbread girl," said the woman, peeking in from the window. "Listen here, you're now my gingerbread girl, and you can't escape your fate, and you can't die. Not by being eaten, anyway. You can regenerate your body parts instantaneously."

"Why am I a gingerbread girl?"

"Well, you ran out of gingerbread, and I did say I was gonna make some, right? Done. Enjoy."

Julia tried to calm down for a second, and looked around the house.

"Hello," waved the gingerbread man.

"Hello."

Not willing to start a conversation, she ignored him and looked around the house once more and saw that everything was made of snacks and candy, mainly gingerbread. Then she looked at herself again, her whole body now gingerbread.

"Ahhhhhh!" Julia screamed in terror of confusion.

Sitting in a gingerbread house, Julia screams, for she does not know if she is made of the house or if the house is made of her.