“Cherry Tart” by Alena

Cherry tarts are great. I like them. Do you?

Everyone in this town is eating cherry tarts right now. This is because I put a curse on them. They will be eating cherry tarts for the rest of their lives. I’m sure they don’t mind. They can’t mind. Anyone who objects to eating cherry tarts will be sentenced to death. Temporary death. They’ll be alive again when they eat enough cherry tarts as a ghost, floating around the trees at night. 

I’ll take you to meet my favorite human, I don’t know their name, but I’m hoping to find out soon. I also don’t know what their face looks like because they’re always wearing a green hooded cape and a mask. This human happens to be from the shadow realm, and therefore cannot die more than eight times a week, due to certain powers that individuals from the shadow realm possess. (The shadow realm is a place about the size of a town that can only be accessed through a portal on the top of a mountain, but people from the shadow realm can enter the normal world whenever and wherever they want.) This human might not even be human, since humans can’t have limits to how many times they die per week, or can they? 

Thousands of people in this town are currently figuring out how to limit how many times they can die per week from objecting to eating cherry tarts. Most of those people are scientists and so-called magicians. Specifically, card magicians. The humans are trying to make potions in card form (really thin potions with the dimensions of a card), so they can disguise them in decks of cards and then drink them when no one’s watching. 

-•-

“This is the last time I’m letting you escape death by cherry tart denial. Next time, you’ll die for sure.” 

Sadly each death only lasts for 12 minutes on average. It’s surprising how little I remember from my conversation with my favorite ‘human being.’ The one who can only die eight times a week. I’m only letting the person live, because I’m… very nice, as of right now.

No one else other than me needs to know about my problem with the so-called human being because everyone else needs to think that I have no problems. They’ll respect me more that way. 

-•-

Right there, on the floor, the brittle floor of the center of the town, is a broken cherry tart. Those people. They dared to break my cherry tart. What a disgrace to the cherry tart world.